Fashionably Late

by Olivia Goldsmith

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Friend in Tweed

  The morning had been a flurry of phone calls and congratulations from the staff. Everyone who called said the same thing: they didn’t usually watch TV, but the other night, on their way out the door, they just happened to tune in to a few minutes of Elle Halle and … Karen almost had to laugh. And it was almost as funny to see how Janet and all the other secretaries, Mrs Cruz, and even Casey were looking at her with new respect. It was as if television had the power to leave a gloss on you after your appearance. Only Jeffrey and Belle seemed immune to television’s cosmetic treatment.

  She’d decided to ignore her husband until he gave her an apology. Despite the sick feeling their fight gave her, she was carrying on BAU. Business as usual. Which included pinning an uninspired wrap skirt around Tangela’s slim waist while Stephie stood by, watching. Karen surreptitiously checked Tangela a few times to see if the girl seemed high, but she was no more sullen than usual. Karen was about to give her a break when the phone rang. ‘Who is it?’ Karen said aloud, knowing that Janet had the intercom on.

  ‘Please come ta thuh phone,’ Janet said, her Bronx accent heavy as a house.

  On her knees, pins in her mouth, both hands fighting with the fabric from hell, Karen didn’t feel like coming to the phone. Janet should know better than this. That’s what she was paid for. ‘Who is it?’ Karen asked again, annoyed.

  ‘Please come ta thuh phone,’ Janet repeated, and – with a sigh of irritation that had to be audible over the intercom – Karen got up heavily and strode over to her work table.

  She was getting too old to sit comfortably on the floor. God, she felt so tired! She snatched up the receiver. ‘Who the fuck is it?’ she asked Janet.

  ‘Bill Wolper. I thawt you wouldn’t want anyone to, yuh know, get nervous aw anything, hearing his name.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Thanks. Put him through,’ Karen agreed, properly chastened. Then she tried to pull herself together enough to ensure her sparkle. After seeing the TV show, was he finally calling with an offer? But that didn’t make sense – wouldn’t he call Jeffrey? Or had NormCo decided to pass and he was merely calling her to be polite? She felt the emptiness of rejection hit her in the pit of her stomach. Just because she didn’t want them didn’t mean she wanted a rejection. Well, if they did pass, was she glad or disappointed? The phone clicked and she took a deep breath. ‘Hello,’ he said, packing as much positive energy and enthusiasm as could be put into a single word and pushed through the little holes in the telephone handset. ‘Bill! Now nice of you to call.’

  ‘Please hold for Mr Wolper,’ a curt secretarial voice demanded. Shit! Karen hated when that happened. She’d been outphoned. She tried to gather herself together.

  ‘Karen?’ It was Bill Wolper this time. ‘Hey, I was wondering. Are you free for lunch?’

  ‘When?’ she asked, thinking of her overbooked week and the Paris show. Plus, she was already so tired.

  ‘Today. Right now. Say I have my car pick you up in twenty minutes?’

  The man was crazy, plus he had a lot of balls. Wasn’t this like calling a girl up on Friday night and asking her out for Saturday? In Rockville Center that had been called an ‘AT’ – Automatic Turndown – because even if you had nothing to do, you wouldn’t admit it. Only a desperate girl said yes.

  ‘Yes.’ Karen said, and surprised herself. Would Coco Chanel say yes, she asked herself sternly. But hey, she was no Coco Chanel. She’d made a life out of saying yes when other women would have said no. And vice versa. Karen wondered, but only for a nanosecond, if she should try to include Jeffrey, but she didn’t know where to find him, and she knew without asking that wasn’t part of the deal. Fuck ’im. Would he be angry to be left out? Would he be jealous or possessive? Suddenly, she didn’t care.

  She could hear Bill’s approval in his voice. ‘My driver will be waiting for you at twelve-thirty. Lutece suit you?’

  ‘Just fine,’ she purred. It was only the best intimate restaurant in New York.

