The Pink Suit: A Novel

by Nicole Kelby

  At Chez Ninon, the cutters were part of the Ready-to-Wear team. They were consulted with in meetings and spoke freely about the problems or benefits of one fabric over another. On Seventh Avenue, no one cared what the cutters thought about fabric, line, or color. They were mostly men, mostly Jews; they just cut and cut quickly, without complaint.

  An unmarked door swung open as Kate passed. “Lunch is over,” a foreman shouted. “Kikes,” he said under his breath.

  “How ugly,” she said.

  Kate couldn’t believe that she said it out loud. But she wasn’t sorry. It was ugly—although she wasn’t sure if she meant the man, that horrible word, or that world in general—but she clearly meant it. This type of behavior just has to stop, she thought. The foreman gave her a nasty look. He spat on the sidewalk, not on her but close enough. Kate thought of seeing the good pastor on the subway train, with his beautiful blue tie and his remarkable courage.

  Hate is such sorrowful business, she thought, and kept on walking. Lunch was over, but Kate couldn’t go back yet. She wasn’t ready to tell the Ladies about The Carlyle. She would probably be fired, and Maeve, with all her tricks and shortcuts, would likely finish the suit for Maison Blanche—and that would not do at all.

  As Kate walked down Seventh, trucks jumped the curb and parked on the sidewalk; vans cut in and out of the skittish traffic. All around her, men were running with racks of dresses on hangers or pushing handcarts overflowing with fabric or trim or both. The windows on the second floors of the buildings were flung open, and the furious music of sewing machines mixed with the melodies of gossip from those mice, those back-room girls, the sweatshop girls. Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, and German, they worked for a better wage than they could make at home, but it was still not a good wage. At least now they were organized. They were union, and thirty-five hours a week meant thirty-five hours, no matter what names their bosses called them. In the suburbs, Kate heard things were very different indeed.

  When she reached West Thirty-Fourth, Kate turned off the avenue. Between Fifth and Sixth she found herself standing outside Orbach’s. Above her in gold letters were the words OPEN TODAY UNTIL NINE. There were crowds gathered on the street, studying the windows. The display of the moment was clearly designed to sell “the Look,” as Schwinn had called it. Window after window, everywhere Kate looked, she saw the Wife. There were dozens of mannequins, all fashioned in the likeness of the First Lady—with billowing hair and wide-set eyes—and dressed in the department store’s versions of Her Elegance’s clothes.

  Copies, replicas, knockoffs—you could call them what you wanted, but they were amazing and totally convincing. The Wife was there in her double-breasted red “good luck” campaign coat from Givenchy—Kate still couldn’t believe that Maggie had given that back to her, too. The Wife was also in Cassini’s beige crepe wool dress from the inauguration ceremony, and the stubborn red-wool bouclé day dress, the Christian Dior by way of Chez Ninon, which nearly drove Kate insane.

  “That one’s mine,” Kate told the lady standing next to her.

  “I’ve got the red coat,” the woman said. “The double breasted.”

  Kate wanted to clarify but knew that the woman wouldn’t believe her. Or if she did believe her, Kate would seem to be bragging, and she’d done enough of that sort of thing recently.

  There were groups of all sorts of women standing in front of these windows, dreaming. Some had packages. Some had children. Some were just milling around. Some were Midtown shoppers, with their smart clothes and small budgets. Some were tourists with flat shoes and cameras. There were three generations of Japanese women, pointing and giggling. It was just as Schwinn said—they were all under the Wife’s spell.

  “Nice hat,” one of them said to Kate. “Orbach’s?”

  The woman had a Spanish accent. Her hair and skin were the color of chestnuts. Kate had forgotten that she still had the pink pillbox on. “Yes. Orbach’s,” she said, and the woman went inside to find it. A few others followed.

  Kate looked at herself in the reflection of the window. It was, indeed, a very nice hat. It didn’t quite match the violet heather of her skirt, but it didn’t look that bad either. Behind her, across the street, Kate could see that tourists were lining up in front of the Empire State Building for the two p.m. tour. It was time to go back to the shop. Lunch was clearly over.

