New York Valentine Part 10

'I do not snore. There is no way I snore. Ed has never complained about me snoring.'

She must have said this a little too loudly, for the bedroom door opened and, floral dressing gown flung about her once more, Elena slouched moodily into the kitchen.

'Vat time is it?' she said, eyes screwed up against the sunshine.

'Just after six,' Annie said brightly, as if this was a totally reasonable time to wake up the person who's been forced to have you to stay for four weeks.

'Six!' Elena hissed.

'Would you like a cup of coffee?'

Elena shrugged her shoulders, which Annie interpreted as a yes. She turned to the coffee machine and tried not to sigh too audibly; just as the one moody girl in her life seemed to have finally cheered up, she'd landed herself with another.

Elena perched on the end of the sofa bed because there wasn't enough s.p.a.ce for her to get across the room to the table.

'I've been looking through the company books,' Annie said, pointing to the files, 'I hope you don't mind. The orders are fantastic. You've got to be pleased about that.'

'Ya, but vat point if no dresses?' Elena gave another listless shrug.

'Hey, this isn't like you,' Annie said, wanting to inspire a bit more confidence and optimism, 'and this definitely isn't like Svetlana. If your mother was facing a problem like this, she would do something. She would be on the phone every minute of the day trying to solve this. That's what you and I need to do. Get on the phone, get talking to people and think of a way to raise some money.

'If we could just find a new factory ...' Annie added.

Elena laughed at this.

'If you could get enough money together to make the first run of dresses ...'

Elena laughed at this too.

'But once the money for those first orders comes in, you'll be back in business,' Annie persisted.

Elena shrugged and took her coffee cup back to her bedroom.

She didn't come out again until she heard the front door close. Maybe she thought Annie and Lana had both gone out together, when it was Lana setting off for the Empire State Building. Annie was still waiting at the table, fresh coffee cup in hand, to give Elena another team talk.

'OK. Sit down beside me and listen,' Annie began. 'We need the list of all the people who put money into Perfect Dress in the first place. Then you, me and Svetlana will call them all up and ask for just a small further investment. We'll say we have an incredible amount of orders which is true and a minor cash-flow problem which is also true. We'll tell them they're going to get this money back in just two months' time, with interest.'

Elena, still in her dressing gown, looked at Annie with a pale and uncertain face, then took the seat offered to her.

'Elena, you've got a book full of orders and people are expecting dresses in three weeks' time,' Annie said sternly. 'I'm really sorry about the woman who messed things up for you ... but we have to do something before it's too late.'

'Juno Harper. Not even her real name,' Elena muttered in disgust.

'I'm sorry this has happened to you. But it doesn't have to be the end of the world unless you want to make it the end of the world. You can get out of this. Your mother wants to help you, and so do I.'

Elena sighed, ran a hand through her long hair and looked dangerously as if she was about to cry.

'Everyone has setbacks,' Annie continued, 'believe me, I've had plenty, and especially in business, I promise you. Handling success is easy-peasy, it's how you handle the setbacks that marks you out. Hey, I bet even Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan had some really bad times. I bet they've sat at the kitchen table in pyjamas wondering how on earth they were going to make it work from here.'

Elena gave a little slip of a smile at this.

'Why don't you have a shower?' Annie suggested: 'wash your hair, do your make-up and put on one of your Perfect Dresses. Remind yourself how good they are. Get a little bit of fire back in your belly. Surely your inner Ukrainian doesn't want to go down without a fight?'

Elena smiled more broadly at this. 'You right,' she agreed finally, 'not without a fight.'

'How much money do we need to make the dresses for these orders?' Annie asked.

After several moments' thought, Elena replied: 'At current factory and material prices, we need about 30,000.'

'Easy,' Annie said immediately, but really she wasn't so sure. 'Go shower and dress, I'll phone Svetlana.'

By the time Annie had spoken to Svetlana back in London and they'd divided up the list of previous investors between them, Elena had washed, dried her hair, applied the recommended make-up and put on a pale lilac dress.

As she stepped out of her bedroom again, she looked almost cheerful.

'You look gorgeous,' Annie told her, which was true. 'Now, here's your list. The first person to get an investment has lunch bought for them ... Talking of lunch, is there anything we could have for breakfast, babes? I'm really not at my best on an empty stomach.'

'Cafe two doors along sells m.u.f.fins to die for.'

'Shall I go?'

'Yes, I make start on calls.'

The Village Bakery was indeed a m.u.f.fin-eater's paradise. Unable to narrow down the choice, Annie brought back two bagfuls: white chocolate chip, cinnamon and apple, maple and pecan, blueberry and finally banana. Along with two steaming lattes.

She'd thought the m.u.f.fins would be divided out between herself, Elena and, later, even Lana.

She hadn't counted on Elena nibbling at barely half of a blueberry m.u.f.fin and leaving her latte untouched. So, in between the tricky phone calls in which she tried to make funding Perfect Dress sound as positive, breezy and tempting as possible, Annie somehow managed to chew her way through three New York sized m.u.f.fins.

As one New York sized m.u.f.fin is the size of a baby's head that was a lot of m.u.f.fin.

By the end of the first hour, sixteen calls were made: ten by Elena, six by Annie she found that she could keep people talking for longer but not one single penny was reeled in.

The second hour was tougher. To keep her spirits bright and her enthusiasm up, Annie put Elena's latte in the microwave and used it to wash her way through m.u.f.fins four ... five and then ... oh good grief, six.

'But we already have the orders,' she explained patiently to the grumpy man at the end of the line, 'I'd hate for you to be sorry when this is a thriving business and you could have made the big money by getting in early ...'

