The Pink Suit: A Novel (16 page)

W
hen a garment was complete, the final step was to sew on the label. For ready-to-wear, it read
Chez Ninon. New York, Paris
. Couture garments, being completely handmade, were more complicated. Each label identified Chez Ninon, but it also bore the name of the owner, the date the garment was created, and the model number assigned to it, so that if its remnant was needed for repair work, or if the owner wished to have the piece cleaned and stored at the shop, it could be easily identified. It was a very efficient system.

The label for the pink suit was waiting on Kate's table when she arrived that next morning. There was a trunk show going on, but after it was over, the Wife was scheduled to come in for a fitting of the completed suit. It would be her first and final.

Everything was ready for her arrival, so Kate and Maeve snuck up front to see the show. It was Snob Dresses, the “It” dresses of the hour. Modest in design and outrageous in price, they were worn with the Wife's preference of a tiny, two-inch heel. They were “little nothings,” more stylish than around-the-town dresses and more ornate than the yearly Little Black Dress that Chanel always showed with pearls. More important, at least for the Ladies, they were amazingly profitable if run off on the machines, with only a few hand finishes, just for show. The Ladies had written their regulars about a special trunk showing.
Straight from Paris, for Winter Cruise Season!

Straight from Mr. Charles would have been more truthful. He'd designed every last one of them as his last act.

“Miss the old goat,” Maeve said.

Mr. Charles and Maeve were about the same age, but Kate didn't want to mention that. She never even told Maeve about the Atelier or being “intoxicated by lilacs” or the gin martini. And, of course, the fact that Mr. Charles had paid her bill at The Carlyle would be a secret Kate would take to her grave. It was embarrassing enough to confess it to Father John.

The bright colors of the summer Snob had become passé, and so Mr. Charles had created an “Anti-Snob Snob” in somber tones. It was basically the same dress—a well-fitted sheath—with endless variations in black, brown, and gray. No prints. The necklines were bowed or slashed or cowled. There were pleats or buttons—but not both. There was a sleek gray silk Snob with an exaggerated Greek neckline that draped the collarbone, and a brown wool day Snob with a hem made of dozens of brown woolen roses. The black crepe cocktail Snob was low in the back and could be worn in reverse—and that was cheeky enough to garner a standing ovation.

“They've no clue they're snobs themselves, do they?” Maeve said.

The showroom was filled with about fifty people or more. They were all wearing pillbox hats and white gloves, drinking away the sorrows of bad haircuts and imprudent servants with Taittinger; the Ladies had sprung for better champagne this time because the profit margins for Snob Dresses were vast.

Mrs. Babe Paley was in attendance, sitting in her usual spot, facing the audience. She was not wearing white gloves or a pillbox hat. She was, as always, setting trends, not following them. Her long legs were casually crossed at the ankle; her dark hair was turning elegantly gray, as God had intended. Kate admired that about her.

Mrs. Paley been the editor at
Vogue
years ago, then married the chairman of CBS, and then won some award for being well dressed. It wasn't so much that she was deadly beautiful, although she was—Kate could see that from across the room. It was as if she were sculpted from marble—the drape of her dress, the luminescent skin: there was a cool elegance to it all, as if she had remained untouched by human hands. The Ladies said she was not a trendsetter but a “fashion icon.” An original. Kate knew what the Ladies were getting at. Every time Mrs. Paley made a note about a piece, nearly everyone in the showroom would place an order for the outfit and hand it to the runner. It was pandemonium. Everyone wanted to be an original too, and that made Kate laugh. She wondered if Mrs. Paley was just having a bit of fun with the crowd, making notes just to see how many people jumped at the sight. Babe Paley never ordered in public. Everybody at Chez Ninon knew that.

When the show finished, she would wait until everyone had left and then go back to her favorite dressing room, where the Ladies would have the models walk by her one more time. The rule was that while Mrs. Paley was making up her mind, everyone had to be perfectly silent. No talking. No machines. No loud noises. Even the Ladies were confined to their private offices. “She hates the distractions,” Miss Sophie reminded the back-room girls.

And they call me the Queen,
Kate thought.

She'd never gotten a good look at Babe Paley before, but now that she had, Kate felt nothing but pity. Whenever she looked up at the girls on the runway—with their pose-turn-pose-turn style—Kate could clearly see that her eyes were deeply sad. She seemed hopeless, somehow. Even with all that money and fame. Kate didn't know what to make of it.

