The Dress in the Window

by Sofia Grant

  It was a moment of decision, and out of nowhere Peggy felt the electric thrill of daring that she’d experienced several times before when her life brought her to the brink of adventure. She could take the safe road, the proper one . . . or plunge down the unknown path, give in to the lure of the dare.

  Most girls would always choose the former. A good mother, good sister, good daughter-in-law, would do the right thing, the proper thing.

  But Peggy could never resist the allure of the unknown. And if her impetuousness hadn’t always worked out well—if it had sometimes doomed her to regrettable and even tragic outcomes—still she could not turn back.

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  The woman pushed a button on her sleek black intercom box. “Mr. Friedman, will you see another candidate who just arrived with no appointment?”

  After a moment she set down the phone, smiling. “You’re in.”

  “Oh, thank you. There’s just one thing . . . I’m babysitting my sister’s daughter today,” Peggy said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Would you mind terribly if she sits out here with you?”

  “I was wondering how you were going to pull that off,” the woman said, winking. “But don’t worry. You just leave her right here with me, and we’ll be fine, won’t we, sweetheart?”

  Tommie, chewing on a fingernail, didn’t even look up. Peggy thanked the woman, took a deep breath, and walked down the hall. If only, she thought, every burden could be so easily handed off, even for a moment.

  Thelma

  May God forgive her, on the day that Thomas’s child was born, Thelma had walked out of the church and planned to never return. She had made it clear to God, had fallen on her knees so many times over the weeks and months leading up to the birth to beg: she who had lost everything had asked God only one thing and he had refused her.

  Tommie was to have been a boy.

  A boy with Thomas’s pale cowlick, his blue eyes so thick-lashed they could break your heart, his dimples at the corners of his mouth, and yes, his long and awkward toes and gap between his front teeth and slightly hunched shoulders, these too, for they had been Thomas’s and thus they were precious. Thomas lay now in the cursed soil of Guadalcanal, but his grave should have been next to his father’s, a lovely spot where a sycamore had grown to shade it in summer and shield it from the snow and ice in the winter, not too far from Thelma’s own mother and father and her sisters, who’d been taken early. There, Thelma had planned to walk with the boy—Thomas Junior—to tell him stories about his father, stories his mother could not be counted on to remember or care about.

  On the day of the birth, the nurse had come into the room where Thelma waited with Jeanne and given them a too-bright smile that should have been a clue. “A lovely, healthy girl—and quite a big child at that! Eight pounds, four ounces!” she’d said, as though such a large number could be consolation.

  Thelma had gotten her fury under control by the time Peggy came home from the hospital, though the truth was that had she known the child was to be a girl, she might not have offered the spare room to her daughter-in-law. It wasn’t that Thelma disliked Peggy, exactly, it was just that she found her unexceptional, and was rather disappointed in Thomas for falling so easily for her insubstantial charms. Thelma of all people could have explained to him that good looks are no bulwark against difficult times, and since his own father as well as Peggy’s were dead, there was no family business to welcome him.

  A few days later Thelma had realized the error in her thinking, because of course a baby will worm her way into one’s heart; one truly is helpless against her tiny fingers, her soft neck, the downy fluff on her soft head. So: the baby would stay, and so would her mother. Thelma would find a way—because finding a way was her lot in life.

  Now, six years later, by some miracle—and yes, Thelma had returned to the church to pray for the baby’s continued good health, but she chose her own words now and cast dark glances at the statues of St. Katherine and Mary of Magdalene whenever she passed—both girls had jobs, though Peggy wasn’t making enough for the government to stop sending her widow’s pension. There would be money for the dentist and Tommie’s school uniforms, and even new spectacles now that Thelma wasn’t able to make out the fine print in the newspaper without squinting.

  The girls agreed to hand over what was left of their paychecks after their lunches and necessaries, and Thelma would take care of the household expenses, as she had been doing since the day she married. The girls did not need to know that even with their combined earnings, they were barely breaking even. Peggy’s job at Fyfe’s turned out to be serving as a glorified gofer, fetching dresses chosen by the mythical Miss Perkins and her salesgirls to show to their fancy customers, then standing at attention like some lavatory attendant while the gowns were modeled by the mannequins and the rich ladies made their selections. And there was no future in Jeanne’s typing pool, where the girls were paid a fraction of what their bosses earned, even if they had equivalent educations.

