Patsy Power Part 37

Mary pointed to her ID lanyard and Jenny laughed and said “I see now what has got the boss in a tizz. There are two, very high powered, ladies in with him and Angela. I’ll tell them you’re here.” She announced our arrival on the intercom and got a cheery “Send them through and see if you can rustle up some more coffee and biscuits, if you can.”

“Damn skivvy, that’s all I am” she smiled “Just make sure you take him with you next time you tour, I could do with six months respite from coffee making.” We went through into the inner office and Simon, Angela and his guests were sitting by the big window. There was a table set up with lots of photos spread over it that looked like this mornings’ shoot.

Simon stood up and came over and gave both of us a hug, somewhat surprising Mary. “Let me introduce you to these lovely ladies. Patsy and Mary, this is Annette L’Estrange and her sister the Madam Maxine L’Estrange. Together they own the cosmetic and clothing companies that now grace your bodies. Now, Patsy, I sent the two of you into town to do a couple of simple visits and you have done it again! Do you have an inbuilt radar for odd happenings?” Mary said,” I am sorry Mr Longford; the photographer muttered something about other photographers missing their chance and insisted that I take part in the shoot.”

Annette L’Estrange said “And it’s a damned good job we have someone as good as Alexi on our books. If you walked into his studio looking like the photo on your ID he must have had a flash of brilliance.” Maxine said that we both wore her creations well and she was particularly taken with the evening dress shots so we went to the table and had a look at them. Mary exclaimed “That can’t be me!” and I assured her that there wasn’t anyone else in the room when the pictures were taken. Angela, who had been quiet up to now, said “The cosmetics are fantastic in both the day and evening styles and those evening dresses are to die for. When I looked at these for the first time I thought that here were two experienced models, not the girls that I had just spent several weeks tracking around the country with.” I said “All well and good but where does that leave us now?”

Annette looked at her sister, who nodded. “You both fit our requirements for our next lines. Maxine already has her Fall Collection out so we would need to look at Winter, Spring and Summer catalogues straight away. We work together, on occasion; to blend our lines so that one sells the other and you two are the perfect match with the ash blond against the auburn. You are both the same size so we can mix and match your clothing in the adverts which makes the customers think they can also get away with styles and colours they may not, ordinarily, wear.”

Maxine said “I am already visualising patterns and colours that would great on you both. I am so glad we got in touch with Simon, here.” Simon said “Mary, your job here is safe but if you want to pursue the modelling we can give you time off to do the shoots. It would be a feather in our cap to have a supermodel in the building and I know the CEO will approve. I just can’t believe that you hid yourself in office wear for all this time. Patsy, I know you have the writing and Minh’s album to produce but I am sure you will be able to find the time as well.” It was getting all a bit hard to take in so I moved away from the table and sat down, just as there was a knock on the door and Jenny came in with a tray of coffee and biscuits.

We all sat down and I relaxed at bit. “What about the band?” I said “We have an album to produce and maybe some live shows to do. It may get a bit difficult.” Maxine said “Yes, I was looking at the photos of the band members here before you arrived and I am now thinking that we could supply the stage clothing as well. I can see the guys in good clothes but I am having a little trouble seeing Nina and Riordan in the range.” I looked at her and said “That’s easy, just design a separate range to suit tall African- Americans and call it the Amazon Style. You could fit them out with bright colours and frills as they could carry that without problems. You could do the rest of us in colours that pick hues from their clothes.” Maxine looked at Simon and said “Can I steal this one from you?” He laughed and told her I was definitely not available unless he could lease me out.

I then said “Did you have a look at Joanne and Julia, they would be able to look as good as we do with the right cosmetics and you could extend your range to a slightly older market with Julia, if she is interested.” She looked at Simon and told him to prepare a contract as she was now certain that her next collection would be based on our discussion. “But what to call it?” she mused. Angela said “Well the old band is no more so the name ‘The innocent girls’ is now up for other use.” Annette looked at her and said “All right, how many other bright ideas can we come up with today. That is a brilliant name for my next range of cosmetics; if I go for a ‘there – but not there’ look. Can we get everyone together for a three or four day shoot inside and outside in about two weeks’ time; I should be able to put some cosmetics together and I am sure that Maxine can come up with some clothes. Everyone else is going with vamp and prostitute looks at the moment so we would be cutting across the market with an Innocent range and I am certain there are a lot of normal girls out there who find it hard to look like they are on the game, as well as lots of mothers who want their daughter looking normal.”

