by Sofia Grant
Miss Perkins interrupted her reverie. “Dear, I understand that you have artistic leanings. But anyone can be an illustrator. Take a few classes at Pratt and I guarantee you could do every bit as well as Lester. He’s a drunk, you know; he turns in work with gin rings on the paper.”
She pinched her lips and reached across the desk to pat Peggy’s hand with cold, waxen fingers. Was there a living heart beating inside her bony chest? “Besides, what you’re doing isn’t drawing, it’s designing. I know this ad—I see what you’ve done to the hem, the neckline. And listen to me, sweetheart, no one wants to buy a dress designed in America. Europe—even Canada—maybe. But ‘Peggy Brink of Plainsfield’? It’s simply never going to happen.”
Peggy nodded, biting her lower lip hard enough to taste the hot, salty blood. She would not cry. She’d known disappointment before. She could be a mannequin. She could make it work.
“I see,” she said quietly. “Of course, you’re right.”
Miss Perkins sat back in her chair. “But, Peggy. I’ve seen you with the customers. You don’t realize it now, but you have a gift. It’s a rare thing, a subtle thing, but absolutely critical to the sale. The Crystal Salon customer wants to deal with women on her own level, you see. She doesn’t wish to be pandered to, nor does she wish to be patronized. She enters the salon with an expectation of being among those who understand her needs. Women who speak her language, so to speak—who can address an unflattering hemline but also know where it might be appropriate to wear the gown. Who know that the hour between tea and cocktails makes all the difference in the world. Who know what to do with a berry spoon, for heaven’s sake, or a fish fork.”
Peggy nodded, confused.
“There is a reason why our runners and mannequins are directed not to speak to the customers.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Perkin’s shook her head in frustration. “Do you know why I got this job, Margaret?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Not many people do. I was engaged once, you know.”
She paused, waiting for Peggy’s response. She had to know what the girls said about her—that she’d been born under the famous clock at Fyfe’s flagship store, and raised in its tenth-floor salon. That she had no sense of humor, that she was still a virgin in her late forties, that her own family didn’t speak to her. She was as feared as she was respected. It was impossible to imagine her caught up in a love affair.
“To whom?” Peggy asked timidly.
“To Richard Meade. Of the Woodbridge Meades.”
Peggy willed her face to remain impassive. Everyone knew of the Meades’ fortune—half a dozen buildings in Plainsfield bore their name. Decades ago—before Peggy was born, before her parents had met and married—her mother had gone to parties given at the Meade mansion. Peggy had once seen the dance cards her mother had saved, hidden under the silk in her jewelry box.
“He lives in the South now,” Miss Perkins continued. “Hasn’t, I’m afraid, lived up to the family name. He is what is politely known as convivial, which is what one calls a man with an undue thirst for alcohol. It was probably a mercy that he broke off our engagement. But you see, his mother had become fond of me. I used to study her carefully—her every word, gesture, her social calendar, the calls she returned and the ones she didn’t. I had thought I would need this knowledge when I married her son. When that didn’t happen . . .”
For a moment Miss Perkins stared moodily out the window of her office, which gave a tall, narrow view onto the other shops of Community Square, where merchants were unlocking doors and beginning their days. “She gave me this ring, which had belonged to her grandmother.” She held up her hand, but Peggy knew the ring by heart: a cabochon emerald set high in a gold setting. “And she spoke to Morton Fyfe, whose couture department she had shopped for years. A week later I had a job.”
“That’s very . . .” Peggy searched for the proper response, the meaning she was meant to take from the story.
“Let me be clear. Dorothea Meade had noticed my interest. She noticed my drive. She guessed, correctly, that that drive would see me through the challenges that would come my way. And, I suppose, she felt that the family owed me.” A wistful smile flashed across Miss Perkins’s face, a smile that briefly transformed her into someone else entirely. “Well. I did not let her down, as you see. I studied fashion with the same dedication I had once studied her. I learned my clients’ needs and tastes better than they knew them themselves. I’ve done well for this company; very well, in fact. And now I’ve been rewarded. I’m being moved to the flagship store in Philadelphia, Peggy—I’m taking Annabel Ingram’s place. A significant promotion, I’m sure you’ll agree. And it’s my job to fill the position I’m vacating.”
