The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard (21 page)

The house, where I arrived the next day, was a bungalow in the tidy new Craftsman manner. A shallow porch, broad, bottom-heavy columns, and brown shingles: the house seemed earthbound compared to the porticoes and fluted pilasters favored by my clients. On the sidewalk, I stopped a moment to gaze at the jumble of poppies and nasturtium, their orange petals vivid against the wood fence. Unnervingly, they reminded me of Kansas, where the ladies in town planted any flower that had a hope of surviving the winters. I remembered zinnias crowding in a cheerful cluster by someone's picket fence. Whose house was that?

I had not thought of her in ten years: Bertha Louise Popp, the wife who came home with Harris Popp after a trip to Wichita to look over cattle. Wearing her mass of yellow hair piled on top of her head like a hay bale, she was a great sniffer, sniffing at warm pies offered to welcome her and at the barn dance Harris was foolish enough to take her to. He didn't try it but once. That's what he gets, people said, for bringing home a stranger. Dog can keep you warm at night and is better company than Bertha. Then they would sniff. People laughed. I laughed. Bertha had had no need for my services, telling me when I called on her that she knew how to thread a needle. As if that was all I did. She was the only person in Grant Station who could grow a zinnia.

I was surprised that the memory could still make my cheeks flame. I wondered whether time had been kind to her, and I hoped not. Self-consciously, I plucked a nasturtium petal and held it up, allowing the sunlight to illuminate the pale yellow veins seaming the base as if pleating it. When I glanced at the house, I might have seen a curtain drop at the window, though perhaps not.

Mrs. Abigail Hoyt herself answered the door, surprising me. I had become accustomed to maids. "I am Madame Annelle."

She examined my card, raised black copperplate on heavy cream stock. I had had to make four suits to afford twenty-five of the cards, which I carried in my case no more than two at a time. "Presser," she said. "It does not sound French."

"No." I watched Mrs. Hoyt's gaze travel down my gray kid gloves that echoed the steely blue-gray of my skirt's trim. A restrained hand had to be employed in accessorizing, or the effect was common. Mrs. Hoyt's afternoon dress for receiving guests was a pretty voile, its bodice done up to suggest a kimono sash. I took note; the two discreet gathers at the hip effectively coped with Mrs. Hoyt's substantial figure. "What a lovely
coton,
" I said. "Such a difficult fabric to work with."

"You seem very knowledgeable about my fabric. Perhaps you are accustomed to working with cotton.
Coton.
"

I was angry at the flush I felt rise to my face. My clients did not often challenge me. "It is easy to choose poorly."

"Not by an expert."

"There are so few of those," I said.

"What do you see here that demonstrates expertise?"

I remained on the far side of her threshold as she held her skirt's fabric across the sill for me to examine. A passerby might have thought me an Irish girl looking for a position. Now would be the time to praise Mrs. Abigail Hoyt's refinement and perhaps to hint also at astute bargaining. "The threads are wrapped very tightly," I said. "A surprising thing to see in such a delicate weight. I suppose you are concerned about creasing."

"A dressmaker should always be concerned about creasing," she said. "But then, you aren't quite a dressmaker, are you?"

"The word is different in French," I said.

"So I've heard." In the long moment that followed, I could have stepped back from her deep porch and returned to my own sun-baked room. Two half-completed suits waited for me there, one brown, one gray, both belted at the waist, as had been the navy suit I had finished the week before. I held my place and wished my color were not so high.

"Well, come in," Mrs. Hoyt said, stepping back from the oak door. I followed her through the stub of a foyer into a dark front room decorated with only a few pieces—a red lacquer piano, a dark green velvet settee atop a ruby-colored Persian rug. No stacks of fabric rested on the piano bench or the oak window seat, no dressmaker's form was pushed into the corner. Mrs. Hoyt did not need to make her home an
atelier.

"I understand you are a seamstress of exquisite taste." Mrs. Hoyt gestured at the settee for me to seat myself, though she remained standing.

"It is my good fortune to create garments for ladies of discernment."

"Dear me. You're very grand."

"Oh, Mrs. Hoyt." It was not easy to keep myself from saying
madame.
"Discernment is not grand, as you know."

