The silence began to stretch, and I shifted slightly in my heels, the blisters from the day before starting to pinch. After what felt like ten minutes of silence, Nancy looked up from the designs I had laid before her.
“Grace.” She said my name as a declaration.
I smiled.
She fixed her large brown eyes on mine. “I appreciate all the time and effort you have put into this presentation. It’s clear you are conscientious, thoughtful, responsible . . . all the things that make a great assistant.
“However,” Nancy said, folding her French-manicured fingers over her desk, “I’m afraid I’m not catching the vision here.”
My mind started to spin. Catch the vision? The vision was straight-up Milano! The vision was Nancy’s vision!
“Grace, I believe in being direct. No one does anyone any favors by being nice. Lying is not nice. So, Grace, I’m sorry but I just don’t see you having a design future here at Milano. I wish I had better news.”
I froze, my eyes becoming dry before I remembered to blink. When I tried to swallow, I realized my mouth was slightly open and I shut it, hard. No design future?
I cleared my throat, my thoughts starting to ricochet. “You’re looking for something different? I can change it. Is it the jacket? Maybe it needs to be cropped—” I shuffled the boards, looking for the jacket that was probably too long, but Nancy interrupted me.
“This is not a matter of one hem that can be tweaked.” Nancy remained still, her face composed, the apple green in her glasses frames the only counterpoint of color against her black-and-white long coat. “I know you’ve been here a few years—”
“Six,” I said, more roughly than I intended. “I’ve been here six years.”
One of Nancy’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Indeed. And you’ve done great work in your current position. Perhaps you should stick with what you know. Grace, not everyone can be a designer.”
I shook my head slowly, slowly, back and forth, willing my thoughts to stop spinning. “I graduated first in my class at FIT. People were scared of me there . . .” I cleared my throat after realizing I was mumbling. Raising my voice, I continued, “I was offered all sorts of jobs that last year of school, but I picked Milano. I picked you.” I pointed to Nancy, my fingers trembling. “I picked you because you’re Nancy Strang! You’re brilliant! You’re a legend! I wanted to work at a legendary house for a legendary woman!”
I saw Nancy shift in her chair, but I barely paused to breathe. “I came here because I thought after putting in my time, clocking in at the bottom of the ladder, the very bottom rung, I might add, I knew I would move up. I knew it because I’m a good designer! I am not a photocopier! I am not an errand runner or a coffee maker or a sheep holder! I am a designer!”
By this point, I had reached a shriek. I knew this because my final words rang back at me from the soaring glass, and I heard the pitch. The pitch was definitely a shriek.
“Ms. Kleren, perhaps you should—”
I matched Nancy’s measured tone with a good, old-fashioned yell. “Perhaps I should not! Perhaps I’m sick of doing what I should and getting absolutely nowhere for it!”
When the room stopped throbbing, I realized Buckley had, at some point, opened the door to Nancy’s office and was waiting at the threshold. I looked at him, disoriented.
“Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Kleren.” Nancy’s tone was cold and dismissive. She turned in her chair, away from me, toward her laptop and her bazillion-dollar view.
I stood, rooted to my spot. My limbs felt heavy and numb after the sudden rush and release of adrenaline. Buckley said my name softly, and I dragged my gaze from Nancy’s back to his face. Spidery lines creased his typically smooth forehead.
“This way, please,” he said, propping open the door as wide as it would go.
“Thank you,” I said, so quietly I was sure no one heard but the carpet. I gathered my boards from the floor and walked through the door Buckley held for me. When I heard him shut it quietly behind us, I turned to him.
“I probably could have edited some of that out,” I said, still shaking.
“Probably, yes,” Buckley said, striding ahead of me to push the elevator down button. “I believe I did mention less was more. You appear to have chosen a different tactic.”
My shoulders slumped as I shuffled into the elevator, holding my design boards so tightly, I could feel them cutting into my hands. The doors closed on Buckley and opened a moment later on my floor. I kept my head down as I walked to my desk, dropped my things onto my chair, and hurried as quickly as I could manage to the small restroom at the back. Mercifully, it was empty, and I collapsed against the door as I locked it. The sobs came easily and with a vengeance. I jumped with both blistered feet into what my grandma would have called a “pity extravaganza.” I had blown it, had squandered so much precious time, not only on my presentation, which I had thought was phenomenal, but also on the last ten years of my life. It was a total waste, I thought as I cried bitterly. One long, exhausting, unfulfilling waste.
Hot tears fell as if racing each other down my cheeks, and I sat down hard on the floor, shame and embarrassment flooding me. What kind of person had an emotional meltdown in front of one of the most powerful people in fashion? Promotion or not, I had a job to do, and indulging in my hissy fit had likely knocked me back to the bottom of the Milano totem pole. A rough sob escaped when I realized that for once I was glad I had no parents to tell. I wouldn’t have been able to stand their disappointment in me.
