Dead is the New Black

by Christine Demaio-Rice

  Laura looked up. No one else moved except to put their noses further into their work. Carmella measured a pocket as if she were splitting an atom. Laura threw an eraser at her.

  The initial roar was followed by another. “Who keeps books like this? God damn it.”

  Carmella glanced up, and Laura put her palms up in a gesture that said, Are you going to tell me what’s going on here?

  Carmella grabbed a sample and draped it over Laura’s dress form. They pinned it together, and unpinned and repinned as they talked.

  “It’s her husband, Sheldon Pomerantz. There are seven people in the office, and they’re going through all the business papers.” Carmella looked over the mannequin’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “He’s quite pissed off. I saw some jobs for you in the paper this morning. Nothing for me.”

  “I don’t want another job. I want to do the show, and I want Jeremy to come back.”

  As if in answer, Sheldon burst in—fuzzy hair, skin starting to give in to gravity, two-piece, double-vented suit held up by pure, white-hot, lawyerly rage. Nine years and he actually didn’t know. The way his green eyes cut across the room, it seemed impossible that he missed anything.

  “Who’s in charge of this ‘show’?” He used the flying quotes.

  Laura and Carmella looked at each other. Carmella hid behind the mannequin. Tiffany froze. The only sound was Tony cutting oaktag.

  Laura couldn’t tolerate pauses after questions to which she knew the answer. “Jeremy.”

  “No shit,” he said. “Who’s in charge while the little creep’s behind bars for killing my wife?”

  A pause went on too long, and Laura knew what kind of guy Sheldon was. He was the guy who would let a silence hang on the phone indefinitely, until the other person felt like they had to say something, anything at all, to break it. He was the guy who gave you enough rope to hang yourself.

  “We’re all in charge, I guess,” Laura said, looking for support from her team and finding none. “I mean, we have a ton of work to do until next Friday. There’s a fitting today at two, if you want to come. It’s fun.”

  This guy in the fitting? Why did she keep talking? Why couldn’t she shut up?

  “Thank you, Miss…” He tilted his head for the completion of the sentence.

  “Carnegie,” she said. “Laura Carnegie. No relation.”

  “I was looking for something fun to do. But I’m busy breaking this business apart and selling it. So your fun this afternoon is called off. You can all keep coming in for two weeks, or you’ll be docked pay. Check in with David at the front desk before you go in or out.”

  He turned on his heel to leave, and Laura called, “What should we tell the models?” She didn’t ask out of bravery, but because she needed to know.

  Sheldon turned back to the room, and everyone cowered. “The who?”

  “Well…” She cleared her throat. “We have all these models coming, and the agencies are going to want to know why their contracts are being cancelled.”

  “They don’t read the goddamn papers?”

  “Well, okay, yeah, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Sheldon stepped fully into the room for the first time, and she felt seven feet worth of heat coming off his five-and-a-half-foot-tall body.

  “You think I care what the jellybacks in this business think? If they’re paid, they’ll have nothing to squawk about.”

  “Okay, but, we’re paying them in money, yes, and even if we paid them for the lost time, there’s this whole thing that the show isn’t about money. It’s about exposure, and if you take that part of the payment away, then they can sue you pretty good. It happened with Barry Tilden? When Olga Mouchen came to the show drunk and he sidelined her?” Laura couldn’t believe she was still talking. “And even though she got paid, she lost the exposure time, and three other designers dropped her from their show, not because she was a drunk, but because she hadn’t been in the Barry Tilden show, like the agency promised. And so the agency sued, and Barry lost like, I don’t know the number exactly, but you can look it up. So we have seventeen models, so you can figure it out pretty easy, so—”

  Carmella kicked her. She shut herself off mid-sentence.

  Sheldon just looked at her. Mouth closed. Expressionless. Then, he walked out of the room, presumably to look up how much he would lose canceling the show, and to weigh that against the humiliation of letting it go on.

  The thought of humiliation drove her into the “history closet” to look for some obscure pattern she had made two years ago, hence the closet’s name, which came from what it held, a history of the company’s bestsellers and priceless trimmings. Only she and Jeremy had the code to get in. It was her safe place.