  Kate still had no idea how she would explain her behavior to the Ladies, but there was one more window at Orbach’s to see. Quite a crowd had gathered in front of it. It was formal wear. The star of any wardrobe, as Mr. Charles would have said. Kate moved through the crowd to get closer. The mannequin of the Wife was dressed in a delicate pink silk gown embroidered with sequins. It was the color of seashells, semifitted, not tight, with a demure bow at the waist. T-shirt formal, as the Wife called the style, a style that she had created and made famous by merely wearing it. It was as casual as a T-shirt, but with an elegant impact. The dress was a Dior knockoff by Mr. Cassini, and here it was being knocked off by Orbach’s. Still, even with all those revisioning hands, it did what it was it was supposed to do, what Cassini always did—it evoked Hollywood glamour and yet a simple beauty. It was undeniably American.

  The mannequin was not alone. Slightly behind her, there was another mannequin, dressed in a fine wool tux. The dark hair, Irish features, and blinding smile—nothing more was needed. It was modeled after Him.

  They looked so happy—and beautiful. I want that, Kate thought, and found herself on the verge of tears. She could hear her father’s voice in her head—Eegit. The word was not harsh—Eegit—but said in the tone he reserved for those who were not the full shilling, those who were born the fools of the world, not the self-made ones, like her. These were mannequins, after all. They were not beautiful and in love. They were painted plaster, with nylon hair, but they looked so real. The way the Wife held her gloved hands, that delicate angle. The smile that was pure and not so pure all at the same time.

  One tear. And then another. Eegit. A group of teenagers standing next to Kate began to stare at her. Her mascara was running. She’d left her handkerchief back at the shop and so she blotted her face with her white cotton shirtsleeve, which made her feel even more ridiculous. Kate wasn’t sure exactly why she was crying, but she suddenly longed for the sea, the great vast sea out of Cobh, and that particular salt air. She longed for home.

  She closed her eyes just for a minute, and imagined it. The last thing one sees when leaving Cobh is the Holy Ground, that bit of the verdant basin that no one can forget. And as your ship leaves the harbor, there are the fishermen’s cottages stacked along the cliffs near the mouth of the cove. The House of Cards, as they’re called. They’re painted robin’s egg blue, butter yellow, and pink—yes, pink: rosebud pink and coral pink. They are all sorts of shades of pink, like the Wife’s suit. Maybe that’s why I love it so, Kate thought, but knew the real reason she could not stop crying was Patrick.

  He deserved an answer, but a butcher’s wife like Peg spends every free minute knee-deep in blood and meat and not silk and satin. If they married, Kate knew she might have to leave Chez Ninon and this beautiful, perfect world entirely.

  And yet Kate loved Patrick Harris, with his brilliant, unwieldy heart.

  Kate needed a handkerchief, but the only thing she had in her skirt pocket was the envelope from The Carlyle. She opened it. Might as well, she thought. I’m homesick, probably fired, and certifiably weepy—things can’t get any worse.

  It was indeed another bill, but this time it was marked PAID.

  Mr. Charles’s business card was also enclosed.

  Things can, indeed, get worse, she thought.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul.”

  —Karl Lagerfeld

  Miss Arlene Francis: “Has your name been in the paper in the last month?”

  “Possibly.”

  Miss Francis: “Would any
of us know you personally?”

  “It is entirely possible.”

  Miss Francis: “You’re not Salvador Dalí?”

  He was not Salvador Dalí.

  On the television show What’s My Line? he’d looked pale and forgettable. Kate didn’t know what to expect in person. The Minister of Style arrived in the showroom unannounced. Maeve had been right. Even though the pink suit was not his, he wanted to see how it was coming along. Professional curiosity, he said. While the intrusion was annoying, it was also Kate’s salvation, because no one noticed her slip in the back door. A two-hour lunch for a back-room girl was not done. Maeve had clocked Kate back in after thirty minutes. “I know you’d do the same for me,” she said, and helped Kate take off the pink pillbox hat.

  “We don’t want him stealing Schwinn’s design now, do we?” Maeve said.

  So much for secrecy, Kate thought.