Slips of rough commercial toilet paper were my only tissues, and as I used them to blot my tears, I could feel my cheeks getting raw. I cried through the paper, through the raw, through the knocks on the door from Isa, who sounded increasingly concerned. When I’d spent every tear immediately available to me, I stood shakily and turned toward the small mirror above the sink. My eyes were puffy and an angry red I hadn’t seen in years, since a time of my life when tears were a constant companion. My dress, so fresh and innovative an hour before, looked rumpled and ridiculous, like something a little girl would wear while playing dress-up in her mommy’s closet.
Maybe it’s a metaphor, I thought as I swallowed the bile creeping into my throat. I splashed water on my face in an effort to resurrect some part of my appearance. Maybe I looked like I was playing dress-up because I was a total fake. Maybe I didn’t belong in this industry after all. I’d had ten years to try and this was where I’d ended up? In a cramped bathroom, crying like a toddler and dressed like one too?
“Grace, please. Open up.” Isa sounded a little frantic, though she had the kindness to continue using a muted voice. I shuddered, thinking about all the people at work in the room beyond that door and how Isa was sparing me their inspection.
I swallowed hard and opened the door an inch. I could see Isa’s trademark cat eye through the crack.
“Grace, honey, open the door.” She sounded like she was part of a hostage negotiation. “Come on out. It’s going to be okay.”
I sighed and opened the door. I took a step back when I saw James next to Isa. He looked very uncomfortable. Beyond our little group, I glimpsed people standing at their desks, paused in their work to watch the three of us.
I lifted my chin, scrambling for any semblance of self-possession. “I’m fine,” I said, a bit too loudly. “Just a rough morning. We can all get back to work.”
I took a step forward but James stopped me. Following Isa’s gaze, I looked to the floor. Next to James’s polished, custom lace-ups sat a cardboard box.
Filled with all the contents from my desk.
I looked up at James’s face, disbelieving.
“I’m sorry,” he said, avoiding my gaze. “When Nancy makes a decision . . .”
“Wait,” I sputtered. “James, you know me—”
He shook his head quickly. “There was nothing I could do. Grace, you’re fired.”
three
Here’s something I appreciated about New York:
no one really cared if you were a total loser. Sure, it stung to lose my job. Sure, I needed a shower and a break from my sweatpants and hoodie, particularly after the red sauce incident of three (four?) nights ago. Sure, I would have been horrified if anyone had popped by for a visit to my apartment and had seen the tornadic state of both the space and its single occupant. But that was the thing: people in New York didn’t pop by for visits. Popping by was a veritable art form in my hometown. I’d popped by with the best of them in Silver Creek, knowing how late was too late, how early was too early, how long to stay (as long as the conversation flowed), when to bring banana bread (new neighbor) or a casserole (death in the family) or cleaning supplies (new baby, family illness, prolonged grief).
Popping by in New York, however, just didn’t happen. I had never been so grateful to live in a city where civilized, happy self-absorption reigned supreme, where people had the decency to meet at restaurants or bars or museums or coffee shops but not on my couch. Because I loved my couch. I’d gotten to know it well in the two weeks since Nancy had crushed my dreams. I squeezed one of my throw pillows with renewed affection, watching the credits roll for Splash, a satisfying end to a Tom Hanks marathon on TBS. I reached for the remote, pushing aside mostly empty take-out containers, a single sock, and a cup of cold coffee to get to it. Slouching back against the cushions, I clicked through the channels slowly, pausing to watch the end of The Price Is Right, a classic scene with Rory and Logan jumping without parachutes on Gilmore Girls, and an infomercial on a sleeved polar fleece blanket that briefly had me considering another segment of the textile industry. I clicked up a channel and stopped.
The camera panned slowly across the faces of earnest singers in choir robes, and the strains of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” filled my apartment. I stared, my hand stilled on the remote. A lump constricted my throat and without my permission, my eyes brimmed with hot tears, remembering the last time I’d limped through the words of that familiar hymn. I’d been standing next to my grandmother in the front pew of our church, gripping Gigi’s arm for dear life as we endured the joint funeral services for my mom and dad. The ice storm had happened three days before, and the marks from their mangled car still mocked me on the road just beyond our house.
I was a junior in high school. I was too young to know how to face suffering head-on and keep singing through the tears. Gigi took me in with open arms and I lived with her while I finished my last year of high school. I’d left for New York the morning after graduation.
The hymn ended, such hopeful words marred by the anguish of that moment. I remembered Gigi’s trembling voice next to me, how she’d sung with tears rolling down both of her cheeks.
Gigi.
I groaned, leaving the church channel on, though I found the monotone of the balding pastor less riveting than the choir number. I reached for my phone with a feeling I had seen an unanswered text from Gigi within the last day or so. I scrolled through and saw I was right. Gigi had sent a message two days prior, and I hadn’t even opened it, much less responded.
Hi, honey, it read. I hold you are hippy. Been thinking along you. When are you complicated home for a visit?
I smiled. Gigi, as a general rule, resisted all forms of technology. Her VCR was still doing a valiant job for her infrequent movie nights. She maintained an active landline with an accompanying answering machine (tape, not digital). And while she tolerated having a laptop in her home, she always looked like she wanted to spit to the side whenever she discussed it.