  Without asking herself anything further, she turned to her niece and her goddaughter. ‘Show’s over. I’m outta here.’ She reached across her work table and into her schlep bag. She pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and held it out to Tangela. She hadn’t said a word to her about her fight with Defina, but she wanted to be as kind as possible. ‘Let me blow the two of ya to lunch,’ she said, and Stephie giggled, recognizing her aunt’s imitation of Belle. Karen smiled at the sullen older girl. ‘Take her someplace nice,’ she said. Tangela just reached for the money. ‘C’mon,’ was all she mumbled, and Stephie followed Tangela out the door.

  Alone now, Karen pulled out a mirror to survey herself. The news from the front was not good. Her face, rather like a potato to begin with, could look acceptable when gilded with a good moisturizer, a transparent foundation, and a burnish of Guerlain bronzing powder. Her eyes were bloodshot, plus she was having a catastrophic hair day, or CHD, as they all called it around the office. Karen shook her head, not that that would bring any fullness to the lank, no-haircut haircut that Jean-Pierre had given her. She’d have to lose that guy and go back to Carl. He understood her hair and was worth the schlep to Brooklyn. And maybe cutting her hair would cheer him up. She had to think of a way to do that. She looked into the mirror.

  Karen had never felt really attractive. And she certainly had never been seductive. She was too direct and too embarrassed to act coy, to flirt. But maybe I’m just too insecure, she thought. Maybe my fascination with clothes all comes from that. Clothes could be a distraction from the imperfect face, the flawed body. But why did she feel so unattractive?

  Karen thought of Belle. Was it a mother’s job to initiate her daughter into the world of seductiveness and flirtation? Was a mother supposed to teach her daughter how to be female? Belle had certainly focused attention on how Karen looked and how to dress and makeup ‘properly,’ but the attention had been mostly negative. Karen remembered that, like Tiff, she had been humiliated by Belle’s criticism. Was that why she never felt really comfortable as a vamp or successful as a seductress?

  But everybody blamed their mother for everything. Maybe it was Arnold’s failure that Karen felt. Wasn’t it a father’s job to help his daughter feel attractive? Unlike Belle, Arnold had never criticized. He’d simply not noticed Karen, at least not in any way that recognized her femininity. Whether he meant to or not, he’d helped to teach her that if she wanted to be noticed she had to work for it. That, along with his own workaholism, helped to make her what she was today.

  Karen shrugged. Would her real parents have done a better job? If Mr Centrillo found them, she’d be able to answer that question. Would she be a different woman if she had been raised by the unwed teenage mom who probably was her natural mother and abandoned by the kid who was her father? Karen told herself she probably would have been worse off and tried to believe it. They’d given her this face and body and she’d have to like it or lump it.

  Anyway, now she had to take whatever emergency measures she could to look her best. And if the idea of flirtation made her nervous as hell, she’d have to try not to show it.

  Fifteen minutes later, she strode out of the lobby of 550 Seventh Avenue to Bill Wolper’s waiting stretch Mercedes limo, carrying a small batch of mail and memos to assuage her guilt at running off. Her skin was appropriately glossy, as were her lips, though the gloss did stop at her hairline. The hair was at least brushed, but otherwise unsalvageable. There was a limit to what a girl could do in a quarter of an hour when she was on the wrong side of forty. Still, the wheat-colored cotton knit tunic and short skirt she was wearing pulled her together and gave her a nice cleavage, and the wrap jacket in a soft waffle-weave cotton and linen knit was a great texture and forgivingly covered her belly.

  Not surprisingly, Wolper’s car was divine. Karen leaned back into the supple and supportive gray leather seat. It was pure luxury. The raucous noise from the street was completely blocked by the tinted windows an
d the liquid of the Mozart concerto playing on the sound system. For the first time in weeks, Karen tried to relax. This was a hundred times better than the rented limos Karen took. How did I get here, she wondered? I’m just a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn and I’m sitting in one of the world’s most luxurious cars being driven to one of the city’s most luxurious restaurants. Karen shook her head to clear it. So far, despite the high profile she’d gotten in the last couple of years, despite the Oakley Award, or how often she saw her fashions featured in the glossy magazines, she never seemed to take what she had earned for granted. It seemed to her that though the climb had been long and hard and not without pain, despite all the press she’d gotten lately, she was still more the young hopeful than she was the established star. To Karen, the luxury of not having to look at the prices on the right-hand side of the menu, of being able to buy any piece of jewelry she wanted, of never having to go to the bank but always having a five-figure balance in her checking account when she inserted her cash card, all of it was something she didn’t expect.

