It was nearly eight in the evening, and I’d already indulged in a bowl of pasta and a solid pour of wine when I finally heard from Dylan. I’d come home after the palace, but he’d had to continue on to the actual event. It was so quiet that the buzzing phone startled me off my barstool in the kitchen, where I’d been reading a magazine.
“Hi,” I said, eager to hear his voice for the first time since our audience with the queen that afternoon.
“Damsel,” he said with a thick sigh in his voice.
I gulped—maybe the afternoon had not gone as well as I’d thought.
I must have been quiet for a little too long, because he finally asked, “Lydia?”
“Do you think tea went badly?” I asked, a little nervous.
“Oh, damsel, no. Tea was perfect. You were lovely, as I knew you’d be. As far as those things go, it was the most enjoyable I’ve had in ages. She’s got more spark than one would expect, doesn’t she? She was really pleased with you too, I think.”
“She was probably just reassured that you’re not gay or something.”
Dylan chuckled. “Somehow I don’t think she’d give a frog’s arse if I were,” he said, laughing again. “I know all that fuss is foreign to you, but you’d never know it. You were seamless. No one would ever know that you don’t dine with Her Majesty on the regular.”
“Maybe I do. You don’t know where I have lunch every day,” I said. Dylan was quiet for a minute. “You so know where I have lunch every day, don’t you?”
I could practically hear him shrugging on the other end of the phone. “What do you think I pay Frank for?”
“Not to spy on me!”
“I’m not spying, damsel. And, no, I don’t actually know where you have lunch, but I mean, I could know. And I think Frank would tell me if it were at Buckingham Palace. And if he didn’t, HELLO! magazine probably would.”
“How boring. I mean, how’s a girl supposed to keep any secrets?”
“And what secrets do you want to keep from me, damsel?”
“Well, knighty, don’t you know that it’s all part of being a woman? Maintaining an aura of mystery?”
Dylan just laughed. Then laughed some more. Fine, so I wasn’t exactly one of those untouchable mysterious girls, but he didn’t have to point it out to me! “Okay, okay, you’ve had your fun. When are you coming home?”
Another long pause and an even deeper sigh. “Lydia, I’m sorry, but I have to travel for a few days. I need to be in Moscow until Tuesday, possibly Wednesday.”
“Moscow? What do you have going on in Moscow?” I’d never heard him mention anything happening in Russia.
“It’s for Hale Shipping and related to the emails, actually. I just haven’t been able to access what I need from here, so I need to go there in person and see if I can make some headway.”
I groaned a little.
“I’m sorry. After today I just want to climb into bed and watch you practice that curtsy a few more times.”
“I’d never done it before!” But I sighed in resignation. “Fine. If going to Moscow means figuring out this whole email thing and letting poor Frank start protecting someone more exciting, then I’m glad you’re going. I’m just going to miss you.”
“I know. I’ll miss you too. Hale Shipping is just having some upheaval. This won’t last much longer. And I’m hoping this will be the end of all this email business as well.” Dylan paused on the other end. “Get some sleep, baby. I’ll see you when I get back. And stay at mine if you’d like. I know Molly will be sad if you’re not there to debate terribly important cooking matters.”
“You don’t need to boil the water first to cook pasta!” I said, recalling the playful confrontation Molly and I had engaged in the previous week.
“I’m staying out of it,” he said defensively, and I could actually picture him putting his palms up in surrender to my ferocious opinions.
* * *
Monday morning was one of those perfect fall days. Crisp and cool, but not frigid. Perfect weather for boots and a jacket and carrying a hot coffee while walking to work. I knew Frank was following not far behind, but I didn’t care. I wanted to walk, and he was giving me the space.
I was only a block from the office, where I was stopping before heading to the shop, when I was faced with my picture at a newsstand. My body was now conditioned to react with a delightful combination of terror and anxiety, immediately assuming the worst. I’d probably scowled at the queen or called her by her first name or had a nip slip or something similarly embarrassing. The headline would be something along the lines of “When will this embarrassing American girl just go away?”
But that’s not what it said. I was on Dylan’s arm, emerging from the palace. The dress looked perfect—I looked demure but stylish. Dylan was typically perfect looking—like the duke he was in a five-thousand-dollar suit. The headline of the Guardian was simply:
LYDIA LUNCHES WITH HER MAJESTY
The brief article quoted the royal press release, which had said, Saturday morning, the 16th Duke of Abingdon opened the Conservation in Building Conference held by the Green Building Initiative. Subsequently the Duke and Duchess of Abingdon, the Marquess of Abingdon, and guest Lydia Bell were received by the queen at Buckingham Palace. The article went on to say that I had been recently promoted to director of sales for Hannah Rogan, and it was accompanied by an official-looking photo of all of us standing in front of a fireplace.
Clean. Simple. Accurate. No fuss. For the first time, the press wasn’t sending me out for the slaughter. It felt great. I felt like I’d done something right, like there was no way Geoffrey or Charlotte Hale could get on Dylan’s back about this, that there was no way it could make Hale Shipping or Humboldt Park or the Hale family look bad. It put a literal swing in my step.
I had just walked into the office and was about to try to have a gossip session with Fiona when Hannah barged in behind me. “Well done, Lydia. Well done. You’re oozing grace in that photo. It’s exactly the kind of press you want, and you two look divine together. And next time you’ll be wearing Hannah Rogan. Between this and the store, you’re certainly earning your keep around here.”