  She typed her passcode into the little pad and closed the door behind her. Sometimes, she went in there when she felt sad, or when there was so much pressure at her desk she needed ten minutes alone. She could barely move between the racks, and the closeness took away all sense of vulnerability, which was good, because once she got deep enough into the racks, where they kept the stuff that sold before Laura’s time, she was going to cry her eyes out. No holds barred. And then she was going to wipe her face on Italian tissue linen pants, or a silk georgette blouse with real pearl buttons. She didn’t care.

  Because she loved him, and she knew it then. And as long as she worked at this job she also loved, she would be trapped. She had to rescue the company to rescue Jeremy, so that she could pine for what would never be hers.

  She found once she got to the back, however, that her eyes were dry. She texted Ruby:

  —Lunch—

  She heard back almost immediately:

  —Valerie’s—

  Of course. Ruby couldn’t resist the opportunity to be seen any more than Laura could resist the punishment of seeing her sister for lunch.

  CHAPTER 10.

  Valerie’s had been in business since the garment district was the garment district, and it hadn’t been renovated or improved. If you were a Parsons student or Calvin Klein himself, you waited in line along the row of steam tables behind glass so fogged you were only allowed to guess what was in them. You read the handwritten signs out to the men and women behind the counter, and they put your lunch on a plate. If someone in front of you took forever to decide, you waited. You could huff and puff, but you waited. You read the inked-in signs that told you about substitutions (none), payment methods (cash), and charges for empty takeout containers (significant). Once you got to the end of the line, you got your tray or your bag, and you paid what you were told. There was no rhyme or reason to the pricing, and there were no arguments. Then, you sat down at the cracked linoleum tables carved with layers of names—there was a Marc Jacobs table that the Parsons kids fought over—and ate the sauciest, drippiest, tastiest Italian food you could get in a three-mile radius.

  It was New York comfort food at its finest. Laura needed it to feel normal again. She treated herself to spaghetti and meatballs, a dish that guaranteed tomato sauce spray on her blouse and five pounds added to her belly and hips. She even put sugar in her iced tea, promising herself she’d skip dinner or eat salad the rest of the week.

  Ruby slipped in across from her. She had shrimp scampi dripping in butter that probably cost twelve dollars, a salad she would invariably ignore, and a plate of tiramisu. However, she hadn’t ordered any guilt or regret, and dove into her food the same way she dove into relaying the terms of her life’s minutia:

  Her nail polish for the wedding (neutral), her hair (undecided), the venue (the Armory), the band (Michael’s very expensive choice—she thought he could get Van Halen for less), and the maid of honor gown (no importance to Laura, but Ruby wouldn’t stop sketching it).

  “I’ll do a drape and figure out what it looks like then,” Laura said.

  Ruby pushed herself back in her chair and changed the subject. “Your office was open today, even with Jeremy out?” Laura went with it, diving into the Sheldon story and her babbling about
the Barry Tilden incident.

  “What do you think he’s looking for?” Ruby asked, stealing a chunk of Laura’s bread and sopping up the last of the sauce.

  “Sheldon? He’s not looking for anything.”

  “Right, Laura. He’s digging through papers and computer files and cursing his brains out, and he’s just what? Cleaning up his wife’s business?”

  “Okay, so what’s he doing?”

  Ruby wiggled in her chair. Laura realized her sister found it all very amusing. “There’s something in those records he wants to find and cover up.”

  “You watch too much TV.”

  “You live in a bubble.”

  “He had nothing to do with Gracie and Jeremy’s business.”

  “Says who? And where did the money come from? She wasn’t an heiress or anything. She wasn’t a doctor or a lawyer. The money came from her husband. I think the question is, why did he give her all this money for a totally risky business he didn’t know anything about? For nine years? I mean, seriously, smart people do this?”

  Laura shrugged and twisted her spaghetti on her fork. “You think it was taxes or something? Like he wanted to take a loss?”

  “Did he write the contract?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, duh. Your answer’s there.” And with that, Ruby slid the tiramisu front and center. It was a huge portion, and she finished every last bit of it.

