Anio Szado (13 page)

I tried to keep my eyes and focus trained on the view, over Consuelo’s shoulder, as she inspected my outfit. I tried to not read too much into her touch. I tried talking myself through it, to distract myself. I made myself imagine what it would be like to live here, twenty-three floors above the city, Central Park unspooling endlessly below. Just let Consuelo do what she must, I told myself. Let her take her time. You did the work to make this piece as perfect as possible; do nothing to stop her from discovering that for herself. I told myself it was no different than how a designer handled a model: objectively, hands on fabric, unintentional fingers on skin.

Consuelo fingered the fabric of my unlined, collarless jacket where it crossed my chest on a diagonal, following the line down to the single covered button at the left side of my waist. “I should have taken your jacket at the door. I’ll take it now.”

Deftly, she undid the button and held the coat open. It slid from my shoulders. Under it, I was wearing a matching, sleeveless dress, a narrow wrap style that mimicked the lines of the cover-up.

Underneath that, almost nothing.

I knew the tenets Valentina imposed on her clients. I had dared myself to create an ensemble that would justify following them myself. But it was one thing to walk in a veil of steady rain, with an umbrella held low and a parcel pressed against your front. It was another to stand inches from a client, from someone as curious, sensuous, and bold as Consuelo, with only a
swath of silk like a watercolor wash separating the skin of your breasts from your interrogator’s eyes and hands.

I willed my shoulders to ease down, my arms to hang loose and relaxed at my sides. I told myself to learn what I could from Consuelo’s expression as she studied the design.

A second time, she ran her hand from the top right to the bottom left, now turning the edge to assess the width and bulk of the hem. The light-woven silk faille yielded to her touch.

Her face softened as she handled the fabric. She seemed to lose her hyper self-awareness as she gave over fully to the experience of touch.

“You mentioned that you make art,” I said. “You’re a sculptress?”

Consuelo looked up, surprised. “How did you know?” Her brown eyes narrowed. “Did Tonio tell you?”

“I asked because of how you use your hands.”

“How do I use them?”

“Like an artist with clay. How a writer uses words.”

“Oh God,” Consuelo laughed. “With agony?”

“With sensitivity and confidence.”

“You really haven’t been talking to Tonio, not if you think writers feel confident as they work.”

“I don’t know about writers, but I know what it’s like to be someone who works with her hands.”

“You do indeed. Your work isn’t like that of an apprentice. Not at all.”

She placed her fingers on my shoulders and slowly spun me around until I was looking at Binty’s profile. He paid us no regard. He’d put his notebook aside to read a newspaper. Through the supple fabric, I could feel Consuelo’s touch on the nape of my neck, on my spine, and then on the small of my back. Her hands moved to my sides and probed for the seam allowance, testing the fit. Then her palms slid down my rib cage, igniting a thousand nerve endings as they travelled.

I swallowed a gasp.

Consuelo’s fingers curled around my torso and slipped down until they rested on the bones of my hips. She said, very close, “The draping here”—her fingertips pressed—“is superb.”

“Thank you,” I said, my voice uneven.

Consuelo chuckled softly and breathed a word into my ear: “Brava.” Then she released me, moved past me, and rejoined Binty on the sofa. “There is no label at the neckline of your dress. Your ensemble is, of course, designed by Véra Fiche?”

I hesitated. Madame had never even seen this dress.

“Naturally,” mused Consuelo, “you wouldn’t try to woo a client wearing anything else. A countess, for example, can’t be expected to wear something some unknown assistant thought up.”

“Of course.”

“I admit I’d no idea Atelier Fiche had such finesse.”

“But now that you know …”

Binty flung his pencil over his shoulder. It hit a wall, bounced to the floor, and rolled to a stop. “For God’s sake, spit it out, Minion.”

“Would you like to come to the studio and see what else we’ve been working on?”

Binty applauded. “Finally. Okay, Consuelo, say yes and put the thing out of her misery.”

“As you wish, darling. Mignonne, tell your boss I’ll visit the studio sometime in the next few weeks.”

“Ta-da,” said Binty. “Mission accomplished.” He took his pencil from my outstretched hand. “Ciao, pleasant one.”

I pulled on my jacket and fumbled with its closing as I walked to the foyer.

Consuelo waggled her fingers goodbye. She was barely repressing a laugh.

Rainstorm over for the moment, the street was fresh and clean. I crossed to Central Park to gather my thoughts among the trees. The park seemed to be opening up, its benches washed of grit, its oaks and roses still silently soaking up the welcome drink. I could walk its paths again, or I could walk the sidewalks for a while; the last thing I wanted now was to go underground.

I chose the streets. Let people look at me, look at my outfit, at how I walked. I had done it! With hardly a word, I had earned Consuelo’s commitment to visit the studio. Madame could do things her own way, sell fashions through smooth-tongued guile; I might never master that skill, but today I had proven there could be another way. Consuelo would come to the studio sometime in the next few weeks.

What on earth could we show her? Had I come up with anything, beyond the dress I wore now, that I’d be proud to call my own? I did a mental inventory of my sketchbooks as I walked. The drawings melted together, one forgettable piece into another. Was there nothing striking and memorable, nothing that could make Consuelo leap up and take notice?

I replayed the events of the last hour: how she had been captivated, even captured, by the simplest of garments, an unadorned wrap. And yet this same woman had loved the ornate Butterfly Collection. How much of it was about the clothes, and how much was about how they were worn?

I emerged from the park and set off down the sidewalk. People were standing in open doorways, sitting on stoops, anything to try to catch a fresh breeze. I was walking past a shoe store when
a few buildings ahead something white tumbled down from the sky. It landed on the sidewalk with a muffled thump.