Fuck. Sure, that was a good professional moment, but one look at Fiona’s depressed expression, and it was abundantly clear that I had some in-house diplomacy I needed to attend to. Screw that, I had a friendship to save.
“Fee,” I started as soon as Hannah had slipped back into the hallway.
“Mmm?” she asked, not taking her eyes from her computer screen.
“Let’s talk.”
“What about?” She still wouldn’t look at me.
“About the fact that you can’t stand me right now. That I’m an annoying upstart busybody who marched in as a second assistant and all of a sudden is doing this whole other thing. About the fact that if I were you, I’d be pissy as hell about it. And also maybe about the fact that you’ve barely mentioned Ben in over three weeks, and obviously there’s something going on there. You know, about everything. Because we’re friends. Or were friends. I feel like the further down the rabbit hole of this store I go and the longer I’m with Dylan, the further and further apart we get.”
“Bloody hell. You Yanks really do like to have it out, don’t you?” she said, now not only looking at me but staring at me the way only a Brit who’s being asked to chat about her feelings can—with shock and just a little bit of horror.
I shrugged. She sighed.
“I don’t hate you or anything,” she started.
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“I’m not an idiot. I’m good at my job. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I graduated from Edinburgh with a first.”
“I know. You’re brilliant.”
“I’m just…Here’s the thing, Lydia. You know what you want. You just go after it. It’s not exactly your most British quality—being all outspoken and proposing grand ideas after being here for two months. But it’s right fabulous, and the truth is that I wish I had your guts.”
“Well, when you put it that way I’m kind of mortified. Do you think I was overeager about this whole flagship store thing?”
“Who cares? It worked!” she said, throwing her arms up in the air, both mystified by me and frustrated at her own situation, which I still didn’t quite understand. I laughed, because she was right, and also because this was the most animated I’d seen her in weeks. “I mean, let’s be clear: I think you’re a nutter to be taking this on with no real experience starting a business, but I also think it’s going to be great.”
“You know, I never really knew exactly what I wanted to do within the fashion business. I just knew I wanted to be a part of it. And when all of those orders started coming in after Fashion Week, and you and I were running back and forth between here and her studio, organizing fittings and running ourselves ragged, I found myself longing for the days when I worked at this little boutique in New York. I actually thought, ‘Man, I wish there was a way to help Hannah with all of these sales in a more organized way and from one place that wouldn’t interfere with everything else.’ I mean, isn’t that ridiculous? It was like I had to reinvent the idea of a store before I even realized that’s what I was thinking about.” I tapped my head with my knuckles, as if to see if anything was in there at all. “I think anyone would agree this is all a bit insane. Hannah had plans for it, of course, but was thinking two years out. I was just lucky she was willing to let me go after it.”
“Well, you’re obviously bloody brilliant at it.”
“Let’s be honest—the timing was also right. Had I tried this pre-‘DyLy’”—I threw air quotes around the ridiculous nickname, and sure enough, Fiona gasped and laughed simultaneously, probably relieved that I was willing to make fun of myself—“I probably wouldn’t have gotten further than Hannah’s threshold. I know I’m lucky. I don’t even want to think about it too much, or I’ll probably just realize none of it would’ve happened at all without Dylan, and what does that say about me?”
“Eh, fuck it,” Fiona said in her perfectly vulgar and yet reassuring way. “We all have our advantages and handicaps. Best to just use ’em and accept ’em as wisely as we can.”
“Wow—that was actually kind of wise…So what do you want to do? I can’t imagine your end goal is being Hannah’s assistant.”
Fiona was quiet. Really quiet. I had a feeling she actually did know the answer to this one.
“Fiona?”
“Promise you won’t make fun?”
“Cross my heart.”
She was quiet for a while longer, rubbing her knuckles.
“Jewelry,” she finally said in a near whisper.
“What? Really? Designing it or wearing it?” I said, looking at the long dangly earrings brushing her shoulders, and she gave me an exasperated eye roll.
“Designing it, you nag!”
She pulled out a thick binder from the side of her desk and handed it to me. I started to flip through, and there were pages and pages of sketches. They were elegant but understated. Cool, fashion forward, and totally original. “Have you made any of these?”
She shook her head, and when I looked at her, she was biting her thumbnail. “Fiona, they’re gorgeous.”
“Really? You really think so?”
“I know so. Would you make them yourself?”
“No, no. That’s not my skill. I’ve gone so far as to meet with a metalsmith who could do some mock-ups for me, but I’ve never had the capital to get it going.”
“You have to. You have to do this. These are fabulous. Have you shown Hannah?”
“Are you completely mad?” she asked, looking at me like I had just spoken Mandarin.
“You should!”
“No way.”
“This is me—the brazen American—telling you to go for it. Or you know what? Let’s think on it. I want to do this with you, help you, even just moral support, but practically if you want it.”
“Lydia, do you mean it?”
“Absolutely.”
We talked right through lunch, planning, scheming, and poring over her sketches. When the intern came back, I sent her all the way to Hampstead for paint swatches.
Eventually Fiona opened up to me about Ben too. They’d “had a row,” but she didn’t think it was over. Apparently he’d called her “daft” and accused her of not going after what she wanted, to which she’d replied that he was “a sexist wanker” and didn’t appreciate his male privilege. I had a feeling they’d get past this one.
And I really did love those jewelry sketches. I didn’t tell Fiona at the time—I didn’t want to get her hopes up—but I was convinced some of them would be the perfect complements to the ideas Hannah was playing with for next year’s spring line. She’d get there. All I knew was that I was so happy to have my friend back.