The Crasher (4 page)

She started to reorganize the structure of the dress, but gave up. Some things were beyond salvation. The dress belonged in
a chamber of horrors—or a circus, along with Paul Robespier himself, who might have learned something at the feet of the masters,
but it certainly wasn’t how to design clothes. More likely how to shine shoes. His were so shiny he could surely see his face
in them.

Ginny looked at her watch, her frustration growing. If only she hadn’t persuaded her mother to smuggle her in to see Robespier’s
collection… if only she hadn’t had to hide behind this screen when her mother was summoned to carry out alterations on the
four Robespier nightmares Mrs. H.D. had ordered, if… if… if!

Alex was right. Her life was full of
if only’s
because, as her cousin frequently chastised her, she was not selective enough. She tried to cram everything in, when, instead,
she should focus on what was really important, on things which would use and improve her natural talents.

Like right now, when she could have been at the NorthPark Mall with Toby, waiting for Cindy Crawford to check out the local
chic for MTV, a chance in a million, the promo had said, to be filmed live “Where America Shops.”

It had been a toss-up between seeing an actual couturier in action (particularly a Texas-born, Paris-trained one) and hoping
to make a major impression on him—or joining Toby and the NorthPark crowd, hoping to be plucked out by Cindy as one of Texas’s
youngest most stylish, most chic.

The wonderful realization had come that she could fit in both.

She looked at her watch again. She could still do it if they left now. Without thinking she let out an exasperated sigh, every
bit as loud as the ones uttered by Heathering Davison, following it up inexplicably with one of her allergic sneezes.

Ginny got to her feet sheepishly, about to slink away to the exit, as Robespier marched up to the screen and screamed, “Who
is this? What are you doing here?”

To her horror, her mother began to say all the things she’d fantasized hearing.

“I do apologize, Monsieur, but this is my young daughter, Ginny. She—she is such an admirer of yours, she begged to be allowed
to see your genius at work. I am really very sorry.”

Ginny looked at the floor to fight off another fit of giggles. Everything had happened so quickly, she’d never removed the
turban.

She was blushing. She could feel the creepy crawly blush spread from her collarbone as Robespier obviously swallowed every
word, and began to smile, showing pale pink gums above a row of achingly perfect small white teeth.

“Come out from your hiding place. Bring your chair. Ah! What an interesting… chapeau.” Now Ginny really didn’t know where
to look.

It took another agonizing thirty minutes before the fishtail was declared fit for human consumption.

“Do you still want to go to NorthPark? I’m exhausted.”

“Mother, you promised… you promised…”

“Oh, God. Oh, well, I’ll drive you there, but I’m not coming in. If you find Toby, let me know, then you can go home with
her.”

“You really are the best mother in the world.” Ginny hugged her, although it was obvious her mother didn’t want to be hugged.
“I hate you having to put up with people like that,” she said, in a small apologetic voice.

“People like that!” Virginia mimicked. “I thought you wanted to run off with ‘people like that’—people like Paul Robespier,
the genius.”

“Genius! Ugh! I’ve never seen such hid-e-ous clothes. If it wasn’t for you Mrs. Heathering Derrière wouldn’t have been able
to move a step in that joke of a dress.”

Virginia shook her head reprovingly. “Ginny, don’t be rude.” Then, “Do you know what that dress cost?”

“Millions.”

“Not quite, but the alterations alone cost nearly five hundred bucks.”

“I can’t believe it.” But Ginny was no longer interested in what Robespier was able to get away with. She caught sight of
the time. “We’ve really got to get going, Ma. MTV will be there any minute.”

“I’m not moving until you take that thing off your head.”

“But Robespier said…” They both started to shriek with laughter.

“Okay, Mother, you win.” She pulled the turban off so violently, half the swim cap ripped as it came off, too. With her mother
still howling with laughter, Ginny opened her sewing kit purse to flourish the box of Supreme Sable Lashes. “These cost a
fortune, too, five dollars and seventy-five cents. Mrs. Heathering D. will never be chic, however many millions she spends,
but I bet these will get me on MTV!”