  Oh, to be young again—young-ish, anyway, since the girls were both closing in on thirty—when one’s sleep was untroubled by thoughts of disintegrating plumbing and expensive dentistry and one’s own looming decline. Jeanne and Peggy didn’t lie awake at night worrying about the bank coming for the house, but of course, that was Thelma’s fault—she’d led them to believe it was paid for. Well, those decisions had been made and could not be unmade. At least now, finally, Thelma had a few moments to herself during the day. The girls were at work, and it would be several hours before Thelma needed to walk down to the elementary school for Tommie.

  Thelma had already bathed and her hair and makeup were done. Now she reached to the back of her closet, where a zippered garment bag contained her wedding dress (such a waste of silk and lace) and her good suit and, in a satin fabric envelope at the bottom where no one would see, a chemise constructed of a scant yard or two of China silk, a gift purchased for her in a city she would never visit by a man who had been instructed to park a block away and walk to the back door.

  Thelma stood in the doorway of the second bedroom and took one last look at Peggy’s dresser, where, among the clutter of her combs and brushes and mirrors, there were framed photos of Thomas on their wedding day and in his uniform.

  Then she quietly closed the door.

  May 1949

  Jeanne

  “Please!” Gladys begged, her eyes shining with excitement. “You must. It’s the least you can do, after breaking poor Ralph’s heart!”

  Jeanne pushed a safety clip around on her desk, stalling. She hadn’t exactly broken anyone’s heart—and she was still surprised that Ralph Harris had called her after the date that had ended with a silent two A.M. drive home, in which the faint, embarrassing odor of sex hung between them in the car. But surely he had found someone more suitable by now, someone who would laugh at his puns and share his self-declared goal of visiting every one of the forty-eight contiguous states by automobile.

  But this was something else entirely. “I’m sure you misunderstood her,” Jeanne hedged.

  “I did not. She’s been talking about it ever since she saw what you did with my old dress.” Gladys burped delicately into the back of her hand. She was in the third month of her pregnancy and nothing sat well with her at lunch. She was planning to quit in another few weeks, as soon as she could be sure, she said, that “this one would stick.”

  “And besides,” Jeanne countered, “according to you, she can buy anything she wants.”

  “Not for this,” Gladys said. “It’s a charity fashion show—she has to wear the outfit they give her, but she can have it tailored any way she pleases. Look, it’s just lunch. Oh, but wear something smart!”

  ON THE SATURDAY of the luncheon, Jeanne met Gladys at the Nineteenth Street trolley station and they walked together to her in-laws’ house, a four-story Pompeian brick mansion facing the square.

  “Let’s hope the cook doesn’t have the day off,” Gladys
giggled. “Mrs. Harris is a terrible cook. Practically all she can make is chipped beef on toast.”

  “I don’t think I could eat a thing,” Jeanne said. She’d barely been able to get down half a grapefruit that morning. It had been well over a decade since she’d been in a home half as swanky as this one.

  Wealth had hovered over her childhood like a family portrait over a mantel. It was impossible to miss its long shadow on her mother’s life. Besides the excellent bearing and elocution, products of her days in finishing school, Emma Brink was unintentionally imperious to merchants, demanding of her children’s teachers, and exacting in her home. The Brink family may not have been able to outfit their home like a Main Line mansion, but it was well appointed with books and music and art, even if phonograph records stood in for tickets to the symphony, and the framed prints in the dining room were mere copies.

  When Jeanne moved in with Thelma, she’d deliberately stifled the remnants of her mother’s influence. Thelma was certainly not coarse, but she was sensitive about what she perceived to be her own inadequacies. She cared little for politics and less for the arts; she had received only a primary school education and, later, taught herself accounting and bookkeeping. She was mistrustful of Peggy’s new clientele and contemptuous of high society.

  For all of these reasons, Jeanne had no intention of telling her about Mrs. Harris’s fashion show. Even knowing that Jeanne had gone to lunch at her home might well feel, to Thelma, like a slight; Jeanne had told her she was going to the movies with friends, and waited until Thelma went to the market before dressing for the day.

