Tiffany Girl (4 page)

Therefore, she could only attribute the drying of her mouth and the queasiness in her stomach to his interest in hiring female artists for his studio. If she could get a job with Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, she’d not only be able to move away from home and be her own woman, but she’d learn a great deal about art, color, texture, and design.

Mrs. Driscoll paused beside her, glanced at her underpainting, then moved on to the next student. Frowning, Flossie took a step back and studied her work. It looked pretty good to her. Why hadn’t Mrs. Driscoll visited with her the way she had Aggie and Elizabeth? Perhaps she wasn’t the decision maker. No, of course she wasn’t. She was a woman. Mr. Tiffany had said he valued her opinion, but everyone knew men didn’t really—not deep down.

By the time Mr. Tiffany made it to Flossie’s station, he’d suffered through girls blushing, stammering, giggling too loudly, gawking, and refusing to make eye contact. She felt horrible for him. How tiring it must be to only be seen as an object of wealth and talent instead of a flesh-and-blood man. So great was her pity for him that her queasiness completely vanished.

Stepping up beside her, he watched her for a moment. “You have a good eye for shadows and highlights.”

“Thank you.” She mixed some white paint with a touch of umber, then thinned it with turpentine. “The underpainting is one of my favorite layers.”

He lifted his brows. “It is? Why is that?”

Shrugging, she squinted at the model, then made a slash of muted white on her figure’s shoulder. “I guess because I get to use the bigger brushes and I can be loose and sloppy. It’s . . . I don’t know . . . freeing, I guess. What’s your favorite part of painting?”

He gave her a startled look. “The underpainting.”

She paused. “It is? Why?”

He looked to the side in thought before turning back to her. “Because I hate to stay in the lines.”

A smile began to form. “You make your living in stained glass. If that’s not painting inside the lines, I don’t know what is.”

He answered her smile. “That’s different, Miss . . . ?”

“Jayne. Florence Jayne.” Propping a hand on her waist, she lifted a brow. “And just how is it different?”

“It’s all in the coloring of the glass. That’s where I am free.”

She turned back to her work. “So, picking colors and painting them onto glass gives you a sense of freedom?”

He whipped himself straight. “I do not use painted glass. Its results are dull and artificial. No, I
infuse
my glass with color and swirl it up while it’s still hot.” He made a whirling motion with his arm. “The men pour a heavy ladle of molten glass onto a giant iron
table, then, in rapid succession, ladle on additional colors. They drag a rake-like tool through it with big, haphazard movements.” He pantomimed the motion, using his entire body to comb the imaginary liquid fire. “The color begins to swirl throughout the glass. Sometimes it streaks, sometimes it pools, sometimes it twists, sometimes it spirals.” His eyes brightened, his face shone. “But no two pieces ever come out the same.”

The words were lost in his animation and love for the process. He spoke passionately of using paddles along the edges of cooling glass to make it buckle so that it looked like folds in drapery, or jostling tables to make the glass ripple, and sometimes blowing a thin glass bubble, then shattering it and strewing it over the hot glass.

Oh, to be a man and have the privilege of working a furnace burning at two thousand degrees, to have the freedom of movement their trousers allowed them, the power their muscles afforded them.

They stood facing each other, his breaths deep, her painting forgotten, her brush loose in her hand.

“I opened my own glassworks and furnaces this year in Corona, Queens,” he said, his voice soft, his lisp pronounced.

“Did you?”

“Yes.” He gave her a lovely smile, a smile that would make any woman catch her breath, even if he was twice her age. “We’re no longer restricted, as we were when we used other glassworks.” He shook his head, his curly hair loosened and tumbled from his earlier theatrics. “We try all kinds of experiments in Corona to see what accidental effects we might have, and I must tell you, Miss Jayne, we have produced every imaginable color in every shade, tone, and hue known to man.”

“But what if you want to reproduce a particular color and style?”

“We can’t. That’s the whole beauty of it.” A twinkle appeared in his eye. “My superintendent told me just yesterday that there are
only two things more uncertain than the manufacture of colored glass—the mood of a woman and the heels of a mule.”

She laughed.

Mrs. Driscoll joined them.

“I’ve found a friend, Mrs. Driscoll. This is Miss Florence Jayne.” He turned to Flossie. “This is the head of my Women’s Department.”

“How do you do?” Flossie asked.

“Nice to make your acquaintance.” The woman turned to Mr. Tiffany. “I’ve decided upon five girls who I think will do quite nicely and who have agreed to join us.”

“Excellent,” he said. “What if we make it six?” He turned to Flossie. “Would you like to come and work for Mrs. Driscoll in our Women’s Department, Miss Jayne? I must warn you, it would require staying within the lines.”

Her pulse jumped. Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh. Oh, my. Why, yes. I would love to. I . . . I . . .”

Nodding his head, he looked around the room. “Mrs. Driscoll will give you all the details, but if you ladies will excuse me, I’m going to speak with Mr. Cox for a moment.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

But he’d already walked away, his footfalls sounding briskly on the wooden floor.

