Fashionably Late

by Olivia Goldsmith

  ‘But I haven’t,’ she cried.

  Jeffrey had laughed. ‘So?’

  ‘I should lie?’ she asked. Neither Belle nor Arnold had taught her that. But Jeffrey had nodded. ‘What if they find out I’m lying? What if they tell me to take the other job?’

  ‘They won’t,’ Jeffrey laughed. And he ruffled her hair as if she were a puppy. ‘Try it tomorrow. You’ll see I’m right.’

  And he was. She’d been petrified, as frightened then as she was of Elle Halle now. But she’d bluffed, hands wet with sweat. And, at last, she’d gotten the job at quadruple the pay she’d been making with Liz. She had, for the first time, more money than she had time to spend. Not that the money was so great, but she had no free time at all – she’d had an unbelievably hectic schedule putting a line together alone.

  Just when it was about to be shown, she’d called Jeffrey. They’d been seeing a lot less of each other because of her crazy work schedule. ‘Can I come over?’ she had asked, the way she always did. ‘I’m scared that the whole thing is a mistake. Can I stay overnight?’ The silence at the other end of the phone had been ominous. What was wrong? Something had changed. She’d been too busy with the work to have noticed anything before.

  ‘Karen,’ Jeffrey had told her gently. ‘You know how much I like you. But you have to know this: I’m engaged to be married.’

  Devastated, she’d gone to Carl, of course. ‘I should have told him I loved him,’ she wept. ‘I should have kept calling.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t have. He’d have dropped you quicker. At least now you have your pride.’

  ‘I don’t want my pride. I want Jeffrey!’ she’d wailed like a child. And so then Carl had explained everything about men, just the way Jeffrey had explained everything about work. ‘He likes you, Karen. Of course he likes you. You’re fun, you’re funny, you’re smart. And you’re sexy. I can tell, even though I’m gay. But the Jeffreys of the world are always going to pick beauty and class and clout over funny and smart. He comes from money. She comes from more money. You’re better, but June Jarrick is the niece of a senator. It isn’t fair, but that’s the way it is.’

  She saw the announcement of their engagement in the Times. Even today, ready to go downstairs to get the limo to Elle’s studio, Karen could still remember the pain of that moment and the emptiness that followed.

  Her new line had been a huge success and had flown out of the stores. She’d gotten the first personal publicity she’d ever had in magazines and the fashion press. But she’d been miserable. This time work wasn’t enough. And other men were like ghosts compared to Jeffrey’s warm flesh. She got a calendar and obsessively crossed off each empty day until the black date of Jeffrey’s wedding. And then, out of nowhere, she’d gotten the call from Liz Rubin.

  ‘I want to see you, Karen,’ Liz had said. ‘Can you come over now?’

  As always, Karen had. And she’d been shocked by Liz’s appearance. If she’d been thin before, she was skeletal now. Karen’s eyes had grown big, but she hadn’t said anything. Neither did Liz. She didn’t have to. ‘I saw your Blithe Spirits line. It was very good,’ she told Karen. It was the first and last praise Liz ever gave her. ‘Come back. Work here. I’ll need someone to take over. The doctors give me six months. I want you to do the spring collection.’

  Other girls might have said no, but Karen had come back, and Liz had died on Mother’s Day that year. At twenty-five, Karen was the heiress to the throne. The press, always suckers for sentimental stories, had gone nuts over both the Liz Rubin Spring collection and Karen’s rags-to-riches story. She was called the ‘Crown Princess of Fashion.’ Carrie Donovan did a profile of her for the Times Magazine Section and she was on the cover of ‘W’. And even though her name wasn’t on the label, Karen didn’t mind because it was her homage to Liz. A memorial.

  Plus, the work had also saved her from thinking about Jeffrey. She had, instead, a couple of brief affairs but always knew how many months, weeks, and days until the big social wedding. She kept the clipping announcing the engagement. She often stared at the picture of June Jarrick. Perfect June, in her simple linen dress and her double strand of real pearls. From time to time, because she couldn’t resist, Karen had drinks with Perry, ostensibly for fun but really to pump him for news. ‘Leave it, Karen,’ Carl warned her, but she picked at the wound despite the pain. Jeffrey was set to marry in another six weeks when he had sent her a note and asked to meet.

