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my head, correctly sensing she had missed something important while she was queuing for coffee like a work experience flunky. I knew full well it should be her going to LA in the morning. The Stick had the experience, the knowledge, the look—she was born to be Mona’s assistant. She idolised the woman. Andthen there was Jas—my kind boss, put on the spot like that. Left with no option but to step aside and let a member of her staff be poached before her eyes. I began to wonder if it was really worth it, if I was more cut out to be a traffic warden or a teacher after all. If I should do the honourable thing—step aside and offer the job to the Stick or simply tell Mona it was all a horrible mistake and stay at Smith’s. But something stopped me. Another voice in my head tried to rationalise: this was the Stick’s comeuppance for all the hours I’d spent sweating next to the steamer because
she
didn’t want to risk her make-up; for the way she looked at me when I thought that Erdem was the name of a Turkish pop star, rather than the hottest designer on the block. I thought of Jas and her look of confusion when she saw the mismatched shoes on the dummies. She must have known it was an accident, but was too polite to embarrass me while I had the camera eyeballing me. And then I threw it back in her face by moonlighting with Mona.
I’m going to hell, for certain.
    I pulled myself together, stood taller and took a deep breath.
What’s done is done.
And besides, perhaps now it was my turn to prove that I could do it, actually; that styling was my calling and Mona the person to nurture my talent; that I could make it in fashion, on my own merit. Yes, I’d show the Stick you don’t need to slink around being too hip for Hoxton and live off pond water to get ahead.
Either that, or I’m a fraud—and not only a fraud but a horrible, selfish person.
    If only I’d put opposite shoes on the mannequins on purpose.
    It was beginning to sink in that a) I might not have a job to return to, but b) my prospects for the next fortnight werelooking up dramatically. I finally had an opportunity to be excited about—I couldn’t wait to update my Facebook status. It might even be worth joining LinkedIn! I just had to find myself a kit and pull together a suitcase of cool looks that would get me through a fortnight in the entertainment capital of the world, because
I,
Amber Green of Greater London, was going to Los Angeles in the morning.
    If this had been a film, with Jennifer Lawrence playing me, she would have punched the air when my feet, now comfortably clad in Uggs, hit the street outside the boutique that day. However, because this was not the movies, and because Jas had been uncharacteristically cold and the Stick had spent the rest of the day blanking me—bar the occasional tut—the mood was subdued. She broke the silence in the stockroom, as we layered-up for the cold, by taking the unusual step of suggesting we walk to the tube together. Perhaps she wanted to continue blanking me in the outside world, too. Having spent the entire afternoon fastidiously busying myself with my usual shop duties and doing all I could not to look halfway near as excited as I was beginning to feel, I had been planning to bolt bang on six. My phone was burning a hole in my pocket. I was
desperate
to call people, to scream, to see Vicky—to make it all real. The last thing I needed was an uncomfortable three-minute walk to Bond Street tube with a furious Stick.
    It soon transpired that far from starting a
Dynasty
-style bitch fight in the middle of South Molton Street, her tactic was indeed to continue ignoring me. Finally, as we turned the corner into Oxford Street, she spoke.
    ‘Bet you’ve had the best day ever?’
    ‘It’s been unusual, that’s for sure.’
    ‘So, she just told you you were going to LA, just like that?’
    ‘I think she was just desperate to get someone to replace Tamara.’
    ‘And my name didn’t even get