Anio Szado (12 page)

On the twenty-third floor, Consuelo listened to the concierge mangle Mignonne’s name. “It’s pronounced ‘La-sha-pell,’ ” she told him, “not ‘Lash-pill.’ ” And people complained about her French!

In the bedroom, she threw off her house robe and pulled on a blue ski outfit and leopard-print boots. Designers these days were too inclined to produce pap for the masses; all the more so since the government had stuck their fingers into the business. Let the girl get a taste of a true, instinctual, untamed fashion sense. Besides, the ski pants hugged Consuelo’s shapely derrière like nothing else could.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said when Consuelo finally answered her knock. “You’re about to go out?”

“Not at all. Join us for coffee.” Consuelo opened the door to reveal her sitting room. The apartment had come furnished, unfortunately, by some stodgy and sincere secretaries—or some such thing—of Tonio’s American publisher, women whose selections had been so tiresome and mundane that Consuelo’s eyes had bled dry. It had taken her weeks to purge the worst of the furniture and take delivery of a few good pieces, the sort that made a room: furniture worth spending money on.

She gave Mignonne time to take it all in: the expensive modern sofa and chairs, the carefully chosen antiques that she was still in the process of arranging to best advantage, the long clear coffee table bearing a silver carafe on a tray, a couple of half-full cups, the remains of that morning’s croissant on a plate, and Binty’s open notebook. He sat on the sofa in his double-breasted
pinstriped suit and his small round glasses, writing, his knees spread, his elbows on his thighs.

“Remember Mignonne?” Consuelo asked him. “We met her in the lobby of the Alliance. She had just returned from Montreal to conquer
haute couture
.”

Binty glanced up and went back to his notebook. “Great. If there’s one thing this city needs, it’s another model.”

“She was Tonio’s teacher.”

“Oh, right. The tutor.”

Mignonne said, “Actually, I’m a fashion designer. Or I will be.”

Consuelo joined her lover on the sofa and linked her arm through his, leaving Mignonne standing. “Remember that name, Binty: Mignonne Lachapelle.”

Binty extricated himself. “Minion? As in slave?”

He was such a sharp wit.

The girl said, “Mignonne. It’s a French word.”

“Meaning?”

“Pleasant.”

Consuelo corrected her. “Charming. Delightful. A pretty little thing. And isn’t she just?” She patted the sofa beside her. “Sit, Mignonette.”

Mignonne chose a chair to Consuelo’s left, low to the ground, with a simple dark iron frame and white leather cushions. It looked good with an attractive girl in it, especially one dressed in such an understated, refined ensemble—a ravishing ensemble, actually; deceptively simple. And the choice of chair put her and her outfit on eye level with Consuelo for a change. Smart girl. Worth a closer trial.

“Mignonne is a girl of many talents,” said Consuelo. “A student of fashion. A deputy of her father’s esteemed cultural club. A former teacher.” She curled her hand into a loose fist and clicked the ends of two long, pastel-green nails against each other. Watch the girl carefully now. “And perhaps a
petite amie
.”

“English,” said Binty.

“Girlfriend.” As if he couldn’t tell that by looking at Mignonne—those outrageously blue doe eyes, the unconscious grace with which she moved. Tonio must have been half in love with his beautiful tutor. But Mignonne, sitting so composed in the low chair, hadn’t reacted to the suggestion. Maybe he hadn’t been. Or maybe she had rebuked him. How dare she rebuke him? Only Consuelo understood how fragile and insecure Tonio could be.

The girl was quieter today than she had been at the Alliance; even somber, without the excitement with which she had told Consuelo about her prospects with Véra Fiche. But she was still guileless, still unguarded. Those eyes. A bit of sadness suited her. A woman was more attractive when her pain rose a little to the fore.

I focused on sitting up straight in the low chair. My pale gold dress and its matching jacket each wrapped across my front to form a collarless V neck and would gape in a most revealing way if I slouched. I had telephoned Consuelo, and had come all this way via Brossard’s and through Central Park without arriving at any conclusion on how to make my pitch. If I had no words with which to sell Atelier Fiche, at least I could try my best to do so using the clothing on my back.

Consuelo was continuing her report to Binty. “Tonio says she was a good teacher. But he’s through with all that. They’re just friends, is what he says. He tells me they have barely spoken since her return.”

“The man is in another country, after all.”

“Before that, Binty. What a pest you are. Tonio is a paragon of self-control, or so he tells me: too busy writing and lecturing and meeting with his endless generals to even think about
l
’
amour
! His poor darlings. Up and down Manhattan, all the beautiful girl toys are weeping into their satin sheets.”

“Look who’s talking,” said Binty.

“Oh, yes, I weep too, now and then. But I have my consolations.” Her gaze swept over me. I was listening, trying to make sense of her claims and to balance them against Antoine’s insistence that his wife told lies. She had a way of talking that sometimes bounced off my ears or confused my thinking; it took far more concentration to follow her unique logic than it did to listen to her clear illogic. Besides, my mind was wandering: I kept
wondering whether Antoine’s apartment was as magnificent and stylish as this one.

Consuelo yanked my focus back. “Why are you here?” she asked coldly.

It was an interesting question. How complicated the answer could be. “You said you like the work of Atelier Fiche.”

Consuelo looked away, toward the Central Park view. Though the rain had stopped, the overcast sky was heavy and dark, the bulky clouds cumbersome.

