Nancy’s Theory of Style (22 page)

“But, Madame…”

“Or else you can stay here with
Eugenia,”
Nancy
said. “I can’t take her with me to buy a car seat without a car seat.”

He looked as if he had been given a
choice between drowning or hanging. Finally he said, “It’s not far. We could
all walk there and use the car seat in a taxi on the way back.”

“I want to go with Derek!” Eugenia said.

Nancy
looked at the girl’s expectant face. “Okay,
we’ll all go.”

Chapter 12: Tips for Shopping Success

It was a pleasant walk to
Laurel
Village
,
a neighborhood of shops and cafes. When Eugenia began lagging, Derek swung her
up and onto his shoulders. “Hold on!”

Nancy
had noticed that when she walked with
her fabulous assistant and her puny ward people smiled at them and said hello. She
pretended to be equally impressed with their grimy spawn in label-laden
clothing.

“Have you noticed how friendly people
are when you have a child?” she asked Derek, who still had the little girl on
his shoulders, her small head resting atop his.

“I have observed that.”

“They seem to think that capitulating to
a biological imperative makes them all so very special.”

As always, you are right, Mrs.
Carrington-Chambers.”

“Still, it’s rather nice when people are
nice. I’m all for niceness. What about you?”

“I appreciate it when it is directed toward
me.”

“Well, who wouldn’t be nice to you? You’re
so agreeable and gracious. I’m sure no one ever gets angry with you.”

His face was averted but she caught that
intriguing smirk again. “You would be shocked, Mrs. Carrington-Chambers.”

“I’ll never ever get angry with you.”
Nancy
teased, expecting
him to respond quickly, but he was quiet. “Will I?”

“When that time comes, and it is
inevitable, I think I shall be very disappointed in myself.”

“Who’s exaggerating now?”
Nancy
asked. “I’m not
going to ask if I’ll ever make you angry because I know I will. Todd shouts and
says I’m impossible. Then he goes to a sports bar. How will you show your
anger? Will you flare up, or will you smolder?”

 
Eugenia was playing slipping her fingers
through Derek’s espresso dark hair. “Mama yells and throws things at the
fireplace. She broke a pitcher.”

“Pic-ture,”
Nancy
corrected.

“She broke a pic-ture and the vodka got
all over.”

“Your mother is very emotional,”
Nancy
said. “Don’t take
it personally.”

“What?” Eugenia said.

“Your mother is a very yell-y person,
like that dog in the park was barking and barking because he thinks barking is
fun. Your mother yells because she thinks yelling is fun. It’s not your fault,
okay?”

“Okay.”

“Just remember, dogs like to bark, fish
like to swim, Birdie likes to yell.”

“That sounds like a song,” Derek said
and began singing, “Bugs like to bite, cars like to go.”

Nancy
sang, “Princesses like things pink,
flowers like to grow…Your turn, Eugenia!”

“Cows like to moo.”

Derek grinned and said, “
Nancy
likes fine fashion,
Eugenia likes her cape.”

“Derek likes…”
Nancy
began and then wondered, what did Derek
like? “…pirate ships, my mother likes handbags…”

They found the children’s store and
bought a child seat. “This store is for babies,” Eugenia said in disgust. “I’m
not a baby.”

“There are things here for non-babies,”
Nancy
said. “Shopping is
like hunting. You have to be patient and look carefully at everything.” They
found Lego’s, colored chalk, and a book about farm animals.

When
Nancy
discovered haute couture paper dolls,
she was ecstatic. “Oh, my, god, they’ve got every decade, from the Belle Époque
to the ‘90s! Lanvin, Schiaparelli, Ungaro, Worth, Ricci!” She grabbed one of
each set.

When she went to pay, the clerk said,
“Your little girl is very lucky.”

“Oh, she’s not mine,”
Nancy
said. “She was left on my doorstep like
a stray cat.”

The clerk’s expression froze and Eugenia
said, “I’m not a cat. I’m a pirate.”

Nancy
smiled nervously and said, “It’s a
family joke. She’s a pirate. She’s sailed her ship into our waters. Yo ho ho!”

Derek lugged the seat around as they
stopped in the nearby children’s boutiques.
Nancy
steered Eugenia toward the racks of
darling clothes, but the girl grabbed a boy’s shirt with a skull and crossbones
and wouldn’t let go. “It’s for our pirate party! You said, yo ho ho!”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,”
Nancy
said. “But only
this once because it is a special occasion.”

The only other shop Eugenia liked was
the ribbon shop, where she picked out several lengths of ribbon and said, “This
is for when we make my cape.”

“Excellent planning, Eugenia,”
Nancy
said.

Derek hailed a cab and tried to figure
out how to put the child seat in the back. The cabbie got out and came around
to help, saying, “I got three kids myself. How come you don’t know how to use a
car seat for your little girl?”

“She’s not my---” Derek began and then
he glanced at Eugenia. Then he said, “She’s not a little girl. She’s a pirate. Yo
ho ho.”

The cabbie shook his head and strapped
in the seat, picked up Eugenia, placed her in it, and secured the seatbelt. “Ahoy,
matey,” he said.

“You speak pirate very well,”
Nancy
said as she slid in
the back seat and told him her address.

“Why didn’t you just say Chateau
Winkles?” the cabbie said. “How’s Miss Winkles?”

“As captivating as ever.” To Derek,
Nancy
said, “It’s a
nickname for the building.”