  The Carlyle was forgotten for the moment. The Ladies were thrilled that the Minister of Style had decided to pay a visit. They were chirping.

  “So very handsome he is,” Miss Nona said. “Dashing.”

  “He was in line to become Tsar of Russia,” Miss Sophie said. She asked Kate to bring the jacket in herself—but to wait until the champagne was popped. “We want to make a grand entrance of it. Lipstick first, though,” she said.

  Miss Sophie took the last bottle of Moët & Chandon from the refrigerator and three cut-crystal glasses from the shelf.

  “Just three glasses,” Maeve said. “Apparently no champs for you, sister.” Maeve handed Kate the tube of pink-violet lipstick that she’d liberated from the Ladies’ powder room earlier that morning and held up a hand mirror for her. “The man’s a gypsy. Watch your purse,” she said, and then rubbed a little lipstick on Kate’s cheeks, too.

  “And, whatever you do, don’t let him kiss you,” Maeve warned. “He’s Italian that way. You’ll smell like garlic for a week.”

  Kate tried not to stare at the man as she laid muslin across the small gilded table and then gently placed the pink jacket on top of it. The shy peach color of the showroom walls made his Palm Beach tan radiant.

  Playboy. Buffoon. Jet-setter. It was difficult to tell who this man really was, but his black suit was clearly Savile Row, probably Gieves and Hawkes. It seemed like one of their ready-to-wear endeavors that they’d once sold in shame through the back door. The fit was “semi made-to-measure,” as they called it. The finishing was partly hand done; the rest was run off on a machine.

  The suit was expensive enough but was not bespoke tailoring, not custom made. And yet, he wore it as if it were made for him and him alone, and perhaps that was all that mattered. But Kate could tell the difference. It was soulless.

  The Ladies poured three glasses of champagne. He opened his briefcase and took out a long silver box that was the size of a cigar case and had khaki leather trim. Kate had never seen anything like it. He popped it open—inside was a camera. Miss Nona laughed with delight, as if the designer had just done a magic trick.

  “Where did you get such a thing!”

  “‘Land,’ they are called. Instant. Polaroid.”

  “Picture, please,” Miss Nona said, and wrapped her frail arm around Miss Sophie. Each held a champagne glass and smiled broadly. They looked like two dowagers embarking on a transatlantic voyage aboard the Titanic. First class, of course. Their dresses were beaded shifts, reminiscent of the flapper style, and made of ninon, that fragile silk that the Ladies wore in their youth and still favored. It was Chez Ninon, after all. All they needed were rolled-up stockings and cloche hats, and it could be the Roaring Twenties.

  Time may have begun to turn their bodies into shadows, but they still had that F. Scott Fitzgerald air about them.

  The Minister of Style seemed bemused by it all. The flashbulb went off with a snap. He turned a knob and then opened the back of the camera and cut the paper away. “This is the photograph we have made,” he said, but there was no picture on the paper.

  The Ladies looked crushed. “Where are we?” Miss Nona asked.

  “One minute. It must rest. Then we take the negative from positive.”

  Kate noticed that his accent sometimes seemed Russian, sometimes Italian, and sometimes French. It was very Mr. Charles of him. The Minister of Style shook the photo hard and placed it on the gilded table to rest. Then he turned to Kate.

  “The jacket. Put it on.”

  He was surprisingly brusque. Kate hesitated. It was too large for her. It wouldn’t show well. He’d hate it.

  Miss Sophie patted her on the shoulder. “Go ahead, Kate. It’s fine.”

  “Be our model,” Miss Nona said.

  Kate took off her smock and eased into the pink jacket. The sleeves were too long; they nearly covered her hands. The shoulders crept down her back. The first row of pockets landed just at her hips. The jacket overwhelmed her. And yet Kate wished there were a mirror so she could see herself, even for a second. It was so soft, so beautiful. It was like having a peony bloom around her.

  Such funny flowers, so dependent on other things for their fleeting beauty, she thought. Ants, small and industrious, push the petals back until the flower is fully in bloom and fragrant. She’d learned that at school so many years ago and now Kate felt like the ant, taming this bouclé. The Wife was the sun, shining and indifferent to it all.

