The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard (41 page)

"Every day, in every way," she said.

"Oh my, yes. Better and better. Just ask my husband," I said.

"Or mine. Wherever he is," Mrs. Hoyt said. This was another gift. To thank Mrs. Hoyt, I kept my eyes on my work.

At the end of the day, we strolled out of the building together, mildly complaining about the ache in our hands from making seams in corduroy. "Perhaps the director could just give us cardboard to work on," I was saying. "It wouldn't be any more difficult."

I expected Mrs. Hoyt to respond, so when she did not I glanced at her figure beside me, suddenly rigid. She was staring down the blinding street. "Why, madame. There is your sister," she said.

Indeed. There was Lisette, her milky hand brushing a fine-looking pair of brown flannels. The street was too bright and the stinging in my eyes too much for me actually to see that the flannels belonged to Franklin Coston, but I recognized the slim figure and the easygoing hair.

"I had nothing to do with this," I said. "I have no idea how she managed to meet anyone," I said. "Perhaps she has finished her sewing for the day," I said.

"Yes, I think that's clear," Mrs. Hoyt said.

"I will make her tell me what happened." Desperation made my voice sound brittle, no matter how I tried to control it. "There must be a story here."

"You yourself said it. We know that story," Mrs. Hoyt said. "Do not tell it to me again."

"Please—"

"Go home, madame." When I did not move, she said, "
Allezvous en,
" which probably did not mean the same thing.

At the kitchen table the next morning, Lisette slumped and rubbed her reddened nose. Illness had settled over her in the night, before I could ask her a few questions about Franklin Coston. Though the timing of her collapse struck me as convenient, she pulled her wrapper tight in the mild air, and I could not dispute how her voice creaked with phlegm and how her eyes had become tiny, dull holes in the plain of her face. She winced when I slammed the door of the icebox, and again when I ground coffee. Many noises accompany morning. When I ran a basin of water, I had to let the water hammer a good little bit into the tin sink.

Aimée hovered around her sister. Already she had given Lisette two cups of hot water—tea would have been better, but we had run out—and two pieces of toast. Lisette ate one bite. "Don't you want to keep your strength up?" Aimée coaxed.

"I'm strong," Lisette croaked. She put her hand to her throat. "Hurts."

"We shouldn't have let you go to Hollywood yesterday," I said. "But you didn't look sick then." Yesterday, she had been a vamp: scornful eyes and practiced laugh and broad, creamy thighs. No one could have anticipated this collapse of a girl, sniveling juicily into her handkerchief.

"Won't you drink a little bit of juice? For me?" Aimée said.

"I hate juice," Lisette said. She picked up the glass and sulkily sipped, letting a negligent drop slide down her bosom. I hated for Mary to see her auntie behaving in a way I would not countenance from a child.

"That's the way," Aimée said.

"You can't go downtown in this state," I said. There was no help for the relief crowding my voice. If Mrs. Hoyt was going to fire Lisette, she could do it through me. If she was going to fire me, I would prefer that Lisette not be audience to the scene.

"I know," Lisette croaked.

"I'll explain to Mrs. Hoyt. I'll tell her that you both had to stay home."

Lisette blew her nose. "Aimée doesn't have to stay."

"I won't go there without you," Aimée said. Faint alarm flashed across her face.

Lisette gestured at her throat again. Hadn't we heard? It
hurt.
"I'll sleep."

"What if you need something?" Aimée said, and this time Lisette genuinely glared. "I don't like leaving you alone," Aimée said.

"Little Mother," Lisette whispered.

"There's plenty of coffee," I said, pulling Mary to me to brush her hair. "Hard-cooked eggs in the icebox."

"Oranges, crackers, yesterday's milk," Aimée said. "I could make you a nice egg cream. That would be nourishing."

Groaning, Lisette put her head on the table, and I touched Aimée's elbow. "Lisette knows what she needs right now. We have to hurry, or we'll be late." Without lifting her head—a lock of her hair had fallen into the sugar bowl—Lisette nodded. Unhappily obedient, Aimée fetched her hat and fluttered around her immobile sister twice more before I could usher her out, unhappy myself. Since the girls had arrived, I had never left Lisette alone in the house and to do so now felt unnatural. I had already moved the cracker tin of cash from my lingerie drawer to George's hatbox, though I was not proud of myself. Whatever her other character flaws, Lisette had never showed herself to be light-fingered.

