The Pink Suit: A Novel (13 page)

“She spoke of you both often,” he said, and the Ladies kissed him again. Patrick's face was now smudged with their lipstick.

“You're a very sweet boy,” Miss Nona said.

“He is,” Miss Sophie said. “You really are.”

The Ladies walked them both to the front door, going on about “our dear Peg.” Kate looked at her watch. It was six p.m. She turned to see Mr. Charles walking into the showroom behind them, followed by the back-room girls and the grand Mrs. Molly Tackaberry McAdoo and her tiny black-and-white fluffy dog. They all hovered around him, all except for Maeve, who seemed confused. “What announcement? I'm working. Can't you see that?” She was waving the Dior bodice like a flag on the Fourth of July. The small dog began to jump on Mr. Charles's best trousers.

The Ladies looked at Kate and then at Mr. Charles. They knew. They knew exactly what this announcement was all about. They smiled at her, eyebrows raised.

“I hear our Patrick's planned a lovely dinner for the two of you,” Miss Nona said.

It was a test. Patrick was an unwitting participant, but the Ladies were certainly testing her.

“Is that Mr. Charles?” Patrick asked.

“It is,” Miss Sophie said.

“Let's just give it a quick hello, shall we?” Patrick said, and before Kate could stop him, he made his way across the elegant showroom with his hand outstretched for a shake or, perhaps, Kate thought, a duel.

“Pleasure to meet you. Patrick Harris, Kate's boyfriend.”

Patrick was enjoying himself greatly. He slapped Mr. Charles on the back and pumped his hand back and forth as if priming for water. Mr. Charles smiled. He didn't look happy or angry, just abandoned. Even with his fine clothes and high-handed ways, he and Kate had been friends. Mr. Charles had shown her great kindness. He'd made her a beautiful suit, which she loved, and shown her how to sew in ways she'd never imagined. More important, he believed in her. She'd not understood that fully until this very moment. She could see that Mr. Charles's hands were unsteady.

“I should stay,” Kate said to Patrick. “Just for the announcement.”

Mr. Charles shook his head. “It's fine,” he said quietly.

“But?”

“It's really fine, Kitty. Have a nice night.”

Patrick placed a hand gently on the small of Kate's back and guided her toward the exit. He paused for a moment and looked back at Mr. Charles. “Nice to meet you, Chuck.”

In the nondescript hallway outside the showroom, Patrick and Kate waited for the elevator.

“What on earth were you thinking?” she asked. “Did you come in the front door? You know the service door is in the back. And
Chuck?
You called him
Chuck?
”

“You call him
Chuck
.”

“Not in front of people.”

“In front of me.”

“You don't count.”

“I'll take that as a good sign.”

Kate could see through the showroom window that Mr. Charles seemed to be hesitating. The Ladies looked impatient.

“I'll apologize later,” Patrick said. “Buy him a pint or two, although he doesn't seem like a pint kind of fella. He calls you Kitty? I'm surprised you haven't slapped old Chuck sideways for that.”

“Your display was uncalled for.”

“It was absolutely called for. That's what men do. We're like mad dogs spraying.”

“I can't believe you called him
Chuck
.”

“The mom-and-pop scheme for the shop was not a fifty-fifty deal, was it? You would not be equal partners, would you? I took one look at him and could see that. Am I wrong?”

He wasn't.

Kate could hear the cars on Park Avenue honking as they cut in and out of traffic. Life was swirling around them. She looked back into the showroom once more. Mr. Charles was explaining the details; Maeve would certainly fill her in tomorrow.

Kate hit the elevator call button over and over again.

“I'm sorry,” Patrick said. For a moment Kate thought he was apologizing for the way he'd treated Mr. Charles, but then he said, “I'm sorry, but I spoke to Father John at confession today. I mentioned the other night. Thought I'd warn you.”

Kate felt the words like a slap.

“You had no right.”

“I had no choice.”

“Patrick. Please. Not here. I work here.”

She looked back into the showroom. The entire staff of Chez Ninon had encircled Mr. Charles, but Mr. Charles was looking at Kate.

“I'm taking the stairs,” she said, and opened the exit door. Ran.

“Kate, please.”

Patrick was bigger, quicker. He caught Kate before she reached the outside door. They were both breathing hard. He wiped the tears from her face with his handkerchief.

“Kate. Father John said it's not a big deal. He told us to knock it off, that's all. A few Hail Marys, an Our Father, a rosary—he loves the rosaries—and knock it off until we get married. He's a footballer, for Pete's sake. He understands.”

