My Mrs. Brown

by William Norwich

  The convertible raced along the FDR. There was a crescent moon over Manhattan. You could smell the briny river air mixing with Rachel’s gardenia perfume. Riding in the convertible, Mrs. Brown felt exhilarated, light as the wind, younger and more unburdened than she had in many years.

  Over the roaring chorus of wind and traffic, Anthony told stories about growing up here, about his family, his youth, and some of his best memories.

  “It’s so weird, but like your father, who said the seagulls were dancing, and the pigeons, our father told us something very similar,” Rachel said. “We’d go to the beach on Long Island. He’d tell us that the sand was always dancing and that we should watch its dance, and if we were lucky enough to be asked by the sand to dance with it, we must.”

  Rachel pictured her father’s smiling face but sad blue eyes. “ ‘It asked me, it asked me,’ we’d cry out, absolutely delighted. We’d do these mad gyrations dancing with the sand until we were exhausted.”

  Rachel fell quiet, embarrassed to remember something so personal aloud.

  Anthony imagined what Rachel must have looked like as a little girl. He wanted to reach across the white leather bucket seats and take her hand in his. Maybe later, he hoped. Maybe later.

  For now, he told himself, keep both hands on the steering wheel and just drive, man, just drive.

  THE DAY FINALLY CAME for Mrs. Brown to take possession of her dress. Or at least she hoped it had finally come.

  “You want to teach yourself to see good things coming, Emilia,” her mother used to say. “Because God is always on the road ahead, sewing a tapestry of life for us.”

  Well, if the road last night wasn’t godly, it certainly was divine. What a wonderful evening it had been on the town with Rachel and Anthony, and even though it had been decades since she had slept in a bed other than her own, to her surprise she had fallen right asleep when she got back to Rachel’s just after 11:00 P.M.

  Floating this morning in what had to be the most comfortable bed in the world, in Rachel’s guest room, Mrs. Brown barely recognized her life! One day she was a woman who walks everywhere she goes in her Rhode Island town; last night she was zooming around Manhattan in a red Mercedes convertible.

  They’d driven through Chinatown and Little Italy, Tribeca and SoHo, the West Village and Chelsea to West Forty-second Street. She’d never forget the density of people in New York, especially Times Square. The tall office buildings lit up like giants.

  Over and up Eighth Avenue, then a loop around Columbus Circle, with its sparkling fountains—the horses and carriages were from a fairy tale—and up Central Park West, with its glorious apartment buildings and majestic Museum of Natural History. Then to dinner at the Great Blue Heron on 125th, where if everyone wasn’t a movie star or a princess, they sure looked like one.

  And the food: she ate crab cakes, oysters with ginger, country ham, chickpea dumplings, Creole red grits, and a spiced chocolate cake with rhubarb and brandied cherry vanilla sauce. Mrs. Brown, generally a teetotaler, even had a glass, a glass and a half to be exact, of a French rosé wine.

  It was just as they were raising their glasses to toast each other that Delphine Staunton, all in black-layered summer cashmeres and bold scarlet lipstick, lurched over to their table.

  This, Rachel knew, could be trouble. But before Delphine could get anything even approaching a nasty or snobbish word out, Rachel spoke first.

  “Delphine, cheers, to your health,” she said.

  “To me?” Delphine asked. “Why?”

  “We saw you coming,” Rachel said.

  Good manners make the best offense. Rachel had to act fast to stop Delphine from saying something hurtful to Mrs. Brown. Why is it some people’s natures to always be disagreeable, unless they want something from you? So Rachel toasted Delphine’s good health. What could Delphine do but thank her and respond with the best French bonhomie she was capable of ?

  As Delphine babbled a few words of thanks, Rachel courteously interrupted her.

  “Isn’t that Terry Killen the Third, the billionaire’s son, just coming into the restaurant? You know his father just died, and I understand he’s trying to figure out which auction house should deal with the estate. Delphine,” Rachel said, “get right over there and say hello!”

  Poof. Delphine was gone. And all Mrs. Brown thought of it was how nice it was to see someone she recognized in New York.

  Now there was a knock on the guest room door. Rachel entered carrying a breakfast tray.