Peggy’s mind swam. “You’re—you’re giving me your job?”
Miss Perkins’s laugh was as brittle as shattered glass. “Don’t be stupid, Peggy; of course not. Lavinia Cole will assume my position. But you’re to be her assistant. Every client, every dress, every sale, you’ll be right there. You’ll earn twenty-seven dollars a week, which I believe is significantly more than you’re earning now, though of course you’ll be working longer hours. You’ll attend the shows with her in New York—maybe even in Europe this fall, if she can build it into the budget. It’s a start.”
“I—I don’t know what to say.”
“Say thank you. And don’t make me regret this.”
Thelma
Thelma listened to Peggy while she stirred the apples in their simmering bath. They were the worst of the lot, cheap because they were bruised and wormy, old and spotted with rot, but after the bad bits were cut away they were suitable for applesauce.
With any luck, Thelma wouldn’t be shopping the bruised produce for much longer. But the more Peggy talked, the more irritable she felt.
“And what about Tommie?” she finally said, once Peggy had shared her news. “When you’re off in Paris for weeks at a time, who’s supposed to be taking care of the poor little thing?”
She glanced over at her daughter-in-law and experienced a strange pleasure at her discomfort. She felt her own news inside of her like a coiled spring. She had wanted to tell the girls together—that was the excuse she’d given herself, anyway. Jeanne was upstairs, sequestered in the attic, where she’d been spending every spare moment, probably working on a new outfit for work. Maybe Thelma should call her down right now and have it out. No time like the present, and all that—except that every time Thelma thought about what she’d done, she was overwhelmed by the inevitable questions that would follow.
How, for instance, was she to tell the girls that she’d known they were being cheated of their inheritance all these years? That their financial troubles could have been dispatched—or at least greatly lessened—by the sale of the mill complex that rightfully belonged to them? How was she to explain the way she’d come to know the truth?
From the start, Thelma had known she had no future with Frank, who had a wife and three children. And yet for five years, she’d returned again and again to the mad distraction of his arms. Sometimes he slipped extra bills into her pay envelopes, but the money was never discussed and—to Thelma, at least—had nothing to do with their trysts. Sometimes months would go by, and she’d thought she was shut of him at last, but then some setback or disappointment or inexplicable mood would send her back to him, as dumb and helpless as a dog scratching at fleas. Only Thomas’s death had had the power to end their affair, as it ended everything else that mattered.
Maybe it wouldn’t occur to either girl to question why Frank was beginning production again. Maybe they would never have to know the truth. No matter what, Thelma had to tell them soon, because she would start work the next week, after the workmen Frank had hired finished repairing the equipment. Raw goods had already been ordered. Frank had come around, once he finally accepted that he was to be part of the enterprise, and had quit his sales job and thrown himself into the new venture.
&n
bsp; Thelma was counting on Peggy understanding, once she showed them the calculations she had done, that her job made no sense at all, that she needed to stay home with Tommie. But it would not be an easy sell. Since Tommie had turned six, Peggy was constantly complaining about how difficult she’d become. She quickly grew bored with the lessons Tommie brought home from school, and made it only a few pages into the books Tommie begged her to read before turning out the light.
“I—I’ll hire someone,” Peggy said now. “I’ll be earning more money, Thelma. And it’s for us. For all of us.”
“Mmm,” Thelma muttered darkly. Even with a raise, Peggy would be hard pressed to pay a sitter. “And what about your drawing? Where are you going to find time for that, now that you’re going to be a saleswoman?”
“Assistant to the director,” Peggy corrected her. “And I wasn’t drawing so much as I was designing, which is going to come in quite handy. When a customer wants to modify a gown, I’ll be able to offer them a quick sketch of what they can expect.”
“Is that right,” Thelma said. She had to admit that it was clever of the girl to find a way to make money from her hobby. Her drawings were very good, at least to Thelma’s untrained eye, but she was certainly no Norman Rockwell.
