Читать книгу Fashionably Late - Olivia Goldsmith - Страница 11

CHAPTER FIVE

Hard Labor

Karen never did get to call Lisa the night before and left way too early to do it the next morning. Karen got to her office by half past seven, but that was nothing new: ever since she’d had a single employee – Mrs Cruz from Corona, Queens – she’d gotten in early. All these years later Mrs Cruz was still with her, now one of her two chief patternmakers, supervising a workroom that held over two hundred employees. Mrs Cruz had two long subway rides to get to 550 Seventh Avenue. Still, almost every morning, including this one, Karen met Mrs Cruz there, outside the legendary building that now housed KInc, and they rode the elevator up to the ninth floor together where both of them had keys to open up the floor. On the way up, they passed the showrooms and offices of Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan, and Bill Blass. All of the foreign fashion world was there, too: Karl Lagerfeld and Hanae Mori. Five-fifty was the temple of high fashion in the United States. Karen still couldn’t get over the thrill of seeing her name on the elevator directory along with those others.

But Karen knew what a slippery ride it could be. Back in January 1985, way before she had moved in, the Halston Originals showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue was dismantled. Whatever fixtures and furnishings hadn’t already been carted away were sold to the next tenant, a newcomer in the fashion business named Donna Karan.

No one thought of Halston anymore. He wasn’t just dead, he was forgotten. He had been the first American designer to sell his name, and in his case it had meant his destruction. A corporate entity licensed Halston everythings, while poor Roy Halston Froleich had been legally stopped from using ‘Halston’ ever again. He’d been well-paid but robbed of his work and identity. Karen thought of poor sick Willie Artech. What would happen to his work and his name? She shivered, and turned to the dark woman beside her.

‘Good morning, Mrs Cruz,’ Karen said, and smiled at the short, stout co-worker whose black, glossy hair showed an inch of steel gray at the roots. Karen looked at Mrs Cruz’s face and realized that the woman had had both children and grandchildren over the years they’d worked together, while Karen had remained childless. ‘How’s the new grandson?’ she asked.

‘Fat as a little piglet. How are you this morning, Karen?’ Mrs Cruz inquired. She nodded to a brown bag she held. ‘Would you like some fresh pan de manteca?’

‘Oh Mrs Cruz. You’re killing me. I’ll wind up fat as a little piglet. I swore I was starting my diet this morning.’

Mrs Cruz shrugged. ‘You’re thin enough. Coffee?’

Karen couldn’t resist either the Cuban coffee Mrs Cruz carried in a big, shiny metal thermos or the freshly baked bread. ‘Yes, please. And a thin slice of pan de manteca.’

Mrs Cruz smiled, pleased. They arrived on nine to find the door already opened. That was unusual. Was a thief loose on the floor or was some competitor going through her designs? Karen had heard of a hundred tricks that magazines and competitors used to snoop, to spy, to get a fashion scoop. One magazine regularly sent pretty girls to apply as fitting models to all the designers, including KInc. Just last month Defina had caught one sketching a design. Once a sketcher had dressed up as a florist’s assistant, complete with a smock, and delivered a huge bouquet personally to Karen while they were doing a final run-through of the line. He had been sent by a competitor, but they’d never been able to prove it was Norris Cleveland. Now, as word leaked out that she was doing the Elise Elliot wedding, someone could be snooping. Or had NormCo sent a due diligence team over to do a little unauthorized auditing? Or even worse: Did the camera crew that had been working on Elle Halle’s show decide to do a surprise morning visit? Karen wondered for a moment if she had time to put a little blush on before she got ambushed. She decided she didn’t, but she winced at her blurry reflection in the stainless steel elevator walls. The two women shrugged at one another and stepped out onto the floor. The only entrance was here, through the showroom.

The lights were on and Defina Pompey was standing at a pipe rack of clothes, flicking through each one and rattling the hangers as she moved along. Defina was never there until ten – and sometimes a little later. It had always been a bone of contention between them, but the few times Defina had shown up at nine had convinced Karen she didn’t want Defina earlier. Defina was a night person, and stayed to all hours cheerfully. It was just in the mornings that she was dangerous.

‘Aye. Caramba!’ Mrs Cruz muttered and scuttled across the beige carpeting to the door of the workrooms. The Cuban pollo. Defina confused Mrs Cruz in a number of ways and the Cuban was scared of her. For one thing, Defina spoke Spanish with a perfect upper-class Madrid lisp. Mrs Cruz could barely understand it. Why should an American black woman from Harlem be able to speak like that? Plus, all the workroom said Defina knew some strong Santeria magic. Mrs Cruz avoided Defina whenever she could.

Now Karen smiled cautiously at Defina. The big woman scowled back.

‘You’re in trouble, girlfriend,’ Defina growled.

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Karen sighed and walked past Defina to her office suite at the corner of the floor. Defina followed her. ‘What’s up? How come you’re in so early?’

‘I must have been thinking about the collection for Paris while I was sleeping. It woke me up.’

‘Now I know I’m really in trouble. Nuclear holocaust wouldn’t wake you.’

‘Well. It wasn’t just the collection,’ Defina admitted. ‘Tangela came in at six this morning and made so much goddamn noise I couldn’t get back to sleep.’ More beautiful even than Defina had been, Tangela was giving both of them a lot of trouble. Karen sighed. If Tangela had been out all night it wouldn’t be a good afternoon in the fitting rooms.

