by JoAnn Ross
The first time Alex had stood at the bedroom window and stared, enchanted, at the Jardin du Luxembourg across the street, she'd decided that the view more than made up for the building's temperamental old-fashioned cage elevator that more often than not required occupants to rely on the stairs.
Alex could have cursed a blue streak when the unpredictable elevator chose this day not to run. But Sophie proved to be a remarkable sport, though she was huffing and puffing by the time they reached Alex's floor.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking around the apartment. "This is absolutely delightful."
"I was lucky to find it." Viewing the apartment through the older woman's eyes, Alex saw not its shabbiness, but its charm.
Near the window overlooking the gardens, a chintz chair was surrounded by scraps of bright fabric samples; atop the table beside it was a box of rainbow-bright Caran D'Ache colored pencils and a portfolio. The Swiss pencils, the very same type Picasso had favored, had been an extravagant birthday gift from her mother. Two days later Irene Lyons had died.
But her memory lived on, just as she'd intended; Alex never sat down to sketch without thinking of her.
Drawn as if by radar, Sophie picked up the portfolio and began leafing through the sketches.
"These are wonderful." The fluid lines were draped to emphasize the waist or hips, the asymmetrical hemlines designed to flatter every woman's legs.
Alex glowed. It had been a long time since anything she'd done received recognition.
Sophie paused at the sketch of a long, slip-style evening gown of ebony silk mousseline with midnight lace and a low, plunging back. "This would be perfect for Angeline."
"Angeline?"
"She's a character on The Edge of Tomorrow," Sophie revealed absently, her attention captured by a clinging silver gown reminiscent of films of the thirties and forties. "A former hooker turned movie star turned romance writer."
"Oh, I remember her. I watched that show all the time when I was going to fashion school."
"You must watch a lot of old films, too," Sophie guessed.
"I love old movies."
"I figured that. Your artistic vision definitely has a cinematic scope. So, although television admittedly isn't the big screen, how would you like to come to work for me?"
"For you?"
"I've currently got three soaps in production. Since my shows are famous for their glamour, we keep three costumers shopping overtime to supply outfits for each one-hour drama. The after-six wear and lingerie is the toughest to find, so I've been considering hiring someone to design specifically for us. From what I see here, you'd be perfect."
The idea was tempting. Especially after all the months trying to land a job, then these past weeks laboring away in obscurity. But Alex was not yet prepared to let go of her dream.
"It's not that I'm not flattered," she began slowly, choosing her words with extreme caution. "Because I am…."
"But you're hoping that one of these days, that idiot Debord will open his eyes and realize what a talented designer is toiling right beneath his nose."
Alex felt herself blush. "That's pretty much it."
Sophie shrugged her padded shoulders. "Well, if that scenario doesn't happen, just remember, you've always got a job with me." She opened her bag, pulled out a business card and a pen and scribbled a number on the back.
"Here're the phone numbers for my office at the studio, my car, my home and my pager. Give me a call sometime, even if it's just to talk, okay?"
Alex took the card and stuck it away in a desk drawer. "I'd like that. Thank you."
When Alex cast another significant glance at her watch, Sophie sighed with ill-concealed resignation. "All right, I suppose we'd better get back before Marie Hélène sends the fashion police looking for us."
When Alex and Sophie returned to the salon, they found Debord waiting in the cabine. Clad in his smock, his sable hair pulled back into a ponytail to display his Gallic cheekbones to advantage, he looked every inch the temperamental artist.
Dior and Balenciaga had started the tradition of the white smock; Yves Saint Laurent and Givenchy continued it. Debord, always pushing against the boundaries of tradition, had altered it to an anthracite gray. Brightening the breast of the gray smock was the red ribbon of the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Although he was not tall, beneath the smock, Debord possessed the broad chest and shoulders of a Picasso etching of a bull.
"Ah, Madame Friedman," he said, greeting her Continental style with an air kiss beside each cheek, "it is a pleasure to meet such a discerning woman."
"I like your stuff," Sophie lied adroitly, "although I have to admit, it was a toss-up between you and Gianni Sardella."
The room went suddenly, deathly still. The only sound was the soft strains of Vivaldi playing in the back-ground. Marie Hélène, normally a paragon of composure, blanched.
Alex's dark eyes widened. Surely Mrs. Friedman knew of the antipathy between the two designers! Stories of their mutual loathing were legion. Not only did Debord not permit his rival's name to be spoken in his presence, last spring he allegedly pushed a client down the grand staircase of the Paris Opera for wearing one of Sardella's beaded evening gowns.
All eyes were on Debord. The back-and-forth motion of his jaw suggested that he was grinding his teeth. His eyes had narrowed to hard, dark stones; a vein pulsed dangerously at his temple. Just when Alex thought he was going to explode, he forced a flat smile.
"I am honored you chose me," he said between clenched teeth.
That, more than anything, displayed to Alex how far her employer had fallen. Before this season's showing, he would have shouted something about philistines and demanded Mrs. Friedman leave these hallowed halls and never darken his doorway again.
Sophie appeared undaunted by the tension surrounding them. Indeed, Alex considered, from the twinkle in her eyes, she appeared to be having the time of her life.