  “Breakfast in bed for all my honored guests from Ash-ville,” she said, carefully setting the legs of the tray over Mrs. Brown’s lap.

  A white linen napkin, a white rose in a crystal vase, a blue and white porcelain pot of coffee, a small bowl of sugar, a tiny pitcher of milk, fresh fruit salad, and a warm morning glory muffin greeted Mrs. Brown.

  “How many guests have you had from Ashville?”

  “Only you, Mrs. Brown, and I hope you will come back,” Rachel said.

  What could bring Mrs. Brown back to New York? Rachel and Anthony’s wedding would.

  “He’s nice,” Mrs. Brown said.

  “Who?” Rachel asked.

  “Who? Your Anthony, that’s who.”

  “My Anthony? I don’t think so, not mine,” Rachel said, dismissing the idea of anything serious between herself and Anthony Bruno.

  But Mrs. Brown wasn’t having it.

  “Where’s your coffee, dearie?” she asked Rachel. “Sit with me while I enjoy this delicious breakfast.”

  Rachel left the room and returned with a mug of black coffee and both her BlackBerry and her iPhone. She sat in the cabbage-rose-chintz-covered Queen Anne chair across from Mrs. Brown’s bed, and without makeup, her hair down and not yet brushed, barefoot and wearing a white tank top and faded blue jeans, she looked more like a fresh-faced college freshman than a big-city fashion executive.

  “Last night you and Anthony got along quite nicely,” Mrs. Brown said, and sipped her coffee. “He’s a good man, Rachel, and they’re hard to find. He’s handsome, he loves and respects his family, and I imagine he makes a good living the way he described those fancy floors he puts in all these palatial apartments. What’s so wrong with that?”

  Rachel looked sad. “It’s complicated. Really it is.”

  Before Mrs. Brown could inquire further, Rachel was saved from explaining exactly what was so complicated by the bell, or ping to be more exact, of her BlackBerry.

  She read the message and smiled.

  “They’re here. Brava! Bravi! The two dresses have arrived at Kennedy Airport,” she said. “They will be at the boutique by ten. It is a little after eight thirty now, and I am going to get dressed and work from my laptop here at home. Why don’t you just take it easy? At ten or a little after we can walk down to the boutique. It’s a lovely morning for a walk. You can try on the dresses and make your selection depending on which size fits you best.”

  When Rachel left, Mrs. Brown lay back in bed.

  She closed her eyes and imagined what it would feel like when she finally saw the dress. Yet as wonderful as she expected the satisfaction of it to be, there was something else, a bittersweet feeling, the kind many feel after a personal victory of some sort. The dream is complete. What’s next?

  In the twenty-fours since she got to New York City, her fear of this place—once so foreign and overwhelming to her—had disappeared almost entirely. Thanks to Rachel’s generosity, and also the other people who had helped her yesterday, she’d discovered that the city wasn’t a forbidding kingdom, a roaring hungry lion waiting to eat her alive. It was a series of villages connected by a common thread of decency.

  Just as in Ashville, here were mostly good people trying to live with some measure of dignity and grace. Not always succeeding, but always trying.

  When she finally had her dress today, September 11, it would be time to leave, and she would miss this happy, muddled, difficult, glorious place.

  Last night, when they
had stopped to pay respects at the World Trade Center, in the everlasting sorrow of the place she also saw a state of grace. Gazing into the two thirty-foot waterfalls that seemed to drop into darkness in the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood, Mrs. Brown had felt—how should she describe it?—this presence in absence.

  Instead of feeling separate, she felt she belonged. In loss, interlaced with others. No longer just someone tacked on to the tapestry called Life.

  BY 10:30 THAT MORNING, Mrs. Brown was center stage at Oscar de la Renta. She was their phoenix rising.

  The dressing room glittered with wall-around mirrors. Rachel sat in a chair busily tapping away on her telephones. It was Fashion Week, as you know, and she was “multitasking” she told Mrs. Brown as they awaited the arrival of Rachel’s young assistant Daniel, who was bringing the dresses from the airport, one size eight and one size ten.

