Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Claudia Carroll Read Free Book Online

the normal people have gone out to play.’
    ‘Barbara, this isn’t a Charles Dickens novel, you know. My office does actually have light and heat, thanks very much. You make it sound like there should be hounds baying at the window under a full moon.’
    ‘Just know that you’ll end up at Paris and Nicole’s five-star, fancy double wedding like some toothless maiden aunt, sitting in a corner hoping beyond hope that you’ll catch the bouquet, and that the groom’s seventy-year-old uncle, who’s on a waiting list for hip replacement surgery, will ask you to bingo with him some Sunday afternoon. You keep this up and that’s the road you’re headed down, baby.’
    You have to hand it to Barbara, she paints quite a picture.
    ‘I know, I know, I should be out there, but it’s just that this meeting on Monday is a big deal and I still haven’t finalized the pitch,’ I whinge, in an effort to get off this highly embarrassing subject. ‘And on top of everything else, the clients are so bloody vague. All I can get out of them is that they want the product to evoke “the glamour of Hollywood during its golden era”.’
    ‘What’s the product anyway?’
    ‘Cosmetics. Oh, the usual, you know, face cream and foundation developed by scientists at NASA and so grossly overpriced, you’d swear they were personally hand-squeezed by the Queen from the hind leg of last year’s Grand National winner.’
    ‘What’s it called?’
    ‘Wait for it. “Original Sin”.’
    ‘Hmmm, biblical. Yeah, loving it. So what have you come up with for your pitch?’
    ‘I’m thinking of a film noir theme for the launch. You know, the kind of party where just walking through the door will almost feel like stepping back into a black-and-white movie. Piano music, champagne cocktails, models floating around who look like Barbara Stanwyck, with the guys dressed like Humphrey Bogart in white tuxes. Classy and sophisticated. Think Cole Porter. Think art deco. And of course the freebie bags will be stuffed with that pillar-box red nail varnish and the heavy lip-gloss all the great femme fatales used to wear.’
    ‘God, you are
good
.’
    ‘Piece of cake. The hard bit will be trying to talk the creatives into this. God alone knows what kind of ideas they have up their sleeve.’
    ‘Just don’t forget to wangle me an invite to the launch. You know me: I’m your girl for freebies. Well, freebies that other people end up paying for.’
    ‘Consider it done.’
    ‘And while you’re at it, any chance you’d ask them to cast me in their ad – sez she cheekily, fully expecting the answer no?’
    ‘Barbara, by the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be such a household name, the cosmetic companies will be queuing up for you to front all their ad campaigns. You’ll be like Keira Knightley on the Chanel ad.’
    Now that’s actually not such a bad idea, I’m thinking, if Barbara was only world-famous, she’d be a terrific brand representative, she’s so gorgeous-looking and funny and charismatic. I mean look at Nicole Kidman or Catherine Zeta Jones or any of them: plugging perfume and night cream didn’t exactly do their careers any harm, now did it? Or their bank balances, come to think of it . . . hmmm . . . I start absent-mindedly drumming a pen on my notepad thinking about just how in the hell I’m going to get her there . . .
    ‘Excellent,’ says Barbara. ‘Glad to see you’re on the case. Anyway, that’s why I’m phoning you. I spoke to our lovely Laura and we’ve arranged to meet up tomorrow night to kick-start our cunning plan. I was calling our little gathering the “Maisonettes”, you know, because we’re there to help each other, like an all-girl freemasons, but Laura reckons it makes us sound like the Tiller Girls.’
    ‘Yeah, it does put me in mind of the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, all right.’
    Next thing I start doodling a picture of a butterfly . . . well, that’s what the three of us are trying to