The stairway was dim and damp, a purgatory between the Ladies' world and Kate's. She wished she had some Chanel No. 5 to take the stench out. Patrick put his arms around her.

“Father John was happy for us, Kate. He really was. If we're going to Hell, he's driving us there in Rose. He's quite fond of her Oldsmobility, too.”

Patrick opened the service door. Rush hour on Park Avenue was not elegant, just loud. He closed the door again quickly. “Here's the problem,” he said. “I want to kiss you, but I made a promise to Father John, and I don't want to wait until we sit down at some stuffy café.”

He pulled a box out of his jacket. It was black velvet and threadbare. “Peg bought this herself, when the butcher shop started doing better.”

For all his bravado, at that moment Patrick Harris looked quite unsure of himself. It was barely a ring, a diamond chip in a thin gold band. The metal was nearly worn through.

“Patrick, I said I would think about it.”

“I know. But why don't you think about it while you're wearing the ring? Get used to it. See how it feels. Take it for a test-drive. I test-drove Rose.”

Patrick slipped the worn ring on Kate's finger. Her hands were swollen. It was tight. “I think you'll make a grand butcher's wife. Peg loved the shop, she really did.”

A mom-and-pop shop,
Kate thought.

For a moment, she wanted to run again. But then he kissed her.

B
efore the election, the unions had repeatedly scolded the Wife. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union raised more than three hundred thousand dollars for her husband's campaign and made sure that ILGWU members were at every rally possible, and yet not only did she wear French clothes, she very rarely wore a hat. Within their ranks, the powerful milliners' union, which was angry enough at the President's unwillingness to wear a hat, seemed permanently incensed with Her Elegance. Angry letters flooded the campaign office. After the election there could be no more excuses.

The first official hat was a Christian Dior. It was black velvet, with a narrow front. French, not American, but at least it was a hat. It was chosen quite by accident. The Wife had contacted the custom shop at Bergdorf's and asked for a private showing of their stock. Marita O'Connor brought the very best in millinery to a suite at the Waldorf. None of it worked. The Wife's aversion to hats was not just a personal preference. It was a matter of mathematics. She had a head as big as a balloon, and towering hair. In order to fit her, a hat would have to be a 7¾, an XXL—at the very least, twenty-four inches. In desperation, Mrs. O'Connor put the Dior on the Wife backward, and a reluctant history was made.

The only way she could wear the Dior was backward; it wouldn't fit otherwise.

“Can't be surprised,” Schwinn explained. “The girl wears ten-A shoes.”

It was six-thirty a.m. Kate thought that no one would be at Chez Ninon at that hour. She'd skipped church again to work on the suit. But instead of peace and quiet, Kate got Schwinn. He'd come in to steam dozens of pillbox hats that he had made for Orbach's runway show. It was his first real order for a department store as a milliner. “You can't tell anyone, Cookie. The Ladies will be miffed.”

“Miffed? They'll be raging if they see you've used their workroom for Orbach's runway show.”

Everywhere Kate looked, there were hats. And they were all pink.

“You told them about the Chanel suit, didn't you?”

“The Ladies may have sworn you to secrecy about the suit, but not me. Orbach's is now, categorically, over the moon for pink—but you didn't hear it here.”

“The Ladies will blame me.”

“No. They'll blame Cassini. They love to blame Cassini. His first show for Saks was all pearls, pillbox, and faux Givenchy—it looked like he took an armful from the Wife's closet and ran.”

“But Orbach's? How could you?”

“How could I resist? No one can resist Orbach's.”

It was true. Even Maison Blanche bought there. Kate often stopped by the department-store windows for a look herself. Orbach's had ads in every magazine: “Who Needs Wholesale?” “Because Your Eyes Are Bigger Than Your Purse!” They advertised their clothes as “French couture originals,” but they were not French or couture, and they were certainly not original. They were wonderfully cheap and surprisingly well made. Their clothes were so much better than Macy's couture copies. Kate had even thought about buying one or two herself. They were pirating whatever they could, like the Ladies—but on a grand scale. Instead of a handful of copies, they made hundreds.

Orbach's was not Chez Ninon, of course. There was no champagne. No country-club manners. No dressers or fitters who spoke only when spoken to. For Orbach's customers, it was cash and carry only. Unlike the Ladies, Orbach's did not allow returns, alterations, fittings, or deliveries. Yet, every season fifteen hundred women or more stood in line for hours, waiting for the doors to open and for the fashion show to begin.