Mrs Cruz scurried in with two cups, steaming full of cafe Cubano. Silently she put them down on Karen’s work table and scurried out. Karen sank into the glove-leather swivel chair behind her work table and sighed again.

She had hired Defina just a few months after she’d hired Mrs Cruz, more than a dozen years ago. Defina had been tall, black, beautiful, and hungry. She was still all four, but had put on forty or fifty pounds since then. Naomi Sims had made the cover of Fashions of the Times back in 1967 but it had taken a lot longer for women of color to be accepted on the runways. Out of desperation, when she was broke, Karen had employed Defina as a runway model in her first show, and she’d been the first Seventh Avenue designer to use a black model. Both the clothes and Defina had been a sensation, and they’d worked together ever since: through Karen’s marriage, Defina’s various affairs, through the birth of Defina’s daughter – Tangela was Karen’s godchild – and on and on. Defina ran the showroom and modelling staff now, handling the sales force and sometimes even taking orders. Karen and Defina were more than close: they were a living diary for one another. They remembered the small day-to-day memories of more than a decade of working together, often for ten or twelve or fifteen hours a day.

‘Listen, there were plenty of times you stayed out all night back when you were eighteen,’ Karen reminded her. ‘That’s what you do when you’re young.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t let no guy start fucking me on the kitchen table and wake up my mama.’ Defina shook her head. ‘He had her panties off and her bare black ass was pressed down against my white marble-topped table like dough on a pie tin. He’d climbed up onto the table and had his Johnson out when I walked in.’ She shook her head.

‘What did you do?’

‘I threw his sorry ass out of my house! That’s my house, my kitchen, and my goddamn table. I don’t need to sponge up no funky pubic hairs of his off of it.’ Defina was a big woman – close to six foot tall – and Karen knew she was quite capable of throwing a man out of her elegant townhouse on East 138th Street. She’d done it many times before.

Now Defina crossed her arms, turned away, and stared out the window. ‘You know the saddest thing? I stopped myself – for only a minute – and wondered if I wasn’t just a little bit jealous. I mean, I know the man is worthless dogmeat, but I doubted myself for a moment. You know, it’s been almost half a year since I got any. Probably be more than that till I do get any.’ Defina shook her head.

Karen patted her shoulder. ‘Hey, just remember. It isn’t you. It’s New York in the nineties. None of my single girlfriends can find a decent man. If I wasn’t with Jeffrey, I’d kill myself.’

‘Well, just try being single, almost forty, and a black woman. Forget it! There ain’t no one out there for me. Any black man with a brain, a job, and a Johnson that’s working is chained down by the bitch he’s already with.’ Defina shook her head.

She dropped the street argot. Sometimes Karen felt Dee used it to protect herself. Defina sighed. ‘I don’t have to tell you how hard it is. I get lonely but I don’t want to settle. And I don’t want a white man. Not that I’ve had too many offers lately.’ She shook her head. ‘But what kind of example is that for Tangela? I chose to raise her in Harlem. I wanted her to be black, to be proud. But I also wanted her to be educated, to know all three Mets: the opera, the museum of art, and the baseball team. Maybe I’ve pushed her too hard. I knew it would be confusing for her, making her exceptional, but in her generation there are other educated, cultured blacks. Doctors’ sons. Lawyers’ sons. They’re going to be good men. That’s why it’s so important that Tangela meets a good man now, not some drug-dealing trash like this poor excuse for a pecker.’

Karen patted Defina again, then walked across the room to her chair. The big black woman turned to her and brightened. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ she said, going back to street talk. ‘I’m gonna put a hex on him,’ Defina said. ‘Gonna see Madame Renault and put a hex on him.’

Karen never knew whether Defina was serious or not when she talked about hexing. She knew that Defina did visit Madame Renault often and wasn’t sure whether the woman was a palm reader, a voodooer, or something worse. Karen didn’t like to inquire.

‘What did you say to Tangela?’

‘Don’t matter what I said. Matters what she heard. Which was nothing. Purely nothing. She was passed right out. Couldn’t rouse her. Left here there, bare-assed, on the cold marble. She’ll have a hell of a backache when she comes to.’ Defina shook her head. ‘Doesn’t the girl have any shame?’ she asked. Her pink lower lip trembled.

Karen got up from her chair and crossed the room. She put her arms around Defina – no easy trick. Karen held Dee for a moment until Defina hugged her back. ‘Oh, Dee, she’ll be okay. It’s just a phase. She’s a good girl.’

Defina wiped her eyes. ‘She’s been a bitch to raise. I never counted on her being so good-looking. It’s a curse for a black woman. It draws trouble to us. She’s too pretty for her own damn good.’

Karen laughed. ‘That’s what your grandma said about you. You sound just like her.’ Defina had been raised by her paternal grandma after her own mother died of a drug overdose.

‘Well,’ Defina said, brightening, ‘that’s the truth. And I didn’t turn out too bad.’

Karen laughed. ‘Oh, you’re bad all right. I saw you flirting with that photographer at the Oakley Awards. Was he drinking age?’

‘C’est pour moi de savoir et pour vous à découvrir.’

