Chloe (13 page)
Blushing, Chloe paused, posed. Suddenly the faces staring didn’t bother her. They weren’t interested in her, just Madame Blanche’s clothing. Her father always putting her on display had made her feel cheap, but that was different than this. She smiled and then hid it.
Remember, these people bore you.
She strutted back to the rear door. Just as she reached it, Minnie emerged from the rear.
A gasp shuddered through the room, gaining momentum, wild-firing through the gathering. Minnie didn’t falter. She sauntered past Chloe—without a glance to either side—paused and posed as rehearsed, and made her turn near the front door.
Chloe had reentered the partially open door. There she sheltered behind it while the seamstresses stripped off her dress. Chloe watched Minnie pause several times, pose as taught, and then walk on. Minnie’s head was held high and her eyes looked over the audience as though they were so far beneath her she was barely aware of their existence. The men at the back were scribbling frantically on their pads and the women in the audience looked shocked, stunned. Then their faces bent toward their neighbors. They whispered, shaking their heads.
The second dress had been fitted and buttoned onto Chloe. She waited—breathless, keyed up, ready to make her next appearance, ready to reenter the fray. Minnie passed her and Chloe took off without a word, her chin forward. She made a grand entrance, paused, swirled, sauntered. The buzz about Minnie blossomed fuller. Chloe ignored it.
Finally at the last possible moment before she and Minnie changed places once more, she looked down her nose at the faces, daring them to object to Minnie. Chloe held the pose until one by one the audience fell silent under her disdain. Then Chloe swirled and stalked back to the dressing room. At that moment Chloe knew what she must do on the morrow. If she had the nerve.
C
hloe wondered if she had the courage today would demand. She and Minnie stole into Madame Blanche’s shop. Today the familiar shop, done in sharply contrasting white and black, struck Chloe as stark and daunting instead of vividly sophisticated as it had before.
Only yesterday Madame’s fashion debut had taken place in this shop. In carrying out their parts, Chloe and Minnie had broken many rules. It left them different, changed. All the weeks of planning leading up to the preview had not prepared Chloe for the moment she’d stepped out of the back room. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the feeling of liberation that had come to her as she advanced from the role of debutante to professional fashion model. Too, nothing had prepared her to watch Minnie step above herself, leave behind her role of obedient Negro maid. The fashion showing and the celebration afterward had been liberating. But today was the day of decision. Really a day of action.
Chloe tried to ignore the tremors sliding up and down her spine. Minnie looked haunted, her lovely, creamy-tan face drawn down into deep, tense lines. “I don’t want to lose this job.” The words squeezed out of her.
“I know.” Chloe patted Minnie’s arm, feeling her own stomach clench. She tried a smile and failed.
Minnie lowered her head. “I feel like a coward. And this is New York City, not East St. Louis.”
Just then Madame Blanche burst out of the back room. “I hear your voices. Why do you not rush back? See! See the papers!” With one of her customary flourishes, Madame displayed a section of the
New York Times
. The title of the full-page article read: “
MADAME BLANCHE FASHIONS CROSS THE COLOR LINE
.”
“It is about you two. Marshfield doubted. But Blanche knows how to turn heads, how to make the splash.”
Chloe took the paper and read aloud, “‘Yesterday, Madame Blanche, a refugee fresh from war-torn Paris, officially opened her shop. And the newest couturier on Fifth Avenue did so with panache. The Frenchwoman’s style indeed amazed, but more shocking was her choice of models. Heart-achingly beautiful blonde Lorraine modeled the Blanche designs with an airy grace. But her companion, the devastatingly beautiful Negro model Mimi, stole the show. The
modeles de Madame
made the summer collection dazzle and amaze the eye. The French have many colonies in Africa and this reporter wonders which one—perhaps Senegal—Mimi hails from. Surely no American Negress possesses the beauty and poise displayed by the divine Mimi.’”
Chloe looked up, wide mouthed. “‘The divine Mimi.’”
“What trash.” Minnie dismissed it with a slash of her hand. “‘No American Negress possesses the beauty.’ Trash. I’m gone call that man and give him what-for.”
“Non, non,”
Madame objected, waving a ring-encrusted hand. “This is better. The mystery. You need to retain the mystery. Women, men—all will come to see, to learn the truth. We will not tell them.” Madame’s face lifted into a mischievous smile. “Does it matter, Mimi, if you are from Senegal or from America?”