Kate and Maeve were still watching the show when Schwinn sidled up next to them and whispered, “Maison Blanche.” The Wife was waiting in the back room with the back-room girls.

It was really thrilling; even Maeve thought so. “How very ‘just us girls' of her,” she whispered.

Kate nearly ran down the long hallway to see her. She could hardly believe it. After all this time, and all these clothes, all these hours spent imagining her in one dress or another, Kate would finally get to see the Wife up close, maybe even have a word or two with her. To see her in that beautiful suit would be the most thrilling thing of all; she certainly would appreciate the perfectly quilted lining, no matter what Cassini had said. It would be impossible not to.
Just for a moment—maybe, just maybe—the Wife may even wonder if it is a real Chanel.
As long as she didn't look at the skirt too closely, it would be difficult to tell the difference.

There might even be tea. And if she had just a moment, if no one was talking to her, Kate could ask her about Cork. She could ask if she missed it, too. Maybe even ask after the Lees, because the Old Man would want Kate to do that. If there were still any Lees left in Cork, maybe she could get a telephone number for the Old Man to call, and they could all meet somewhere for a pint, if they fancied that, or just stroll through the English Market, looking at the wild geese, red currants, farmhouse cheese, and sweet butter.

At that moment, the world had become Kate's.
Queen of Inwood. Who cares what those people think?

Schwinn opened the back-room door with a flourish. “Girls,” he said, “meet the Wife.”

Instead of the usual entourage of forgettable men in rumpled suits and Ray-Bans, and nervous assistants with wash-and-wear hair and practical shoes, there was just one single girl. She was a slight girl, actually. It was not the Wife at all but a girl wearing the Wife's pink suit.

Take that off,
Kate thought as soon as she saw her.

“The new Wife,” Schwinn said. “Maison Blanche has decided we're completely off-limits these days. No more sneaking around in tunnels for Her Elegance.”

“Probably all the gawking the other day when she came round,” Maeve said. She sounded disappointed but not surprised.

Kate, on the other hand, was shocked. She knew the other shops always used live mannequins for the Wife, but not Chez Ninon.
We're
Blue Book,
she thought.
Miss Sophie, Miss Nona, and the grand Mrs. Molly Tackaberry McAdoo are Blue Book all the way. We're one of her own.

“She's not coming back?”

“Sorry, kiddo.”

At Chez Ninon they had dressed the mother and all the others in the clan of Lee for years, and then Her. But now the L&Ms and that air of Chanel No. 5 were gone forever. First Mr. Charles, now this. Kate had so many questions that they bled together and reduced themselves to just one: “Are we fired?”

“Nope.”

Schwinn handed Kate the envelope from Maison Blanche. It was filled with drawings and a dozen or more orders. They certainly were not fired. They would still make her clothes; the trip to India alone would take a solid month of work.

He shrugged. “Looks like Maison Blanche has decided to set up a procedure for us because they are the government—and that's what governments do best. That, and memos.”

Chez Ninon now had both. The memo even had bullet points:

• The live mannequin will now be used for all fittings. No exceptions.
  
• Photos will always be taken. If the outfit photographed meets the specifications stated, then the Chez Ninon label may be sewn in, and it will be eligible for inclusion in the White House collection. Once approved, all invoices will be handled in the usual manner.
  

Kate knew that meant Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo would address the invoices as if they belonged to Mrs. Raymond A. Gallagher, the Wife's secretary, and then mail them to either the account at Riggs Bank or to the Father-in-Law, in Hyannis Port, depending on the “damages,” as Maeve would say.

Neither Kate nor Schwinn could figure out whose desk the memo had come from. The paper was high quality, but plain and without a watermark.

“Very CIA,” Schwinn said. “Untraceable and thereby deniable.”

“I think the Minister of Style had it sent.”

“Doesn't matter. She's gone.”

It was difficult to imagine.

Schwinn took out his camera. It was an old Brownie, not a Polaroid, like the Minister of Style had. The pictures would have to be taken to the developer.

“Back to work for the mere mortals,” he said. The mannequin, whose name was Suze, was still wearing the beautiful suit. “Give us a pose,” he told her. “Something very Maison Blanche.”

The girl's pose was arrogant and sullen, and that made Kate angry. She wanted to shout—
She's not like that, she's not a snob—
but didn't. Kate really didn't know what the First Lady was like, and now she would never know.