  Kate closed her eyes and imagined the jacket was hers, and it felt as if anything were possible.

  “You look like the runway girls do,” Miss Nona whispered, and poked absentmindedly at Kate’s updo with her long, clawlike fingernails. Kate wondered what her hair really did look like. Schwinn had apparently cemented it on the top of her head, and now Miss Nona seemed to be having a difficult time even moving it.

  The Minister of Style did not look pleased. “Don’t worry about that rat’s nest,” he told Nona. “I cut off her head when I shoot.”

  And now Kate knew exactly what her hair looked like.

  A flashbulb popped.

  “Turn,” he said. She did. “Turn.” She did again.

  Each time Kate turned, he took a photo.

  “Back to me, now,” he said. “We must see the shoulders clearly.”

  She turned again.

  “Good. Fine. Excellent. Finis.”

  He was done with Kate. And, apparently, the jacket, too. The floor was littered with flashbulbs; some of them had burned small holes into the carpet, and some had seared the muslin he’d tossed aside.

  “Clean this up,” he said to Kate. “I don’t want to step on them and ruin my shoes. Get a broom.”

  Kate wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “Take off the jacket first. You shouldn’t even be wearing it.”

  Apparently, Kate had heard him correctly. She carefully took off the jacket but did not get a broom or a vacuum cleaner. She held it in her gloved hands gently, with the lining side out, to show him her work. It was not the work of a woman who cleans a floor. The quilting was beautiful. Maybe if he saw it, he’d apologize to Kate. The silk had been sewn to the bouclé just as Chanel required; every stitch was nearly invisible and exactly one inch apart. The gold chain had been sewn into the hem to ensure that the jacket would hang properly. It was perfect. Kate had come in early to finish it, on her own time. Her hands ached horribly, but it was the finest work she had ever done. Kate had no intention of picking up a broom.

  The Ladies could see that Kate was hurt. They were fluttering around her, trying to make the Minister of Style see that he should not insult their Kate.

  “Kate’s finish work is quite impressive,” Miss Nona said.

  “She’s our very best,” said Miss Sophie. “The stitching is so very amazing, isn’t it?”

  The Minister of Style ignored them. One by one, he shook each photograph and then peeled the backing away. He threw the negative paper, its chemicals still wet, onto the floor, with the spent flashbulbs and smoldering muslin. The chemicals would surely stain the carpet. When the paper
hit a hot bulb, it sizzled and left an acrid smell in the air that mixed with the scent of soot.

  The Ladies saw it all yet acted as if they didn’t notice. They just spoke louder. Debris was piling up around the Minister of Style’s elegant Italian shoes, but Kate would not get a broom. He laid each picture on the showroom table, arranging them as if they were cards in a game of chance that he, as high bidder, would certainly win. He scrutinized each one carefully. Finally he said, “The jacket is acceptable.”

  Miss Sophie looked as if she would pop. “The jacket is beautiful. How can you tell anything from these pictures? They’re awful.”

  “The photographs are perfect,” he said. “The suit is sufficient.”

  Sufficient? Kate couldn’t believe it. The pictures were awful. The camera angles were odd. One shot looked as if it had been taken by a giant. The camera had been held so high overhead. Another picture was of the left side of the coat, but it was shot as if the photographer had fallen down and could only catch the image of the sleeve and collar. There were three pictures of her back.

  “These photos hide the beauty of this jacket,” Miss Nona said. “You can’t see the shades of pink in the bouclé. These are all black-and-white.” The photos made the jacket appear as if it had the texture of poured cement, like terrazzo floors, but the Minister of Style just shrugged. “This is the way your newspapers and television will see your handwork.”

  “But the pink—” Sophie said.

  “Will not be seen. So no one cares about it. My concern is for a bad photographer or just a bad angle. That’s what I am looking for. In order for the suit to become part of the White House collection, it must photograph perfectly, no matter what.”

  He chose one snapshot and threw the others on the carpet with the rest of the debris.

  “You should take a picture of the quilting,” Miss Nona said. “It is so refined. Very impressive.”

  “Your girl actually did the quilting?”