  Ah, Daniel. If he were an oil portrait in a gilded frame the title would be The Afternoon of a Faun. A mop of dark-brown hair, wading pools of gray eyes with feathery lashes; wearing a white shirt and moss-green slim-fitting linen trousers cuffed above his ankles, no socks, and wing-tipped beige suede English brogues . . . Daniel entered. Not since Cleopatra was carried to Julius Caesar in a rug had there been such devotion to presentation. Daniel held the two garment bags as if the dresses were made of the finest glass. The sort that anything less than a positive thought might shatter.

  Rachel knew it was highly unlikely that either dress would fit Mrs. Brown without alteration. Despite so much to do in the workroom during Fashion Week, thanks to Rachel one of Oscar’s best seamstresses would work exclusively on Mrs. Brown’s dress so she could make her train back to Ashville. The seamstress stood at attention, waiting.

  In the interim while the tailoring took place, Rachel had arranged a little surprise. As a present, Mrs. Brown would be getting her hair done today, plus manicure and pedicure, at the renowned Kenneth salon. Although it’s closed now, at the time it was still enshrined at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

  The bags were unzipped, and out came two sizes of the dress, and two sizes of the notch-collared jacket that went with it. As if the sovereign in royal robes had just entered the room, the feeling of awe that she had experienced when she first saw this style in Mrs. Groton’s closet returned. Mrs. Brown steadied herself.

  Rachel nodded in Daniel’s direction, indicating it was time for Mrs. Brown to try on the dresses without male eyes on her.

  “I’ll be right outside if you need anything,” he said.

  Rachel suggested trying the size eight first. Mrs. Brown disrobed, carefully placing her gray trousers and brown twinset on a lemon-yellow velvet chair. Who but Rachel right now had seen her so nearly naked in years? No one.

  It was a ceremony practiced over the ages: the fitting. In high fashion, it’s where the magic happens—well, if you are in the right hands. Mrs. Brown most certainly was.

  Rachel held the black, light-wool-crepe sheath for Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown, right foot first, stepped into the dress. Rachel zipped the back zipper for her, but with difficulty.

  Mrs. Brown looked in the three-way mirror, and her heart sank. The dress didn’t fit. Mrs. Brown felt her disappointment deeply. To her, this was more than a dress. It was a calling.

  Rachel whispered something to the seamstress that Mrs. Brown couldn’t hear. “Let’s try the size ten,” she said.

  The size ten was the charm. How wonderful the silk lining felt, but when the dress was zipped, it was too big.

  What to do?

  “Take it in, let it out, to be or not to be, I say go with the size ten,” the seamstress finally said. She spoke with an accent Mrs. Brown couldn’t place.

  “You think that is better than working with the eight?” Rachel asked, her mobile phone beeping nonstop as it had all morning. “I thought the eight fit perfectly across the bosom. And we’ve got to try on the jackets, too.”

  The seamstress gave her a look. Translated, it said: get out of my kitchen.

  Rachel laughed. “You’re the boss, Irina.”

  Mrs. Brown, with her knowledge of sewing, knew that Irina had a lot of work to do. She worried how much it would cost. Even in Ashville the tailor at the dry cleaner’s would probably charge at least one hundred dollars. How much, then, on Madison Avenue? Not to mention the time it would take.

  Irina read Mrs. Brown’s mind. “Four hours, including the jacket.”

  “Excellent,” Rachel said.

  Mrs. Brown didn’t understand.

  “It’s eleven now? I can have this for you by three o’clock. You try on one more time and I make last fixes and then you go to train station in time, okay?” the seamstress asked.

  “Yes, okay.” Mrs. Brown was delighted. “But the cost . . .”

  “Alterations are included, Mrs. Brown,” Rachel said. She stepped out of the dressing room to take a call.

  “We get to work,” the seamstress said, her pins ready. “My name is Mrs. Novikov, Irina Novikov.”

  “How do you do, Mrs. Novikov, I am . . .”

  Mrs. Novikov, pins in her mouth, interrupted: “I know who you are. You are famous in our office, even more than the fancy actresses we fit in the clothes.”

  She gestured with her jaw for Mrs. Brown to pivot. Mrs. Novikov continued pinching and pinning the dress.