  But what if this is it? Karen asked herself. What if this is the pinnacle and from here on it’s all a slip downhill. She thought of Tony de Freise at the Oakley Awards. What had he said? ‘See you on the slopes.’ I would hate to have arrived and never even known that I had gotten there before it was over, Karen thought. Do you only know you’ve reached the top when you look up at it from the decline? All at once she felt chilled, and asked the driver to turn down the air conditioning. I shouldn’t be going out to lunch, she realized with a shiver. I should be working on the Paris collection. If I blow that, I blow everything.

  She sighed. In this business you were only as good as your last collection. Karen’s work had gotten nowhere this morning and she knew that so far this collection wasn’t exciting. When she’d gotten into the business she’d made herself two promises: that she’d dress women beautifully but comfortably, never putting them in ridiculous, clownish, or restrictive clothes, and that she’d make sure her line was simple, so that all of her pieces worked with each other.

  It wasn’t easy then and it was getting harder. Elegant simplicity isn’t easy. Most of her art was in knowing how fabrics – beautiful, sensuous, tactile fabrics – draped and flowed. She was always on the lookout for a great new fabric – just as when Lastex first came out in 1934, Chanel showed amazing new clothes in it.

  But the structure of Karen’s clothes was her other secret. They were unique because the simplicity of line belied the strength of the cut and seams. A cashmere swing jacket seemed to hang effortlessly from the shoulders, but what work had gone into the bias cut of that swing and the sewing of those shoulders! Her little linen tank tops fit so beautifully because of the almost invisible darts she knew, from years of experience, how and where to stitch. But the same darts had to be cut differently and higher on the silk shantung tank tops. And her slacks! They were famous. Women would kill to get them. Karen knew how to cut the leg, how to seam the crotch, how to make sure the rise was just right so they never pulled, never pinched, but so they also minimized the belly and thigh, and elongated the leg. Simple, yes; easy, no.

  After years of learning, after years of trying what worked and what didn’t, after moving up through the jungle of the garment center, after fighting for press coverage, for recognition, for sales, she’d finally made it. And now here she was, riding in this limousine, successful because of what she’d done but confronted with the challenge of the endless yearning for the new. Because in fashion it wasn’t enough to be good, to be flattering, to be stylish. You also had to look new. Karen had to face it. Her women clients didn’t buy clothes because they needed them. They bought the thrill of the new.

  And if her clothes were classics, if they were timeless, if they transcended the rules, if they fit and flattered and worked, but if they weren’t new, they failed.

  Karen had come, over the years, to resent that last demand. She was inventive, but though she rose to the challenge time and time again, season after season, it had begun to feel like a bad parlor trick. Novelty, unlike the other demands of fashion, had no intrinsic value. Functionality and aesthetics were valid, but why did women – and the press – clamor for novelty?

  Last season she’d done a good collection, sold well, and gotten generally good reviews. But Women’s Wear had written up her show and called it ‘just a bit tired,’ and accused her of ‘recycling.’ One bad season, two at the most, could put her out of business, Jeffrey said. Always the press’s darling, she’d resented their accusation and the resentment lingered. But now she was established, and just as they had built her, they would now undermine. It was the way of the industry. The Oakley Award would only make her a more visible target for potshots. If she did sell to NormCo, she wouldn’t have to worry so much about all this, but would they want her if she didn’t do well in Paris? She shivered at the thought.

  For a moment she wished she’d never come. She longed to be back at her workroom. She needed to be back at her workroom. If she didn’t concentrate on the collection … To distract herself from that thought and to justify her existence, she turned to the pile of mail she had brought with her. It was a funny thing: when they had first opened the company, Karen had wandered around the office early in the morning, opening all the mail. It seemed a natural thing to do – after all, it all had her name on it. Now Janet opened, sorted, and distributed most of the mail before Karen even saw it. Despite that, there was still too big a volume to keep up with. Now, in her lap amid the in-house memos and other usual stuff, there were two envelopes of interest. The first was a heavy pasteboard card. Janet had slit open the envelope for her, so Karen only had to slip out the note.

