Dead is the New Black (11 page)

“Either Tiffany or Carmella for sampling. If it’s more than a hundred yards, try Eve in fabric. She sits by Yoni.” Laura didn’t stop photographing the dress, nor did she even look at Sheldon. By rights, he shouldn’t have even been poking his head in meekly.

“Then why didn’t she sign off on these?” He put the papers in front of her face and, with a glance at Noë, Laura remembered how precarious the situation was, and how the rules might no longer apply.

“I don’t know.” With a closer look at the papers, she said, “The Harriet gabardine is from three years ago.” Then, scanning the dates, she added, “And this was ordered six months ago. And it’s a hell of a lot of fabric.” A thousand yards of fifty-four-inch width made a lot of pants. They didn’t have anywhere to keep that much fabric. She looked at the drop ship point. It was the 40th street factory.

“Who signed off on it?” Sheldon demanded.

She read the scrawl. “Must be a doctor. I’ve filled prescriptions that were more legible.”

“How the hell are we supposed to do an audit?”

“What’s an audit?” Laura wasn’t playing dumb, but she was still making a point that whatever Sheldon was doing was outside what went on in the fit room, a subtlety that wasn’t lost on the lawyer.

“An audit is this completely legal process whereby I bury you people.”

Mom, who knew the rules and who was never one to allow her daughter to be bullied, stepped between her and Sheldon. “You can talk after the fitting. Now,
shoo
.”

Everyone knew who Sheldon was. Everyone knew he could close them down with a wave of his hand, and everyone knew he’d just lost his wife in the last twenty-four hours. Except Mom.

Mom and Sheldon looked at each other. Noë turned around to see what was happening, Laura and Carmella had no idea what to do, and two giraffes stopped smoking in mid-drag.

“Shoo?” Sheldon asked.

Mom took his wrists. Holding them while she looked into his face, she repeated, “
Shoo
.”

He waved his arm. “Everyone, out!
Shoo
.”

They paused further. Laura did a quick calculation. The fitting was pretty much done. There hadn’t been enough ready to go the full eight hours, plus Sheldon needed to win something, or he was going to get more dangerous. She had more pictures than she could show Jeremy in the half an hour she would have the next morning.

She gathered her things, and the giraffes, Carmella, the interns, and Tiffany all made haste from the room. Sheldon spun on his heel and left. A rustle of bags and clothes descended after he left. As Laura wheeled out her rack, she saw Noë’s jacket rolled up and tossed on top of her bag. It was a faux denim velveteen that Jeremy had run last Holiday, and what had caught her eye was the nap, the direction of the velvet knotting. It pointed in a direction, up or down. You couldn’t cut some pieces nap up and some nap down, or the sleeves would look like a different color because of the way the light refracted against the fibers. And even if they were all cut in the same direction, nap up was better because it made the fabric look richer. No one would notice it unless they were either looking for it, or if the jacket cost a couple of thousand and something didn’t look exactly right. All Jeremy’s pile fabrics were cut nap up.

Noë’s jacket was cut nap down.

That was wrong.

Laura glanced at Noë, who was staring at her cell phone and tapping the glass as if she were writing a book, and then back at the jacket. Which was fake.

Fakefakefake.

CHAPTER 12.

Laura hovered until Noë was off the phone. “I think Thomasina spilled something on your jacket.” She pointed to the nap-down monstrosity. Noë glanced at it and shrugged.

Laura picked it up by the collar and shook it out. “This is one of ours?” She peeked at the label—totally authentic.

“Yes, last season I think?”

“Was it a sample?” A sample might have been cut wrong and corrected in bulk production, and Noë, being a model, would have gotten it for free, even though she could have bought a correct one from Bendel’s with the change in her Porsche’s ashtray.

Their eyes met, and Noë’s lips puckered slightly. “I don’t remember,” she said before changing the subject. “Do you need me again before Friday?”

“Can we call you?”

Noë agreed and left just as another herd of giraffes exited behind her.

