The Pink Suit: A Novel (8 page)

“Patrick,” she said. The rest of the sentence was more difficult to say; there were so many choices for how it could end: “I don't want to lose you” or “I don't want to lose myself” or “I don't know if I have time to love anyone properly” or “I'm not the sort of person people love.” But the way Kate said his name seemed to tell Patrick everything he needed to know. She could see it in his face—a trace of disappointment, and then that smile.

“We're fine now, Kate?” he said. “Sorry I overstepped.”

Friends again,
she thought. But wasn't sure that was what she wanted at all.

“Well, then,” he said. “Nice suit. How have you been?”

He was trying to make her smile, but she couldn't. He put his arm around her. “Let me walk you home. Where's your hat and gloves?”

The last Kate remembered, they were on the rosewood table in front of the fireplace at The Carlyle, looking as if they belonged. But they didn't belong, and neither did she. And now her very best hat and her beautiful, soft kidskin gloves were gone. She took the package from Patrick. “I'll be fine. Go back and have fun.”

Kate gently pushed her way past him, into the crowd and then into the night, alone.

A
hot bath was what Kate needed, a good, long soak, but it was little comfort. Steam filled the small, white room: a poor heaven. Windows kept the stars at bay. She couldn't imagine what Mrs. Brown thought of her going into the Gents'. Patrick's peace offering made her feel even worse. It had been slid under her door. Inside the large manila envelope there was a poem by Yeats that Patrick had copied out carefully, calligraphy style, on cream parchment paper with deep, black ink. No one had ever done such a lovely thing for Kate before.

Kate hadn't thought of Yeats since her days at National School, when she'd had to memorize one of his poems. She'd chosen this very one because it was short, although at the time she'd thought it was overly grand.
Enwrought
was just a fancy word for
embroidered,
after all. As soon as she'd passed her exams, she'd forgotten it.

Now she couldn't get it out of her head. Outside Kate's window, the pub crowd was stumbling home. William Butler Yeats as a way of apology. Only Patrick Harris would do such a thing.

Kate's heaven was poor indeed. There was no fabric embroidered with golden or silver light. Water pipes ran from floor to ceiling, exposed and rusting. The painted cast-iron bathtub was peeling. And yet, there was Yeats and his exquisite vision of the world; there was some comfort in that.

Kate meant to close her eyes for just a moment but slipped into sleep. Then slipped further, nearly under the water. It was a laugh that woke her—slurred and squealing outside her window. Maggie, very late and quite drunk, was coming home with Big Mike in tow. Kate jumped out of the cold tub. She couldn't stop shaking. Her thin terry-cloth robe smelled of bluing and was stiff. It felt harsh against her skin. She put it on, tied it tightly, and sat on the chipped bathroom floor.

The bare lightbulb, the stained walls, and the rusting pipes that moaned nearly continuously—
This is my life,
she thought.
Life under the clouds.
It suddenly did not feel beautiful and broken, but merely broken. That was when Kate decided that she would copy Chanel's toile even before the suit was made. It wasn't done, but she didn't care. If the Ladies found out, she could be fired. If she ruined the toile accidentally, she could be fired. But to make the pink suit for Maggie was an irresistible challenge. This pink suit was real art, after all. Not a copy of a copy.
My brush with greatness,
she thought.

She didn't have much time. Kate cleared off her worktable by the fistful, heaping things upon other things. She put on her white cotton gloves, the ones she always used when handling fine fabrics, and rolled up the sleeves of her old bathrobe.

Chanel always worked in a suit, with hat and pearls—the Ladies had told her that, but Kate didn't have time to care. Chanel's box had been opened by the Ladies and resealed with just a single strip of cellophane tape. Kate pulled the tape up carefully. The muslin toile was still wrapped in white tissue paper embossed with Chanel's name and the double-C logo. There was a wax seal. If Kate was very careful, no one would know that she'd opened the box. She gently slid the toile out of its wrapping. The seal remained unbroken.

Good. Fine. Perfect.