Orbach's always had two models walk down the runway at the same time; one would be wearing the original and the other the Orbach's copy. It was nearly impossible to tell the two apart. Like Chez Ninon, Orbach's had “private friends,” movie stars such as Lauren Bacall who were guaranteed a seat and ushered in through the back door. Many of the Ladies' clients attended as well. The Ladies hated Orbach's.

“I could be fired,” Kate said.

“Cookie, you worry too much.”

Pink hats were all over the back room—on the layout table, in her work area. Schwinn apparently had worked through the night.

“Try one,” he said. “How about this?”

It was a raspberry pink. There were other shades of pink, too—hot pink, bubblegum, rose, and blush.

“Apparently, everybody who shops at Orbach's asks for her hat. They're magic. And today, that's what they will get. Magic,” Schwinn said. As with the Wife's pillbox hats, these all had plastic tortoiseshell combs sewn into each side of the grosgrain ribbon to hold them firmly in place. Schwinn placed the hat on Kate's head, with the wide band in front, and pushed it slightly so that it sat on the back of her head, just as Mrs. O'Connor had done for the Wife.

“This way, when you're photographed, the hat won't get in the way of your face and block your beautiful features.”

“That's clever.”

“That's Hollywood, and that's why Cassini gets to be the secretary of style. A costume designer from Paramount Pictures was exactly what Maison Blanche needed.” Schwinn removed the pillbox and began teasing Kate's hair into a makeshift updo. “There is not an original idea in that man's head, but he can whip up the kind of beauty that the public wants to see. Nothing too extreme, just pretty. And American.”

Kate had really never thought of it that way, but it must be true. He dressed his wife, Gene Tierney, and then Grace Kelly, his girlfriend, and they were both all-American beauties.

“It's quite a trick, if you think about it,” Schwinn said. “He's a Russian, born in Paris, but he's sharp enough to understand how Americans see ourselves and what our dreams are.”

Schwinn sprayed Kate's hair in place with the White Rain that one of the Ready-to-Wear girls had left behind. The hair spray made Kate sneeze. He then put the hat back on her head. Arranged it. Secured it. He held a hand mirror up so she could take a look. Kate looked like someone else. Someone she didn't know.

“You look sharp, Cookie,” he said. “Nice neck.”

The pillbox was not as vibrant as the raspberry tweed of the suit; nor was it as complicated. It didn't catch the light in the same way. It was a dull replica. But there was something about it that was remarkable nonetheless.

“Very nice,” she said.

“Nice? It's the accessory of the moment—maybe even of the millennium. Old women. Young women. They put a pillbox on their head and imagine what it's like to be her.”

Looking in the mirror, Kate could imagine it too. She tilted her head to the right, as the Wife often did in photographs, and wondered if she could ever whisper something clever to Patrick in a coy, cultured way. She'd stopped by the butcher shop that morning on the way to work. It was so early that the pig men were there, and she and Patrick had had a rather extended conversation about the beauty of the Tamworth pig. He was quite enthused.

“This is the Irish Grazer. If you were a pig, Kate, that's what you'd be. Red hair. Loves apples. Sweet eyes, like you. Makes excellent ham.”

It was a bit disturbing to think that the man she was considering marrying thought of her as a lovely pig—one he was delighted to slaughter. Kate was still trying to figure out what to make of that, especially since Peg's ring was now jammed tight on her finger. No amount of butter, ice, or shampoo could slip it off.

“Even from beyond the grave, our Peg is not a subtle woman,” Patrick had said.

Coy and cultured conversations did not seem to be part of Kate's future plans.

“Keep the hat,” Schwinn said. “Suits you. My gift.”

“I don't need it.”

“Since when is fashion ever a question of need, kiddo?” Schwinn added a large hat pin to the back. “Just in case there's a tornado.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Made a few extra. It will be your inspiration for the day.”

And it was. With her pink pillbox hat tilted to the back in a jaunty style, and her red hair piled high on her head as if she were on her way to the Metropolitan Opera—ungodly noise, that was—Kate put on her white cotton gloves, rolled up her shirtsleeves, and began.

Chanel's construction was designed with an eye toward freedom of movement. There were three sections for each sleeve so that the arm could move without restriction. Kate cut, steamed, and stitched. Then she added the front panels, which needed to be matched ever so carefully, and then the back panels. Cut and stitch. Over and over again. Cut and stitch. Then, ever so gently, she steamed the seams into place.

When Maeve and the rest of the back-room girls arrived, they worked around Kate. “You look like you're ready for lunch with the queen,” Maeve said. “Pink hat? That suit's made you half-daft already.”