As soon as Laura got back to her table, André was on her like a fly pouncing on a hot turd, and what she thought was the second counterfeit garment she’d seen in a week got filed in her brain as an incorrect sample she lost track of last season.

“I need to get into the closet.” He said it as he passed her table, as if she should just follow him.

“Why?”

He looked her as though the question were an offense to his very sense of self. “Our boss asked me to get something for him.”

“What?” Her hand rested on the keypad. “What use is a pattern in Rikers?” She wasn’t pressing one digit until she got an answer from him.

“I’m only answering because I know you’re trying to be loyal.”

“I’m not
trying
.”

“Federated has some buttons in the wrong color on the Rachel pant, and we’re giving them our sample buttons to swap. Is that okay?”

Well, no, it wasn’t okay. It was Yoni’s job to manage details like that, and she wasn’t going to be happy about him muscling in on her territory. If the wrong buttons made it to the store, Yoni had to hunt down the button manufacturer or the order slip, or she had to confront Ephraim, but that wasn’t something André could manage on his own. Laura got her cell phone out to call her, but a shout from the design room interrupted her train of thought.

“Everybody get the hell in here.” Sheldon clutched his briefcase. His wool coat was draped over his forearm as if he were on his way out. “Come on. I don’t have all night.”

Laura stood against the wall with her arms folded. Carmella stood next to her and pushed her foot against hers in a show of solidarity, which separated her from André that much more. Sometimes, she couldn’t help but really like Carmella.

“Tomorrow, they’re burying my wife,” Sheldon announced, using the coldest words he could. For the first time, Laura sensed he hid a great hurt behind his abrasive manner. “I know you all worked with her, and I know some of you even liked her. But I don’t know who those people might be, and I’m not going to go around and ask, because you’ll lie. So tomorrow, I’m closing the office, and I don’t want to hear about this goddamn show because I don’t care.” He looked pointedly at Laura. “The funeral’s in her family plot in Greenwood Cemetery. That’s in
Queens
, for those of you that weren’t raised here, and you’d normally have to take a bus. I’ve arranged cars to pick you up outside at nine. You’ll be part of the procession, and streets are closing, so it won’t be too much of an
inconvenience
for you.” He turned on his heel and left.

David, carrying a clipboard, appeared in his place. He cleared his throat. “If you could tell me if you’re coming, I can get the right number of cars.”

Laura heard André mutter to Yoni, “I’m selling the co-op, and I have an open house tomorrow.” He shook his head at the horrid turn of events. Laura knew him. He never missed an opportunity to do a meet-and-greet. He must be getting pressure from Inge to sell, which would explain his overall social ineptitude.

Not wanting to deal with André, Laura slipped out without getting her name on the list. She figured Gracie wouldn’t miss her.

By the time Laura got to Serious, it was ten o’clock. One drink, she vowed, then to bed so she would be fresh for Jeremy the next morning.

Stu’s bike was parked out front, amidst a pile of other fixed-gear, jury-rigged specialties. Tom, the doorman, nodded as she walked past. The front had no signage, and it had taken them months to discover the place actually had a name. That didn’t stop throngs from showing up. The beautiful, the tall, and the perfectly dressed packed into the five hundred square feet of available standing space. Scarves dropped and got stepped on, drinks were balanced on the same arm as coats, and the floor was wet from sludge-caked boots.

Laura and her crowd were second on the nightspot food chain. First, the rich and beautiful found, or founded, the best places. Then came Laura and her friends, who were not so rich, nor so beautiful, but native to the place and friends of people who knew where to go and, more importantly, when. They were followed months later by the NYU students, then the Brooklyn-Queens crowd—not the transplants from Williamsburg who “got it,” but the Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay natives who patently “didn’t.” By then, Laura and Stu and the rest would have moved on, but in the case of Serious, not yet. The soft lighting and ultra-modern Formica still seemed fresh. The nondescript instrumental music was a nice backdrop to people watching, and they told themselves they couldn’t get an Espresso Tomcat anywhere else. There was talk of a gin and beef soup concoction on Second Avenue and, as she pressed against a barely legal guy in a faded cut, polo, and chinos who ordered “that coffee thing,” she knew it was time to head a little east for a hot beef drink.

