Gucci Gucci Coo
Ruby had fought for her vision, but without getting into a full-blown confrontation with Stella. On this issue, though, Ruby was finding it particularly hard, since she was convinced her approach was the right one.
    It was her father, Phil, who finally convinced his daughter to pull back. He said shop design was essentially packaging and that he knew from his own experience how important it was to give the customer what she wanted, rather than force your own vision on her. Even though he agreed with Ruby that the image Stella had in mind was twee and dated, he could also see that it was cozy and reassuring. “It harks back to an era—albeit a nonexistent one—of happy, wholesome families gathered round the pine kitchen table eating Mom’s apple pie. It’s the Notting Hill Billies meets the Ingallses. You just watch how it pulls in the punters.” Of course he was right.
    Ruby’s climb down over the shop design issue was immediately rewarded by Stella’s announcing her departure to New York. These days—because of all her business commitments over there—she visited Les Sprogs no more than once or twice a year. Finally she was leaving Ruby to run things alone.
    Occasionally she would phone, but it was only to touch base. If Chanel happened to take a call from Stella, she was always her chatty self, but their conversation never lasted more than a few seconds. Ruby knew that it was Stella, as she would cut the conversation short since she merely tolerated Chanel. Even though Stella was now in no doubt about how popular Chanel was with the customers and their children, it wasn’t in her nature to back down and admit she may have been wrong about not wanting to take her on. Whenever she visited the shop, Stella greeted Chanel with the kind of distaste that Jerry Seinfeld reserved for Newman. Ruby assumed it was the same when they spoke on the phone.
    In true Chanel style, she refused to let Stella get her down—particularly as she hardly ever saw her. Nor was she ever rude to her. She understood that if she were rude or started a row, it would have affected Ruby’s relationship with Stella. Then Ruby would have no choice but to let Chanel go.
    So, with a good-natured smile and muttering something barely audible about it being “the icicle” on the phone, she would hand the receiver to Ruby. Then she would go and find some shelves to tidy.
     
    “C’ MON ,” R UBY SAID , re Chanel’s proposal to have collagen injected into her G-spot. “You wouldn’t really have injections up there, would you?”
    Chanel thought for a second. “Dunno. They said on this plastic surgery program that you have the most amazing orgasms afterward. Only problem is that if I went for it, Craig would go ballistic. He’d be worried sick about it all going wrong.”
    Chanel’s husband, Craig, was a London plumber who made a fortune. He was a huge ex-navy, rugby-playing bear of a man with a heart every bit as big as Chanel’s. He would have lassoed the moon for her if he could. Collagen injections aside, whatever Chanel wanted, Chanel got. Not that she asked for much. She wasn’t the demanding type. Nevertheless, she only had to mention in passing that she’d seen a kitchen in Ikea that she liked and it was hers. Ditto bathrooms, lounge furniture and jewelry.
    Chanel returned Craig’s love by refusing to take off the gold Chanel earrings he had given her on their wedding day. For her, the interlocking Cs stood for Chanel and Craig and were a symbol of their eternal love.
    She also cooked him a “proper meat and two veg man meal” every night when she got home, ironed his boxers (not that he’d ever asked her to) and generally fussed and doted over him as if he were a helpless baby.
    Chanel was no fool. She knew that in many ways Craig had become her surrogate child and she his, but neither of them could help treating the other the way they did. Until a baby came along, which, with the failure of one IVF attempt after another,
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