Karen made a face. ‘It sounds fancy in French but it’s still just fourth grade “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” You’re a baby. And you still don’t know how to dress. Take that turban thing off, why don’t you? And lose the beads.’ Defina wore most of Karen’s line and looked ravishing in it. The beiges, creams, and soft browns that Karen favored worked to perfection against Defina’s deep brown skin. Defina was very black; the darkest mahogany with only the slightest red undertone. And the layers of silk, cashmere, chiffon, cotton, and linen suited her down to her undergarments. But to Karen’s complete frustration, Defina insisted on adding enough jewelry, chains, beads, amulets, and charms to open a botanica. And this didn’t include the scarves, the clacking bangle bracelets, or the batik turban.

Now Karen shook her head. ‘Jesus, you have everything hanging off your neck but the kitchen sink. You’re a woman, not a store window! What is all that stuff? Why don’t you just stick your IUD on a chain and wear it around your neck?’

‘There’s an idea,’ Defina mused. ‘But I don’t use an IUD anymore, and I don’t think punching a hole through my diaphragm would be good for my uterus. Not that it gets much use.’ Defina paused then to consider. ‘Maybe I still do have my old copper T somewhere. I like copper jewelry.’ Karen shuddered. Sometimes she couldn’t tell when Defina was putting her on. ‘So, speaking of the uterus, how did it go yesterday with the doctor of all doctors?’ Defina asked.

Karen turned her head, just a bit, away from Defina and toward the windows that looked south.

‘Okay,’ she said, but she knew she wouldn’t get away with it.

‘Yeah. And I’m first cousin to the Duchess of Kent. What’s with you, girlfriend? Still trying to keep secrets from old Defina?’

‘No. Well … Look, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Honey, I told you over and over again: you want babies, you come with me to my herb woman and …’

‘Defina, would you stop it? You’re a Columbia University graduate and I am not going in for Santeria. No chicken’s blood will be shed in my name. I know you don’t really believe in that voodoo.’

‘It isn’t voodoo, and it isn’t Santeria, either. I wouldn’t have anything to do with that tacky, country thing. But Madame Renault has powers.’

Defina’s father was Haitian, though her mother had been from South Carolina. Raised in Harlem by her father’s mother, old Madame Pompey, Defina was into some weird stuff. For two years now, she’d been begging Karen to consult with Madame Renault on fertility, and had even gone so far as bringing Karen a little velvet bag, sewn closed, to sleep with. Only God and Madame Renault knew what was inside it. Defina had cautioned Karen not to open it, and Karen hadn’t even been tempted. It was a measure of her desperation that she had actually put the bag under her pillow for a few nights, until Ernesta found it and threw it away. Anyway, it hadn’t worked.

‘Well, I can see when a subject is closed. So, listen: I’m concerned about the Paris show. I really am.’

‘Great. Like I’m not already frantic. Can’t you undermine my self-confidence a little more? You want me to jump out the window?’

Defina laughed. ‘Knowing you, on the way down you’ll be yelling out that you want me to cut velvet.’

Karen had to laugh. It was the oldest joke in the rag trade: the dress manufacturer at the end of a bad season who didn’t know what to do next. In despair, he throws himself out the window, but on the way down he sees what his competitors are doing and yells up to his partner, ‘Sam! Cut vel-v-e-t!’ Karen knew that the business was in her blood that deep.

But the pressure felt more intense than ever. Maybe it was the Oakley Award that had heated everything up. But along with the rest of the stuff she had on her mind, Karen had decided that this was the season she would finally show in Paris – and she was petrified. Her fear wasn’t helping the collection. Defina’s comments weren’t helping either. ‘This stuff has got to be really good. It’s got to be great. I’m not going to get away with a little deconstruction or grunge.’

Defina pursed her lips and stuck out her tongue. It was very, very pink against her smooth black face. ‘Grunge,’ she spat dismissively. ‘The lambada of style.’ Dee’s face turned serious. ‘Look, you’ve always been different from the other designers.’

‘Yeah. For one thing all of them are gay and male.’

Defina shrugged. ‘Honey, saying “gay male fashion designer” is like saying “white Caucasian.” It’s redundant. Anyway, they’re going to be showing all kinds of wild stuff. This line can’t compete. The thing is, Karen, that none of the collection is bad. It just ain’t good.’

‘Oh, great. There’s a comfort. I’ve finally lived up to my ambition: to achieve mediocrity. And just in time for the pret. What should I do? Copy myself? You know what Chanel used to say? ‘When I can no longer create anything, I’ll be done for.’

‘Hey, Karen, don’t take it so personally. It’s a business. I figure as long as you don’t copy out of the Koran you’ll be okay. That nearly ended Claudia Schiffer’s and the Kaiser’s careers.’ Defina raised her already arched eyebrows. ‘And also try to remember that sarcasm is the devil’s weapon. I’m just trying to help.’

‘Well, you ain’t helping this morning. Do me a favor and don’t come in early again. In fact, if I see you in the office before ten A.M. ever again, you’re fired!’

Defina stuck out her pink tongue again and turned and walked out of the office. Now she’d avoid Karen. But she’d already had her say.