It was difficult to believe it was really Chanel's toile in her hands. At Chez Ninon, they'd never received a line-by-line replica of Chanel's work before; there was something about it that was profound. It had gravity to it. Kate now knew that her copy of the toile wasn't even close, was a cheap imitation.
Eegit,
she thought. She'd felt so unbelievably proud of what a wonderful job she thought she'd done. But now Kate could see that the Wife would have known immediately that Kate's effort was only an imitation. She was, after all, a very good client of Chanel.

The toile held a faint, musky scent of roses and cigarettes. The muslin was a very particular weight and was the color of old ivory. Chanel probably had her own muslin made especially for the bouclé. It was basted together with golden thread.
Enwrought,
Kate thought. Holding the Chanel in her hands, she suddenly realized that she was no better than a trained monkey. If a designer always used a particular stitch, then Kate used it. If a designer rolled the collar in a certain way, Kate did that too. At Chez Ninon, you did whatever it took to make a garment seem “real.” But in the end, even if the copy you made looked exactly the same as the original—with the same material and the same perfect stitch—a suit, like this pink suit, was only nearly right.
Knockoffs,
as they were called.
Off,
like meat left lying in the sun.

What made a Chanel was Chanel. It was, quite simply, the woman herself. This pink suit was not just a suit: it was Chanel's vision. It was complicated and yet seemingly simple. It was art: beautiful, and overwhelming.

Kate held the toile to her face for a moment, weighing it and committing the weight to memory. In order to create a proper pattern, she would have to adjust the cut of her own toile accordingly and make allowances for her own fabric, which was rough and cheap.
The world is filled with so many things that back-room girls can't even imagine,
she thought. Things like a toile that is soft as cashmere.

Kate dismantled Chanel's toile, the test garment, so very carefully. Every stitch—and there were hundreds—she snipped with her sharp scissors. When finally done, she ironed the pieces flat. Each part was like a piece of a puzzle. She placed them over a few yards of yellow calico that she'd been saving for a summer dress. It was not the right weight at all, but it was all she had. Kate pinned the pieces down and sharpened her scissors again. She had to be careful. One snag. One stain. One slip. The muslin could be ruined so easily. But Kate cut. And cut.

While she worked, Kate could hear everything in the apartments above and below her. The restless, creaking floorboards, the soft vibrato of sleep, the words of lovers scattered like dice—there were no secrets at that hour. Kate could hear the rasp of her own breath and the newspaper boy's swing and thud. The milkman's truck was a rattle of glass bottles. Then doors clicked. Dogs barked. Brakes squealed. It was morning.

Kate basted Chanel's toile back together as quickly as she could, but she made sure that each stitch removed was replaced exactly. There could be no mistakes. It was bad enough that the gold thread Kate had was not exactly the same; it wasn't silk, but it was the best she could do. The Ladies would not be pleased if they thought Kate had copied the toile. It wasn't done, especially with a toile as important as this one. But Kate couldn't help herself. It was such a beautiful suit, and a Chanel. Kate had to understand it stitch by stitch.

When a taxi stopped outside the building and gave two honks, Kate finally finished. She carefully folded Chanel's toile and slipped it back into the tissue paper and into the package. And then she fell fast asleep.

Miss Sophie was not angry—she said that repeatedly—but she was surprised.

Kate was late for the first time.
Ever.
And Mrs. Astor's girl was furious about the dress. She actually wagged her finger at Miss Sophie when she came round and found that it was unfinished. “It was like a little fat sausage in my face.”

Miss Sophie had missed her breakfast, so the temptation to lunge was apparently quite keen.

Then there was The Carlyle. There had been a delivery that morning—on a Saturday morning, no less. It was addressed to Kate. It was a box marked
PERSONAL
.

“Kate. What has gotten into you?”

That seemed to be a very popular question.

The Ladies sat in their office at the faux Louis XIV desk, with the box from The Carlyle between them. Mr. Charles sat next to Kate on the silk settee, his perfectly manicured hands folded as if in prayer. He was Kate's boss, after all. Miss Sophie had made everyone tea, but it had grown cold.