"Is this another reference to my
coton
?" In her mouth the word sounded absurd, and I felt my anger thicken and take hold like a root. Mrs. Hoyt's broad face might be called handsome, but it was not fine at all, and dewlaps were starting to descend over her lace collar.

I said, "Your home." From my place on the settee, I gestured around the living room as if to introduce the piano and heavy drapes to Mrs. Hoyt. "The colors are quite fine. And your appearance—your hair is worn simply, but with distinction."

To my vast satisfaction, she started to raise her hand to the chestnut hair pulled back rather too harshly from her forehead. "You're not French any more than my cat is," she said, replacing her hand at her side.

I shrugged. "My family."

"I could give a hoot. But I don't like girls who lie."

"You are welcome to talk to my clients. Should you care to see my work habits, I would be happy to receive you at my
atelier.
" I spread my hands, grateful at that moment that I could take refuge in Madame Annelle's sturdy derision. The gesture was borrowed from Lillian Gish, and I hoped Mrs. Hoyt did not recognize it. "I confess that I am surprised by this conversation. I expected to discuss whether I can make a net overlay."

"You underserve your own reputation. Any lady in this city will tell you that Madame Annelle can copy a garment, and that she will manage to convey her opinion along the way."

"Clients like guidance," I murmured. Her words flared in my mind like a struck match, though she had not meant to please me. Perhaps it was time to raise my rates.

"I hired a girl not too long ago to work as my apprentice. She came with me to the studio; I introduced her to people. We were associated." Mrs. Hoyt's mouth crimped, and I wondered where this story was going. The tales that swirled most persistently around Hollywood had to do with immoral behavior, a point I had considered when I dressed that morning and chose my seemly suit.

"One day a little man came to the studio, asking for her. His trousers were dirty, and he had long fingernails. When she saw him she looked ill."

"An abandoned husband?"

"Her opium procurer. I had not known what to look for. I do now."

I smiled. "I don't smoke opium."

"I knew that. But I don't like surprises. What else should I know about you?"

I could not quite compare her intense, quivering face to that of a bulldog, I thought, but something broadly canine spread across her snout and muzzle. I said, "I do not care to sew for children. I am very quick and my measurements are accurate."

"You alone, on all the planet, have no past waiting to catch up with you?" Her voice did not quite drip with scorn. Still, the scorn was there, and I supposed that she did not derive joy from traveling around Los Angeles and hearing about the beauties of Madame Annelle's garments. At that moment, I believed myself secure. With my ankles crossed as I sat, I was serene and composed, a product finished down to French seams and a weighted hem: Madame Annelle.

I said, "I learned my trade young. Though I would have preferred otherwise, I had no teacher."

"A girl by herself, with a thimble and a dream?"

"
Oui.
"

"Lillian Gish could play you," she said pointedly, and I did not shift from my position. If Mrs. Hoyt were a dog and I the rabbit it was shaking, I was not about to be killed. Rabbits could be wily. I doubted that Mrs. Hoyt had reason to know that.

She said, "You have come to Los Angeles and created yourself anew. Madame Annelle! The ladies of Los Angeles tremble at your pronouncements."

"Surely it is I who should fear you, Mrs. Hoyt. You are the vanguard of fashion for movies that are seen all over the world!" I was pleased to have pulled up
vanguard,
a word generally used to indicate disapprobation in the newspapers.

"And do you fear me, Madame Annelle?"

"Please," I said. "I hope to learn from you." If she had made herself approachable in the smallest degree, we might have shared a moment's confidence. Even a woman who spent her time thinking of harems and opium dens must have seen the lines of suit-wearing ladies ready to pay five cents apiece to view such iniquity. I wasn't proposing that Mrs. Hoyt and I become boon companions, but we might have smiled together.

Mrs. Hoyt had no desire to smile. "What do you expect me to teach you?" she said. "
Qu'est-ce que vous voulez étudier?
"

She rumpled her lip expertly across the French words, and I understood the finishing school, the deportment classes, the graduation ceremony with girls in white lawn and ribbons rolling hoops across the grass. I kept my own lips very tight when I said, "As you know, there is a difference between
couture
and costume. Not that I often have the opportunity to imagine
couture
"

"What do you believe that difference to be?"

"When I return home this afternoon, two half-finished suits will be waiting for me. Fine wool, each. Double-breasted, each. A belt snug at the waist, each."