“Plus now I’ll be expected to wear our clothes! I’m to be a reflection of the Crystal Salon at all times.” Peggy grinned, looking for a moment like the young, enthusiastic girl that Thomas had first brought home, all those years ago. “And I’ll get clothes for you and Jeanne too.”
“How would you manage that? Those clothes cost a fortune.”
“Well, I get a discount, and then there’s the pieces that are refused by a customer after they are already tailored—we can’t resell those, but Jeanne can make something of them.”
“I see.” Tell her, Thelma’s conscience urged. Tell her the truth now. Before it became even harder, even more complicated.
But Tommie came running into the room, wailing, having cut her hand on something, and the moment was lost.
Thelma returned to her applesauce, stirring down the sugar that crystallized on the sides of the pot. First Jeanne, then Peggy, and now her—all of them had ventured out of the house that had been their sanctuary for so long. Thelma could scarcely believe it—but maybe the time had come to stop living in the past and start creating some sort of future for them all.
Jeanne
Gladys was giddy with excitement, her nausea having finally abated enough for her to enjoy the outing. They found their places near the front of the hall, at the second-best table, no doubt thanks to Mrs. Harris’s intervention.
“Teddy said I should buy something nice after the show,” she confided as she eased her thickening body into her seat. “He’s so happy that his mother finally seems to be warming up to me!”
During the lunch service Gladys chatted happily and ate everything on her plate and three dinner rolls too, while Jeanne brooded. The outfit had turned out well, she thought, though she’d resorted to sneaking a page from one of Peggy’s notebooks to copy the design, because she was too angry at her sister to ask her instead.
Peggy had taken a promotion at work and was now earning a bit more—and she’d had the audacity to ask Jeanne if she’d quit her own job and stay home with Tommie. Jeanne loved her niece to distraction—but Peggy’s request had unleashed a bitterness that she hadn’t realized she was still hanging on to.
In the frigid first months of 1942, as the war began stealing headlines every night and boys she’d known her whole life were shipping out to fight, Jeanne had counted her blessings that Charles, a newly minted M.D., would be beginning his medical practice with his father. He’d passed his boards in the fall, and his father was having a second examining room outfitted at the building downtown where he practiced general medicine. Charles had inquired about her preferences in rings, and they’d discussed the advantages of living in town, near his parents, versus building a home in one of the new neighborhoods. All that was left was the formal engagement—and then there would be an announcement, the date would be selected, the church booked, the registry composed, the stationery ordered, and Jeanne’s life would finally begin.
Thoughts of her future with Charles had sustained Jeanne through the fall, when her mother grew sicker and sicker, until she barely got out of her bed. The doctor told Jeanne, in hushed tones, that these holidays would be her last, and Jeanne exhausted herself trying to make them festive while Peggy was out every night with Thomas. It was as though Peggy was trying to outrun their mother’s illness, while Jeanne dutifully saw to her needs and cared for the house and fretted over the bills, all the while still numb from losing her father.
Charles visited when he could, usually twice a month, staying in the city with the college friend who’d introduced the pair. Their courtship had mellowed over time, their engagement delayed until he finished school, and Peggy’s fevered romance seemed indulgent and silly, by comparison. Where once she and Peggy had talked endlessly about her wedding, the gowns and flowers and gifts and seating arrangements, now all Peggy wanted to talk about was Thomas. Christmas was a strained affair, a visit from Charles spoiled when Jeanne, exhausted from caring for her mother, came home early from a Christmas Eve party they all were to have attended, and Peggy stumbled into the house during the wee hours and then stayed in bed, hung over, on Christmas Day, while Charles went back to Connecticut early.