She spotted Stu and Nadal, with his mocha skin and waist-length dreadlocks that had gotten stuck in his bike gears once while he changed his tire, standing in the corner. No matter how crowded it got, they managed to press into that corner like driftwood finally making it to shore. Nadal hugged her only slightly less emphatically than Stu.

“Hey, Nadal?” She had to yell to be heard over the blasting ambient music and chatter. “I hear you’re my new delivery guy?”

Nadal smiled. “Any tricks I should know?” he asked in his deep Jamaican accent.

“Don’t fold the patterns.”

He laughed. “Anything Stu didn’t already tell me?”

“Probably not. It’s different than delivering bottles of breast milk across town, huh?”

“It will be nice to work for a business, not a person, you know? No tired ladies saying ‘Oh, this is not cold enough,’ or ‘Oh, I am missing my expensive jacket. Why didn’t you check the dry cleaning bill before leaving the store?’ I am telling you, the richer the bastard is, the lazier they get.”

Stu interjected, “And tomorrow, of course, my first day, they’re closing off two blocks around the park on every side for the Pomerantz funeral. You know what would happen if their cleaning lady died? Nothing. They’d find a new cleaning lady.”

“Are you jamming it?”

“Yes, we’re jamming the egregious social inequality manifested by this horse and pony show of a funeral. We’re shouting on every social network. Thousands will be there, at least.”

“Have you got a good chant?”

“You are so mainstream, Laura.” He hailed the bartender for another drink. “Once you put up a placard you need a permit. If we’re just standing there, there’s nothing they can do.”

“You don’t think that nineteen-dollar drink might manifest an egregious social inequality?” she said. Nadal lifted his glass to her.

“That’s what I like about you,” Stu said. “You keep a guy honest. You going to be there? Or are you going to weep at the funeral?”

“I think I’m going to Rikers tomorrow.”

He must have not heard her, because he lifted his drink. “To the Countess of the Corset!” he cried, toasting either Gracie or the journalistic prowess of the New York
Post
, which had given her that name years before. Laura wasn’t sure which.

She turned back to Nadal. “Were you on the Pomerantz’s route?”

“Next door was a lady I brought a McDonald’s Happy Meal every other night.” He turned to Stu. “That’s you now, buddy.”

Stu slammed his drink. “I’m tired of this frou-frou shit. I need a whiskey.”

Nadal shook his head. “They were fightin’ like cats last time I went.”

“When was that?” Laura asked.

“Night before last. Cops were at the door just as I was leaving.”

“Leaving? How long did you stay?”

He raised his eyebrows. “About fifteen minutes.”

“So the police must know they were fighting,” she said. Nadal shrugged. “Did you hear what they were fighting about?”

“Nah, I was busy.”

Stu rested his head on her shoulder before banging his head against it. She patted his cheek, but couldn’t save him from the Happy Meal lady. He’d have to do that himself.

Laura wrapped her scarf around her neck and announced her departure. She had to get up early for Jeremy tomorrow and wanted to be fresh, or at least sober. Stu followed her out.

“Why do you care what they were fighting about?” he asked, as soon as they were on Broadway. He hadn’t brought his jacket, and his hands were jammed into the depths of his pockets to hold his shivering shoulders close his body.

“Just curious.”

“You shouldn’t get involved, Laura, unless you want the cops at your door again.”

“Thanks for the advice. You’d better go inside before you freeze.”

“Let me get you a cab.”

“I’m walking.” She started to make her way a few steps east.

“I’ll get my jacket.”

“Stu, I’m fine.”

“Laura—”

“Stu?”

The next thing happened so fast she lost a second of her life. Somewhere in there, he removed his hands from his pockets and put them on her cheeks. Then he kissed her, and he was soft and cool and not too wet, and his fingers were warm in her hair, and his tongue found hers before she could push him away.