And Defina was right. Karen shouldn’t take it all so personally. Fashion was a funny thing – it was creative but it was so grounded in reality that its very limitations were its opportunities. And everything started with the body. Karen looked down at her own and sighed. She was herself a part of the baby-boomer generation that was now aging and needed forgiving clothes.

Young bodies, beautiful bodies, were the ones that didn’t need the disguise of clothes to cover a sagging line, rounding shoulders, or a thickening trunk. Young bodies could look great in a thirty-eight-dollar sweater dress from The Gap. It was older women who needed artifice. But the irony was that only young bodies modeled the clothes. Few girls would actually be able to afford Karen’s clothing. Karen knew her clientele: women her age and older who – no matter how thin – felt they had to camouflage their bellies or their thighs – or sometimes both. Like Defina, they’d put on weight. Or the few who hadn’t still had necks and elbows and upper arms that weren’t what they had been.

Karen’s job was to help them look great. She’d created a code for her goals. She called it ‘the three esses and the two cees’: soft, sensual, and sexy; comfortable and classy. To do it, she herself had to concentrate. She certainly hadn’t achieved it in the new collection. Now, she lined up three sketch pads on the big table in front of her. For some unknown reason, most women designers worked with the cloth on the model, while most men worked in sketches. Karen did both. She wondered, for a minute, if that made her bisexual. She grinned at her own joke, but the blank pads wiped the smile off her face. It was always hard to get started. When sketching, she worked quickly, using the three at once, so if she got stuck on something she moved to another pad before she got cold. She had already opened her drawer and pulled out a number six pencil – she felt like she needed the freedom a number six would give her – when she was interrupted. She looked up, annoyed.

‘Yes, Mrs Cruz?’ Very unusual for Mrs Cruz to come to the front offices again. What was up?

‘You want more coffee?’

‘No. Thanks anyway.’ She looked guiltily at her cup. She’d been so involved with Defina she’d forgotten to drink up. Now it was cold. ‘That’s okay.’

Without a word, Mrs Cruz picked up the cup, poured off the cold coffee into a jar, and refilled Karen’s mug with fresh, steaming café Cubano. Karen picked it up and smiled for the first time that morning. It felt so good to be taken care of.

‘Karen, I was going to talk to you when we first came up the elevator. But then we ran into Defina. Still, I should say something. There is talk among the girls in the back. I tell them to be quiet. But they still talk. About being sold. About being fired. It isn’t good for the work. What should I say? Or maybe you should say something.’

Karen looked over her cup at Mrs Cruz. The negotiations with NormCo were top secret – no one should know about them, but somehow rumors always spread. Well, Karen couldn’t blame the workroom women. Garment workers had always been exploited, and just because she had tried to do things differently was no reason for them not to fear for their jobs.

Despite being the owner of the company, Karen had been raised by Arnold to consider herself part of labor. She’d taken in his passion for fairness, what Belle called his ‘pinko socialism,’ from the time she was little. Arnold wasn’t great with kids, but in his own way he’d been sweet to Karen. He’d sit in his little study and explain some complicated issue – why the farm workers were striking, for instance, and why the Lipskys shouldn’t eat grapes from California – and Karen would listen soberly. She’d sooner cut her throat than cross a picket line, even today. So she understood the fears of the women workers.

Still, today it felt like just one more thing to deal with. And Karen wished that once, just once, someone would give her the benefit of the doubt. To believe that since she’d always hired union and paid well and fairly, that she’d continue to. That since she’d always pulled the collection together in time, that she’d manage to do it again. That since she’d always kept Jeffrey happy, she’d still manage to, even with a child. Karen sighed and put down the empty cup. Like Bill Blass, she used workers on Eighth and Ninth Avenues, not in Hong Kong. And she’d always been union.

‘Mrs Cruz, I guarantee nobody’s job is in jeopardy. You have my promise. Can you tell everyone that?’

Mrs Cruz smiled and nodded. She had a sweet smile, with tiny irregular teeth, like biwa pearls. ‘I already tell them. But I tell them again. Stronger.’ She made a motion to refill Karen’s cup but Karen waved her away.

‘No more. I’ve got enough shpilkiss already.’ Mrs Cruz had hung around the garment center long enough to know the Yiddish word for ‘restlessness.’ She nodded and left.

There was a knock, although the door was open, and Karen looked up to see a hand extended and fisted, ready to knock again. ‘Yeah?’ Who the hell was this? No one had appointments this early. Even Janet, Karen’s secretary, wasn’t in yet.

‘Hell-ow!’

Oh, God! Karen could tell by the accent that it was Basil Reed, the Brit consultant that NormCo had sent in to do a once-over. She had found him as condescending and as annoying as was humanly possible, but she’d managed to answer most of his questions and then stay out of his way. He’d finished his ‘fact-finding mission’ and submitted his report. What the hell was he doing here now?

‘I know the hours you keep, so I suspected you’d be in. Hope you don’t mind me knocking you up like this, but I just had another question or two to complete my due diligence. I came in from London yesterday, so my timing is still all balled up. Thought this might work for both of us.’

Karen blinked. Had he just said something about knocking her up? Not fucking likely with her ovaries! His accent was so ‘uppah clahss’ he was almost impossible to understand. Something about him made her want to be her most vulgar and Brooklyn. Mayfair meets Bensonhurst. A new sitcom maybe?