Minnie glared at the newspaper as though the reporter were standing in front of her. “I’ll do whatever you want, Madame,” she agreed, one side of her mouth still twisted in anger. “You give—gave me this job and I’m thankful.”
Madame put an arm around Minnie. “Men are foolish. Every woman of intelligence knows this. But we women use this against them, no?”
Minnie gave a grudging smile.
Then Chloe decided the paper had another use. She inhaled deeply and flipped back to the front page. “Madame Blanche, did you see this article?” Chloe pointed to the main story: “
RACE RIOTERS FIRE EAST ST. LOUIS AND SHOOT OR HANG MANY NEGROES; DEAD ESTIMATED FROM 20 TO 75: MANY BODIES IN THE RUINS, MOBS RAGE UNCHECKED.
”
“I did not read that.” Madame turned toward the rear, brushing it aside. “It is sad, no?”
“Yes, it is,” Chloe replied, her stomach churning. “Madame, there’s to be a march right here on Fifth Avenue to show sympathy for those who’ve died in East St. Louis.”
Halting, Madame turned and then gave each of them a measuring look. “Yes?”
Chloe drew herself up. “Madame, Minnie and I want to join the march today.” And then she felt a little sick.
Minnie clasped and unclasped her hands. “I can’t thank you enough, Madame, for giving me this job—”
“A march on Fifth Avenue?” Madame looked from Chloe to Minnie and back again.
“Yes.” Chloe’s lungs were being crushed by some unseen force. Fear of losing her job, fear of Minnie losing her job, and overall the threat of a violent backlash that might greet a march by the NAACP terrified her. She inhaled deeply and forced out words, “Yesterday I heard them whispering about Minnie. Just because Minnie has dark skin—why does that make her less beautiful?” Chloe felt her panic rising, but she couldn’t stop the words. “Madame, you saw Minnie as she is. A beautiful woman, not a person who can’t do anything but serve white people.” Chloe tried to say more but could only force out, “Please.”
Minnie moved close to Chloe and slipped her arm into Chloe’s. “Please, Madame.”
The Frenchwoman studied them for a very long moment. Chloe heard her heart pounding in her ears. Would they be fired? If they marched, would they be pelted with stones as marchers had been in other cities?
“When does this march start?” Madame tapped one toe.
“Right now,” Minnie stammered. “They’re gathering a few blocks from here.”
“We go.” Madame tossed the paper aside. “We all go.”
“What?” Chloe asked. She felt hot, then cold.
“Madame Blanche and her two models—we march together!”
Minnie’s mouth dropped open.
“Are you serious?” Chloe asked, her pulse dancing.
“Oui! Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!”
She swung around and called to the seamstresses in the rear. “We will be back soon. Watch the shop!” Madame took Minnie and Chloe each by an arm. “Come. We march. Blanche and her
modeles—blanc
and
noir
.”
Speechless, Chloe let Madame hurry them out the door into the bright July sunshine and down Fifth Avenue. The march had already begun. Within a block, they saw the protesters advancing, thousands and thousands filling the street from side to side. Leaders of the NAACP led the marchers, carrying together in front of them a long banner reading: “In sympathy with the Negroes killed in E. St. Louis.”
Brushing through the bystanders along the street like a queen, Madame steered Chloe and Minnie into the ranks of marchers.
“Liberte!”
she shouted.
“Egalite! Fraternite!”
Several of the marchers joined her. Soon the motto of the French nation echoed off the fashionable storefronts. Chloe looked around at the sea of dark faces she and Madame Blanche had penetrated. How had she come to this? What if someone she knew from home saw her? What would her parents—and Roarke—think? What would Theran think if he knew?
Then Madame broke out into song. Chloe recognized it; she’d heard it played during newsreels about the war in France. It was the French national anthem. Again, more voices joined Madame Blanche. The brave song heartened Chloe. Deeply moved by the stirring melody, she felt tears clogging her throat. She glanced past the dark faces around her to the crush of white observers lining the street.
Suddenly her eye caught those of a well-dressed white matron on the curb. The woman stared at her, horrified recognition dawning on her face. Shocked, Chloe realized she’d met the woman at a party the year before. She was an acquaintance of her mother’s. Chloe’s knees nearly buckled. But before she could react further the crowd dragged her on and the woman was hidden from view. The joyful Madame beside her sang on loud and strong, and with the words Chloe gained strength. Come what may she wouldn’t let herself be cowed.