Virginia found a parking spot at the huge NorthPark Mall and Ginny leaned over to get the camel hair coat from the back seat.

“Who told you you could borrow my coat?”

“I thought you did.”

When Ginny got out of the car and nervously put the coat on, Virginia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Don’t you agree… it’s… better this way?” Ginny looked in anguish, waiting for her mother’s reaction.

Her mother shook her head resignedly. “Yes, baby, it looks great. You can have it”—she started to laugh again—“for your birthday.
Now don’t be long. It’s been quite a day and we’ve got to get home to get your father’s supper. You’ve got forty-five minutes
max to be one of MTV’s chic.”

Ginny’s face lit up, a mixture of relief and excitement. She blew an airy kiss to her mother. “Wish me luck,” she yelled,
striding off, as if she’d just been given the world.

Virginia watched Ginny cross the parking lot in her renovated coat. She bit her lip. The feeling of defeat was back. Like
father, like daughter. However hard she tried to explain
things to Ginny, there were too many indications she had inherited or absorbed Graham’s tenacious (or pigheaded, depending
on how you looked at it) determination to be noticed and make a mark on the world, no matter what it cost.

Once Virginia had thought she could make a mark, too, growing up in Hollywood, designing for the movie stars. It had taken
a while to accept she couldn’t design dresses, but she could make the cheapest piece of junk off the rack fit and flatter
even the worst figure faults. She’d encountered them all.

Ginny had more imagination than she’d ever had—too much, if it was possible. Virginia sighed. Ginny had done wonders to her
old camel hair coat. She’d cleverly used a zipper as ornamentation on the blue sheath, too, à la Moschino—but that didn’t
mean she could be a successful designer. She didn’t want Ginny to experience the hurt and humiliation she’d gone through,
waiting for customers who never turned up.

It was ironic, for while she’d managed to drown her dreams, Graham’s had grown larger with every passing year, but not their
bank account.

How enthralled she’d been in the beginning when he’d talked about his ambition to leave his job, teaching English lit at an
undistinguished West Coast school, to become a modern day Socrates, “earning fame and fortune, teaching my unique brand of
wisdom by mail.”

How she’d hung on every word as he’d talked and talked and talked. “I can teach, but I also know how to learn,” he’d said.
“Not such a common gift as you might suppose. I can find something of value in practically everything.” And, indeed, he’d
confessed that while he studied the leading political and foreign pundits of the day, especially his number one, Quentin Peet,
also included in his scrutiny were columns by “Dear Abby” (“already a multimillionairess”), the writings of Dr. Seuss, and
the original texts of Dale Carnegie.

How impressed she’d been with his studious appearance, not knowing then, of course, the amount of time he devoted
to choosing the kind of eyeglasses that strengthened his air of scholarship, the fastidious attention he paid to the size
of knot in his tie, the amount of trouser leg he allowed to cover his shoes. No wonder Ginny was so clothes-mad.

She was sick of hearing Graham say “Clothes maketh the man,” contemptuously dismissing those in academia whom he accused of
deliberately setting out to look as rumpled and disheveled as possible “to be more in touch with the unkempt youth they attempt
to teach.”

No wonder Quentin Peet was his role model, appearing on television, immaculately dressed, even when just back from a war somewhere,
epitomizing, said Graham, “the way a leader should look.”

Well, Graham Walker was no leader. It had taken five states and five “partners” in as many years to learn that Graham had
proposed and married her just at the time his sister Lillian told him, for her son Alex’s sake, she could no longer help support
him in his dreams.

She’d found Lil’s old letter jammed in the back of Graham’s desk. “It’s God’s will that you’ve met Virginia, for much as I
love the idea of living as you describe it, a ‘Walt Whitman life of freedom, traveling on unknown roads to unknown adventures,’
now I have this new job with the art gallery, as a widow bringing up a son, I know I must stay put for his sake.”

She had never confronted Graham with the letter. What was the point? And, in any case, at that time she’d been so full of
optimism. “It takes time for pioneers to be recognized,” he would say, “to get the big break that brings all the rewards.”