Basil had poked through all of her private business. He had insisted on knowing exactly who owned KInc stock. It had embarrassed Karen and made her feel, somehow, vulnerable. The fact was that she alone owned fifty percent. The rest was divided between Jeffrey, who had close to thirty percent, and other members of the family. When Jeffrey’s father had put up the investment capital, he had insisted on the thirty percent with another ten reserved for his wife and daughters. When he died, the thirty percent had gone to Jeffrey. But it was Arnold who had insisted that fifty percent belong to Karen. He had incorporated them, and drawn up the papers. In lieu of fees, he and Belle and Lisa and Leonard split the remaining ten percent. She hadn’t liked Basil Reed learning all that.

‘Come in,’ she said now. ‘Take a seat.’ It was the last thing she wanted, but she knew Jeffrey wanted her to make nice.

‘I’ve only one question, really. What are you going to cover in your presentation to NormCo?’

Oh, God! They were all going to drive her crazy with this NormCo meeting! Did Basil expect her to go over cash flow, inventory, sales and marketing costs right now? ‘I thought I’d just review the line,’ she said.

‘The lion?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. The new line.’

‘Is this some company logo you are considering? Hasn’t one already been used? I’m afraid I don’t know anything about a lion.’

‘You saw it. Remember?’ Jesus, these money men! they irritated Karen so much. All they thought about was numbers and had completely negated the actual product from whence the numbers came. ‘The line,’ she repeated.

‘I’m afraid I don’t remember. Is it an actual wild animal, or are you talking about photos or graphic design?’

‘A wild animal?’ Karen was completely confused. What the hell drug was he on?

‘The lion. Is it tame, then?’

Then she got it. ‘Not a lion. A line. The clothes we’re showing this season.’ He was a twit, but Karen had to admit that with her Brooklyn accent she did pronounce the word with two syllables a lot like the way he pronounced the animal name.

‘Oh. Yes. Of course. How very stupid of me.’ But Basil didn’t sound as if he was apologizing, nor as if he thought it was he who was ‘stew-pit.’ Jeffrey must be right about how bad I sound, Karen thought. She thought of her speech at the Oakley Awards and nearly blushed. Had she sounded awful? Jeffrey had asked her twice to have diction lessons but she’d refused. ‘I yam who I yam,’ she’d told him, doing a pretty good Popeye imitation to cover her hurt feelings. Maybe she should reconsider.

Basil Reed stood up. ‘Well. Very good, then. Splendid. I’m sure Bill will be riveted.’ Karen thought that if rivets should go into anyone she would like to see them through Basil Reed’s own forehead. ‘Well, I’m off then. See you Monday next.’

‘Yeah. Monday next,’ she said, and gratefully watched the twit leave her office. But before she could get back to work, the phone rang. It was her private line. Otherwise, she’d ignore it. But maybe it was Jeffrey, wanting to make up. She lifted the phone.

‘Karen, what was that you were wearing at the Waldorf?’

God, it was Belle. Karen wished she could just put the receiver down quietly and pretend this call was not going to happen. Oh well. Too late now. What in the world was her mother talking about? Belle hadn’t been to the Oakley Awards. ‘Did you see Newsday? The picture is terrible. You look big as a house. But what are you wearing? It’s all wrinkled.’

Karen hadn’t seen the papers but she knew that Mercedes spent a lot of time placing pictures from all of the social events that Karen and Jeffrey attended. And of course she’d push the Oakley Awards. Karen had started to get used to seeing her picture in the paper, and it was all for business. But she wasn’t used to Belle’s Monday morning quarterbacking. ‘It was satin, Ma. Satin wrinkles.’

‘But for pictures! For pictures, Karen. And why were you looking down? It makes you look like you have three chins.’

How could she explain to Belle what it was like to be barraged by paparazzi popping shots at you? Why, even the Queen of England had been caught once with a gloved finger up her nose! How could Karen explain to Belle that she had no choice over which angle of her was shot and that it was an honor for a picture – any picture – to get into the columns. After all, she had hired Mercedes Bernard to spend all of her time doing nothing but wooing the press to get this very result. But, of course, Belle hadn’t just called to harp. She’d want to stay on the line until the unspoken question was answered: why Belle had not been there. ‘Mother, I’ll call you back,’ Karen promised.

‘Jeffrey looks very nice,’ her mother said, and Karen almost laughed out loud. It was the same old Belle tactic: ‘Lisa calls me every day. Why can’t you?’ Karen shook her head.

‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Karen said, and hung up the phone. It rang again.

‘Karen?’ It was the unbearably nasal whine of Lenny, their accountant. ‘Look, I’m sorry to bother you,’ he began apologetically – Lenny always sounded apologetic – ‘but KInc is going to be late paying its federal withholding tax. After last time, you made me promise to tell you if it happened again. So now you know. Don’t tell Jeffrey I told you.’

‘How much do we owe?’

‘Not a lot. About twenty-four thousand.’

‘So why don’t we pay it?’

‘Jeffrey says he needs to pay the factor.’