  It was written in an elegant script on embossed stock.

  Dearest Karen,

  I’m sure you must be pleased about the coverage that your wonderful clothes got, but you can’t be nearly as happy as I am. I know I asked for a lot. No one could have done it but you. What an amazing talent you have and what hard work you back it up with. I think you know how very much my wedding meant to me, and with your help I looked as beautiful to Larry as I wanted to. I will always be in your debt.

  Deepest thanks,

  Elise Elliot.

  Karen blinked. It wasn’t often that she was thanked, and thanked by the likes of Elise Elliot, who had been dressed by Givenchy, Mainbocher, and Marc Bohan of Dior. She’d taken time from her honeymoon to write. Cool as she was, demanding as she had been, the woman had a kind of patrician class. Karen was touched. The little pasteboard square had given her the answer to the question she’d asked herself. She was here in this car on her way to lunch because of her talent and hard work. The card was an omen that had come when she needed it most. She patted it and slipped it in her purse. It wasn’t quite as good as the Oakley Award, but it came close.

  The second envelope was not as gratifying. Norris Cleveland, third-rate designer, was inviting her to the introduction of her new perfume. Of course, it was called ‘Norris!’ Norris’s new collection had looked almost exactly like one of Karen’s old collections. Except the colors were lousy. Karen shook her head. Somehow it continued to bug her that she, Karen, had to struggle for everything she got and that Norris did it effortlessly. Why didn’t Norris have to sell herself to the highest bidder? Well, perhaps she had. Karen crumpled the invitation into her schlep bag. She was sure it would be a beautiful party with beautiful people, but she doubted the perfume would be a Number Five or an Opium or an Obsession. Somehow Norris always managed the trappings without any of the content. Karen wouldn’t even be surprised if the bottles of perfume were empty! Norris’s success proved that talent wasn’t necessary. So maybe Karen’s own success was just a fluke.

  She looked out the window of the limousine. A crowd of motley pedestrians at the curb were trying to peek in and see who was moving through the traffic in such an elegant way. The tint protected Karen from their peeking. She could have been one of them, dressed in off-the-rack polyest
er, wearing shoes from Fayva. Why had she wound up in here, looking out at them? Why did she deserve this? And how long would it last?

  Of course, in spite of what an ass he’d been last night, Karen knew Jeffrey had helped her achieve it all, and he was right about almost everything. He was right when he told her that Ford got rich making Fords, not Lincolns. There was no real money in American couture. Perhaps that was why only Jimmy Galanos on the West Coast and maybe Scassi actually practiced it. Even high-end ready-to-wear, the next tier down, was precarious. ‘Designer’ clothes cost a lot, but they also cost a lot to make. The sales volume wasn’t high and the profit margin was small. One bad line and you could be wiped out. Designers like Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Anne Klein, and the rest who had ‘graduated’ made their money in the lower-priced bridge lines and in the licensing business. None of them manufactured their own mass market lines. Ralph used Bidermann Industries to manufacture his women’s wear, and they produced over fifty thousand styles a year! No wonder financing the bridge line without a partner and no real capital was eating KInc up. It was hard to find a company that could produce her line, that would deliver it on time, that would keep up the quality, and that would wait to get paid. Unless, she, Karen, wanted to sink to the Better Sportswear level of Liz Claiborne or Jones New York, she had better figure out a way to continue to finance the bridge line, or do this deal with NormCo and spread herself from designer wear all the way down to ‘moderate’ – the level of Chaus and Tapemeasure.

  The driver maneuvered the car past the pedestrian throng and through the brutal midtown traffic, over to the more residential East Fifties. That was where the townhouse that was the home to New York’s finest French restaurant nestled beside other, more private, brownstones. In the slow crawl through midtown traffic Karen had had plenty of time to notice both the car and its appointments. There are limos and there are limos, she thought, noticing the perfection of the burled wood interior, the pewter alpaca lap robe with the’ ‘WW’ monogram, crystal decanters in the silver holders screwed to the privacy panel, and the silver vase (also monogrammed and screwed to the wall) that held a trembling spray of dendrobium orchids.