Cover Your Eyes Read Free Page A

was twitching with desire.
    While the cab was stuck at a traffic light that didn’t seem to want to change, I texted Jay:
On my way to dinner with S. Excited. Xx
. We’d talked about what might happen tonight for ages. She knew what I was hoping for. The reply came back almost at once:
Don’t get your hopes up. Might just be a good meal. Xx
. I looked out of the window.
    My first article for
lipstick
was appearing in the next issue and I wondered whether celebrating that might be a good enough reason for dinner at Farrington’s. The Eva Conway piece came out of an editorial meeting earlier in the year. I’d only vaguely heard of her, but Felix was dead set on our having what he called ‘a proper piece’ about her in the magazine.
    ‘You can’t ignore her, Simon,’ he said. ‘She’s the designer’s designer. Just scratch any one of the recent flavours of the month and you’ll see her influence. All of them: McQueen while he was alive, Westwood, McCartney, Prada and Armani even … they all bow the knee to Eva Conway.’
    ‘Well, I don’t,’ Simon was dismissive. ’Do we really want to go with this? She hasn’t been around since … I’ve forgotten since when, but ages, in any case.’
    Felix raised an eyebrow. ‘American
Vogue
had a kind of
Where are they now
piece a while ago and they rather went to town on Eva Conway. She did this astonishing collection in the early seventies. We’re coming up to the fortieth anniversary. After that, she left the designer world behind her and disappeared.’
    ‘Well, perhaps she ought to stay disappeared?’ Simon laughed. Felix tried one more tactic.
    ‘You ought to give it serious thought, Simon. We’d be ahead of everyone else.
Vogue
and
Harper’s
and all the rest … they’ll probably not even realize the anniversary is happening. We’ll be ahead of the curve.’ He wrinkled his nose a little, as if the phrase was one he wasn’t quite used to saying out loud.
    ‘Okay, okay. I give in. I can see I’ll never hear the end of it from you, Felix, if I don’t. Where does she live?’
    Felix, who was now allowing himself a smile at the idea of the article, said, ‘She doesn’t see anyone from her old life, apparently. Lives out in the country somewhere not too far from London. I’ll find out the address. I know someone who knew her long ago. It’d be best, I think, for us to send someone to interview her.’
    I was about to say that I’d find her, when Simon looked straight at me. ‘Julianne’ll write it up, of course, but Megan could help her? Do the research? Possibly go along to the interviews too? Seeing as how Julianne’s baby’s nearly due?’
    How did Simon guess that I wanted to do it? I looked at Felix. He nodded.
    ‘Good idea, Simon. Nice one for Megan to get involved in.’
    My luck got better. Julianne had to leave work sooner than she’d wanted to, because of complications with the pregnancy, and they let me cover for her, officially, while she was on maternity leave. I even got a raise. I was determined to do the best possible job so that Simon and Felix would see that they could trust me. Then maybe he’d promote me to junior features editor and I would not be just an editorial assistant after she came back.
    That was something like what happened. Julianne left and Simon said I could take her place as maternity cover. I got to write the piece about Eva Conway. I was thrilled with myself. Thrilled to be allowed to interview her on my own, enchanted by the house she lived in, and by her. Far from being an ancient crone, she turned out to be an elegant woman who seemed much younger than her seventy-eight years. Her ash-blonde hair was up in a French pleat and she was wearing clothes that clearly cost loads and were more stylish than anything I’d ever seen on someone who wasn’t actually modelling them for a photo shoot. I was grateful to Simon that he’d trusted me to do the interview; ecstatic that he liked what I wrote; excited to