When they got to the apartment, the trio
went to the garage and Derek wrangled the car seat in
Nancy
’s Mini.

“You have a toy car!” Eugenia said
excitedly.

“Yes, I guess I do.” To Derek she said,
“I’m reevaluating my hatred of minivans.”

“Can we go to dinner in your car?” asked
Eugenia.

“We have macaroni and cheese for
dinner.”
Nancy
waited for the argument. But Eugenia sagged like a badly made soufflé and
stared at the cement floor. “We also have cinnamon graham crackers. Yum, graham
crackers! We can play with our fashion dolls.”

Eugenia was not tempted by these
delectable treats.

“May I suggest an evening of movies and
take-away at home?” Derek said, happily surprising both of his female
companions.

“A pirate movie?” Eugenia asked.

Nancy
was so excited about spending the
evening with Derek that she ordered a pizza on the phone. “They always taste
like their cardboard delivery box, but just this once since it’s a special
occasion.”

While they were waiting for the pizza,
Derek dashed to the nearby video store and came back with four pirate movies. “I
took longer because I stopped at the wine shop,” he said and handed
Nancy
a bottle of
Barbaresco. “The shopkeeper assured me that it suits a pizza dinner.”

Nancy and Eugenia had set places out on
the cocktail table, “like a picnic,”
Nancy
said.

Nancy
opened the wine and they watched “The
Pirates of the
Caribbean
.” Eugenia sat between
the adults and ducked her head toward one or the other of them during the scary
scenes. “We can skip this part,”
Nancy
said, but Eugenia wanted to listen.

The girl fell asleep half-way through
the movie, and
Nancy
turned down the sound. “Johnny Depp is so sexy, don’t you think?”

“Uhm, even in this film?”

“Oh, yes! That black guyliner is
devastating. Have you ever worn it?”

“Guyliner? No.”

“It would look fabulous on you. So would
an eye patch. You’ve already got that mysterious look about you. Sometimes I
want to do my eyes up with really thick black makeup.”

“Like a pirate?”

“Yes, like a pirate wench. I would wear
a ruffled blouse open to my belly button, breaches and a cuffed leather boots.”

The girl sleeping between them tilted
against Derek’s chest. He said, “Where do you think her mother is?”

“No one’s heard anything. She may have
gone to
Greece
,
but it’s possible she’s on the West Coast. She likes Baja. You probably think
she’s an awful person, but she’s not really. Or maybe she is.”

“What if she doesn’t return?”

“Birdie’s a homing pigeon. She always
comes back, if only to aggravate her parents and extort money from them. It’s
not a question of if, but when.”

“Who will watch Eugenia tomorrow night
when you go out?”

“I’m taking her to my parents. Not that
they know yet.”
 
Nancy
smiled. “We embrace the element of
surprise in our family interactions. It’s how we avoid the unpleasantness of
saying ‘no’ to one another. What is your family like?”

“My mum is lovely, but she never asks a
thing for herself. My father left her when I was young and she raised my
brother and me by herself. Peter is happily married with two daughters.”

“Do you ever wonder where your father
is?”

“Occasionally. He did teach us one
lesson – that a good man does not abandon his children.” He put his arm around
Eugenia and asked softly, “Her father?”

“Birdie has never told anyone,”
Nancy
said. “Is it hard
for your mother that you’re gay?”

“I think she would be happy if I was
married to a nice girl and had a family. Mind you, she thinks the world of
Prescott
.”

“Derek, if things go well with the party
and with other things in my life, this job might be permanent. Would you like
that?”

“So many things are in flux now, Mrs.
Carrington-Chambers. Let us see how things progress.”

Nancy
looked down on the sleeping child. “Do
you know what I’ve noticed? She isn’t as unattractive as most other children.”

“Or as annoying. Most of them whinge
constantly.”

“I know. I hate that. Is
Prescott
waiting for
you?”

“Yes, I’d better get going. Do you want
me to take her to your room?”

“Please.”

He gently picked Eugenia up, carried her
into the bedroom, and laid her on the bed.

When
Nancy
walked him to the door, he said, “Enjoy
your weekend.”

“You, too.” She hesitated. “Derek, you
don’t have to stay late if you’ve got other things to do – but Eugenia and I
like having you here with us.”

He looked into her eyes and said, “It’s
my pleasure, Mrs. Carrington-Chambers.” He took her hand in his large, warm
hand and held it for a long time. The tension between them was so strong, like
those last moments of a date, just before a kiss, but this wasn’t a date.

Derek let go of her hand and said,
“Goodnight, Madame,” and left.

While
Nancy
was capable of leaving her unsuspecting
mother with a child, she couldn’t leave her with a child wearing a towel. First
thing on Saturday morning,
Nancy
took Eugenia to
Nancy
’s
favorite fabric store on
Union
Square
to pick out material for an attractive cape.
They went directly to the fourth floor, where the remnants were kept.

“Choose whatever you like,”
Nancy
told Eugenia as she
directed her to a table of small lengths.

Eugenia went through the piles, pulling
out anything that was red.

A clerk walked behind the child sighing
loudly and rearranging the piles. The clerk looked at
Nancy
and said, “This isn’t a playground. Are
you looking for something?”

“Yes, we’re looking for polite service. Even
a child deserves that,”
Nancy
said sweetly. “If you don’t know where it is, you can direct us to your
manager.”