Free Can We Still Be Friends by Alexandra Shulman

slim. Her pale long face was in contrast to the pneumatic quality of her body, her narrow back emphasizing her round breasts, a small waist broadening out to hips carried high on rounded legs. She was pretty, she knew, and could enter a room certain in the knowledge that she would be noticed, but her prettiness was not accompanied by confidence. Almost the reverse: it was as if she felt the decorative carapace of her looks disguised something lacking deeper.
    Viewing the outfit in the long mirror inside the wardrobe door, she could see it looked acceptable, but she felt uncomfortable about the way it fitted. The skirt maybe, or was it the way the belt drew the eye to her curves? It was getting late. Quickly undressing again, she pulled the blue dress from the hanger, reaching behind her for the zip so that the fabric pulled tight across the bodice that flowed out from the high waist. She took a string of jade-coloured beads from where they dangled on the bedpost and clasped it around her throat, the beads hanging down to the start of the shadowy cleft of her bosom.
    Annie saw Jackson standing by the famous curved bar as soon as she entered the deep room with its seductively dim lighting and noisy chatter above soft music. Halfway down its length there was his dark head, bent towards a girl with a spiky blonde crop who Annie remembered from the shoot, his red shirt standing out and clearly indicating his arm around her shoulder.
    She pushed her way through the room, suddenly wishing that she were anywhere else but there. As she approached, Jackson looked up, his warm smile defusing her nerves.
    ‘What a great dress. Meet Patsy. She’s my everything on the shoots.’ And in one proficient manoeuvre he disengaged his arm from Patsy and kissed Annie in greeting. He pulled out a tall bar stool, helping her on to it. ‘Frank, let’s get some champagne for me and my friend,’ he commanded one of the bartenders.
    There seemed, to Annie, to be mirrors everywhere. She couldn’t help seeing the reflection of herself and Jackson in front of her, and reflected again from behind, the effect intensifying the already crowded space. After a few glasses, they moved away from the bar, to a banquette on the other side of the narrow room. Jackson suggested they order some food and, although Annie was really far too excited to eat, she was aware that after several glasses of champagne she should get something inside her. She didn’t want to do a Sal.
    Their conversation was endlessly interrupted by Jackson’s waves to passing friends, their table constantly being greeted by the social traffic.
    ‘Mungo, my man. Congrats on the Brillo account. Snatched, I hear, at the eleventh hour from under the nose of BBH.’ Jackson gave a stout, bearded man a squeeze on the elbow. ‘Good job too. John Hegarty’s getting far too big a slice of the action.’ Mungo wedged himself on to the edge of the banquette, pouring a generous slug of Jackson’s champagne into his wine glass.
    ‘
Vorsprung durch Technik
,’ he said, giving a mocking military salute in reference to BBH’s Audi campaign.
    ‘This is Annie. She’s one of Tania’s team.’ Annie felt Jackson moving closer to her.
    ‘Aha. Tania. Do you remember her covered in gold paint at that party at Morton’s. She was a real goddess then,’ Mungo recalled, smiling amiably at Annie, who was surprised to feel, at that moment, the touch of Jackson’s left hand on her leg, while his right refuelled her glass. She wondered whether Mungo would notice.
    The juxtaposition of the intensity of Jackson’s attention on her and the obvious entitlement he felt to being a central figure in this world gave Annie an immediate sense of inclusion. Jackson wasadept at making her feel as if she had a rightful place there, rather than being the neophyte she was. As the hours passed, her nervousness was replaced by ease. The bar which had appeared so threatening when she first arrived had become a luxurious