When I arrived at the design shop, Mrs. Hoyt was drawing like a dervish. If she intended to fire me, she wouldn't pull the trigger just yet. Discarded pages mounded in drifts around her feet. Someone—perhaps Franklin Coston—must have delivered a new work order: drop everything, let's go let's go let's go. "Busy," she said.

"I gathered."

I stooped to pick up a few of her drawings. Apparently, we would be working on evening gowns. The best of Mrs. Hoyt's rejected sketches showed three simple lines from the bodice drawn together in a knot low on the waist. I couldn't stop looking at it, a garment that understood itself perfectly. Satin, probably, or peau de soie. No undergarments. Would viewers, seeing an actress wearing such a gown, be able to tell that she was practically undressed? Oh, yes.

"New deadline," Mrs. Hoyt said. "New picture. Harry Lorton is on his way over."

"Who is Harry Lorton?"

"You should know. Produced
Midnight to Morning
and
Sisters of Shame.
Now that you're here, make me a design for a wrap blouse."

"Should it be as elegant as this?"

She glanced at the drawing I held up. "Keep it. Too racy for a picture."

"Flappers across America dream of wearing this dress." I knew that I was babbling, but I couldn't stop myself. Since the night before, when I had fled the lot, I had tried to brace myself for the speech from Mrs. Hoyt about trust and professional behavior, perhaps delivered in French. Perhaps that speech was still coming, but for now I blessed Harry Lorton, whom I should have known, for being important enough to delay its delivery. I said, "If their boyfriends had any imagination, they would share that dream."

"Let them," she said.

"It's too good for them," I said, and blushed. I hadn't meant to be vehement.

"I need a blouse," she said, turning back to her own drawing. "Crossover at the waist. Something we can make in cotton. Chop-chop."

I had worked out three different ways to attach the tie before we heard a man's heavy foot on the step outside, and then Harry Lorton entered, a slim woman slipping in behind him. Her dress was silk, cut on an extravagant bias; it must have taken six yards. He was dressed for some other city's weather in a lustrous brown topcoat, turn-ups breaking as crisply as toast over his glinting cap-toed shoes. Perhaps another woman could have kept herself from staring. "What do you have for me, Abby?" he said to Mrs. Hoyt. His voice was caramel. The coat must have been cashmere.

"Four dresses that will have every preacher in Iowa predicting your damnation."

"Yours, too?"

She shrugged. "Probably."

"As long as I'm not down in hell by myself. Can I have them by tonight?"

"No."

"Why not? This is your assistant, isn't it?"

Bad as a girl, I couldn't keep myself from ducking my head and grinning when he turned my way. The cuff of his shirtsleeve, laundered so hard it looked waxed, peeked from the cuff of his coat. The small place Franklin Coston had held in my heart vanished, obliterated by a single glimpse of snowy cuff. Harry Lorton said, "With the two of you working, there should be time to whip up a few dresses and still have room for lunch."

"Have a heart, Harry." His consort made exasperated eyes at me, one woman finding common ground with another. I had no desire for common ground. I wanted to sew clothes for Harry Lorton and his beautiful coat. "You've never picked up a needle," she said. "You don't know what it takes."

"I know what I pay for," he said.

"Not enough," she said. I was surprised by her pepper and saw now that she was older than I had first thought. Her rosepetal cheeks came from expensive jars, and her slender ankles had lost a girl's sheen. They were elegant, though—this woman was costly. Like many people these days, she seemed familiar. What with the faces on the screen, the faces at the studio, and the faces in my crowded home, everyone I saw these days seemed familiar. The cry of directors for a fresh face, a comment that showed up often in Louella Parsons's column, made new sense.

"Besides, you can't even expect to start shooting tonight," the woman was saying. "Don't be greedy."

Harry Lorton was looking at the drawing Mrs. Hoyt had discarded. He said, "I want to see this on a girl."

"You're a dog."

"Tomorrow, five o'clock," Mrs. Hoyt said. "That's my final offer."

Harry Lorton wheeled to look at me. The part in his hair looked sharp enough to cut, and his smile was sharp, too, in its way. "You can make this for me today, can't you?"