A pillow. I looked up. Three stories up, two young boys were peering from the rooftop, guffawing. At street level, a door flew open. A boy in bare feet and pajama bottoms scrambled out. He grabbed the pillow and held it at arms’ length as he stood catching his breath.

“We’re going to sleep on the roof,” he said.

“Isn’t it wet up there?”

“Who cares!”

What was stopping me from pouring out ideas? How had I done it before? Week after week, as a student, I had produced and produced. Where had all those concepts come from?

I needed a trigger, something strong and distinctive. Did I expect something to fall like a pillow from the sky?

The rain started and stopped twice by the time I made it back. I was sodden. In my flustered state, I’d left my umbrella in a stand in Consuelo’s lobby. I hoped to slip into the studio, grab a garment from a rack, and get changed in the bathroom down the hall without too much attention. But when I entered, Madame was there in a black raincoat, hanging her key on a nail by the door. Her stark brow lifted and furrowed.

“I’ve been at the Saint-Exupérys’,” I explained, beginning to shiver a little. “I have good news: Consuelo said she’ll come to the studio to see our work!”

“This is a revelation? Did I not already arrange this through
le Comte
de Saint-Exupéry?” Her lip curled as she took in my clothes. “You are completely soaked to the skin.”

“Not quite.” I looked down. The fabric was clinging provocatively to my arms and thighs. Even the extra layer of the jacket couldn’t completely obscure the form of my nipples pressing against the dress. I crossed my arms.

Madame spoke in a tone of severe distaste. “One generally
wears more than a nightgown to visit a count and his lady.” With two squeamish fingers, she lifted the end of my damp sleeve. “What is this?”

“I made it with the countess in mind. I was thinking we should develop a couple of variations to show her when she comes.”

Madame dropped the sleeve as though finding it repulsive. “You tell me she likes clothing that is theatrical, then you try to entice her with this? You are wearing”—she moved her hand through the air as though struggling to find words—“a sheet! You are like a child who takes from the bed a sheet to wrap herself and pretends she is a goddess of ancient Rome.”

“It’s faille.”

“I know it is faille, and from my own supply.
Vous pensez que je suis stupide
? I don’t care if it is gold leaf. You haven’t made something notable of it. You’ve just hung it from your shoulders.”

“That’s not true. I worked very hard on this outfit, and I learned a lot making it. I designed it with hardly any seaming. I cut the jacket on the bias—”

“I see very well what you did. You minimized and rolled the hems. You completely eschewed interfacing and lining and other critical elements. Do you think I could not do this if I wanted to? You haven’t invented anything new.”

“No, but I don’t believe it’s widely done.”

“Of course not! Who would wear something like this? A lady needs a properly structured garment—and properly structured undergarments,” she added pointedly, “if she is to feel properly dressed.”

“It is highly structured—in a different way. The fabric does the work. You have to see how it moves when it’s not wet. You’ll love how it drapes. You’re the one who taught me to pay close attention to how fabrics perform.”

“It is one thing to understand the idiosyncrasies of a textile. It is quite another to be under its thrall. One doesn’t sacrifice
dignity for the feel and drape of the fabric on the skin. A lady does not get dressed in order to feel naked.”

Maybe that was true, I thought, but was that so different from dressing to feel like a woman?

We had argued so long at the door that the damp fabric had begun to dry and anger had heated me through and through. I stood sketching at the closed windows, my drawing board propped against the long ledge. I would rather catch influenza than give Madame the pleasure of seeing me slink off to change and come pussyfooting back in something she deemed respectable.

The fabric, as it released its dampness, lifted away from my skin. It shifted as I drew, even as I filled my pages with harsh and rigid strokes.

Occasionally as I swiveled to pluck a piece of conté from the box on my worktable, I caught Madame watching me. Once, I heard her sigh.

Eventually, Madame swore quietly, got up from her table, and disappeared into the depths of the bulging racks and overstuffed shelving units that crowded her end of the studio. I could hear her restacking things. I heard her sliding wooden crates. When I paused in my sketching I thought I could hear her fingernails rub against cardboard as she dug through boxes. In the long pauses between movements, I pictured her running her hands over fabrics, lifting them to test the weight, feeling their movement in her grip and on her wrists—for I didn’t believe that even Madame could escape their thrall. Surely no one becomes a designer without a sense of wonder and want.

Madame Fiche emerged with a rectangle of white material folded neatly in her arms. She crossed the studio to stand on the other side of my worktable and held the fabric out to me. “Here.”

I wiped my hands on a rag. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“It is Japanese silk chiffon,” said Madame. “Perhaps the last piece in all of New York.”

“And?”

Madame cursed, low and filthy. She grabbed the top layer of fabric, lifted it, and in a swift and forceful motion snapped the entire yardage into the air.

The power of her movement passed like a wave through the weave, sweeping it open in a rippling flash of white. The silk captured the air below it and floated down, shimmering, falling as silently as snow, blanketing my table and streaming from it onto the pitted floor. Through the fabric on the table rose the form of my scissors, the screw at the joint of the scissors, my box of conté, the sticks of conté left lying outside the box, my key, the hole at the head of my key.

The chiffon was so delicately woven that it took on the finest imprint of whatever it touched, clinging like a lover to a lover. Yet where it draped from the table, it seemed made to caress only the air and to seek only its own soft folds.

“Oh,” I breathed.

Madame took several steps back. “
Eh bien
. Make something.” She crossed the studio, pulled her raincoat from the hook, and left.

The studio was magical in the moonlight; I hadn’t seen this before.

I had put down my sketch pad when the rain finally ceased for good, and opened the windows to let in the night air. It drifted in, past me, releasing the faille from my torso where the postures and perspirations of work had pressed it to my flesh, reminding me of that afternoon’s soaking and of warm honey on Consuelo’s skin.