  She knew she should say no, but she hadn’t, and they’d gone out for drinks. Drinks led to dinner, which led to more drinks, which led – inevitably – to bed. They’d always been good in bed.

  Karen hadn’t asked any questions. They’d spent the first night making love for hours. Jeffrey had clung to her like a drowning man and she had accepted his desperation as a tribute, of sorts. The next morning she’d left early, going to work without waking him or leaving a note. He’d called her at the office an hour later. It was the first time he’d called her.

  Karen wouldn’t let herself think about the fact that he was cheating on his fiancée with her, or that Jeffrey had earlier ‘cheated’ on her with his fiancée. She couldn’t think at all. She only felt that she couldn’t live without the comfort of his body and she knew without asking that he felt the same way. He came to her apartment every evening, sometimes as late as midnight, and she never questioned where he’d come from. She always let him in. She didn’t even tell Carl, because she knew he would go batshit on her. Twenty-one days before his wedding to June, Jeffrey asked Karen to marry him. ‘You’re going to be rich and famous,’ he said. ‘Karen Kahn sounds a lot better than Karen Lipsky.’ If it was an unromantic proposal, and if it came a little bit late, she comforted herself by thinking of it as fashionably late. Any guilt that she felt was smothered in the overwhelming tide of gladness. She had nothing to do with his predicament, she told herself, or the pain he was about to cause June. After all, she had known him and loved him long before.

  Karen had never asked Jeffrey what he had said to June or his family, but months later, when she was at last introduced to the Kahns, she felt the blame there. It didn’t go away when June married Perry on the rebound. If anything, it intensified. Still, she was so wrapped up in her joy of conquest, of her possession of him, that it didn’t matter. Jeffrey was and would always be her dream prince, her first love. When he told her that he was going to help her with her career, she was thrilled. When he created a business plan for her own company, she was touched. As a thirtieth birthday present he created her K logo. When he raised money to get her started, she was ecstatic, and when he told her he was giving up his own career to manage her business, she felt as if no one had loved her and taken care of her as he did. So she had left Liz Rubin and they had launched KInc at what appeared now, in retrospect, to be the perfect time: yuppies were in full flower and disposable income was boundless. In the closing years of the eighties, Karen had established herself and her name. Now that money was tighter and the consumer more demanding, discerning women still chose her because – expensive as she was – she gave good value. And all because of Jeffrey.

  She had never taken him for granted, just as she had never taken anything she had worked for and won for granted. This was her strength and her weakness. She always lived with the fear that she could lose it – the business, the money, the man. Now, at a moment when she could be consolidating everything, she felt more unsure than ever.

  Mercedes was staring at her. For all of her sophistication, Mercedes might as well have been singing ‘Baby, baby, stick your head in gravy.’ Mercedes licked her thin lips and turned to Janet. ‘We’ll send the car back for Jeffrey. Send him over as soon as he’s done.’ She turned to Karen. ‘It will take you an hour to get made up and miked. I’m sure he’ll be there by then.’

  Karen nodded and moved down the hall, through the showroom and to the elevator, but her heart kept beating hard and she wished she could hide in the workroom with Mrs Cruz. Jesus, wasn’t this suppose
d to be the fun stuff? she asked herself.

  Then she thought of the photos – the pictures of herself that she had taken from Belle’s house. She would take them with her. Somehow, they seemed like a talisman. She would be safer if she had them with her. She ran back to her office, got them, and slipped them into her coat pocket.

  The studio was over on West Fifty-Seventh Street, where half a dozen talk shows originated. Karen was hustled down a long green hallway and met by Paul Swift, the producer of the segment. He, in turn, introduced her to an assistant who led her through a maze of rooms to the makeup artist. Karen had already done her makeup, but the tall redhead looked at her critically. ‘I think we should start over,’ she suggested blandly. ‘The lights will wash you out. I’m going to start with a darker base, then I’m going to shade your neck and throat, get rid of the puffiness, and narrow your nose a little.’

  ‘Will it hurt?’ Karen asked. The girl didn’t laugh.