"Your reputation is equaled only by your prices, monsieur," she said. "I hope you realize how lucky you are to have Alexandra working for you."
He looked at Alex, as if seeing her for the first time.
"What I can't understand is why she isn't a designer," Sophie declared. "With her talent, along with her Seventh Avenue experience, I would have thought you'd have wanted her creative input on this season's collection."
"A designer?" Yves looked at his sister. "You did not tell me that Mademoiselle Lyons was a designer."
Marie Hélène looked as if she could have eaten an entire box of Alex's straight pins and spit out staples. "She designed day wear. Little polyester American dresses," she tacked on dismissively, her tongue as sharp as a seamstress's needle.
"They may have been polyester, but if they were like any of the designs I saw this afternoon, they must have sold like hotcakes," Sophie shot back.
Debord turned to Alex. "You have sketches?"
"Yves…" Marie Hélène protested.
The designer ignored his sister. "Do you?" he asked Alex again.
Alex finally understood why her sketches had been rejected without comment. Debord had never seen them. Alex shot a quick, blistering glare Marie Hélène's way. The directress responded with a cool, challenging look of her own.
Knowing that to accuse his sister of treachery would definitely not endear herself to the designer, Alex bit her tongue practically in two. "My portfolio is at my apartment." Anger and anticipation had her heart pounding so fast and so hard she wondered if the others could hear it.
"You will bring your sketches to my office first thing tomorrow morning. I will examine them then."
Ignoring his sister's silent disapproval, Debord turned again to Sophie. "I hope you enjoy your gowns, madame. As well as the remainder of your time in Paris."
"If the rest of my trip is half as much fun as today has been," Sophie professed, "I'm going have one helluva time." She winked conspiratorially at Alex.
For the first time in her life, Alex understood exactly how Cind
erella had felt when her fairy godmother had shown up with that gilded pumpkin coach.
Her idol was finally going to see her sketches!
And when he did, he was bound to realize she was just what he needed to instill new excitement into his fall collection.
Alex indulged in a brief tantalizing fantasy of Debord and herself working together, side by side, spending their days and nights working feverishly to the sounds of Vivaldi, united in a single, brilliant creative effort.
As she returned Sophie Friedman's smile with a dazzling grin of her own, Alex decided that life didn't get much better than this.
Chapter Three
Alex didn't sleep all night. As she dressed for work, running one pair of black panty hose and pulling a button off the front of her dress in her fumbling nervousness, all she could think about was the upcoming moment of truth. When Debord would view her designs.
When she entered the salon, Alex was met with the cold, unwelcoming stare of Marie Hélène.
"Bonjour, Madame," Alex said with far more aplomb than she was feeling.
Marie Hélène did not return her greeting. "Debord is waiting in his office."
Taking a deep breath that should have calmed her, but didn't, Alex headed up the stairs to the designer's penthouse office.
As she paused before the ebony door, with its Défense d'Entrer sign, Alex had a very good idea how Marie Antoinette must have felt on her way to the guillotine. Sternly reminding herself that a faint heart never achieved anything, that this was what she'd always wanted, she knocked.
Silence. Then, Debord's deep voice calling out, "Entrez!"
Squaring her shoulders, clad in an uplifting, confidence-building scarlet hunting jacket she'd defiantly worn over her black dress, she entered the designer's sanctum sanctorum.
Debord was talking in English on the phone. After gesturing her toward a chair on the visitor's side of his desk, he spun his high-backed chair around and continued his conversation. From his tight, rigidly controlled tone, Alex sensed that the telephone call was not delivering good news.
She took advantage of the delay to study the office. Like the workrooms, everything was pristine. The desk had such a sheen Debord was reflected in its gleaming jet surface. On the stark white wall behind the desk, Debord appeared in triplicate in Warhol portraits.
"Of course, Madame Lord," Debord was saying. "I understand your reluctance to commit funds just now."
Alex watched his fingers twist the telephone cord and had an idea that the designer would love to put those artistic fingers around Madame Lord's neck.
She'd heard about the possibility of Debord designing a line of ready-to-wear for Lord's, the prestigious department store chain. After last week's debacle, the gossip around the atelier was that the designer was desperate for such a deal in order to salvage a disastrous season.
Now, unfortunately, it appeared that Eleanor Lord, like everyone else, had deserted Debord.
"Certainly. I will look forward to seeing you at the fall défilé in July. We shall, of course, reserve your usual seat. Certainement, in the first row."
That statement revealed how important he considered the American executive. Seating was significant at couture showings; indeed, many fashion editors behaved as if their seat assignments were more important than the clothes being shown.
"Au revoir, Madame Lord."
The designer muttered a pungent curse, but when he turned toward Alex, his expression was bland. He did, however, lift an inquiring brow at her jacket. When he failed to offer a word of criticism, Alex let out a breath she'd been unaware of holding.
"Americans," he said dismissively. "They cannot understand that risk-taking is the entire point of couture."
"Mrs. Friedman bought your entire collection."
"True. However, I cannot understand why she chose my designs when they are so obviously inappropriate for her figure."
