Sighing, Stella wonders if she made a mistake coming along today. The invitation looked expensive; she anticipated some luxury freebies, a few glasses of champers, and perhaps some exclusive content for her channel. When all she was getting was a dreary dinner party with gross red wine and a load of weirdos. Not to mention a racist thrown in. She’s still fuming over what that doctor said to Melvin about being Black and Welsh. With a mum from Ghana and a white dad, she’d heard it all before she was twelve. Melvin should have torn a strip off that weedy man, but he just laughed. Infuriating!
She picks her mobile back up and logs on to her YouTube page. Just before heading out tonight, she uploaded a new video all about where and when to wear cowboy boots and how to find the perfect pair without paying hundreds of pounds. Already she had dozens of comments from her teen followers thanking her for her insight. Her subscribers are escalating at a faster rate than herrival Highstreet Heroine’s, and she’s had two recent sponsorship offers, which is what actually matters to her, not finding affordable fashion for broke teenagers. God knows what makes them think the high street can compare to designer, but they lap up any old nonsense she spouts, and who is she to tell them otherwise? Looking down at her own Versace cowboy boots—a treat from her dad for her twenty-second birthday—she thanks her lucky stars she doesn’t have to bother with cheap knockoffs.
You could say she fell into fashion vlogging. After being kicked out of school (asifshe’d steal from those stuck-up bitches!), her dad lined up work experience for her at various places, but she’d hated every tea-making, photocopying second, and they weren’t even paying her. Then one day, a few years ago, Stella started her YouTube page. What had begun as a bit of a hobby quickly escalated to a phenomenon (to quote theDaily Mirror) as her views and subscription numbers soared. Within months, she was being invited to showbiz parties and blogger events, often asked to give presentations about her incredible success. She received all kinds of freebies thanks to the offer of association with her YouTube page: clothes, accessories, beauty products, first-rate meals in Michelin-starred restaurants, bottles of champers, and so on. Of course, Stella could easily have paid for it all, but that isn’t the point.
Her thumb moving quickly, Stella logs out of her StellaStylez account and into the other one. She smiles to herself when she sees the comments she’s clocked up on there—the shouty capital letters, the exclamation marks. She pictures the tears, the hurt, even the fear that her words have caused, and instantly, she’s exhilarated,as if she can feel the blood racing around her body. She feels so…alive.
“So you’re in fashion?” the old lady suddenly asks Stella, talking across Dr. Gordon.
“Yeah,” Stella murmurs, reluctantly putting her phone face down on the table. “I’ve got a YouTube channel with nearly half a million subscribers.”
Stella glances around the table and sees that the other guests are impressed, apart from geeky Tristan, who appears to be choking on his wine.
“Oh, excellent. Yes, I think my daughter, Louisa, watches those sorts of things. She’s fourteen,” Gordon cuts in.
Please don’t talk to me about your boring teenage daughter…
“And you’re a doctor?” Stella says, trying to sound like she gives a flying F. Boarding school had drilled the importance of small talk into her, along with other useful skills like using the correct cutlery and how to fox-trot.
“You might recognize me.” He clears his throat and touches his powder-blue tie. “I regularly appear onThe Morning Show…”
“Oh, right. Well, I’m not much of an early riser.” Stella shrugs, reaching for her phone again. Why had no one told this man that skinny ties are only acceptable at fancy dress parties?
“Not to worry.” He shrinks back into his chair. “I’m a doctor of nutrition and appear quite regularly on television to discuss the latest fad diets, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, darling, now I know where I’ve seen you,” Janet cries from Stella’s other side. “You were on the other day labeling somepoor celeb as bonkers for her maple syrup diet. And there I was, just about to stock up.”
“Well, I’m not sure I called her ‘bonkers’…” Dr. Gordon splutters, picking up his fork and wiping it with his napkin.
“Perhaps it’ll help slim down her thighs,” Stella mutters but finds herself royally ignored, as Janet is now gazing at the doctor, who’s sitting a little straighter in his chair. No doubt she’s hoping to get a few tips on how to lose a bit of weight herself. The dress is definitely designer, but she’s spilling out of it. Nice rings, though, Stella has to admit; the woman’s engagement rock looks to be three karats, maybe even four.
“There’s no solid scientific evidence to support it,” Gordon says to Janet, putting the now sparkling fork down and warming to his topic. “In fact, it could cause problems with blood sugar and insulin levels. And the short-term weight loss will only be reversed when the person returns to solid foods—”
Janet chuckles, cutting Dr. Gordon short just as he’s getting going. “Oh, I don’t know who I was kidding, anyway. As if I could live without red meat.”
Stella rolls her eyes, zoning out of this lame chat. With no bubbles in sight, she decides she might as well give the red wine a go. She leans forward to push her place setting (weirdly picturing a lizard reading a scroll) aside and picks up her glass. The black curranty wine tastes bitter on her tongue but then slips easily down her throat, sending a pleasurable warmth through her.
“Not your usual tipple?” Matthew asks, his dark eyes on her from across the table. Surely they’re dark brown, though theyappear black in this light.
She shakes her head. “I prefer champagne.”
“Do you know how to tell if it’s a good wine?” he asks, his voice almost a whisper beneath Dr. Gordon’s and Janet’s rising crescendo (“And what about the baby-food diet?”).
She swallows and shakes her head again, pushing her poker-straight hair behind her ear and frowning at her deep-red fingernails.
Matthew picks up his wineglass by its stem and slowly swills it around and around, the scarlet fluid spinning, then climbing up the sides in tiny tidal waves.
“See, it’s got legs,” he murmurs, keeping his eyes on the glass. She sees how the waves slowly ebb down, giving the appearance of long legs.
“Oh, yes, I see them.” She beams at him. He mirrors her smile for a second, flashing pointy white incisors; then it’s gone, and he’s turned to his right to top up the policeman’s glass. She has been dismissed and finds herself still grinning stupidly at the side of Matthew’s face.
Feeling foolish, Stella turns back to her own glass and attempts to emulate the wine-swilling, but it splashes over the rim and leaves red spots on her white napkin.
Sighing, she finishes off her wine, then pours herself a second glass, takes a large sip. This one is going down much easier.
Already the edges of the room have a hazy quality, like the old photos in her mum’s picture albums from the ’80s. It’s quite a pleasant feeling, and Stella leans back in her chair, suddenly findingJanet’s flirting amusing rather than irritating.
“So are you single, Matthew?” Janet is asking. “Or is there a lucky lady at home?”