‘Goddamnit, Lenny! We owe it to our staff to make their tax contribution first. Plus, now we’ll have to pay penalties.’ She heard her voice rise. Well, it was no use blaming Lenny. He just did what he was told and at least he called her and warned her this time. ‘Thanks, Lenny,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

Finally left alone, Karen closed her eyes and tried to regroup. She looked up to the framed Chanel quote she had over her office door. ‘Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportion.’ She usually spent the two quiet hours of her morning here, in her corner office, working on sketches. Without this time, how and what would she do with the fit models this afternoon?

She picked up the pencil. What was wrong with her? Why was she so blocked? She thought of poor Halston again: once he sold out, his first season’s line had succeeded, but after that all the rest had flopped. Was that what was bothering her? Well, she wouldn’t let it. Quickly, deftly, she threw a half-dozen lines on the page. A sleeve, a shoulder, and then the flowing line of a smock. No, she would make it a dress. She moved to the next pad and repeated the sleeve, narrowing it a bit, then sketched the shoulder and now a longer smock-like line. Not right. It looked like Kamali on a bad day. Karen swiveled her chair just a little bit to the left, starting this time with a simple rounded neckline, then the shoulders, and then the smock-like swirl. She put the pencil down and looked at the three pads. Jesus Christ. She’d just done her first maternity collection! Karen looked at the three attempted sketches, the obvious belly bulge below the breast line. She bit her lip. Was Jeffrey right? Was she obsessed? She would have sworn that she was not thinking, at least not consciously, about the visit to Dr Goldman. But her left brain clearly knew what her right brain was doing. Well, she wouldn’t need any clothes like these. She picked up the number six pencil and scribbled across all three pads. Goddamnit! The pencil point broke, and the pencil folded under the pressure of her hand and cracked in half.

Karen stood up and threw the broken pencil into the trash. She went to her purse and took out the two photos that she’d secreted in the side pocket. She stared at the sober little girl in the pictures. Then she put them away. Perhaps Jeffrey was right. Maybe searching for the mother of this little girl would open a can of worms.

Well, she would never get anything done this morning. Now it was not a question of discipline. From long experience Karen had developed her creativity muscle and had learned how to force herself to keep her ass in the chair until something developed. But she also had learned from long experience when nothing was going to happen. This, she could tell, was one of those times. Her confidence was shaken. Let’s face it, she told herself. You need to do some really good work and you’re not in any shape to do it.

‘Aunt Karen?’ Karen looked up, glad of an interruption now. Her niece, Lisa’s oldest daughter, stuck her head in around the corner of the door.

‘Stephanie! Hooray! You made it into the city in one piece! All ready for work?’ Karen smiled at her niece despite her panic. Oh, God! How could she have forgotten? Today was Stephanie’s first day in her internship, but neither Jeffrey nor Casey had been able to come up with something for her to do. Karen could just have her help out Janet, but photocopying would be such a drag. Karen had meant to do something about this before, but with all the other worries she hadn’t gotten to it.

She looked at her niece. The girl really was adorable. She had that lovely fresh coloring that couldn’t be faked later either with makeup or lighting. Only youth and health brought that. And she had a perfect size-eight body. Karen considered for a moment. Was she a perfect size eight? Maybe Stephanie could fill in as a fitting model. Tangela was sometimes such a pain. In the Seventh Avenue world there were two very different kinds of models: fitting and runway. Fitting models didn’t have to be young or beautiful (though it didn’t hurt), but their bodies had to be perfectly proportioned. They were used as mannequins and from the original – cut to their measurements – all sizes were made simply by adding or subtracting inches. Since fit was all important, a good fitting model, one with the right proportions, could work steadily and earn a lot of money. The wrong fitting model could ruin a whole line. In his early days, Ralph Lauren had designed with his wife, Ricky, in mind. He used Buffy Birrittella, a petite girl like Ricky, as a fitting model for all his shirts. Even when they were sized up, the shirts never fit any woman who wasn’t proportioned like Buffy. Meanwhile, Susan Jordan, easily over forty, was still used by three of the designers in 550, and her opinion about what felt right and what didn’t could make or break a design.

Yet you never saw poor Susan in a show. She just didn’t have the look and never had. Poor Tangela had perfect proportions but lacked the look. She could make a good living as a fitting model, but she wanted more.

Runway models (who sometimes were also used in showrooms) didn’t have to have quite such perfect proportions, but they had to be attractive, young, and with a look or attitude that put them across. Karen had learned from shows how important it was to have the right girls. The right girls could make magic – they could make bad designs look good and old things look new. That’s why the hot models could get the money they asked for.

Karen looked at her niece appraisingly. Maybe she’d do as a fitting model. She’d have Mrs Cruz measure her. Stephanie had no confidence, no attitude, but she might make a good fitting model. Maybe it wasn’t just guilt, charity, and nepotism that had brought Karen to hire her: the girl might be useful. But what in the world would Karen do with her now? On her first morning, shouldn’t her aunt take Stephanie out for breakfast or, at the very least, give her a tour? But Karen simply didn’t have the time. She looked at her watch. She’d already lost more than an hour of prime design time. She paused. Maybe Janet was in. She buzzed her secretary and gratefully smiled when Janet’s thick, nasal voice came in over the intercom. ‘Could you come in here?’ she asked, and smiled up at Stephanie.

Janet came in behind the girl.