Was I boring her? Consuelo had seemed glad to have me there when I first arrived, but now—should I leave?

I thought, I’ll just stand up and go.

But instead, Consuelo rose. She walked to the wide window, the sway of her hips exaggerated by the clacking heels of her ankle boots, the swishing of her nylon pants. I had never created something quite so form-fitted, so blatantly, purposefully gauche. Madame Fiche would have a tantrum. Yet, on Consuelo, it worked; it was irreverent and fun.

Or, at least, it had seemed fun before this sudden change.

“I like Atelier Fiche, and you are with Atelier Fiche,” she said. “Blah blah blah. What of it?”

Binty said, “The minion wants your business. Isn’t it obvious? Here comes the spiel.”

Without turning around, without trying to catch my eye in the reflecting glass expanse, Consuelo commanded, “Get up.”

Was she talking to me?

I looked at Binty. He closed his notebook and crossed his legs. I stood, and immediately wanted only to disappear. But Consuelo had turned; she looked me up and down. She motioned with raised fingers: Come to me.

I tried to cast myself into the bodies of the models I’d seen in fashion parades and in the pages of
Vogue
: hips forward, walk a line, pose with front foot turned suggestively out.

I forgot about Binty, I forgot about the lushness of the apartment
and the vertigo-inducing view. I saw only the calculation and commanding desire in Consuelo’s eyes. With careful posture, with unhurried, even steps that belied the choppiness of my breath and the racing of my heart, I crossed the parquet floor.

Nice.

Consuelo was tempted to make the girl turn around and do it all over again: watch her beguiling movements from the back as she retreated, savor again the languid ease with which she approached from across the room. It had been a long while since she’d had someone she could play like a Pinocchio. Binty was mostly amenable to her whims, but only when it suited him. He was his own man, with his own caprices.

“Do you know why I adore Valentina?” asked Consuelo, letting Mignonne remain standing before her, ready for inspection, beginning to tremble a little on her feet.

The girl asked, “Because of her draping?”

“Because she appreciates the body. Not as a receptacle for color theory or formal construction techniques, but as the most raw and intimate thing that exists in nature.”

Oh, the girl was a much better listener than Tonio when it came to discussing design. For him, concrete details existed only to convey the abstract, to vault the reader to some higher or inner realm. The man could write, but he was no sculptor or designer. Just try to tell him about the feel of a fabric, about the way it communicated with the skin. This girl, though, look at her hang on Consuelo’s words! Such concentration and anticipation. This was why Consuelo loved to instruct. She should have been a teacher! Not a stuffy professor, though; a mentor.

The first rule of mentorship was to discompose one’s most self-possessed student.

Consuelo went on. “Valentina works with only the most exquisite, most sensual fabrics, and shapes them with the sparest of seams. There is no interfacing, no padding of the shoulders, nothing to obscure the beauty of the material or the woman on whom it is draped. When I speak of real design, this is what I speak of. One can only submit fully to it. Under a Valentina, one must wear nothing, only bare skin.”

The girl’s cheeks had grown flushed in the centers. Now a delicate rosiness sprung up on her chest, within the valley of that deep, layered gold V.

Very nice.

Consuelo touched the edge of the fabric that crossed the girl’s chest, steadying the hem, her cool fingers sensitive to its trembling and to the warmth of Mignonne’s skin. She thrilled to imagine the emotion that would overtake Mignonne if she were to nudge the fabric aside. Her fingers itched to provoke it. She said, “Don’t be alarmed, darling. We are daughters of Eve. We were made to live naked, to take pleasure in one another. Clothing is an aberration. It’s a punishment from the Lord.”

Binty stretched and yawned.

God, he was irritating. He knew nothing about fashion, or sensuality, or the intricacies of sex. Rut like a chimpanzee, that was all he knew. Not that Consuelo minded some rutting now and then. Better that than nothing. But still, a woman of her beauty, her life force, her drive, was entitled to some variety. Consuelo’s tastes ranged beyond the simian and the silver dollar—though the ready combination had its obvious appeal. She was a woman of refined and diverse tastes. And what one appreciates, one should pursue: it was a duty to art and soul.

Consuelo asked, “Did I tell you about my earliest foray into fashion, when I created the most beautiful dress in the history of the world?”

Mignonne shook her head. Her hair gleamed.

“It is precisely why the Butterfly Collection caught my eye. I
was just a child, as wild as the tropical forests of Central America. When the cook had her back turned, I snuck into the pantry and stole an enormous jar of honey. I took it into the forest and shed every stitch of my clothing, leaving it on the ground for the snakes and the rats. Then I ran through the trees until I found a patch of sunlight that tunneled down from the canopy. I stood there”—she trailed her fingers through a strand of Mignonne’s hair—“as you stand before me now, and let the honey drip over every inch of my body. I can still feel it oozing down my shoulders and the tender buds of my chest.”

She laid the lock of hair between Mignonne’s collarbones. “I ran through the forest, dripping and sticky. With every step, a dozen butterflies alit on my skin and stayed there swaying, riffling their wings. When I emerged from the darkness I was wearing a brilliant garment made of shimmering butterflies, of every size and color you can imagine.”

Binty guffawed. “Honey? Sure.”

Mignonne said, “And that’s why you’re so sweet.”

Spunk. Where did that come from? Fickle bitch.