She set her brush down on the palette, then turned to Mrs. Driscoll. “Did—did that just happen?”

The woman’s face softened. “I believe it did.”

She was older than Flossie and a good deal younger than Mother. Perhaps thirty? Thirty-two? No more than thirty-five, certainly. She’d fashioned her brown hair into a sensible twist, her brown eyes missing nothing. “We’ll be entirely focused on completing the windows for Mr. Tiffany’s World’s Fair exhibit. There will be little time for training—more of a baptism by fire, I’m afraid.”

“I
understand. How long do you think it will take to do the windows?”

“Every bit of time between now and May first, when the fair starts. You’ll be expected to put in a full day’s work Monday through Saturday and will be compensated with five dollars a week. Will that suit?”

Five dollars a week. All of it hers. “Yes, that will suit very nicely. When do I start?”

“January second. Our studio is at the southeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Fifth Street. The Women’s Department is on the third floor.”

“I’ll find it.”

Mrs. Driscoll gave her a nod. “See that you do.”

After Mr. Tiffany and Mrs. Driscoll left, Flossie’s hands shook so much, she could no longer paint—not even the sloppy parts. She’d need to find someplace to live that was closer to Tiffany’s studio. Not just because her parents’ house was too far away to be practical, but because her father would keep her wages if she stayed home. And she needed those wages, needed them so she could save up tuition for art school.

She wondered how to find a room, how much they cost, and what her parents would say. Shying away from that last thought, she glanced at the other girls whom Mrs. Driscoll had singled out. Maybe one of them would be interested in sharing a room with her. Either way, she would now be what the papers called a New Woman, and what her father called an abomination.

FASHION PLATE FROM
HARPER’S BAZAAR
 
²

“ ‘We decided on some sleeves entirely of velvet for the
plissé crépon.
’ ”

CHAPTER

4

M
other had a customer in the back. Flossie wasn’t sure who it was, but she used the time to whip up some marmalade pudding. Orange marmalade was the thing Papa loved most and which he insisted be kept upon their table at all times. Chopping up some suet, she tried to decide how best to break her news to them.

Should she tell Mother, then let Mother tell Papa? Tempting as it was, it seemed rather cowardly. The question then became, should she tell them separately or together? She gathered up the suet and dropped it into a bowl, gave Mother’s vegetable soup a stir, put a different pot on to boil, then spent the next several minutes collecting ingredients. By the time Mother’s customer left, Flossie was whipping up the breadcrumbs, flour, sugar, soda, and marmalade.

“That was Mrs. Cutting,” Mother said, coming into the kitchen. Taking an apron from a peg, she slipped it over her neck, then tied it around her waist. “She’s ready for the black
plissé crépon,
the flowered brocade, and the peau de soie gowns to be remade.”

Flossie added a touch of buttermilk to her mixture. Mrs. Cutting was known for never being seen in the same gown twice,
so Mother designed them to be remade, added to, and subtracted from.

Grabbing an agate bowl, Mother began to grease it. “We decided on some sleeves entirely of velvet for the
plissé crépon,
a round waist of black baby lamb for the brocade, and a spangled satin collar with pointed tabs for the peau de soie.”

“That’s nice.”

Mother glanced at her, then paused and put down her rag. “It was your last day at school. I’m sorry. I should have realized. Are you all right?”

Flossie whipped the ingredients more feverishly. “Yes. Is that bowl ready?”

Mother brought the greased bowl and steadied it while Flossie scraped the pudding into it. A sweet, citrusy aroma wafted up and around them.

“Thank you for preparing this.” Mother’s voice was low, gentle. “Your father hasn’t been himself ever since he realized you’d have to quit. This gesture, well, it will mean a great deal to him.”

Avoiding her gaze, Flossie set the pudding, bowl and all, in the pot of boiling water, then placed a lid on the pot so it could steam. Mother stood at her side. Flossie stared at the pot.

“I’m so sorry,” Mother whispered, placing a hand on Flossie’s arm.

Swallowing, Flossie looked down. “Mr. Tiffany—the younger Mr. Tiffany who does the stained glass? Well, he stopped by our class today.”

Mother said nothing. Just kept a soothing hand on Flossie’s arm.

“He was looking to hire women who could make stained-glass windows for his World’s Fair exhibit.” The heat from the stove warmed her. The scent of orange began to permeate the room. “He . . .” She took a deep breath. “He asked me to be one of them.”

Mother went completely still. “What did you say?”

Flossie fiddled with the apron strings wrapped about her waist. “I said yes.”

Releasing her, Mother took a step back and rested her fingertips against her mouth. “How much is he going to pay you?”

“Five dollars a week.”

“Oh, Flossie. You make much more sewing for me.”

Flossie looked out the window above the kitchen worktable. The view was no more than a wall of soot-covered bricks from the building next door. “I make nothing working for you.”