So a cell phone had been a tough sell. During my first Christmas visit home after moving to New York, I’d presented her with one that I had already tricked out entirely, from its enlarged print on the screen to a troubleshooting tutorial I’d laminated and put near her answering machine. Gigi had scowled, but her love of her only grandchild had won over her disdain for tech. When her best friend, Goldie, showed her how to use the text function, Gigi had grabbed on immediately, thrilled at the efficiency of typing or speaking a message while not having to stop her work in the house, in the garden, at the town library, in the serving line at the fellowship hall. Too busy to bother with details, most of Gigi’s messages were cryptic, some of them completely unreadable. I’d become a pro at interpretation, though, and I did my best to reply promptly, holding to the only remaining connection I still had with my childhood, my hometown, my family.
I held the phone in my hand, wondering how to respond to Gigi’s request for a visit. I didn’t need to look into my little dining area to know the late payment notices were piling up on my cluttered table. Getting fired made my fragile financial situation tremble like a house of cards, so close to a fall, it took my breath away. Billing statements were getting pushier in their language, printed now on colored paper with threatening exclamations on the envelopes. I looked around at the disaster of my apartment, feeling my stomach sour as I realized I had no way to pay the next month’s rent, due in only five days.
I clicked off my phone, unsure of how to respond. Gigi lived a thousand miles away, but she was still able to sniff out a lie from that distance. Better to say nothing at all, to not even tiptoe in the direction of “I lost my job, I’m broke, and I’m not coming to Iowa forever and ever, amen.”
I pulled myself to my feet, taking a moment to breathe deeply when the sudden change left me light-headed. Padding to my closet, I stood before it. I’d felt a little jolt of happiness the first time I’d seen this closet, moments before signing the rental agreement. Completely atypical of a sublet of this size, my apartment had a delightfully large closet. And I had filled every inch of it, top shelf, hanging rack, floor space, wall space—every bit was filled with beautiful clothes, shoes, bags, and belts. I paged through the hangers and felt my heart become heavy with a knowing dread. The vintage Chanel bag, the Dior skirt I’d found on deep discount, the Armani jumpsuit that had cost more than I cared to remember now but had made a stunning impression at Milano’s holiday soiree that year . . . I let the textures of all those perfectly designed and woefully expensive garments pass through my fingers, wishing I didn’t know what I had to do.
My entire net worth lay before me. If I was going to stay in New York—the New York I loved, the New York that was the center of the fashion world, the New York that would demand a very large rent check in five days—I needed quick access to cash. I clenched the muscles in my jaw and reached for an empty shopping bag. I would rebuild, I assured myself, starting on the left side of the closet and working right. My hands shook a little as I folded the chosen items and placed them carefully in the bag. This bag was my ticket to a new job, a new resolve, a fresh start in the only city I wanted to inhabit. I filled one bag and started another.
A girl had to do what a girl had to do.
After a cumbersome train ride down to the Upper West Side (no cab for me today), I paused on the sidewalk that ran in front of Second to None, the best consignment store in the city. The first time I’d visited, I’d been wide-eyed and in ferocious love, so thrilled to step between the topiaries by the front door and into the quiet of the store, just in from rubbing shoulders with women in that neighborhood who were wearing clothing I wanted desperately to inspect and take apart, to learn by dismantling how such beautiful clothes came to be. I had built the beginnings of a great wardrobe in this store, most of those pieces long gone but some of them lying hopeful in the bags at my feet.
Standing on the sidewalk, I remembered with sudden force how I’d longed to call my mom after my first visit here. She would have loved to hear every detail, I just knew. She’d loved clothes and fashion and would have shared my delight in finding such a gem in the middle of this strange, exhilarating, enormous city. She would have wanted a complete recap, listening to everything in a way only a mom can listen, all attention paid to moments unimportant to the outside observer but singularly important because the moments belonged to her daughter.
The memory hit me in the chest and I pushed it immediately away, a skill at which I’d
become very adept over the last decade. Inhaling sharply, I gripped my heavy-laden bags and jostled them successfully through the front door. The store was nearly empty on a Tuesday morning. I navigated awkwardly through the racks and approached the front desk, catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror as I walked by. I stood straighter, forcing my spine into an assured position. If there was one thing I’d garnered from the last ten years, it was how to fake it until I made it. I’d taken extra care before leaving my apartment, applying my makeup precisely, choosing a stylish but classic look that would appeal to the Upper West crowd. My hair was smoothed neatly, precisely, and the auburn highlights brought out flecks of deep green in my eyes. I looked more put together than I’d been able to accomplish in weeks. I just hoped all the effort worked.
“Hello,” I said brightly to the woman behind the counter. “I’m here to consign a few items.”
She put up one manicured finger as a symbol for me to wait. Her eyes remained on a piece of paper before her, but she didn’t seem to be reading or calculating sums. I watched as her eyes didn’t move, just stayed focused on one part of the paper, hand still raised to quiet me. She waited so long, I started to wonder if her skinny arms would start to shake with the effort, but then she removed her wireless glasses and looked up.
“Welcome to Second to None,” she said, unsmiling. “I am Tatiana and will be helping you today.”
Heart Land Page 3