My Mrs. Brown

by William Norwich

  Where was she?

  The only thing she recognized was daylight.

  Mrs. Brown was struggling to get her bearings. Eventually she recognized she was in the courtyard at Lincoln Center, where she had entered.

  No more detours, she told herself, if she was going to get to Oscar de la Renta.

  Seeing a policewoman about a hundred feet away, she headed right to her and asked for directions to the bus stop. The policewoman pointed the way to Sixty-fifth Street.

  At the bus stop, Mrs. Brown clutched her MetroCard. That melting pot she’d heard New York described as so many times was at a roiling boil. Young men walking little white dogs on jeweled leashes, women in indescribably tight stovepipe jeans and those high stiletto heels, people of all ages leashed to their phones, looking down, and nearly colliding.

  By now a couple of teenagers and a young Marine also were waiting for the crosstown bus.

  Finally, she saw the bus heading her way, a lumbering lion magnificent to behold. Soon, very soon, Mrs. Brown would be arriving at Oscar de la Renta for her perfect black dress, touching it, putting it on, purchasing it for a sum of money so large it still weakened her to think of it.

  The bus stopped, its door opened. Mrs. Brown climbed aboard, and this time when she fumbled with her MetroCard, figuring out which direction it went into the machine, it was the Marine who helped. He helped her again when the bus began to move east, bumping forward and sideways, and Mrs. Brown couldn’t find her footing. The soldier put out his hand, she took it, and he helped her to the nearest vacant seat. He took position nearby, standing erect as the bus caught speed and thumped its way across town.

  The teenagers who got on the bus at the same time couldn’t believe this tableau. Random acts of kindness?

  On the seat the soldier led her to, someone had left a copy of the morning’s New York Post.

  RATS AT WORLD TRADE CENTER was the headline. It was a story about union problems at the rebuilding site downtown.

  If unremarked before she left Ashville, it most certainly had not gone unnoticed that Mrs. Brown was traveling to New York on September 10, the day before the anniversary of the tragic attacks several years ago. This close proximity to the anniversary of September 11 had topped Alice’s and Mrs. Fox’s list of concerns for their friend’s maiden trip to New York, but Mrs. Brown hadn’t been deterred.

  Mrs. Brown offered the newspaper to another passenger nearby, a pencil-thin man with a shaved head, a red bow tie, and a blue seersucker suit. He accepted the tabloid with a grunt.

  “You new to this city, ma’am?” the Marine asked, his accent from one of our southern states.

  “I am,” Mrs. Brown said.

  “Me, too, ma’am. On leave here on an overnight and then off to see my folks in Woodville.”

  “Woodville?” Mrs. Brown asked.

  “Texas, ma’am, eastern part. I miss it so much.”

  The bus crossed through Central Park. At Fifth Avenue, the stately apartment buildings were even more imposing than Mrs. Brown remembered from the movies.

  “You take care, ma’am,” the soldier said, smiling at Mrs. Brown as if they were old friends.

  “Your family will be so happy to see you,” Mrs. Brown said.

  He bowed his head. “Hope so, ma’am.”

  Another passenger, a handsome white-haired man carrying a cane with an elephant’s head saluted the Marine. Smiling from ear to ear, the soldier exited the bus.

  A few minutes later, the bus driver announced, “Madison Avenue! That’s you, lady.”

  Mrs. Brown held her breath.

  “Courage, child,” the man with the cane called after Mrs. Brown as she exited the bus. “The best is still to come.”

  MRS. BROWN TRIED TO orient herself in the correct direction to walk to Oscar de la Renta. Which way was up?

  Coming toward her was a petite lady with flowing lemon-yellow hair walking what looked like two clouds. In closer focus, they were revealed to be two perfectly coiffed white standard poodles. Everyone else on the sidewalk, except Mrs. Brown, seemed oblivious. How was that possible? How could anyone ever become accustomed to such spectacle? It would be like taking a rainbow for granted.

  Mrs. Brown noticed that the street heading to her right had been cordoned off and the traffic redirected because a movie or television show was being filmed. Instead of current-issue automobiles parked along the sidewalks, there were cars from the 1950s, Plymouths, Pontiacs, Chevrolets, and Dodges, to name a few that Mrs. Brown recognized from her youth.