  When Laura got back to the office, Renee was gone, and David sat at the front desk. He was an extra-small in weight and an extra-large in height. Sleeves a little short. Shirt a little big. She couldn’t see his ankles from behind the counter, but she bet his socks were visible. He had a little crocheted yarmulke about the size of a table coaster bobby-pinned to the top of his head.

  “Name?” he asked, looking her in the eye and giving her a small smile, as if he didn’t like the job any better than she did.

  “Laura Carnegie.”

  He looked at her over his glasses. “Any relation?”

  “No.” She smiled, liking him even though he went for the most obvious question. He made an earth-moving snarfle and marked her Present in his book.

  The doorbell rang. Stu stood on the other side of the door with an armful of samples. David panicked, looking under the desk and drawers. “I don’t know how to open it.”

  Laura went around and slid a small panel under the counter, revealing a white button. She pressed it, and the lock clicked.

  Stu greeted Laura with a nod. He draped the samples over the reception counter and handed David his clipboard. He held it far from his body and looked from Laura to Stu. Laura saw Stu’s foot tapping, and she kicked him.

  “You sign here, where he marked on the bottom,” Laura explained.

  David took a pen from his shirt pocket. “What does it mean if I sign?”

  Stu sighed, Laura gave him a nasty look before telling David, “It means that you received these samples. No more.”

  David nodded, and then did what no one else did. He checked through the samples and made sure they were all there before signing. Afterward, Stu grabbed his clipboard and turned to leave.

  She followed him to the door. “What’s your problem?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t ask for an apology.”

  “They moved my route to downtown east.”

  “And?”

  “There aren’t any bike paths outside of Second Avenue. I’m going to get killed. And they moved Nadal to Fashion because his girlfriend works in five-fifty. They think he can generate business if she puts in a word. Like that ever happens. Now I have wall-to-wall rich assholes who’re too lazy to leave their apartments. Do you know how much breast milk Nadal moves? These Gramercy Park bitches have wet nurses. And then, listen to this, there was the Happy Meal lady and, believe me, he was delivering more than a meal in a box.”

  So Nadal worked Gramercy Park, a hotbed of rich people, where Laura had delivered the Noelle gown the first time she altered it, in the first blushing week of her employment. It was such a long shot, really, to think he might have been anywhere near Gracie Pomerantz’s co-op the night before she was killed. It was worse than a long shot, almost a waste of time, actually.

  “Look, I’m being an idiot. Have the cops bothered you again?” Stu asked.

  “No.” Then, she added, “You should invite him to Serious tonight for a route-switching drink.”

  “You know what I think bugs me the most?” he asked. “I won’t get to see you during the day anymore.”

  There was a pause as he looked at her, and she glanced back at David to avoid the intensity of his gaze.

  “I have to go. We’ll still see each other. Don’t worry.” She squeezed his arm. She did like him and, if she hadn’t been so invested in the inaccessible Jeremy St. James, she knew she would be emotionally available for Stu.

  As she passed the reception desk, the buzzer went off again, and David smiled at her when he pressed the button. Such a simple thing, and she had earned his gratitude forever.

  Laura flicked through the rack, counting garments against what was on her clipboard. Things were missing, the matte jersey in particular and, in general, without Jeremy’s guidance, a few more styles had fallen through the cracks. Mom was working on the crochet piece for the Amanda gown, and she’d bring it in when she was done.

  “Ready?” Tiffany called from the fit room.

  “Yeah.” Laura pushed the rack away from her table.

  André strode in, glancing at computer screens as he passed. He intercepted her on the way to the fitting. “There’s ten yards of Bonnie Twill coming in Delphi Green.” He showed her some random piece of paper she had no time to look at. “Leave it by my desk.”

  “Jeremy cancelled the Delphi Green,” Laura said.

  “He put it back this morning when I saw him.” His tone was so threatening, Laura almost feared a physical assault, which made her more angry than scared.

  “Do you have the paper on the Federated matte jersey order?”

  “I don’t need to show you paper for you to do your job, do I?”

