I am discovering that having a job isn’t something I actually enjoy.
“I adore Mr Woolf, I really do,” I tell Cary over breakfast one morning at his house. “But it’s all the… actual labouring…” I sigh.
Betsy gives me a look that says spoiled.
“If you want to go places, you have to put in the work,” Cary says, light but earnest. No one is telling me what I want to hear.
I stand, and check my wristwatch. “I’d best get going.”
I kiss them goodbye. “I have fabric swatches to pick up for Mr Woolf.”
Cary calls after me, “Atta girl!” I turn and bow; Betsy laughs. Cary tosses an apple toward me. “Catch!”
I catch it and grin before heading out to the car.
***
Mr Woolf likes me on paper. In person, he thinks I talk too much, but he tolerates me because the résumé delights him. He calls me Scarlett O’Hara (which I don’t like, because she was an entitled slave owning stereotype) and Little Grace (which is fair enough, and I do like). He is amused that I am part English aristo, part Southern belle, part East Coast WASP.
“There shouldn’t exist a perfect blend like that,” he’ll say, flicking my posture into place, scanning me. “And yet, here you are.”
He throws out observations as if testing my reactions:
“There’s something European in you. Not Parisian. Viennese, maybe. Romantic. Brutal.”
Or:
“Tell me what you hate, Birdie. That’s where your real taste lives.”
I never have the right answer. It irritates him.
But I learn from him. He’s marvellous. I want to live inside his designs.
“People don’t want truth in a room,” he declares as we glide through an install. “They want myth. Give them something to aspire to, never something they recognize.”
***
Topper tells me on the phone that Mr Woolf must like me, seeing as he brings me everywhere. And he does: clients, craftsmen, antique dealers, fabric houses.
It’s magical, and back-breaking.
“Never give a man what he says he wants. Give him what his mother never did. That’s design,” he declares in the car. Then he gives me a look up and down. “Come, come,” he urges as we blow through another set of doors.
He introduces me grandly:
“This is my new protégé! Isn’t she a doll?”
Clients stare politely; I want to disappear.
***
The boy thinks the whole thing sounds fantastic when he calls me from a two-week holiday in Vegas.
“I’m glad you’re finally gettin’ put to work,” he says, roaring.
“I have actually been working pretty hard at school. That counts too.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…” he drawls.
He tells me Scottie and Bill have quit working for him, without explanation. I don’t understand, but he doesn’t want to discuss it. He says he and Anita are doing fine, “She’s just easy to be around,” and in the photographs he really does look happy with her. I say I’m pleased.
Then he launches into stories about other women, laughing the whole way. A lady wrestler. An exotic dancer named Tempest Storm. I tell him the name sounds too good to be true.
“Oh, lord,” he whistles. “This town’ll make a man outta you.”
My optimism sinks.
He eventually remembers it’s me on the line. “Hey, you been to see Jailhouse Rock yet? Premiere just happened.”
“I’m sorry, baby, I haven’t had the time.”
He deflates. “I see.”
“I’ll go this weekend, I promise.”
He asks if I want to come to his Los Angeles shows at the end of the month. I say yes, but Topper will be in town. “Can I bring him?”
A pause.
“Yeah, sure. But don’t bring him backstage before I go on, alright?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t wanna get all riled up before walkin’ out there.”
I laugh. “Alright. I can’t wait to see you.”
I’m getting ready to hang up when he says, finally reflective, “Hey, Birdie?”
“Yes?”
“You really do get tired of bein’ around nothin’ but showgirls and starlets,” he says quietly.
“I’m glad you have Anita, then,” I tell him.
He huffs. “I didn’t mean Anita. I meant I miss you.”
“I…”
But he’s already hung up.
***
“Half of Hollywood wants to feel safe. The other half wants to feel dangerous. Sometimes in the same chair.”
Mr Woolf is teaching me the trade. I laugh, and think someone ought to write books about him. He’s brilliant.
I am beginning to enjoy working, I tell Cary over dinner one night.
“Good girl,” he says, lighting a cigarette. “I was beginning to lose patience.”
He asks what it’s like, so I mimic Mr Woolf:
“The dining room is the theatre. The bedroom is the confessional. And the powder room, my dear, is pure propaganda.”
Cary laughs so hard he has to take off his glasses and dab his eyes.
“What would I do without you?” I ask, thanking him before his driver takes me home, back to the house in the hills that belongs to Topper’s family.
“The least I can do for my fellow expat,” he says, kissing my hand as I leave.
I walk up the drive, the California evening warm around me. The scent of night-blooming jasmine drifts on the breeze. And for a moment, I am truly happy.
I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, which, everyone keeps reminding me, is apparently exactly what I am.
My novel GREAT ARE THE MYTHS will be serialised (one chapter each day) over the summer of 2026. If you would rather listen to the audiobook, the full story is available for free on all the usual platforms. Info and links HERE
My World of Interiors 