“No. No,” Schwinn said to the girl. “We're looking for an I Hate Camp David but That's No Reason to Hate Me look. I need a look that's cheerful but pained.”

The girl laughed. “Got it,” she said, and tilted her head the exact way that the Wife did, her hips jutting out at an angle. She smiled winningly, but it wasn't the same smile at all. It didn't have that same playful spark. Maeve checked the fit. It was perfect except that the shoulder was slightly off.

“That's because of her swayback,” Kate said.

“Right. The gammy bit. Nearly forgot.”

Schwinn was clearly enjoying his role as White House photographer. He was thorough and sharp eyed. “Looks good, Cookie.”

“Not
Cookie
—Suze.”

“Suze.”

Schwinn didn't even try to explain that every female he knew was either “cookie” or “kiddo.” He was a names-optional sort of fellow. Unlike Cassini, Schwinn photographed the entire girl, including her head. Of course, the girl was younger than Kate, and the suit fit as it should. The skirt looked better than Kate thought it would, but she didn't want to look too closely at it. It still hurt that she didn't get to complete the job properly. In the end, the suit was beautiful and that's all that really mattered. Still, the vibrant pink bouclé overshadowed the girl. The navy silk blouse seemed dull against her skin. It was as if the model were just a child playing dress-up in her mother's clothes.

“What is it that makes one outfit look so different from person to person?” Kate asked.

“Karma,” Schwinn said. “You're not born into the perfect dress; you're reborn into it.”

T
he next day, when the letter from Kate's father arrived, she didn't have time to read it. She usually made a ritual of opening it with a proper cup of tea and her feet in a warm bath of soaking salts, but she and Patrick were on their way to the rectory to talk to Father John about marriage.

“Can't he just give us a few Hail Marys and a rosary or two and send us on our way?”

“He wants to know if we're ready to announce the banns.”

“And if we're not?” Kate asked.

“He wants to talk about that, too.”

Misery.
She put her father's letter in her purse for later.

Kate and Patrick walked hand in hand down Broadway. The sun was setting, but it was not dark yet. Impatient stars appeared, dim as shadows, but they still could be seen. The last remnants of Indian summer took the chill off the moment, making it warm enough to walk down the high street in just a smart hat, without gloves. Winter seemed impossible. They were nearly at the Good Shepherd Church when someone in a black Buick honked and waved.

“Customer,” Patrick said, and so they both waved back.

“People will talk,” she said.

“That they will.”

Father John answered the door to the rectory himself. He was in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black pants, and a black wool cardigan that one of the women from the Ladies Auxiliary had knit for him. He could have been any man. He didn't really look like a priest. He smelled of Ivory soap. His pale hair needed combing. Kate almost didn't recognize him without his collar. He was younger, softer looking, and a little too round around the middle. Cork's greatest footballer still had the air of an athlete—the mantle of the red and white, the Blood and Bandages, still hung about him, but now he was soft and pleased with his life.

“We can come back another time,” Patrick said.

“You're not getting out of it that easily,” he said, laughing. “Come in. Won't be that long.”

Father John led Kate and Patrick down the dark, paneled hallway. There was a light on in the dining room and a mumble of voices.

“I'd rather be playing poker, but we're discussing the Harvest Dinner Dance and Car Raffle. We're still looking for some chaperones for the young ones, in case you two are interested. Are you interested?”

Kate had never noticed how tall Father John was before. How long his arms were, how large his hands. The good father certainly had been a spark on the field; he was the finest player she'd ever seen. He'd throw his body into a block so fearlessly that it was stunning to watch.

“Kate?”

“I'm sorry. What were you saying?”

He was towering over her, clearly amused. “I'm going to need to put on my collar, aren't I? I can see it in your face. You're in one of those dreamy moods of yours.”

She was. That morning, the grand Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo and her tiny black-and-white fluffy dog boarded a Pan Am flight to Washington to deliver the photographs of the pink suit. Kate hoped that the Wife would request to have the skirt redone. This time properly, by hand.

Unfortunately, if the Wife didn't like the pink suit at all, the Ladies would not get paid. The memo was quite clear. It was all Kate could think about; it was all anyone at Chez Ninon could think about. Every time the telephone rang, the workroom went quiet. Miss Sophie told the back-room girls that the stewardesses always let Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo fly with Fred the dog on her lap. She was just that sort of lady. If anyone could talk the Wife into accepting the suit, it would be Miss Nona's niece. Kate hoped she was right.