'The only thing I'm sorry about is lending Svetlana 10,000 in the first place,' he retorted. 'So far, I've only had 3,000 back and there's no word about when the rest is coming. So don't even think about asking me to risk more!'

The line went dead.

When Elena put down her phone, the two looked at each other. 'I'm depressed,' Elena said.

'Well ... this is only the first morning.' Annie tried to sound more upbeat than she really felt.

'But we do everyone on the list. There are no more names to try,' Elena pointed out.

'Shall we phone Svetlana? Maybe she's had some luck with her names.' Then Annie had to ask: 'Couldn't she give us some money to cover this tricky patch?'

'She gave as much as she could when the business start,' Elena replied, 'now she has no more liquid cash for "tax reasons" or something ... when you are as rich as Svetlana, money is always complicated. Anyway, I make this problem, I want to solve this problem.'

'Right ...' Annie tried to understand, but really, if she wanted to, Svetlana could probably just sell off some tiny, unloved earring to cover this shortfall.

The call to Svetlana's phone registered busy. But Annie's phone began to buzz in her hand with a text.

'Still on top of ESB. Brilliant! Cm join me!! L xx'

ESB ... it took a second to register that this was Lana texting from the top of the Empire State Building. Maybe she should go. Sunshine was streaming in through the kitchen window; it was another amazing day in this unbelievable city. Maybe Annie should get out there. If she and Elena had called every name on their lists, they'd have to think of another idea, and what better place to go for inspiration than the Empire State Building?

'We need a break,' she told Elena, 'I'm going to go and join Lana. Then let's meet up somewhere bright and inspiring and see what else we can think of.'

As she headed to the tiny bathroom, to reapply lipstick and make all the other little adjustments required before she was ready to face the immaculately groomed streets of New York, Annie wondered out loud: 'Is there any factory anywhere that might give us the credit, based on our order books? Then we would just need to find money for the material. Just a two-month credit window? Even one month, if we could get everyone to pay on delivery ...'

Once again, Elena shrugged. 'No,' she said in a deep and mournful tone: 'I think is hopeless.'

Chapter Ten.

The Greenwich Village shop a.s.sistant: Blue silk p.u.s.s.y bow blouse (Ann Taylor)

Blue and white pleated skirt (Miu Miu)

Orange patent belt (Century 21)

Orange patent sandals (Gucci via Designer Shoe

Warehouse)

Total est. cost: $470

'Isn't that bag just soooo ...'

'I love this!! I love it! I'm never going home. I'm never even coming down!'

These were Lana's words of greeting as she caught sight of her mum stepping out on to the viewing platform up on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building.

Annie was feeling a little robbed. In the twenty-five minutes since she'd entered the building and been whisked up the escalators to the ticket-buying floor, she'd spent more money than she could ever have imagined ... and all on a view. There had been the extortionately expensive ticket, then straight through to the queue for the photo ... click ... $25 ... all ready to be superimposed on the Empire State Building backdrop. The $10 for the pop-up souvenir map she already knew she'd only look at for five seconds. She'd even thrown a dollar into the machine which gave you back a penny ... embossed with the Empire State Building, yes, but still a good way of turning a dollar into a penny.

Plus, she had a feeling there was going to be a huge, dazzling array of things she would absolutely just have to buy for her family as soon as she hit the ESB gift shop.

'Tourist,' Lana accused her, pointing at the $10 map in her hand.

'Yeah right and you're such a New Yorker, standing on top of the Empire State Building gawping. Look at you, eyes out on stalks. Are you having a lovely time?'

'The best,' Lana replied and turned her face back to the chain-link fence which protected tourists from the dangers of being up here; including being so overwhelmed by the sight of Manhattan Island stretching out before them in every direction that they'd just faint and topple over in sheer wonder.

It looked amazing. Annie hadn't expected it to look anything else. Just to the north was the luscious greenery of Central Park, surrounded by the breathtaking apartments it probably took generations of mega-wealth to acquire. Downtown a whole cl.u.s.ter of skysc.r.a.pers shimmered in the city haze.

'Look over there.' Lana pointed to a fat spire which seemed to be entirely covered in gold: 'Gold roof tiles, just how over-the-top is that? And over there look, there's actually a three-storey house, with a garden, on top of a skysc.r.a.per. Look at that! I'm sooooo loving this. I've decided I'm going to marry the next really fit looking guy I see and become an American and just stay here for ever. Simple.'

Annie smiled. What else could she do? She smiled even though there was a silent voice inside shouting, Of course you're not moving to the other side of the Atlantic from me. Don't even joke about this!

'Do you know what it is about this view that is so exciting?' Lana went on, finding it hard to tear her gaze from the glittering buildings downtown. 'It isn't the highest building in the city, but it's high enough and so central that you feel right here, right in the heart of things. This is a view of the whole beating pulse of the place.'

'The beating pulse,' Annie repeated, 'I like that. You're right. This place just throbs in a way that London doesn't. Maybe it's the extremes the height of the buildings, the length of the avenues, it all takes your breath away. London's a town that gradually sprawled out into a city. Much more planning went into making New York amazing.'

'D'you know how big London was when Samuel Johnson said: "Tired of London, tired of life"?'

'No,' Annie looked at her, intrigued.

'Just two square miles, or something like that ... back in the 1700s.'

'Clever clogs ... so what do you think you're going to do next then, darlin'? What's the clever Lana brain going to focus on now?'

Annie asked the question gently, hoping it was a good moment. So many conversations about Lana's future plans had gone badly that she was becoming very careful of raising the subject.

'I'm thinking about it very hard,' Lana answered, not taking her eyes from the view, 'I'm going to look into some things and I'll tell you, just as soon as I know more.'