The Dress by Kate Kerrigan Read Free Book Online Page A

today and he didn’t put them with cowboy boots back then so there is no reason to expect he would now!’
    The warehouse was a huge white rectangle that had been customized specifically to house this type of promotional event. The interior was basic, just a catwalk with tiered seating crammed along either side. The cool, street-fashion crowd of journalists and stylists and fashion hangers-on were a fairly homogenous bunch, not like the rich starlets and high-end press that came to the seasonal shows. There was nobody over thirty and nobody, Lily noted, wearing anything more than two years old.
    A guy in black with a headpiece guided them to their seats. They were six rows back, in the middle.
    â€˜Why are we sitting in these crappy seats? Hey!’ Sally shouted after the security guy, who was now seating row seven. ‘I’m front row baby!’
    People were flooding into their seats and the two women would have had to clamber over heads to get to the front row, so Lily sat down in the empty chair and dragged Sally down next to her.
    â€˜We can see everything from here,’ Lily said. ‘They’re good seats.’
    â€˜Newsflash, Lily,’ Sally said, looking at her dumbfounded, ‘these are the worst seats. The only place to sit in a high-street show is front row with the C-list celebs or right at the very back with the cool crowd who don’t want to be seen.’
    â€˜Well, I’m fine here,’ Lily said, sitting down. ‘I don’t want to be sitting in the front row with everyone looking at us.’
    Sally opened her mouth in mock horror, although actually, in this case, it was genuine. She was wearing skin-tight mock-croc leggings and a pastel tinted sweatshirt with a gold unicorn emblazoned across the front.
    â€˜You think I wore this magnificent ensemble,’ she said, running her hands down her front in a dramatic sweep, ‘to be hidden in the fashion desert of the middle row? Sometimes I wonder if we work in the same business, Lily, honestly I do.’ But she sat down anyway and started to root about in her handbag.
    â€˜Tell me you haven’t got a sandwich in there, Sally?’ Lily said.
    â€˜Of course I have sandwiches. You think I’d sit through the tedium of a show like this without proper sustenance? If we’re not in the front row at least I can eat my sandwich in peace.’
    Lily laughed. She loved Sally. She fingered the picture in her bag and wondered if she should tell her about the cutting. Sally would probably think she was mad. She thought Lily was stuck in the dark ages. ‘Vintage is fine but there is so much more you could be doing with it. Forget the past, get with the future.’
    Lily decided to leave it until she had heard from the woman in Wisconsin and distracted herself from thinking about it with some people-watching.
    Immediately she noticed an almost impossibly handsome square-jawed, sandy-haired dreamboat of a man in the front row. He looked as if he had stepped straight off a yacht and was flanked by two women, one with long shiny black hair and one with long shiny blonde hair – both models. He whispered to one of them, and she threw her head back and laughed, prettily.
    â€˜Who’s the man with the shiny teeth?’
    â€˜That’s Jack,’ said Sally, ‘and urgh, he’s got “the twins” with him. He does love matching his girlfriends. So predictable.’
    â€˜Rich and handsome – just your type,’ Lily said. ‘He’s waving at you.’
    â€˜Still-breathing and own-teeth is my type, dear, and he’s waving at me but he’s looking at you...’
    He was, too, looking right at her. Lily blushed and turned away.
    â€˜...the dirty slut.’
    â€˜Gee, thanks.’
    â€˜Not you, him . Jack’s a disgrace. He’s probably identified you as the only woman in the room he hasn’t slept with.’
    â€˜Including