  The redhead tucked paper towels into Karen’s collar and threw a plastic smock over the rest of her. For a while she swabbed at Karen’s face in silence. Karen used the time to get even more nervous. What would Elle want to know? Would she ask about why Karen and Jeffrey were childless? Had she found out about the NormCo deal and would she blow their secrecy on national TV? God, had they found out about Dr Goldman? Did they know she was adopted? Would they talk to Belle or Lisa? So far they hadn’t contacted either one, at least as far as Karen knew. But maybe Elle would pull a ‘This Is Your Life.’

  Karen’s heart began to beat much faster and she found it hard to breathe. What if Elle Halle had found out about her adoption? What if someone on their research team had discovered her real mother, living in poverty somewhere in the Pacific Northwest? Karen Kahn, the famous designer, and her mother in rags. Wasn’t that the kind of thing that made Elle the success she was? Karen couldn’t get any air deep into her lungs. She yawned.

  ‘Need a bag?’ the redhead makeup artist asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re hyperventilating. Lots of people do it before the show. Need a bag? If you breathe into it you can balance your carbon dioxide. Or we can get you a Xanax. Amy Fisher had a panic attack right before she went on.’

  What a comfort. Karen could’t decide if the woman was a moron or a sadist. ‘I’ll be all right,’ Karen told the girl, but she wasn’t so sure.

  The redhead had finished the base coat and Karen was painted an even orange. With her round cheeks and soft chin she looked a lot like a pumpkin. The redhead began painting brown stripes alongside her nose and under her chin, then blended them with a sponge. Karen closed her eyes. She decided she would kill Mercedes, then fire her.

  The girl pulled off the plastic smock at last and Karen looked into the big mirror. Actually, she didn’t look so bad. She looked rather technicolor, like herself only more so. ‘There you go,’ said the redhead.

  ‘Thanks,’ Karen said, and was about to compliment the job when the segment producer showed up again. He wanted her safely back in the green room. They were walking down the hall when a familiar short broad bulk approached.

  ‘Hey, Karen. Lookin’ good,’ Bobby Pillar said.

  ‘You ought to know. You own a network,’ Karen smiled. ‘But not this one. What are you doin’ here?’

  ‘A little of this, a little of that. And maybe watching you. I have a feeling you’d just be a natural on television.’

  ‘A natural disaster,’ Karen croaked. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to wet my pants.’

  ‘So what if you do? That they’ll edit out,’ he laughed. ‘Why don’t we do lunch some time?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, but was relieved when her minder cleared his throat and gave her a not-so-gentle little push toward the green room. A technician came to her with a tiny mike on a thin black cord. ‘Could you snake this up your sweater?’ he asked. She nodded and pulled the end out of the turtleneck. ‘Now could you take this end and clip it somewhere?’ he asked. The lower end of the cord had a black box about the size of a Walkman attached to it. Karen wondered if it would spoil the line of her sweater.

  The sound man, meanwhile, was fiddling with the mike. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘this sweater collar is really going to make a problem for us. I think it will rub against the microphone. Could you put on something else? I could call wardrobe.’

  She looked at him as if he was crazy. She had thought for weeks about what she was going to wear and had decided on this tunic and leggings as both comfortable and becoming. Now, at the last minute, he wanted her to put on something else? Something not designed by her? ‘Get Mercedes,’ she told the guy.

  She sat down on the Herculon-covered sofa that was the major piece in the green room. For some reason, green rooms, the holding pen for the talk show cattle, were never green. This one was beige, and the walls were smudged. Probably with the tears of other guests who went out there and ruined their lives, Karen thought. Then Mercedes walked in. She’d already been told the problem.

  ‘Defina’s on her way over,’ Mercedes told her in a don’t-you-dare-panic voice. ‘She’s bringing a few pieces so you can choose whatever you want.’

  It took twenty minutes, but Karen saw Defina’s face behind the rack of stuff being pushed into the room and took the first deep breath she had taken – for what seemed like hours. ‘Starting another fire?’ Defina asked. ‘Never fear.’ She plucked a taupe jacket off the wheeled rack. ‘The producer says this will only be shot from the waist up. You can leave on the leggings, so how about this? Or, if you want to go real casual, how about this boatneck sweater?’