  That silenced her. Remarks like that defined bullies, so she chose to be silent rather than tell him what she really thought.

  “Thank you,” he said, and he was off in a cloud of aftershave and hair gel.

  Carmella mumbled over Laura’s shoulder, “Inge’s mother must be in town.”

  Tiffany chimed in, “And what’s with the twill? In Delphi green? We couldn’t get that to match anything. I mean, it was dropped for a reason. What does he want with it?”

  Carmella waved Tiffany off. “If I see it, I’ll take care of it.”

  They went into the fitting room for the next six hours.

  CHAPTER 11.

  Fittings were a very serious business.

  Production fittings were somber enough, with the model making upwards of two hundred dollars per hour to stand still or move at the designer’s command. She was perfect, so average in her measurements, so unassuming, so bereft of any unique trait from her neck to her ankles that she represented the largest subset of women. It was so difficult to find such women that it was devastating to lose a model to weight gain, weight loss or, worse, pregnancy. The theory was, if something fit on the perfect body, it would fit on the greatest percentage of consumers. So the technicians worked on the shoulder slope, the armhole shape, and the pitch of the pattern pieces so that when the garment was first tried on, the customer would have the feeling that it was meant for her. For everything that happened to a style before it got to the store, the perfection of the fit was the most difficult.

  Fittings for the runway show were another thing entirely. The style didn’t need to fit. It needed to look like it fit. How long is this skirt on a giraffe? Can this jacket fit a skeleton? If we drape this vest over her this way, do we have to lengthen the shirt so it shows at the hem? This is why the models so often kept their outfits; they only fit the freakishly tall, obscenely skinny girl
s that walked the runway. The fittings were fast and chaotic. There were multiple models and a ton if interns, some of whom had names, some of whom went by, “Hey, you.” There was cigarette smoke. There were flasks. There was nonstop talking. But it wasn’t a party atmosphere. It was dead serious, because the giraffes on the runway made ten times what the perfectly average girl did, and nothing stifled laughter like money.

  Laura pinned and talked to the giraffes about their other accounts. Who was working where, who was fired, who was a drama queen, who was laid back. Models were the carrier pigeons of news. They saw everyone, gained trust, spoke openly—but not too openly—and gossiped like magpies. If you were looking for a job, you asked a fit model. If you were looking for a backer, you asked a runway model. If you’d been offered a job, but you didn’t know if the place was right for you, the models had enough anecdotes to give you the flavor of a company. And if she didn’t, she had a friend.

  So they gossiped, and Laura found out that Calvin was looking for a patternmaker, that the place ran like a machine, and the austerity that marked their clothes marked the office as well. She made a mental note to polish her resume.

  There were rumblings about Jeremy’s absence, and a few direct questions as she sat on the floor and worked on the knee dart in Thomasina Wente’s pants. She knew it would explode into gossip later, but at the moment was kept to clipped sentences and taut information about the contract, the arrest, as the giraffes tried to figure out if the show had any cachet left at all. Thomasina, one of the three “ostalgie heiresses” of the former East Germany, clicked her tongue when Laura noted that she’d seen Jeremy at Rikers, as if it were disgraceful to show your face in such a venue.

  Tiffany worked on Noë, who stood a humble five eight and weighed a whopping hundred and twenty pounds. Her attitude and her skin made her a star. Her skin was the color of French Roast coffee, perfectly even from the top of her bald head to the bottoms of her feet. She had a thick accent, the product of half a life in Sudan, and half in Haiti when her father, a banker of some note, was transferred across the world to manage some financial disaster or another in Port-au-Prince. She had a sense of humor so dry it was assumed she didn’t have one. The rest of the girls didn’t like her because she didn’t look anything like them, and she was a threat to their genetic privilege. Also, she preferred the company of diplomats and business magnates to actors and celebrities. She didn’t drink, smoke, or use drugs. A proverbial stick in the mud. And worse, she was wearing the white Amanda gown at the show’s end, forty yards of fabric and a crochet trim that ran the length of the runway, with boning pin tucks on top. Half tuxedo, half lingerie. Totally Jeremy.