  She’d never seen a movie being made. She joined the people who had queued up along the police cordon to watch. The man whom she guessed was the director was giving orders through a loudspeaker. He went quiet when a tall, slender woman wearing a midcalf-length mink coat—it was seventy-six degrees in New York today—and a gray hat with a sloping brim exited the apartment building on the south side of the street and got into a yellow Checker cab, the door held open by the doorman, played by an actor.

  “Cut,” the director yelled.

  And then this was repeated, the actress going back into the building and out again.

  “Cut,” the director repeated. And the action was done over again.

  “She’s gained weight,” the woman standing next to Mrs. Brown said.

  “Who?” Mrs. Brown asked.

  “She has,” the woman said, naming the actress Mrs. Brown didn’t recognize. “The camera puts on fifteen pounds,” the woman huffed, and walked away.

  “Cut! Okay, we’ve got it,” the director said.

  The crowd that had gathered to watch began to disperse. As it did, Mrs. Brown heard something surprising. She heard chirping and looked up. Sure enough, on a high branch in one of the skinny trees there was a bird’s nest with a mother and two newborns. Although no one else seemed to notice or to care, the discovery delighted Mrs. Brown, and she lingered happily for a few minutes just to watch.

  Good thing, too, because by looking up Mrs. Brown also noticed the street sign. It informed her that she was on Sixty-fourth Street, meaning that she had walked down, not up, Madison Avenue and was two blocks away from Oscar de la Renta. She took a long, deep breath and corrected her course.

  Maybe it was just beginner’s luck and she shouldn’t jump to any Pollyanna conclusions, but still, so far, so good. Don’t you think that she who conquers herself is greater than she who conquers a city?

  Mrs. Brown couldn’t wait until she got home tonight to Ashville and told everything, detail by detail, to Alice!

  TEARS BURNED HER EYES, and they came quickly. As much as she tried to stop them, as mortified as she was that she was crying in front of anyone, let alone a stranger, Mrs. Brown couldn’t stop.

  “But I”—she could barely speak, gasping for air—“but I telephoned only yesterday to make sure . . .” Mrs. Brown hadn’t the voice to continue.

  Yes, yes, of course, Oscar de la Renta boutiques still sold that style of dress, the goal of her pilgrimage, but it wasn’t in stock here today. Perhaps there had been some confusion when she spoke with whomever she spoke with on the phone yesterday?

  “I am so sorry, ma’am,” the Oscar de la Renta salesperson said, trying to soothe Mrs. Brown.

  Concerned that this frail lady might faint into a heap, the salesperson gently placed her arm behind Mrs. Brown’s waist and helped her toward the back of the boutique and a gold-painted wood chair, the sort you see in ballrooms or Madison Avenue boutiques. Another salesperson got her a glass of water, but it shook so much in Mrs. Brown’s hand that she gave it right back, spilling some of it in the process. This only caused her more unhappiness.

  Surely this was an error. “I am asleep and this is a bad dream,” she thought. But then it hit her again, her failure.

  You know how she felt. That rapid sinking feeling in her stomach that Mrs. Brown had always gotten, since she was a child, when she did or thought she’d done something wrong. First came this fevered, branding shame—that dark soul fire of hor
rifying embarrassment.

  What had happened? Where did she go wrong? She replayed everything that had happened since she got off the bus at Madison Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street. After a few minutes of magical distraction, she had gotten herself to Sixty-sixth Street and seen that the Oscar de la Renta boutique was across the avenue. She crossed with the light and froze for what seemed an eternity at the corner in front of the shop. Inside she could see a glowing immaculate showroom full of beautiful dresses.

  She inched closer to the doors and prepared to enter, coaching herself, convincing herself to “go forward, Emilia, go forward.”

  When a handsome tan and blond woman of about fifty went through those doors, Mrs. Brown followed, propelled by a sudden bolt of confidence.

  Mrs. Brown stood in the entrance. In which direction would she find her dress? In a bid for time to think, she busied herself looking at a nearby display of pocketbooks.