At noon, Miss Sophie was standing over her, holding another envelope from The Carlyle. “This is the second in a month,” she said. “Is there something I should know?” Kate had forgotten about The Carlyle completely. Miss Sophie didn't wait for a response; she just turned and left. She was clearly upset with Kate. She didn't even mention the pink hat. The envelope made Kate's hands shake, and that wouldn't do. She needed a walk, needed to calm down. She knew she couldn't sew perfect stitches with a shake. Kate took off her white cotton gloves and slipped the envelope into the pocket of her heather tweed skirt. She didn't take her suit jacket or her coat. She was too upset to think that far. She even left her purse behind.

“I'm going to lunch,” she said, to no one in particular.

The world outside Chez Ninon was warm enough, bright enough. Park Avenue was filled with shoppers; some had their drivers holding their packages. Some were harried mothers ferrying children across the busy streets. There were executives with cigars hailing cabs to make luncheons. And there were the drones—the office workers and girl Fridays—pushing their way toward the hot dog carts and empty park benches.

Kate had no idea where she was going until she ended up on Seventh Avenue, Fashion Avenue. It reeked of onions and old fish. The wide street was lined with men in cheap suits and yarmulkes. They huddled together, talking, their heads bobbing in nicotine clouds. These were the cutters—Kate knew that; their rutted faces were edged in dust and chalk. All day long, they cut fabric. That was all they did.

At Chez Ninon, the cutters were part of the Ready-to-Wear team. They were consulted with in meetings and spoke freely about the problems or benefits of one fabric over another. On Seventh Avenue, no one cared what the cutters thought about fabric, line, or color. They were mostly men, mostly Jews; they just cut and cut quickly, without complaint.

An unmarked door swung open as Kate passed. “Lunch is over,” a foreman shouted. “Kikes,” he said under his breath.

“How ugly,” she said.

Kate couldn't believe that she said it out loud. But she wasn't sorry. It was ugly—although she wasn't sure if she meant the man, that horrible word, or that world in general—but she clearly meant it.
This type of behavior just has to stop,
she thought. The foreman gave her a nasty look. He spat on the sidewalk, not on her but close enough. Kate thought of seeing the good pastor on the subway train, with his beautiful blue tie and his remarkable courage.

Hate is such sorrowful business,
she thought, and kept on walking. Lunch was over, but Kate couldn't go back yet. She wasn't ready to tell the Ladies about The Carlyle. She would probably be fired, and Maeve, with all her tricks and shortcuts, would likely finish the suit for Maison Blanche—and that would not do at all.

As Kate walked down Seventh, trucks jumped the curb and parked on the sidewalk; vans cut in and out of the skittish traffic. All around her, men were running with racks of dresses on hangers or pushing handcarts overflowing with fabric or trim or both. The windows on the second floors of the buildings were flung open, and the furious music of sewing machines mixed with the melodies of gossip from those mice, those back-room girls, the sweatshop girls. Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, and German, they worked for a better wage than they could make at home, but it was still not a good wage. At least now they were organized. They were union, and thirty-five hours a week meant thirty-five hours, no matter what names their bosses called them. In the suburbs, Kate heard things were very different indeed.

When she reached West Thirty-Fourth, Kate turned off the avenue. Between Fifth and Sixth she found herself standing outside Orbach's. Above her in gold letters were the words
OPEN TODAY UNTIL NINE.
There were crowds gathered on the street, studying the windows. The display of the moment was clearly designed to sell “the Look,” as Schwinn had called it. Window after window, everywhere Kate looked, she saw the Wife. There were dozens of mannequins, all fashioned in the likeness of the First Lady—with billowing hair and wide-set eyes—and dressed in the department store's versions of Her Elegance's clothes.

Copies, replicas, knockoffs—you could call them what you wanted, but they were amazing and totally convincing. The Wife was there in her double-breasted red “good luck” campaign coat from Givenchy—Kate still couldn't believe that Maggie had given that back to her, too. The Wife was also in Cassini's beige crepe wool dress from the inauguration ceremony, and the stubborn red-wool bouclé day dress, the Christian Dior by way of Chez Ninon, which nearly drove Kate insane.

“That one's mine,” Kate told the lady standing next to her.

“I've got the red coat,” the woman said. “The double breasted.”

Kate wanted to clarify but knew that the woman wouldn't believe her. Or if she did believe her, Kate would seem to be bragging, and she'd done enough of that sort of thing recently.