  “I am famous in your office? How’s that?”

  The seamstress looked Mrs. Brown in the eyes and gently nodded. “We heard about a woman maybe a lot like us, not from here, worked hard, saved her money so she could buy a lady’s dress, and she traveled here her first time all alone to get it. And how Miss Ames, tough cookie, the ice princess, she melted. She helped you! She wouldn’t always. Everyone is talking. Know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone say Rachel Ames found her heart yesterday thanks to you.”

  She continued pinning. Mrs. Brown was astonished by her expertise. “Women like us,” Irina Novikov said, her voice sounding melancholy, “women like us, we are ladies, too, but no one sees us that way. We are invisible. But what do they see, what do they want? Baby dolls. Painted, silly, aging dolls. Women like us,” she said, “we’re treated like dead trees.”

  Mrs. Brown understood.

  “But, ah, my friend, no one sees our roots, still growing, deeper and deeper.” Mrs. Novikov adjusted the pins in her mouth and kept working, and talking.

  “I have two sons fighting in the wars. Born here in America so they can go to war. I should dye my hair like a lemon, dress up like a Barbie doll, or spend all my money shopping, and save nothing? No. I am grown woman.” She paused. “I’m the mother of two boys who are United States of America soldiers. The strongest limb on the tree bends so it won’t break. I bend. I worry all day. I worry every night, but”—she pointed at her gray eyes with heavy lids and deep lines—“does anyone see my tears? Never, never here . . .”

  Mrs. Brown put her right hand on Mrs. Novikov’s shoulder for balance.

  “It’s going to be okay, dear,” Mrs. Novikov promised. “Put on the jacket now.”

  The jacket completed the regal picture. Its lining felt so soft, made of the finest silk imaginable. The shoulders of the size ten fit perfectly, but Mrs. Norikov said she wanted to take in the waist a bit and shorten the sleeves.

  “It’s not a problem. You have your dress at three today, and at three today you leave here a queen! Better than the movie stars! They have all the ‘hoochie-coochie,’ but you will have respect.”

  AT FIRST MRS. BROWN questioned Rachel’s invitation to have her hair done, a manicure and a pedicure, at the Kenneth salon. How much would it cost? At least four times what they charged at Bonnie’s, and that wouldn’t be cheap.

  She needn’t worry about the money. Rachel said the salon owed her a favor, and she’d appreciate the company as she was scheduled to have her hair done that day anyway.

  “But everything,” Mrs. Brown said, and hesitated. “A new dress, getting our hair done, you don’t thi
nk, given what day it is, that it isn’t in . . .”

  “In bad taste?” Rachel said. “Because it’s September eleventh?”

  Mrs. Brown nodded. “Yes, that’s what I’m thinking.”

  Rachel smiled. “What would Mrs. Groton do?”

  Mrs. Brown liked the question but wasn’t sure of the answer.

  “She’d get her hair done, paint her face, put on her best dress, and show the bastards you can’t keep a good woman down. And that’s just what we’re going to do today, Mrs. Brown. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Mrs. Brown said. “Okay!”

  Rachel had a car and driver waiting to take them to the salon. As they walked to the car, Rachel remembered a favorite story Mrs. Groton had told her.

  At the start of World War II, an editor for a newspaper called PM, no longer in print, wrote an editorial calling “for everything relating to fashion to be put on ice in penance until the war was won,” Rachel said.

  He singled out Vogue magazine. Why? Perhaps his wife was reading it when he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

  “What American people have to realize is that Vogue magazine, which only a few years ago was very real, is now only a temporary illusion,” the editor wrote.

  “He wanted the magazine to stop publishing out of respect for the troops and the struggles of their families living on rations at home,” Rachel explained.

  But the editor in chief of the fashion magazine, Edna Woolman Chase, didn’t see things that way, not at all.

  In defense of gracious living, one of American democracy’s greatest freedoms, Mrs. Chase fired off a letter to the gentleman, and said: “We shall not be unmindful of the changing times. If the new order is to be one of sackcloth and ashes, we think some women will wear theirs with a difference! Vogue will cut the pattern for them, for we still believe that we shall survive.”