“What about sizes for the others, if they are interested?” Angela assured her that we had all the sizes on record for stage clothes and would get the list from Lucy. Maxine asked “Is Lucy the one who organised all of your stage clothes for the tour?” and Angela said it was. “Can she come up to New York with the others as I would like to meet her? I have seen these, and other, photos of the band on stage and she does good work. Also, this chap, Jake, he looks like good male model material.” I told her that Jake was destined to become one of the best guitarists around in a couple of years and there would be lots of companies trying to get their clothing on his back.

“OK” Maxine said “what do I call my collection if we are going for a wide range of normal looking girls and young women with clothes to fit any occasion.” Mary looked at Angela and then at me and said "that's an easy one to answer. You can call it the ‘Serendipity Collection’ as it is good for any time, any place.” “Where did that come from?” asked Maxine. I told her that I had been dubbed as the girl to whom serendipity happened and that we had written a song called that to go on Minh’s Christmas Album. Annette put her hand on my arm and asked if she could hear it so I asked if Angela had a clip on her computer that was taken from the care home concert.

While she was searching for it Maxine asked me about the care homes and I explained about Riordan and Julia’s link to them; that Minh and I had donated our bonuses from the car company to them and that we had done little acoustic sets in three of the homes so far. Angela said ‘Here it is” and brought up the last set we had played in New York. She made to fast forward to Serendipity but Maxine stopped her so they could see it all. We sat with our coffee for about the half an hour that it took to play the whole set. When Angela turned the screen off the two ladies looked at each other again and nodded. I could see that they both had tears in their eyes. Annette said “I am about to tell you something in confidence now. We are both married but we are both barren and cannot conceive. Our husbands play golf and harbour mistresses that they think we don’t know about. We too have donated secretly to those homes on a regular basis and your own involvement in them is a revelation to us. We came to Simon to recruit a rock singer but have found an angel or two. Could you take snippets of that ‘Serendipity’ song and make us our TV adverts?”

Part 38

I said that I would say the same to them as I did to others who wanted me to write adverts; give me copies of previous ones and allow me to visit both business’ so I could detect a link and that I cannot guarantee that I would feel the vibes. They agreed and we made an appointment for tomorrow, Thursday, so I could go back to Nashville on Friday. The ladies left with hugs all round and the four of us sat in the easy chairs. Simon said that he never knew what the day would throw at him when he woke up in the morning and I said that this was the joy of life.

We discussed the schedule of events for the next few weeks. Angela said she would get in touch with Riordan regarding a photo shoot and I said I would see Joanne when I got home. Simon mentioned that we would now have two empty bedrooms at the house so Mary could come to Nashville and study the workings of K Beat as well as talk to Pierre in the music shop. He said it would be good if we could see about putting on a show in a stadium there to expose them to the new ‘Amazon’ as they had only seen the small theatre version. Mary said she could look into it. Simon said he would take the three of us to dinner so we tidied up the photos and went off to a nice restaurant. As a cook I had a healthy regard for good food but I knew that I would have to hit the gym every day when I was back at the house.

Thursday morning Mary, still looking fabulous, picked me up with our usual driver who, I think, had developed a crush on her. We went to the cosmetics office and Annette met us and showed us around. Their development labs were in the building but the manufacturing was done overseas. I asked her why the advertising was always done as two separate companies and she told me that she had been operating some three years before her sister and that was the way it evolved. I suggested that, as they were going to, maybe, have a complementary line for three seasons; it may be time to merge the two into one combined company and, perhaps, introduce an underwear line to round it out. She seemed interested and asked me to broach the subject with her sister when I was at the clothing company offices.

We left with a folder of information and went to the clothing company office. This was a real hive of activity as Maxine showed us around. Again, only the design and first trial clothes were produced here and the production was contracted out. Mary and I were greeted warmly by the staff and I saw a few of our shoot pictures on various desks. I asked Maxine about the advertising and she gave me the same answer as Annette. I then outlined what I had said to her sister and told her, that as she may use members of the band, we could provide a TV advert singing in her creations. She told me that the sisters were going to have to have a deep discussion but merging would save money on two buildings and they may be able to move into one big enough for both enterprises. We left with another folder of information and I told her I would wait until they got in touch as any future adverts would depend on which way they move.