  Karen turned to Mercedes. ‘Which would work better?’ she asked.

  ‘You won’t see the mike if you wear the jacket but I like the casualness of the sweater better.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Defina agreed.

  Karen nodded. She peeled off the turtleneck and reached out for the sweater. Defina shook her head. ‘You need another quart of makeup, pale face,’ she said, pointing to the line that ended halfway down Karen’s neck. This time the redhead came to Karen. So did the producer and the director. Apparently they were behind schedule.

  ‘Elle is waiting,’ Paul Swift whined, and the redhead slapped the makeup on faster. At last, Karen was ready for her clothes. Carefully, Defina and Mercedes lowered the sweater over her painted shoulders. Then they snaked up the mike and this time it was clipped easily. It felt pretty comfortable, but Karen felt a little bulge just below the elbow seam. She reached up and closed her hand over something. It was a sachet or something like it, pinned on with a gold safety pin.

  ‘Leave it,’ Defina told her. ‘Madame Renault sent it. It’ll help.’

  And, for once, Karen felt she needed all the help she could get. What the hell, she told herself. Was the magic of Madame Renault any more superstitious than her own magic photographs?

  ‘So what do you think clothes should do for a woman?’ Elle was asking.

  ‘They should complement her, and they should be comfortable. And they should protect her,’ Karen said. She’d gotten used to the lights and felt as if she had managed to be both entertaining and sincere. Elle Halle moved in a little closer, crouching forward on her elegant white wing chair.

  ‘Who do you feel deserves success in the fashion world?’

  ‘Well, I think it comes to those who best reconcile a woman’s external reality with her internal dream.’ Karen wondered if she sounded pretentious. It was what she believed.

  ‘So what do you think about the clothes by Christian Lacroix? Or some of the other designers of excess?’

  Lacroix was the first new French couturier to set up shop in twenty years. After a couple of seasons of huge publicity, he’d sunk in acclaim. The word was his backers had lost millions. This was one of the pitfalls that Karen had been afraid of. She knew Elle was hoping she would rip into some of the other designers. If Karen took the bait, she’d create a lot of bad feeling. If she didn’t, she’d look like a goodie-goodie, and maybe commit th
e greatest television sin of all: she’d bore her audience.

  Now she looked over at Elle. The woman was perfectly groomed. She was wearing an Ungaro. Her hair was a smooth helmet of dozens of blonde-colored strands. Not one was out of place, but Karen had noticed there were two people who ministered to the helmet every time there was even the slightest pause in taping. Karen also couldn’t help but notice that no one had fixed her own hair since she had sat down. She wondered if her scalp was sweating from the lights, and if her hair was lank.

  ‘I think diversity is wonderful,’ Karen said. ‘I think men and women should have all the choices they want. But for me, I don’t want to dress in a costume, no matter how lovely.’ That should take care of Lacroix et al.

  ‘So, are you calling Lacroix a costume-maker?’ Elle asked brightly. She hadn’t let Karen slip away gracefully.

  No, Karen thought. I’m calling you a bitch. But she kept her face friendly. In fact, she laughed. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who said that.’ Where had that come from? She’d turned things around neatly. Karen felt the little sachet bump against her elbow. Thank you, Madame Renault.

  ‘There’s a lot of stealing that goes on in your business, isn’t there? For instance, a lot of people say that when you look at Norris Cleveland’s designs this year, you’re looking at Karen Kahn’s from last year. How do you feel about that?’

  Karen laughed uncomfortably. ‘You know what people also say? That there’s nothing new under the sun. We all get our inspiration from all over. If I’ve inspired anything I feel flattered if it’s well done and depressed if it isn’t. Norrell was a great designer, and he said he just reinterpreted Chanel for his whole career.’

  Elle dropped the line of questioning, but immediately screwed that look of concern onto her face that the audience knew meant a real killer was coming. Karen braced herself.

  ‘Women like you because you represent success in business. You have done so well in a man’s world. So how do you think your husband feels, being second-in-command?’ Elle asked. ‘Has it made problems in your marriage? It isn’t easy for any man to take a back seat to his wife, and your husband is, if I may say, a very dynamic guy.’