  She’d worn her most recent creation, a smart suit modeled on one from the British couturier Hardy Amies, in a tweed that was a reasonable copy of an Irish handwoven but could be had at a fraction of the cost. The suit was her most conservative, its only nod to trends a slight flare in the skirt, and when Mrs. Harris opened the door Jeanne realized she had made a mistake.

  Gladys’s mother-in-law was wearing green twill pedal pushers and a simple white blouse, a colorful scarf knotted at her waist—hardly the conservative outfit of the dowager Jeanne had been expecting. She was perhaps ten years older than Thelma, but her skin was remarkably unlined and her silver hair arranged in the new “swirled” cap style. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she was sizing Jeanne up while she kissed the air next to Gladys’s cheek.

  “Welcome, welcome, dear. I’ve heard such wonderful things.”

  “I’ve—me too—I mean, Gladys has told me—”

  “Come into the conservatory,” Mrs. Harris interrupted, turning on her heel and saving Jeanne from her painfully tongue-tied attempt at conversation.

  The two younger women followed her into a glass-roofed addition off the dining room. There was a magnificent view into the courtyard behind the house, but Jeanne’s attention was drawn to the table, also made of glass on iron filigree legs. It was elegantly set with white dishes and yellow woven mats, matching napkins tucked into bamboo rings. A platter in the center of the table held scoops of chicken salad nestled into lettuce cups, sliced pickles, and hard-boiled eggs. At each of the three place settings was a dish of canned fruit cocktail, and a silver platter held melba toast arranged in a semicircle and what Jeanne was fairly certain were sterling ice tongs.

  Mrs. Harris followed her gaze. “I’m sure Gladys has told you I don’t cook,” she said, a bit acidly. “I can’t be bothered, I’m afraid.”

  A clatter of heavy footsteps made them all look down the hall. A man in stained, worn canvas coveralls entered the dining room, his face obscured by an enormous stone urn he was carrying. “You sure you don’t want it in the courtyard, Mrs. H?” he was saying with a pronounced Italian accent as he walked through the door. “Because I could . . .”

  His voice trailed off as he realized that she wasn’t alone.

  “Anthony!” Mrs. Harris exclaimed. “Set that thing down before you drop it.”

  He immediately set the planter down, his broad shoulders straining against the fabric of his shirt. He dug a hankie from his pocket and wiped off his face. Heavy, wavy dark hair fell over his eyes, and his face, flushed with exertion, was the most beautiful that Jeanne had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved by a master sculptor, like the statues she’d admired on visits to the Museum of Art with her mother.

  “Please meet Anthony Salvatici,” Mrs. Harris said, “who is undoubtedly the worst gardener in the state of Pennsylvania. Possibly on the entire East Coast. And Anthony, you know my daughter-in-law, Gladys, and this is her friend from work, Miss Jeanne Brink.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Anthony said, flashing white teeth and a roguish grin.

  “It’s very nice to meet you as well,” Jeanne said. Her face and neck felt hot.

  “I’d better, uh . . .”

  “There’s lunch in the kitchen, but it’s just rabbit food for us girls,” Mrs. Harris said. “Maybe when you finish outside you can run down to the restaurant for the lamb.”

  “Lamb?” Gladys echoed, perking up. “For tomorrow?”

  “Yes, and please tell my son to be prompt, as you know it’s not nearly as good cold.”

  “We wouldn’t miss it!”

  While they talked, Anthony rolled his shoulders, took a breath, and picked up the urn again, staggering under its weight. Turning to leave, he glanced at Jeanne once more. His eyes bored into hers for a fraction of a second, as though he was making a critical calculation, and then he was gone.

  “Well,” Mrs. Harris said. “Let’s eat, shall we? I do apologize, Jeanne, but with Cook gone for the day, we all have to do what we can.”

  AFTER THEY’D NIBBLED their way through the unremarkable lunch, Mrs. Harris sent Gladys to the kitchen to make coffee.

  “So, did Gladys tell you I’ve got a little project I wanted to talk to you about?”