‘Stephie, you know Janet, don’t you? Janet, schedule half an hour with Stephie for later in the morning. Could you take her now and show her around? Then bring her in to Mrs Cruz to have her measurements taken.’ Very casually, Karen added, ‘Maybe you’ll help out in the fitting room. Is that okay, Stephie?’

The girl nodded, her eyes big. Karen smiled. ‘You’ll just spend the morning in the showroom and the afternoon watching me work with Tangela. She’ll explain a lot about what we do. Okay?’ Stephanie nodded her head again and Janet ushered her out.

Now, Karen stared at the ruined pages on the pads in front of her. She tore them off, threw them away, and closed her eyes for a moment. She picked up the pencil and stared at the pads again. She knew it. Nothing. She waited. Still nothing came.

She had developed, over the years, a handful of tricks to corral inspiration. She’d thumb through fashion books or collections of paintings. (She’d used lots of Renaissance dress ideas.) Or she’d walk – sometimes for dozens and dozens of blocks – and stare at what people wore and how they wore it. (The awful was sometimes more inspiring than the good. People’s mistakes were interesting to Karen.) Or she’d go to her exercise class – somehow when she got her body moving she’d connect with a different part of her brain and images simply formed. Or she’d go to her own closet. Not to see what she had, but to see what she lacked. It was difficult, of course, to fill in the negative space. To imagine what she needed rather than what she had. She’d found that was the key to an important piece of clothing: the long jean skirt that she had created five years ago came from her staring into the closet and it had become a classic. So had the tent dress with the matching ten-pocket vest. And all her signature stuff in sweatshirt material. If all else failed, sometimes she’d go on shopping jaunts with Defina. They’d do a lot of looking, a lot of talking to sales clerks, and a lot of watching the other shoppers.

Maybe that’s what she could use today to get a kick start on her creativity. She hadn’t slept for hours after the argument with Jeffrey, and she already felt tired, as if the day was almost over. She couldn’t just drag herself through it, either. She had the meeting with NormCo to prepare for, and the ever-present pressure of the new collection and the Paris show. Plus a trunk show coming up in Chicago and dinner this week with a reporter from Women’s Wear. Worst of all was the major interview on the television show. That Elle Halle thing. Karen had already sweated out a segment on a Barbara Walters special, but this was an hour-long show! It was Mercedes’s idea of following up on the Oakley Award. Oy vey!

Janet, who was young and still in awe of Karen, was bustling around outside her door. Now the girl knocked and stuck her head in.

‘I just wanted to remind you that Mrs Paradise and Elise Elliot are coming in again today.’

Shit! Elise Elliot, a great star during the Audrey Hepburn era, had made a huge comeback in the critically acclaimed work of director Larry Cochran. Now they were to be married. That he was almost thirty years younger than the bride caused a great deal of talk both in Hollywood and in New York, towns that had seen everything. Now, after years of living and working together, Larry had joshed that he was going to make an honest woman out of Elise. She – a newsmaker for two generations – knew the event would be a circus for every photographer and cameraman that could crawl out of the woodwork.

She had come to Karen for help and it wasn’t easy to give. Elise Elliot knew all there was to know about clothes and was used to getting her way. Though wealthy, she still watched every penny. And she, as all great beauties, mourned the fading of her looks, the softening of her face, and was attempting perfection one last time. She’d been driving Karen crazy with the fittings.

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Every time Karen used any expletive, Janet – a nice Catholic girl from the Bronx – cringed. But the other inheritance from Janet’s parochial school upbringing was that she was the only kid under thirty who could spell – the nuns were good for teaching something other than guilt. They had also instilled in Janet the ability to cope with Karen’s ever-changing schedule. Yes, the sisters at Our Lady of the Bleeding Ulcers had prepared Janet well. They’d prepared Janet to take aggravation.

‘Do you want me to reschedule?’ Janet asked. ‘I told them it was tentative. They said they were flexible.’

That was a lie. Elise Elliot was as flexible as a cement block. A sophisticated, charming, slim, and beautiful cement block, but a cement block all the same. ‘No,’ Karen told Janet. After all, you couldn’t reschedule a legend. Elise Elliot had been a movie star for close to thirty years. Karen’s designs would get great coverage, guaranteed to make ‘Star Tracks’ in People magazine, but the whole thing had become a pain in Karen’s ass, and if Annie Paradise, the writer, hadn’t asked, Karen would never have done it. But Annie had recommended Ernesta to her, and Karen was so grateful, she’d do almost anything to oblige.

‘You know that the camera crew is coming this afternoon.’

It was too much! Jesus, when did it start to get easy? ‘No. I didn’t know that. I thought they finished up everything but my interview with Elle Halle. I thought yesterday’s taping of Jeffrey was the end of that.’

‘They say they just want some background. You know, the showroom and the workroom. Maybe one more fitting.’

‘Goddamnit!’ Karen couldn’t tell them no, either. Why was it that the bigger she got the less control she seemed to have? ‘Tell Mercedes to handle them. They always create chaos. Tell them I am not available.’

‘Okay. Okay.’ Janet backed away.

She had to get out of the office, Karen decided. She would clear her desk, then hope that Defina got into a better mood, and the two of them could schlep around to Saks or maybe they’d call a car and go all the way to Paramus. Karen preferred to shop the suburban malls than the less reality-based New York stores. She got more ideas there, somehow. For now, she’d give up on ideas. Karen gathered the pads together and was just dumping them into the wide, flat drawer where she stored them when Jeffrey walked into the room. ‘Hi, honey,’ he greeted her cheerfully.