  A slender woman in a navy blue suit dress appeared at Mrs. Brown’s side.

  “May I help you find something special today, ma’am?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Brown answered, finding her voice. “Very special.” She described the dress she had come to buy.

  That is when the sword fell on her happy day.

  “Ah, yes, one of our most popular styles every season,” the saleslady said. “Unfortunately, we do not have any in stock here. We’re waiting for a new shipment. If you like I can check on the computer and see which of our boutiques might still have one—what size are you? I am guessing an eight? A ten? We can have it sent here for you to try.”

  “Today?” Mrs. Brown asked.

  You might wonder if this trouble Mrs. Brown was encountering was some funny business going on in the shop, something snobby and snooty, the attitudes that have made Madison Avenue so famously forbidding. Maybe it’s still like that at some places, but most of the posh shops on Madison Avenue have figured out it is wise not to rush to judge someone a disingenuous shopper just because she or he is dressed poorly.

  Thanks, or no thanks, to the informal way Hollywood actors and Silicon Valley potentates dress—yoga clothes, jeans, sweats, baseball caps, and carrying Starbucks cups—you just never know anymore who is CEO of a billion-dollar Internet operation or a Hollywood mogul.

  What salespeople look for is your handbag. Mrs. Brown’s simple handbag, which had been her mother’s, shaped like a kidney bean topped with a very subtle clasp, or styles very similar, had inspired in the past decade fashion house versions that sold for more money than Mrs. Brown earned in six months. That Mrs. Brown was carrying this bag, easily mistaken for something Gucci or Prada signified, correctly or incorrectly, that she might be a serious spender and not just some tourist who would waste the salespeople’s time.

  Mrs. Brown could barely breathe, taking in the full meaning of the unbelievable news that her dress was not in the store despite having called just the day before and been told otherwise.

  “Can you really find my dress and get it here this afternoon?” Mrs. Brown asked.

  “Let’s go over to the computer, ma’am, and have a look.”

  Mrs. Brown followed the saleslady to the computer/cash register tucked discreetly out of sight of store traffic. Mrs. Brown waited as the saleslady searched.

  “There’s a size two in tangerine—probably not the color you are thinking—at our Bal Harbour store. Let’s see, okay, here we go, got it. At our Beverly Hills boutique, size eight and size ten. If I contact them right now, the dresses should be here . . . by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Tomorrow!” Mrs. Brown cried.

  Tomorrow was too late. How was it possible to stay the night in New York? She didn’t know anyone here. A hotel? She couldn’t afford a hotel room. The money from selling the hutch—so much of it intended for her dress or put aside for taxes—hadn’t made her rich, just lucky.

  And now her luck had run out.

  Weren’t hotel rooms at least a thousand dollars a night in New York? She’d heard Bonnie talking about that the other day, or maybe it was Florida who mentioned something. And if there were cheaper hotels, how would she know, and then find her way to one, if it wasn’t right nearby?

  She panicked. “I cannot be here tomorrow, I can’t stay in New York, I’ve got to leave. I’ve got to go home!”

  Here is where the tears dropped.

  The voice in her head: What a stupid, what a silly old woman I’ve been about all this. How could I think, how could I possibly imagine that I of all people should have this dress?

  The saleslady was rightly concerned and genuinely empathetic. What could the matter be? Her regular customers never reacted so emotionally to being told the objects of their desire weren’t in stock, or if they did, she wouldn’t know; they popped a pill or took a drink, vodka in small red-capped Evian water bottles they carried in their purses. Something else must be going on with the hickory-stick lady.

  She led Mrs. Brown to a chair near the dressing rooms and got her a glass of cold water—Fiji was the brand, very Madison Avenue. As she did, one of her colleagues who had been watching this exchange came and whispered in her ear.

  “Word to the wise, sweetie. I think I saw a photo online today of this woman at one of the fashion shows sitting in the front row. We might be being punked. You know, goofed on, or it might even be that is artist Cindy Sherman doing one of her characters,” she said. “Or what if this woman is a reporter trying to provoke us so she gets a good story? Or she is some clever oldster intending to get a lawsuit going by claiming age discrimination. We better cover ourselves. Stall this woman. Pretend you are trying other means to search for the dress.”