"I would love to. But there are already other costumes that need to be finished," I said, not a good answer. Mrs. Hoyt's face looked like thunder.

"I'll bet some of that can wait. Get your hat."

"Where are you taking my assistant?" Mrs. Hoyt said.

"We'll make her an atelier and give her an assistant of her own."

"Getting a little thick around here with assistants. We can pave the streets of Universal City with them."

"Watch yourself, Abby. She'll be after your job next."

"Have you come in here to sow discord?" she said, not acknowledging my small smile—such a card, Harry Lorton. Gracious, the things that man would say.

"No," he said. "I came in here to have someone make a dress. Madame Annelle, are you ready to work for me?"

I would have given a great deal at that moment to have an option. Rattling with unease, I followed Harry Lorton and his lady friend out of the design shop and down the blinding street to another flimsy door. Two cards were tacked up:
MORRIS RENT
and
BOOTS, BUGGY WHIP
,
HAT!!!
Harry Lorton took the first card and tucked it in his pocket, then showed us into an empty room that smelled like hot dust. "I'll have a sewing machine and some cloth run over here right away. Also lunch. What else will you need?"

I shook my head and studied the rough wood floor. "Harry, you're a monster," the woman said. "You've terrified poor Madame Annelle. And you can't stand there and order 'cloth.' There are choices involved."

"Silk," he said. "The heavy kind."

"You don't have the first idea what you're talking about. I'm going to stay here with Madame Annelle until something arrives that she can work with. You can't take her over like this."

"I am expediting a process."

"You are being a bully. Again."

Had I been back in the design shop with Mrs. Hoyt, I could have distracted myself in a seemly manner, tracing over designs, pretending not to listen. But this room had no designs, no table, no chair, no blind over the window through which sunlight blasted. I could see now, as I had not been able to see before, the lines around Harry Lorton's eyes and mouth, as he could no doubt see mine.

He said, "I'll have the boy bring over a selection of cloth samples, to make sure something pleases Your Highness."

"You're not fooling anybody, Harry. You're not being courtly a bit."

"You'll be glad, once that dress is finished," he said. I was startled to hear him talking this way; lady friend or no, the woman was too old to wear the dress as Mrs. Hoyt had drawn it. I would have to bring up the neckline and add fabric under the arms. I wished that I had a pencil.

"Shoo," she said, waving him out. She kept her eyes on the door for a few moments after he left, then turned to me. "Nell?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. She laughed, and I said, "Good Lord. Mrs. Cooper."

"That's a name I haven't heard in a long time," she said. Her voice chimed as merrily as it had done when we had stood together in the Grant Station general store, going over and over Mr. Cates's six bolts of cloth. How had I not recognized her? The sweet, ready smile was the same, and the eyes as clear as a child's.

"Names change when people come west," I said.

"Not just names," she said. She had been following my career, she said, for months, reading about Madame Annelle and wondering if she just might not be Nell Plat, her old seamstress. I winced at the term, and she did not use it again.

There was so much to catch up on! Mr. Cooper had gone to France in the war. He'd been gassed at Ypres and did not come back. Mrs. Cooper had returned to her family. "There was no staying in Kansas," she said.

"No," I said.

"I met a lovely man, a banker. Clyde Barnett. When I walked down the aisle toward him, I wished I was wearing a dress you had made."

"I do not believe you," I said, my laughter braiding with hers.

"The dress I wore featured flounces."

"Flounces would swallow you."

"I looked like an explosion from the flounce factory, but Mr. Barnett liked it. He liked femininity in a gal. He said so to anybody who would listen."

"I would be happy to explain to Mr. Barnett that feminine gals can wear sleek lines."

"There's no need. Mr. Barnett passed away hardly a year from our wedding day. His heart gave out." Catching my look, she said, "You can see why Harry doesn't want to marry me. My husbands seem to have little endurance."

Her face made it clear that she did not welcome any statements of condolence. I said, "Did Mr. Barnett bring you to California?"

"No. It was time for me to start again. I had your example to guide me."

I had not seen Mrs. Cooper—Mrs. Barnett—in more than twenty years. What a long time that was to still carry a girl's fresh smile. I said, "Were you sure that I came to California?"