And then, one crackling cold February day, Peggy had burst into the little house and announced that she had gotten married. Married! She proudly held up her hand, with its narrow gold band on her ring finger, and their mother moved her parched, pale lips and managed hoarse, lung-rattling congratulations while Jeanne stood by, shocked to silence. How dare you, she wanted to shout—she hadn’t even brought Thomas along to ask for her hand. Thomas was to ship out in less than a month, and as the days passed, a steady stream of cards and gifts arrived at the house and their mother asked Jeanne to give a dinner, one she would not be able to attend. Jeanne did so—she did it all, wordlessly spooning broth into her mother’s sunken mouth while the party went on downstairs, cleaning up the mess when the last guest left.
“What about us?” she’d begged the next day, when Charles stopped by the house to say goodbye, before he drove back to Woodbury. Surely now they could announce their engagement? Better to wait, Charles said, for the Allies to defeat the Axis, for his practice to take off, for a thousand reasons that Jeanne had stopped believing. She’d known then, somehow, that her dream was over. There would be no glittering wedding, no beautiful children, no comfortable home in Connecticut. And she couldn’t help believing that Peggy had stolen it all.
And now, when Jeanne had finally found something for herself again, all these years later, Peggy was trying to take it all away, expecting Jeanne to babysit so she could rub elbows with the wealthy women at Fyfe’s. Two days ago she’d waited until Peggy was taking a bath to sneak into her room and take her sketchbook, flipping through the pages before she found what she was looking for and tore out the page with a sketch of a romper with a ruched and piped bodice and a flirty attached culotte.
It had seemed utterly justifiable in the moment, but as the show began and the members of the Junior League took to the runway amid cheers and applause, guilt took hold. Jeanne hadn’t even told Peggy about the luncheon, and without her unwitting help she’d have had no idea what to make for Mrs. Harris.
“And now . . . it’s picnic time!” the emcee announced, a battleship of a woman with diamonds the size of pecans on both hands. She squinted at her cards and added, “Modeled by Mrs. Noel Harris. Mrs. Harris is wearing an original design by Miss Jeanne Brink.”
Jeanne was startled—she hadn’t expected to hear her name. But her surprise was quickly drowned out by gasps and murmurs all around her, as Mrs. Harris strutted out in the beguiling, playful jumpsuit that Jeanne had made sure fit her as though she’d been born in it.
It had turned out well, she thought, as spontaneous a
pplause turned to cheering. She’d completely reconstructed the skirt to create the sassy, knee-length pantaloon, and cut the blouse into bias strips, which she used to pipe the pockets, yoke, and armholes of the bodice she sewed from a yard of sheer snow-white batiste. Peggy had sketched the design based on a young Italian designer’s debut collection; no American manufacturer would cut a leisure outfit so fitted and spare or embellish it with such lavish details. The knee-length pant was daring, to say the least, for a woman of Mrs. Harris’s age, but as she rounded the end of the runway she was the picture of confidence, and applause thundered through the room.
Jeanne stole a glance at Mrs. Harris’s nemesis, the event’s chairwoman, whose face was red as a beet. The show concluded moments later, and as the ladies began to gather their coats and purses, Mrs. Harris—still wearing the outfit Jeanne had made—threaded her way to their table.
“We’re a hit, darlings!” she said, kissing Jeanne and Gladys. Her eyes glittered as she touched up her lipstick in a silver compact. “I’ve been asked to chair next year. Letty just about fainted. Let me tell you, my dear, I’ve got plans for you.”
Thelma
Thelma liked to get Tommie ready for church herself. She didn’t trust Peggy to tame her wild hair or remember her white gloves or make sure she wore her good socks, with the lace trim. Tommie loved going to the Little Saints because she was allowed to help with the younger children, making up elaborate games of make-believe for them during free time, and she allowed herself to be fussed over for fear of being forced to sit through Mass with the adults.
It had rained again last night, and as the women walked to the church they passed flowerbeds and bright green grass heavy with raindrops. The scent of lilacs and dirt warming in the sun teased Thelma’s nostrils and stirred a familiar feeling inside her. Fecund—everything around her seemed ready to burst with new life, everything but her, who would never give life again, but who had somehow not thrown off the cloak of need as other women her age did. Thelma had not asked for this appetite; sometimes she thought it was God’s rebuke. But what did He expect her to do? Why give her such a thirst only to deny her relief?