Karen blinked in surprise. Men killed her. They really did. Didn’t he have a clue? She was still upset by their talk last night. Hurt and disappointed. And she was angry about this withholding tax business. She’d told him not to do that again. Jeffrey had pushed her to expand the company, but he’d assured her they’d have enough backing to do it. This was one more thing to make her crazy, but if she got into now they’d have another fight and she hadn’t gotten over last night yet.

How come he was acting as if nothing had happened? Didn’t he understand what last night had meant to her? Didn’t it hurt him too? Or was he just being brazen and trying to ‘tough it out’? Sometimes, when Jeffrey knew he was in the doghouse, he did use that tactic. It always left her feeling confused and vulnerable. Should she act as if nothing had happened? Should she pitch a fit? Or should she be cold and risk being accused of being overly sensitive or bitchy? Not knowing what to do, Karen figured she’d go for the tax stuff. It was easier than the baby stuff.

‘Jeffrey, what about withholding? Are we in trouble again?’

Jeffrey blinked. It was the only sign he ever gave of being surprised. ‘No, we’re not in trouble.’

‘Has it been paid?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Why not? Isn’t it due?’

‘Karen, why don’t you let me run the business? You knew that if we tried to do the bridge line we wouldn’t be able to repay our loans unless we managed to get through a couple of good seasons. Well, we’ve got the orders, but we don’t have the cash flow, and the factors are giving me a little trouble. I’m just trying to finance the piece goods you’re buying like a mad woman and pay the manufacturers enough to keep them shipping. We knew the loan was going to go up before it came down, but we didn’t know it was going to go up this much, or that our receivables would get paid on a ninety-day cycle. So if I have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, it’s only temporary. We have to keep the factors happy and confident. The IRS is never happy, so what’s the difference?’

‘The difference is, that’s not our money. The staff already earned it. You said you wouldn’t do this again.’

‘Well, I am. Don’t look at me like I’m a criminal; I’m doing it for you. Look on it as a temporary loan from your beloved staff, negotiated by your beloved husband.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’d like to start to go over the numbers with you before the NormCo presentation,’ Jeffrey said pleasantly. ‘Then you’ll understand this better. We could go over it this weekend, but you’re doing that stupid brunch.’ Karen had invited both his family and her own out to their house in Westport. She had to do it: she hadn’t invited them to the Oakley Awards and hadn’t had any of them over in months. With her niece’s bat mitzvah coming up, she felt obligated to do some family thing before that extravaganza. Jeffrey looked down at his sheaf of papers. ‘I know you don’t enjoy going over these numbers.’

Now she’d never get to work, Karen thought with a pang. ‘That’s okay,’ she said.

‘This afternoon looks good for me,’ he said. ‘It’s important that you understand all the figures, just in case you’re asked. It would hurt our credibility if you wound up looking like window dressing.’ The man was incredible. Business as usual. Last night had never happened, or meant nothing.

‘Jeffrey, I’m not an idiot and I’m not window dressing,’ she snapped.

He waved his hand. ‘Oh, you know what I mean. I don’t want them to think that you don’t have a clue about the business end and are just some flighty designer.’

She looked at him steadily. ‘Why should they think that?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘Of course not. I know it.’

She didn’t like his joke. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ she said coldly and buzzed for Janet. ‘Send Defina in,’ she told Janet. ‘I’m ready for her.’

Jeffrey knew he’d been dismissed and he didn’t like it. ‘Just be ready for me at noon,’ Jeffrey told her. ‘We have a lot to go through.’ He turned and tried to slam the door, but wisely, years before, Karen had put an air compressor on the hinge. No one was going to slam the door on her, in her office, she figured. She could just see Jeffrey stalking past Defina in the hallway. He ignored her.

‘Spread the joy,’ Defina cried out to him as she hustled into Karen’s office. ‘Glad I’m not married, when I take a look at you two this morning,’ she said cheerfully. ‘What’s coming down?’

‘Men. You can’t live with ’em …’

‘And you can’t live with ’em,’ Defina finished for her. ‘So, what’s next?’

‘When the going gets tough …’ Karen began.

‘The tough go shopping!’ Defina exclaimed, finishing Karen’s sentence again. Defina grinned and waited while Karen grabbed her purse and put on her lipstick.

‘One thing I know,’ Karen said. ‘I’m not going to be back here to see him at noon.’ At Janet’s desk, Karen paused for a moment. ‘Cancel the models, see if you can move Miss Elliot’s fitting to tomorrow, and tell my husband he can forget about the NormCo presentation rehearsal. I’m out of the box until three.’ She walked down the hall with long strides, Defina at her side.

‘Girlfriend,’ Defina said approvingly, ‘you are every husband’s nightmare: a wife with her own Gold Card.’

At the elevator, the new receptionist called out to her. it’s your sister,’ she said. ‘Will you take the call?’

Oh shit! Karen realized that she still hadn’t called Lisa. One more thing she had to do. ‘Tell her I’ll call her from the car phone,’ Karen barked, and she and Defina stepped into the steel box of the elevator.