Morningstar Manor

There was a lull - blessed lull! So Kris picked up his phone and made a call.

"Hi Pam - yeah it's me. Is Lewis available please?"

His plane was due to leave in three hours, so Lewis was taking advantage of the Mocha for a last time. He was holding court, you could almost say. He went over the pictures of the shoot with the photographer, telling him several times that he actually found the effects in the background of the basement shoot quite interesting. Shadows like horrible faces on the walls, little lost girls down long corridors -- that was provocative. Well, perhaps not the one with the dead rat.

And he talked to a few of his impromptu models; when that big girl came up to tell him how much fun it had been, he spontaneously gave her the outfits she's been modelling. Anything that had made it into the catalogue was now being manufactured in Slovakia and Hungary already, anyway, by hundreds of experienced seamstresses, to hit the boutiques when the seasons changed again.  These had been the prototypes, but were no longer unique.

Pammie brought him another coffee, unasked. He'd be nothing without her.

Andras had got into a kind of routine by now, undisturbed by the bustle around him, taking pictures, archiving, pampering models, working with Juanita for the details, with Pammie for what Lewis really wanted, and with Lewis, for what he really, really wants now.

His hard disks were filling up, and people were alternating between hectic activity and utter lassitude.

Somebody handed him a styrofoam cup from the Mocha, and he went on working.


[ooc: Party post so tag in and let the pups chat amongst themselves, or if they want input from one of the staff, please give us a poke.]

All the boxes had been emptied, and the ball room was full of clothes and clothes and clothes, on racks and on chairs and in stacks and in bags.

There were a few makeshift curtains between the pillars, and Lewis was hopping between them like a goblin, bringing new suggestions for outfits, or parading his makeshift models in front of a big mirror.

He was being followed by a calm woman in her fifties who was wordlessly scribbling on a large pad, Andras who was snapping the 'winning' outfits with a compact camera, and a little girl of about five who just gaped at everything and tried to stay out of the way.

When Andras almost fell over her, he just turned, grabbed her, put them on his shoulders before she could even squeal, and just carried on working as if she wasn't there.

Into the Mocha they went and Kris looked around, seeing a few of the gorgeous faces and bodies he had hoped to see, and he cleared his throat and tapped on a table to attract their attention.

"Um - ladies, gentlemen," he said, "we are in - frankly - awful trouble and are hoping some of you might be kind enough to help us out. The fact is - we have a designer and a complete collection of clothing but the photographer and all the models are stuck in Switzerland. So - would you be prepared to wear Lewis's clothes and have photos taken? What do you say?"

He looked round hopefully. "Anyone?"