Dee and Katie sat on the comfortable leather sofa in the office whilst JJ ordered some drinks and sat on a chair opposite them. He stretched forward and offered his hand to Dee.
“Hello. My young friends call me JJ but my real name is Jeff. And you are?”
“I’m Dee Hammond.”
“Mrs Dee Hammond,” Katie noted pointedly before looking at him with a fake scowl. “He’s a wicked ladies man, you need to watch him.”
“I’m taking care of Katie’s close protection for her stay in London.”
“Mmmm,” the author hummed. “Perhaps you’d better give me a card. I may need some close protection myself soon when I announce that this current book is the last Clara Campbell novel. Actually, you are so pretty you could double as my escort for the evening signings as well.”
“You see, less than a minute and he’s at it already,” Katie interrupted, sighing.
JJ smiled and explained that he was happily married and that he generally eschewed the limelight. He was a genial, slightly overweight man, in his mid forties, Dee guessed, but his humour was infectious and soon all three were laughing. It didn’t take long for Dee to see that Katie saw JJ as her mentor. He had known her since she was a nervous twelve year old, when he would make her laugh with his silly stories and his rants about everything from stalking fans to ingratiating politicians.
All too soon for Katie her mobile rang and Dee looked at her watch. They had to go; another appointment loomed large on the horizon. As they left, Katie kissed the author goodbye and set off towards the lift. Dee shook JJ’s hand and was about to leave when the jollity slipped from his manner and he spoke quietly but earnestly.
“Dee, I love that girl like a daughter. Please take care of her. There are some real crazies out there, and last year Rod Donkin made a lunge for her at the Fashion Awards, and although the police brushed it off as a drunken lark it looked to me as if his intentions were menacing.”
“Rod Donkin, from Big Brother?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Alleged minor celebrity and stalker of famous young girls. If you need confirmation of the risk he poses, ask that country singer about his daughter’s encounter with Donkin, and she was only fifteen at the time.”
“OK, thanks for the heads up. I’ll be especially vigilant, and if I get her back to the States safely do I get a signed book?” Dee asked lifting the mood. JJ smiled and bid her a fond goodbye whilst offering his help, should she ever find that she needed an overweight, balding author with horn rimmed glasses.
Chapter 36
The Frank Sinatra Suite, The Savoy, London. Wednesday, 5pm.
The remnants of their room service meal stood under giant chromium domes on a hotel trolley waiting to be collected, so when the door bell rang Dee presumed it was room service coming to collect the food from the pricey art deco suite.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“It is Dominic, Ma’am. I have your guest Ms Li Li Sung with me.”
Dee checked the small TV monitor in the concealed recess by the door, and when she was satisfied that the visitors were as announced, she opened the door.
Dominic held open the door as Li Li Sung entered the suite followed by a bell hop who wheeled in a trolley with four dress hangers suspended from a brass rail. The dustcovers protecting and concealing the dresses bore the distinctive oriental logo of Li Li Sung Design.
The small mixed-race designer headed straight for Dee Hammond, seemingly ignoring the famous starlet whose room this was, hugging her warmly. There was obviously no air kissing in this relationship.
“Dee, my darling woman, you look so well, and you haven’t put on a single pound. That will help.” Li Li Sung turned to Katie Norman and presumptuously addressed her.
“Katie Norman, I know that you already have a dress. Personally you are wasted on Jacamo’s design; he has no sense for the burgeoning woman. He is such a good friend but he needs more to work with you in the area of décolletage.” The designer pulled up the shoulders of Katie’s blouse and tilted her head. She then placed the palms of her hands on the sides of the starlet’s chest and pushed in gently. Katie blushed.
“Katie Norman, I will make your next dress. You need a woman’s touch, more shoulder, less cleavage, something that flatters your girlish figure. As for the breasts, don’t worry. I will make them as tantalising and edible as fresh pomegranates. I myself am not belaboured by mammalian excess and so I know how to exaggerate their impressiveness.”
Katie Norman and Dee both laughed out loud as a blushing Dominic and the bell hop made a hurried exit from the suite, wheeling away the remnants of the Gordon Ramsay creation that had been served up by the chefs at the Savoy Grill on the ground floor.
Li Li looked puzzled at their obvious discomfiture but turned her attention to the dresses hanging on the rail. Dee spoke for the first time since the designer entered the room.
“Katie, as you will have guessed this is Li Li Sung; she is my Chinese-Korean dress designing friend.”
“I do not know why I continue to be your friend. I designed your wedding dress and now these evening dresses, and not a penny do I see. You are a cheap woman.”
Katie laughed again before Dee explained that Li Li charged more for a dress than the close protection operative earned in a month, but they shared a very rich friend who considered herself forever in Dee’s debt. As she unzipped the second dust cover, Li Li spoke again, this time in Katie’s direction.
“I have fun at her expense, of course, I do like dressing ordinary working women and it is a challenge to hide her big gun in one of my form fitting creations.”
Katie looked at Dee, who shook her head and grimaced as if to confirm that she never carried a gun, let alone concealed any kind of weapon in the second skin that Li Li Sung called a dress.
***
Over the next hour the three women joked and laughed as Dee tried on all four dresses, promenaded around the suite, posed in front of Frank Sinatra memorabilia and had digital photographs taken of each episode.
Eventually, as they all sat in front of Li Li’s laptop, Dee decided on the full length black evening dress in chiffon with satin panels breaking out from the split. As usual the built up straps and the under bust detailing were woven with gold thread embroidered into the shapes of Chinese symbols. The dress was archetypal Li Li Sung; understated, elegant and reasonably modest.
After a few small adjustments, the dress was fitted and the result was spectacular. Dee stared at the other two women in the room as they looked at her in awe.
“What?” she asked, wholly unaware of the impact she would have on the press when she walked up the red carpet with Katie.
“Do you think they will even notice I’m there?” Katie asked Li Li, who shook her head.
“They will be too busy saying, look there is a plain Englishwoman made beautiful by that fabulous Li Li Sung design.”
All three laughed as the Las Vegas themed clock on the wall, between a picture of Frank Sinatra with Marilyn Monroe and one of him with Ronald Reagan, showed that Dee and Katie had one hour to get ready before the limo showed up. Li Li hugged both girls and left the suite, moaning that all she had to look forward to was a takeaway meal and Emmerdale on the TV. Dee doubted that Li Li had ever allowed either into her tastefully decorated apartment.
Upon Li Li’s departure, two make up girls spent a few awestruck minutes admiring the suite before applying little or no obvious make-up to either face, with the exception of the dramatic eye make-up which highlighted two pairs of the prettiest eyes in London that night. The hair stylist had one final tweak at each client and then Dee and Katie were ready to face the paparazzi.