“Man trouble, is it?”

“No.”

“The butcher? Peg Harris's son?”

“Patrick?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Are you ill?”

Another very good question. Seeing the box from The Carlyle had made her breathless.

“No.”

“This is addressed to you.”

“Yes.”

“Kate, you can tell me if something's wrong. You really can. Mr. Charles, Miss Nona, and I will always help you.”

Kate believed her. Since the beginning, everyone at Chez Ninon had been so kind. Still, she picked up the box and stood. “The tea was lovely, thank you.”

“You didn't drink it.”

“Mrs. Astor's gown won't sew itself.”

Kate turned to walk back to her desk.

“Kitty?” Mr. Charles said.

She wanted to stop.

“Kitty?”

Kate knew that if she didn't turn around, Mr. Charles would be cross with her. Maybe even send her home.
Kate. Just Kate. Not Kitty.

Box in hand, Kate walked down the long, narrow hallway that separated the Ladies from the back-room girls, past the rows of empty dressing rooms, richly appointed with an eye to serene elegance, and through the staging room, filled with racks of clothes waiting for delivery or a final fitting, past the sample room, where the green tweed suit she'd borrowed for The Carlyle was back on its hanger for a good airing out, and into the back room, with the rest of the girls. The closer Kate got to the workroom, the louder the hum was. When the carpeting ended and the floor turned to concrete, she felt she was where she belonged. The clattering of dozens of sewing machines, the gossip and laughter, the din of work—it was such a comfort. In the back room, Kate wasn't a second-class citizen. No one had the touch like she did. If the Ladies and Mr. Charles were angry, they'd get over it soon enough. She might not be Chanel, but they needed her.

Kate placed the box from The Carlyle underneath her workbench; it could wait. Maison Blanche could not. She turned the iron on. Mr. Charles had asked her to press the toile. Maeve was busy with another fitting. The first fitting for the pink suit was in ten minutes. At least, it was scheduled to begin in ten minutes. So much would depend on traffic, and the Holy Dead of St. Patrick's, of course.

Our Chanel,
Kate thought as she ironed the toile into place, seam by seam. The loosely fitted box jacket with matching blouse and A-line skirt were more complicated than she had even imagined. When finished, the front of the jacket would appear to be made from a single piece of fabric—but it was actually a series of rectangles pieced together. Since the bouclé was handmade and easily unraveled, given to shedding with the least provocation, construction would be a daunting task. With Chanel, nothing was ever easy.

Chanelisms, Chaneleries
—the fashion magazines all had their name for them; her construction techniques were legendary. The jacket would take more than seventy hours to make. The lining must first be quilted to the fabric before it was cut. Then there were the buttonholes. To be Chanel, they had to be sewn twice. Each one must be embroidered on the bouclé side and then bound on the lining side. Then the two must be basted together. It was insanely difficult to do properly because each side must be sewn with a very fine silk thread. The thread was so fine, and so fragile, that you couldn't pull it through the eye of a needle unless you dipped it in beeswax for strength.

The buttons themselves were also a surprise. They looked manufactured but were actually made by hand. Each was an ornate metal cap set in a fabric-lined ring. Each had to be tacked in with stitches so fine, they would be invisible to the naked eye.

And, finally, the fabrics were always difficult, at best. The blouse was to be made of a very particular silk charmeuse that was too delicate to be made into a shirt, and impossible to sew without damaging, but would feel wonderful next to the skin. For the suit itself, the bouclé was so loosely woven and very fragile—too fragile to wear often. But the softness of the cloth was incomparable, so it must be stitched together with magic and hope. When photographed, Kate knew the suit would appear practical and durable. It would appear conservative. But in reality, it was incredibly fragile and decadent. Everything about it was luxurious and sensuous—and that was its secret.

Copy or not, to make it one time was impossible. To make it twice was unimaginable. Wonderfully unimaginable.