Mary and I had a light lunch and I asked to be taken to the hotel so I could pack and hit the hotel gym. Our driver said he would pick us both up in the morning to go to the airport. Mary said she had rung Nina about taking her, or Lorraines’, room and Nina had told her to just pack everything into her suitcases and put them in the storeroom to be picked up later. So I gave Mary a hug and told her to just let the driver take her somewhere nice in the afternoon. So, during the afternoon I hit the gym, swam, packed and had a light dinner before an early night; all the time musing on what the two weeks in New York had brought. I now had at least two albums to do; two or three adverts to devise; a possible modelling career along with a world tour that was becoming a possibility. But first I had to get back to Nashville and my friends and to make sure I visited ‘Aunt Ruby’.

Next morning I was picked up and we drove to the airport. I could see that Mary had a bit of a spring in her step and, after our luggage had been put on trolleys, she gave Andre a peck on the cheek and told him she would call when she gets back into town. “On first name basis, are we?” I enquired as we pushed our trolleys to the business class counter. She giggled and told me that she had followed my advice and they went to Coney Island yesterday and rode a couple of rides together and shared a pizza for tea. She said that they both felt very naughty taking time away from work but they had a good time. I told her that she had been twenty four seven for a couple of months so a few hours off was not going to upset anyone. “Anyway” I said “the next few weeks are going to be full on as well.”

The flight was good and, at the airport, Joanne was waiting to greet us. She gave me a big hug and then turned to Mary and said “When did Patsy wave her magic wand over you?” On the drive into town we related our last few days and told her that she will be due for her own magic wand in a couple of weeks’ time. At the house we lugged our cases up to the rooms. Joanne helped clear out Nina’s room and we left Mary to settle in while I emptied my bags. Joanne helped me put the clothes onto hangers and when we got to the blouse and skirt from the shoot she exclaimed “L’Estrange labels, wow, you must have gone up-market to get these?”

She was amazed when I told her they were given to me after the photo shoot and she had better make room in her wardrobe for her own collection later in the year. We had a light lunch and I showed Mary around the house and introduced her to the security guy. It seemed that we were still popular enough to need to chase away autograph hunters and the paparazzi. We all then went to K Beat and checked in with Alice, Sarah and Ma. Ma was a bit more at ease after the tour and had the time to chat. Lucy came in and we told her we would be taking her back to New York when we go in a couple of weeks and when we said that Madam Maxine L’Estrange wanted to meet her she had to sit down and take some deep breaths. We went down to the studio and saw that Minh was laying down a vocal track overlaying a backing track so we left her to it. Sarah had told us to just do what we needed to until we went to New York so the three of us got into the car and went out to the nursing home.

When we walked in Kay came rushing over to give us a hug each and we went into my ‘Aunts’ room for another hug and a chat. We told her all about the tour and then related our time in New York. I told her I would pop in a few times before we went back and then we went to the day room to meet the ‘support crew’. Kay had alerted them that we were in the building so the whole crew was there. We had more hugs and sat with them for a while. Roger told me that Chris was working around the clock to complete his documentary set. He also said he had lots of photos to work with for any future tours. I told them that we had a big audience of other artists at our last show at the ‘Garden’ and that ‘Primal Urge’ was there. They all had a chuckle when I told them that Grog had shaken Jakes hand and I didn’t think that Jake had washed it yet. Jim asked why they were at our show and I told him that they were in the country to look at various groups to open for their US leg of a world tour and that we were just one of them. We chatted a while and left, going to Mario’s for the Friday evening karaoke. We walked in and Mario fussed over us. I told him that we were all sung out for the moment and wouldn’t grace his stage tonight. He didn’t mind so we had a quiet meal before the competition started and I paid for us as we left.

We decided to have a weekend away so Mary booked three tickets to Memphis while I organised a hotel so Saturday morning we flew the short hop, hired a car, and explored the city and Gracelands, where I was recognised and had to sign some autograph books. It was a pity that the Sun Record Studio had been moved to Nashville already as it would have been nice to take a selfie outside it.

Marianne G 2020