When the line,
“Marche on, marche on,”
came again, she joined in, not knowing the words but humming along with Madame. It didn’t matter if the woman had recognized her. Her parents couldn’t take her home. She was the wife of a soldier, a working woman who could support herself.
I am here. I’m doing this not for Mother or Daddy or Theran. This is for Minnie.
She couldn’t wait to describe the scene to Theran in her next letter. She’d never felt so alive in all her life. Not even in his arms.
It was early fall. Chloe studied her reflection in one of the mirrors in the back room at Madame Blanche’s, eyeing her waistline and stomach critically. For just this moment, everyone was busy looking elsewhere and Chloe was left alone there. Any moment now two favored customers scheduled to attend a private preview of Madame’s fall line would pass through the front door.
I can’t do this right now.
Chloe closed her eyes and steadied her nerves. Even if what she suspected were true, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
She glanced toward the front of the store as the customers swept in, wearing fox fur collars and rubies. Madame Blanche’s dramatic welcome drifted into the back room. Chloe turned to her dresser and let the girl straighten the shoulders of the first dress she was to model and arrange a few artful curls around Chloe’s face under the snug hat brim.
“Lorraine,” Madame summoned in an imperious tone,
“s’il vous plaît.”
Putting everything else out of her mind, Chloe straightened her shoulders and strolled out to the showing area. Two fashionable society matrons sat on molded chairs, languid and spoiled, while Chloe performed the routine she could do without even thinking anymore. Madame’s voice blended into the background as Chloe took up her interrupted train of thought. Her suspicions leaped back to mind, tormenting her.
I can’t do this right now.
Then something unexpected penetrated Chloe’s consciousness. What was it? Chloe listened with more attention. It was Kitty’s voice in the back room. Why had she come? Something sounded wrong. Chloe refused to let herself frown and obeyed Madame’s instructions for her to turn once more to let one of the ladies finger the fabric. Then Chloe was dismissed and Minnie stepped out past the mirrors. She sported a morning frock of deep royal blue. Chloe reentered the back room and let the dressers converge on her. She was right; Kitty was waiting for her. “Kitty,” she began, “what brings—”
Kitty threw her arms around Chloe, sobbing.
The dressers looked disgruntled. “Please, miss,” one pleaded, pulling Kitty away from her, “we have to help her into the next outfit.” The dressers succeeded in detaching Kitty from Chloe and piloted her friend into a nearby chair. While they began stripping Chloe and changing her, Chloe demanded, “What’s wrong, Kitty?”
“I’m so sorry, Chloe. So sorry.”
Kitty’s words lit a fire in Chloe’s heart. She froze in place. “What’s happened? Tell me.”
Kitty pulled a yellow telegram from her purse. “Mrs. Rascombe didn’t want to bother you here, but she went to pick up the mail at the post office and this was waiting for you. She called me to come over and get it. She wanted me to break it to you. I . . . opened it, Chloe, just to be sure.” Kitty’s tears flowed. “Theran was my friend, too.”
Was . . . Theran was . . . Chloe ceased to breathe. The room receded; a mist of flashing pinpoints of light hit her in the face. She staggered. Leaping up, Kitty grasped her arm. “You look faint. Sit down.”
The urge to succumb rolled through Chloe. She clutched at what was real—the dressers, the back room, the sound of Madame Blanche’s smooth selling voice . . .
Minnie appeared and the dressers, now finished with Chloe, turned her to go out front again. They looked uncertain. One held up a hand to halt her. But without hesitation, Chloe walked through the door, her body fulfilling its rehearsed, required task.
Theran was . . .
Flames. Then ice. Then flames, again and again, shuddering through Chloe. Outwardly, she posed like a lifeless mannequin before the two faceless women, who both fingered the cloth. They asked her to turn. She obeyed. They asked to view the dress from the rear. She whirled again.
Theran was . . .
In the doorway, opened just enough to peek out, Minnie stood with tears streaming down her dusky cheeks. Posed artfully, Chloe felt fingers tugging at her skirt and heard voices. She paid no attention. Finally, Madame dismissed her. Chloe reached Minnie.