  The salesperson’s right hand was firmly planted on her right hip now. She was growing more suspicious of Mrs. Brown by the second. “What does she want this dress so badly for anyway? Is she planning a murder and needs something to wear to the funeral? I saw that on CSI the other night. Really. The murderer went shopping before she committed the crime and then tried to use her shopping spree as her alibi.” She nodded her head, agreeing with herself. “Beware, sweetie,” she told her colleague. “I think your country mouse might be a rat.”

  IT SO HAPPENED THAT the head of Oscar de la Renta’s public relations team was at the Carlyle hotel a mere ten blocks north, at Seventy-sixth Street.

  When the urgent text came through about the uncertain shopper’s meltdown at the Madison Avenue boutique, the PR executive was delighted to have an excuse to bring to a quick close her lunch with a banker whose company was always on the lookout for fashion businesses to invest in. (And equally on the lookout for fashion parties to go to.)

  This lunch, organized by a mutual friend, included one further agenda item, to see if they liked each other, liked each other enough to perhaps go to dinner some night. In New York parlance, it was a predate.

  Rachel Ames stood and gave the man her hand to shake. He instead leaned in for a social kiss. Not wishing to embarrass him by pulling away and insisting on the handshake, Rachel kissed the fellow gently on his left and right cheeks. His expensively groomed facial hair looked just fine but was unpleasant on her lips, a lasting impression. She rushed off, saying, “Goodbye, yes, of course, hope so, see you soon,” and headed to the Oscar de la Renta boutique. Looking over her shoulder before she left the Carlyle, she was not surprised to see that the fellow wasn’t particularly crestfallen by her sudden departure. He was merrily tapping away on his phone.

  On the street this glorious September afternoon, her lackluster luncheon “date” underlined Rachel’s feelings about her single status. She wished she had it in her to fall in love and marry a successful businessman like the one she’d just lunched with. A girl’s got to think about her future, she told herself and laughed, then stopped laughing. But this woman doesn’t seem to think that way. Marry money and you earn it. Whether it was dealing with his eccentricity, adultery, aloofness, insane schedule, you name it, nearly every one of Rachel’s friends who married a man for his towering finances e
ventually ended up in some kind of emotional descent, her spirit taxed by the alliance.

  Still, though. There was that vacant feeling that crept up out of nowhere, and cast its long shadow. It came now. Usually it waited until she was back home alone, this lonesomeness that stalked her. Uninvited, haunting her especially after those seemingly happy dinners with friends in whatever was the latest happening restaurant, where one chattered merrily through the din about diets, doctors, new clothes, weekends, and vacations by the sea, or Aspen—Aspen in the summer was the rage this year—and the next wedding to which she and her friends were commanded. For all its vim and vigor, youth can be a lonely enterprise.

  Rachel shook the gloom away by walking as quickly as she could down Madison Avenue, past lines of tourists outside the Whitney Museum (still on Madison before it moved downtown) and on line for the rainbow-colored macarons at Ladurée. Rachel Ames was all about work now.

  “Where’s the problem?” she asked briskly when she arrived at the boutique. The salesperson who had helped settle Mrs. Brown in the back of the shop led Rachel to her. Rachel would size up the problem and resolve it with dignity and speed. The troubling lady would be on her way in minutes.

  Instead Rachel Ames was speechless when she saw Mrs. Brown sitting posture perfect on the little chair, looking so forlorn and out of place.

  Despair in her eyes, her nerves frayed, Mrs. Brown looked up at this blond, beautiful icicle. It took a few moments before Rachel Ames and Mrs. Brown fully recognized each other from those many months ago when Mrs. Brown had helped inventory Millicent Groton’s things.

  Seeing Mrs. Brown was disorienting for Rachel. Something was wrong. Something was out of context. It was like coming home from work and finding that a bird has flown into your apartment through a window you left open that morning (it happens in the city). Along with the surprise, Rachel was genuinely pleased to see Mrs. Brown again.