Father John opened the door to his office and turned on the light. The room felt cold. It was just like being called into Mother Superior's office at the convent school. The priest put his huge hands in the pockets of his cardigan, which pulled the wool out of shape. He stood at the door, looking more like a student than a priest.

“I have to warn you both, I enjoy the sheer look of terror on your faces. I'm not going to allow either of you to leave tonight without a date set for the wedding.”

“Lovely,” Kate said.

“Fair warning, that's all,” he said.

As soon as he closed the door, Patrick took out his reading glasses and picked up the newspaper. “Would you like some?”

Outside the office, a floorboard creaked. Kate wondered if Father John was standing behind the closed door, listening. Plotting his strategy. He was always a fine strategist on the field; it was not such a stretch of the imagination to think that he'd be eavesdropping.
After all, there's no commandment against that,
Kate thought.

“Would you like the women's section?” Patrick asked.

“I'm fine,” she said.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek, shyly. Somewhere between the sky and the sea—that was the color of his eyes at that moment. He clearly wanted an answer from Kate, too. But he wouldn't push.

“If you want, we can sneak out before he gets back,” he said.

“That would add another rosary to the penance pile.”

“True.”

Patrick became engrossed in the sports section, and so Kate took out her father's letter. The envelope was from the Commodore Hotel in Cobh. The hotel had been majestic in its day. The last passengers to board the
Titanic
slept there before their voyage. Maybe the Lees, the Wife's people, slept there, too. Her father had nicked the envelope. He was always stealing stationery from fancy hotels. An open door was all the invitation he needed.
Still incorrigible,
Kate thought, and opened the envelope. There was a letter, yes. But something else, too.

“Rose petals.” Kate had forgotten about them completely.

Patrick looked up from the newspaper. She took a few from the envelope to show him. Brown and withered, from her father's garden, they'd obviously been pressed into a book the day she'd left. They crumbled in her hands.

I've heard about your pending change of status and have put your baby Jesus in the churchyard,
he wrote.
Let me know when He can come in again. He's looking bedraggled.

Jesus of Prague. It had been so long since Kate had even thought of that statue. If a girl was lucky enough to have one of her very own, it sat on the windowsill, as Kate's did. She loved making satin gowns to dress it up on holy days. It had a paste jewel crown and held a tiny ceramic world in one hand. It was quite regal, and good luck, too. If you dressed it up and prayed to it, you'd eventually find a suitable husband. Then you could pass the statue on to your own little girl. That was the way it was done in Cobh. The Prague child was put outside on the morning of your wedding to ensure a sunny day and a sunny life.

Apparently, Kate's own baby Jesus was now a lawn ornament until her father heard otherwise.
Word travels fast,
she thought.

“Everything all right with the Old Man?” Patrick asked. His reading glasses made him look quite scholarly.

“He knows.”

“Maggie?”

“Who else?”

“And his verdict? Am I to be skinned alive or the son he never had?”

Kate scanned the letter.
It's somewhat acceptable that the boy is an Over-the-
Bridger,
her father wrote,
only because he's Peg's boy, and your mam would have liked that. But he didn't even write me and ask for your hand, and that's rude. Those who live over the bridge are a different breed. It'll be a trial for you.

“You'll be a trial,” she said.

“That's a given. Anything else?”

Kate read ahead quickly.
P.S.,
her father wrote,
I did, indeed, nick the stationery as a commemorative gesture for your upcoming nuptials. Marriage is a lot like being on the Titanic—it's
all fancy dress and good eats until you drown
.

“You don't want to know,” Kate said.

She put the letter back in her pocketbook. The only thing she knew for sure was that her Prague child would catch his death in the churchyard, waiting.

“Should we call him?” Patrick asked.

“It's two a.m. there.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

After half an hour and no sign of Father John, Patrick began reading the sports section aloud to Kate: Yankees, again. Home-field advantage against the Baltimore Orioles.

Roger Maris versus Mantle to break Ruth's record of sixty home runs in a season.

Maris hit his sixty. Mantle won't make it. Maybe his last game ever. He's an old man.

Patrick looked up from the paper. “You know, Ruth was once a minor leaguer for the Baltimore Orioles.” Patrick had told her the story about Ruth slamming the ball out of the Dyckman Oval. He was always telling her interesting things.

“Do you really want to marry me?” Kate asked.