"She told me she likes your work." Alex was not about to reveal Sophie's actual reasons for buying Debord's collection. "And Lady Smythe seemed pleased with that black cocktail dress."
That particular purchase had been viewed as a positive sign, since Miranda Smythe not only happened to be Eleanor Lord's niece and style consultant for the Lord's London store, but was rumored to be the person who'd brought Debord to the department store executive's attention in the first place.
Unfortunately it appeared that when it came to business Lady Smythe had scant influence with her powerful aunt.
"I would feel a great deal better about the sale if Miranda Smythe had actually paid for the dress," he countered. "I cannot understand Marie Hélène. The discounts she allows that woman are tantamount to giving my work away."
Alex was not about to criticize Debord's formidable sister. "I suppose it doesn't hurt to have the wife of a British peer wearing your designs," she said carefully.
"Such things never hurt. But the British are so damnably tightfisted, they seldom buy couture. The average Englishwoman would rather spend her money on commissioning a bronze of her nasty little dogs, or a new horse trailer. Besides, Lady Miranda is about to get a divorce."
Alex had heard Marie Hélène and Françoise, Miranda Lord Baptista Smythe's personal vendeuse, discussing the socialite's marital record just yesterday.
"Let us keep our fingers crossed," Debord decided. "Perhaps, with luck, this time the fickle lady will wed a Kuwaiti prince. They never ask for discounts."
Alex laughed, as she was supposed to.
At last she couldn't stand the suspense a minute longer. "I know you're very busy, Monsieur. Would you like to see my portfolio now?"
"In a moment. First, I would like to know why such a beautiful woman would choose to labor behind the scenes when she could easily be a successful model."
"I'm not thin enough to be a model. Or tall enough. Besides, I've wanted to be a designer forever."
"Forever?" he asked with a faintly mocking smile.
"Well, ever since I watched Susan Hayward in Back Street. That's an old American movie," Alex explained at his questioning glance. "She plays a designer. The first time I saw it I fell head over heels in love."
"With Susan Hayward?" He frowned.
"Oh, no." Alex laughed as she followed his train of thought. "Not the actress. I fell in love with the glamour of the business. It became an all-encompassing passion." Her grin was quick and appealing. "Some of my friends would tell you that designing is all I think about."
"Really?" Debord's eyes, so like his sister's, but much warmer, moved slowly over her face. "I find that difficult to believe. A beautiful young woman such as yourself must have some other interests—parties, dances…men. Perhaps one particular man?"
He was watching her carefully now, the blue of his eyes almost obscured by the ebony pupils. Alex swallowed.
"Let me show you my designs." The portfolio was lying across her knees. She began to untie the brown string with fingers that had turned to stone. "I should probably tell you right off that most of the teachers at the institute didn't really like my style," she admitted. "But since I believe this is my best work, I'd really appreciate a master's opinion." Her words tumbled out, as if she were eager to get them behind her.
"I do not understand why Marie Hélène did not tell me about your talent," Debord said as Alex continued to struggle with the thin brown fastener.
Personally, Alex had her own ideas about that, but knowing how close Debord was to his sister, she kept them to herself.
"She's very busy." Finally! Cool relief flooded through Alex when the maddening knot gave way.
Yves Debord took her sketches and placed them face-down on the desk. Before looking at them, he pulled a gold cigarette case from his jacket pocket. After lighting a Gauloises, he turned his attention toward the colorful presentations.
Alex was more anxious than she'd ever been in her life. She kept waiting for him to say something—anything!—but he continued to flip through the sketches, front to back, back to front, over
and over again.
Did he like them? Hate them? Were her designs as exciting and modern as she perceived them to be? Or were they, as one of her instructors had scathingly proclaimed, clothes for tarts?
Time slowed to a snail's pace. Perspiration began to slip down her sides.
"You are extraordinarily talented," Debord said finally.
"Do you really like them?"
He stubbed out his cigarette. "They are the most innovative designs I've seen in years."
Alex beamed.
"They are also entirely unmarketable."
The words hit like a blow from behind, striking her momentarily mute. "You have flown in the face of tradition," he said in a brusque no-nonsense tone that didn't spare her feelings. "This is costuming for the theater. Not the real world."
She'd heard that accusation before. But never had it stung so badly. "I was trying to be innovative. Like Chanel in the twenties with her tweed suits. And Dior's postwar New Look. The sixties' revolution, when Yves Saint Laurent introduced the pantsuit. And of course, Courreges's minidress."
She took a deep breath. "You just said that couture was about risk. All the great designers—Norell, Beene, you yourself—have gained fame by insisting on having a spirit of their own."
"You have talent, but you do not understand couture," he countered. "A designer must see women as they want to be seen."
"That's true," Alex conceded, even as it crossed her mind that, instead of telling women what they want, designers should ask them what they want.
Patience, she could hear her mother warning her.
"This design, for example." He held up a sketch that happened to be one of her favorites. An evening gown of tiered gold lace over black chiffon, cut like a Flamenco dancer's dress. "This gown would make a woman look as if she were dressing for an American Halloween party."
That hurt. "I can't see what's wrong with thinking of life as a party." Patience. "Besides, I thought it was sexy."