"When they are finished, they will be lovely. Each."

"In their way. A person longs for variety."

Mrs. Hoyt flicked one eyebrow, an excellent little expression. "Just because you will be making costumes for me, I will not expect a lessening of quality. If your name is worth anything, it's worth finished edges."

"I would not let a handkerchief go from my workroom"—alert now, I avoided the unstable French word—"without finished edges."

"Proper cuffs. Straight seams. As well as the now-notorious buttonholes." The glance that lit on my startled face was hard. "Did you think you were the only one to notice? Everyone noticed. Mr. Laemmle received letters, which he brought to me."

"I know that details are important. Details create illusions. I never forget that people are trying to escape their own lives."

"Just as you are not," Mrs. Hoyt said.

The room around me, not to speak of the house, shone with dark wood. The walls and seats glowed maroon and green, as rich as ripe fruit. A Mr. Hoyt must exist, or have existed, and I wondered if he delighted in his wife's yanked-back hair but pretty dress, her quick eyes atop a jaw that was softly collapsing. In Mrs. Hoyt's gaze, I felt quick and charming and insubstantial: a hummingbird to her bulldog. It was a rare way to think of myself. "I am content in my life," I said. "And for that I am grateful. It could be otherwise."

"It probably will be otherwise," she said. "Life does not stand still."

"I am aware of that," I snapped. A look crossed her face that could have been amused and could have been affronted. She left the room, returning with several folded yards of deep brown velvet and a piece of paper. "Skirts," she said. "Six of them, by next Tuesday. Here are the measurements and the pattern. Bring them to the studio. You know where the studio is?"

"Yes." I would find it by next Tuesday.

"I'll pay you by the piece for now: two dollars per skirt. Later, we'll see." She caught me trying to glimpse the paper and said, "A woman who is content in her life does not need to adjust the pattern on a skirt to make her happiness complete."

"Any woman can be forgiven for being curious." Gazing up at her, I did not bother anymore to smile. "Yours are the designs that will be seen by thousands."

"Every one of whom will write to Mr. Laemmle if another buttonhole is missed. Go." She pushed me. Gently, but nevertheless, a push. "Go sew and be content."

I let the words ring through my head on the rackety ride home, the velvet folded in a heavy parcel on my lap. Thinking of myself as content made me uncomfortable. No sooner did a person start concerning herself with contentment than she discovered all the fields and pathways of her life where discontent had taken root, and once those pale shoots saw light, they turned green and strong. Not everything benefited from being thought about.

I knew the virtues of my life. The last time I had delivered an order to Mrs. Monteague, she had hastily rustled me to the side door and said, "Let's sit in the garden! The lilacs are in bloom." Which they were, though sulkily, on the far side of the lawn. Twittering Mrs. Monteague pulled out her small purse and paid me for the cape and blouses without trying them on, then tucked the package underneath the wrought-iron patio table. Inside the house, I saw the shadow of a man's figure crossing the living room. "People do not understand!" Mrs. Monteague said.

"No, they do not," I assured her. In that unwelcome instant, as if the memory had been stored in my bones, I remembered the crackle of a corn-shuck mattress underneath my back, the muscles all but immobilized from hours spent huddled over embroidery. I had had to work silently so Jack and his mother did not waken; they would not have understood. Or they would have understood too well, like Mrs. Hoyt.

I discreetly eased my spine and looked out the streetcar's open window. Before a men's shoe store a one-man band rattled out a ragtime tune, and a fellow coming out of the store flipped a penny into the soft hat on the pavement.

I did not need Mrs. Abigail Hoyt to tell me that my life was arranged to my own cut and measure. Occasionally I imagined what Jack might say were he to glimpse my bedroom, stacked with notions like a dry-goods counter, or my meticulously kept calendar. Jack did not own language to describe what my life had become. Nor did I.
Content
was not the word.

When I reached the end of my streetcar ride, I would confront a hot room, and outside of it a corridor creaking with emptiness after the other girls left for dinner or worked through the evening. It went without saying that I was lonely. It went without saying, but now Mrs. Hoyt had very nearly said it, as she might have pointed out a flaw in an otherwise finished garment. I shifted on the flaking wooden seat, unable to find a comfortable position.