Patrick put the newspaper down. The poet butcher who named his car in honor of the President's mother, who played guitar for the prize of a fine-crumbed cake on any given Sunday after mass, this man who was usually so buoyant that he was unafraid to be sentimental or joyous or sing if there was a song that needed to be sung—this man seemed suddenly fragile.

“Will you have me?”

The door opened.

“Ready?” Father John asked.

Another very good question, indeed.

“Not yet,” Kate said.

This time, Patrick and Kate turned on every light in her tiny apartment. Maggie's coffins were still stacked waist high in chronological order on Kate's kitchen floor. The zippers and rickrack and buttons and lace were bright as fireflies caught in a jar. Bolts of silk in twenty shades of moonlight stood upright like ghosts.

“This looks like the remnant room at Chez Ninon,” Patrick said.

“Nearly.”

“Is that why we're here?”

“If I must understand the fine art of Irish butchering to be your wife, then you can't be a back-room girl's husband with knowing why she loves it so.”

“But Mam—”

“Didn't love it.”

“She enjoyed it.”

“That's different.”

It was. Patrick had never realized that before; he had never understood that Kate was not like his Peg. “I'm sorry,” he said, in a way that told her that he meant no harm. He was just a boy who loved a girl.

“Forgotten already.”

The pink bouclé that she had liberated from Chez Ninon was still wrapped in muslin. Kate brought the lamp from her bedside table and plugged it in, turned it on, and shone it on the fabric. She put on her white cotton gloves and unwrapped the pink gently and held it out for Patrick.

“It's not just wool or sheep's hair—as you said. It has life,” Kate said, and began to turn the bouclé to catch the light, as if it were a prism. “Every fabric has a voice. When you rub your hand quickly along it, you can hear its music. But it's not just the threads that sing; it's the life behind them. It's the song of those who tend the sheep and those who shear them, of those who dream in shades of cherry blossoms and shooting stars, and through alchemy and mathematics weave grace. It's the song of those who warp and weave and darn; it's the song of their lives, too. Because part of their lives, part of all their lives, was spent making something of such audacious beauty that it can nearly make the heart stop.”

Kate was on the verge of tears.

“If pink could be thunder,” Patrick said, “it would look like this.”

“Exactly.”

When the grand Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo and her tiny black-and-white fluffy dog Fred arrived at Chez Ninon the next afternoon, there was champagne. The Chanel had been accepted by Maison Blanche. “The pink suit was beloved!” Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo told the Ladies. And when Miss Sophie repeated this to Kate, she squealed to replicate the exact sound that Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo had made. The noise sounded like someone had accidentally sat on Fred the dog, but since Kate had never actually spoken to Mrs. Tackaberry McAdoo, she could neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the impersonation. She had to take Miss Sophie's word for it.

“Did the Wife want the skirt redone?” Kate asked.

“Of course not! Perfect as is!”

But it isn't right,
Kate thought. “Didn't she notice it was run off on the machines? Mr. Cassini said we needed to—”

Miss Sophie threw her head back and laughed. “Mr. Cassini says a great many things that no one listens to, Kate. I sent the skirt over to Jack at Oscar de la Renta. He's a little quicker than you are and a little cheaper, too.”

Jack was Chez Ninon's “Overflow Man,” as Mr. Charles had often called him. Jankiel Horowicz was old-fashioned and serious—Kate liked that about him. He'd been a tailor for the Polish army before the war, before the concentration camp, before his world fell apart. A quiet man, he did beautiful work. He didn't talk about his past, but Kate knew the stories and could see the sorrow in his eyes. She was glad that he was the finisher. He was a good man, and there was comfort in that.

So many hands and so many hearts,
she thought.
Just to make one simple suit.

Two weeks later, the story made headlines all over America:
GALS WILL RULE ON CAMP DAVID.
It was exactly as the Ladies had said. If the Wife and the daughter liked the mountain camp, then the family would abandon their leased country estate, Glen Ora, in Virginia. If not, Camp David would gather dust. Much to Kate's relief, the Wife was radiant in the pink suit. Even though the photos were in black-and-white, the suit still seemed incandescent. The Wife did seem reborn in it, as Schwinn would have said. No hat. No pearls. Gloves, though. The First Lady seemed to be wearing a different blouse with the suit, not one of the ones that Kate had designed. But it was difficult to tell for sure. She and the President were coming out of St. Stephen's Catholic Church on their way to Camp David, and it was windy. They looked happy.