  “She . . . mentioned that you’re interested in fashion,” Jeanne said carefully.

  “I love fashion,” Mrs. Harris exclaimed. “If my husband wasn’t such a tightwad, I’d spend all our money on clothes and drive us both to the poorhouse.”

  Jeanne studied the crumbs of melba toast on the platter, trying to think how to respond. Her own mother had worked tirelessly to drill the lessons of polite discourse into her girls; she’d hoped to pass along, from her own privileged childhood, the tools that Jeanne and Peggy would not learn from their own friends and neighbors. Now that she had a chance to put them into use, however, she had discovered that Mrs. Harris was nothing like the stodgy society matron she’d expected.

  “I’ve got entire closets full of things,” Mrs. Harris said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’ve got a girl at Fyfe’s who helps me and I hide the bills from Noel. But I have the hardest time finding anything really . . . unique, do you know what I mean?”

  “I think so,” Jeanne said.

  “Do you?” Mrs. Harris gazed doubtfully at the suit Jeanne was wearing. “You certainly have exquisite taste, dear. Oh, I know I should just behave and let the girls dress me up like some—some nice old matron, I suppose. But where’s the fun in that?”

  “You’ve got a great eye,” Jeanne said. “That green . . . it’s really striking. And the scarf is a wonderful accent.”

  “I thought so! I do love a touch of the bohemian, don’t you? Oh, Jeanne, if I can confide in you . . . I adore Gladys, I truly do, but I was rather hoping Theodore might bring home an artist. A café singer, or a poet, or a gypsy girl—or perhaps a socialist.” She grinned wickedly. “Do you know, when Noel and I met, I had been expelled from Wellesley? His parents were utterly shocked.”

  “I—my goodness . . .”

  “Oh, you don’t want to hear about all that. My avant-garde days are long over.” She chuckled fondly. “My more immediate problem is this wretched Junior League fashion show I’ve got to model in.”

  Gladys came back in pushing a tea cart with the coffee and a plate of cookies.

  “Oh, did Anthony bring those? What a dear!” She
plucked one of the sugar-dusted cookies. “They’re called biscotti a riccio, Jeanne, and you truly must try one. I was just telling her about the fashion show, Gladys. I’m afraid I’m in a heated battle with the old hag who’s chairing it this year.”

  Gladys laughed. “She’s not really a hag, Jeanne. I’ve seen her picture.”

  Mrs. Harris rolled her eyes. “Well, her heart is as black and evil as Sinbad’s. Anyway, just wait until you see what she’s making me wear.”

  As she went to get the outfit, Gladys poured the coffee and Jeanne tasted a cookie. “These are delicious. The . . . gardener brought them?” Jeanne asked, as casually as she could, remembering his smoldering eyes, his insouciant smile.

  “Oh yes, but he’s really not a gardener. I mean, his father was, before he opened a restaurant. Teddy says that he and Anthony practically grew up together because Anthony’s dad worked for the family since he was a baby, and his mom died so his dad had to bring him to work until he was old enough for school. Mr. and Mrs. Harris were always good to him, and now that Anthony’s in college he works here for extra money.”

  “He’s in college? He looks older.”

  “Oh, I think he’s twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He only gets to take a class or two at a time because he works so much.”

  Mrs. Harris returned with a garment bag emblazoned with the Gimbels logo.

  “Letty gave me ‘Picnic,’” Mrs. Harris sniped. “Can you believe it? She gave all the best categories to her horrid friends—‘Venetian Nights’ and ‘Monte Carlo’ and ‘Seven Seas’ and so on. So, I need something that’ll blow their socks off.”

  “All the stores sent clothes,” Gladys added. “Fyfe’s, and Strawbridge and Clothier, and Gimbels.”

  “Letty had the nerve to act like she was doing me a favor, choosing for me,” Mrs. Harris said. She unzipped the bag with a flourish, revealing a flared blue poplin A-line skirt and a puff-sleeved blouse with a Peter Pan collar.

  “If I were a fishmonger’s wife on wash day, this might be fine,” Mrs. Harris fumed. “But I am not getting up in front of two hundred women in this. Tell me, dear . . . can you do something to make this any less dreadful?”