Virginia jumped as she leaned forward and accidentally blew the car horn. It sounded like a bugle call, an alert to rescue
her only child from the world she’d become so used to, a world of rented homes, leased cars and a nervous stomach at the end
of every month as their bank balance went down and their bills went up.

Her mouth tightened. Already she could recognize the signs. Graham was restless; she’d caught him poring over the
map again; seen him hang up the phone hurriedly when she came into his study. Responses to his ads hadn’t been good, she knew
that, but this time she’d demanded and he’d promised her in writing he’d give Dallas at least three years before moving on.
This time she’d written down something, too.

No matter what “extraordinary opportunity” beckoned in some other “prime location,” she wasn’t going with him. Not this time.
Not if he broke his word before at least three years were up. She was earning more at Neiman Marcus than she’d ever earned.

She tried to stop herself thinking it, but she couldn’t. If Graham left them, financially Ginny and she would actually be
better off. If she didn’t have to pay for Graham’s small ads and endless printing and mail expenses, she could easily pay
the rent on the horrible little hovel they were in and everything else that she and Ginny needed.

If Graham had the gall to bring the subject up, she’d let him know at once—one, two, three—that she and Ginny were staying
put in Dallas. At least she prayed that if and when the moment came, she would have the guts to say and do it.

The problem was, despite everything, sometimes he could still convince her all was not lost, that one day he would be recognized
as the visionary she’d once been so certain he was.

If she only had herself to consider, she knew she’d be a camp follower forever, but it wasn’t just herself. It was only recently
she’d begun to realize there wasn’t a moment to lose to begin planning a future for Ginny.

Her eyes misted over as in the distance she saw Ginny march around the corner of the huge store. Her nearly-sixteen-year-old-going-on-thirty-year-old
daughter did look like a million dollars in her hardly recognizable camel hair coat, but there again Ginny had taken something
that didn’t belong to her. Her values were all mixed up. Where on earth was it going to lead her? One day into real trouble.

She must have dozed off, because to Virginia’s surprise she saw Ginny reappear around the corner. She looked at her
watch. She hadn’t been gone for more than twenty minutes. She must have arrived too late for Cindy Crawford and MTV.

Poor Ginny. She’d take the disappointment very badly. Virginia could only hope, without much confidence, that at least it
would be a lesson to her not to try to cram all her dreams into one day.

As her daughter walked slowly toward the car, her demeanor expressing total defeat, Virginia was struck by how tall she was.
Wait a minute. Virginia had a wonderful idea. If Ginny only grew a couple more inches, there was a job that could offer her
the opportunity her brains and looks entitled her to, a job that could move her into the kind of circles where she might meet
someone… someone who could give her the million-dollar life that Virginia knew, from a lifetime of listening to her clients,
existed outside the fitting room.

Ginny could become the perfect runway model. She had always been skinny—essential to show off a designer’s clothes. She had
good posture, lovely skin, her own mother’s deep dark eyes, a wonderful smile, and Graham’s thick chestnut hair. She wasn’t
exactly pretty, but she was—or could look—cute, impish.

As Ginny approached, desolate and downcast, she was amazed—and furious—to see her mother looking so cheerful. How could she,
on the worst day of her whole life?

“They wouldn’t even let me in the door, Mother. There were thousands there. They—”

“Oh, never mind, Ginny. There’ll be lots of other things…”

This was impossible. Her mother didn’t understand what she was talking about and obviously didn’t care either, probably concentrating
on what she was going to cook for supper.

They drove home without exchanging a word, although Virginia didn’t realize it. She was too busy thinking about the future
she had just dreamed up for Ginny. From now on she would pay much more attention to what Ginny ate, her nutrition in general,
exercise, poise and, yes, despite the opposition she knew she would encounter, Ginny’s often crazy dress
sense, too, all to help groom her for her future life on a famous designer’s runway.

In the house, as she quickly made a salad and pasta, Virginia decided she wasn’t going to say a word about her plan—yet. She
didn’t know what Ginny would think, but she could hear, as if he’d already said it, Graham’s reaction: “Mindless! My daughter’s
going to use her brains, not her body. She’s going to get a business degree, so she can run her own courses for the Walker
School.”