Peter Frank was at Charles de Gaulle? The Jackson Storm vice president in charge of operations had been in France for a week, passing through Paris to and from the airport, but he hadn’t stopped in Paris to see her? All she was getting was a last-minute telephone call from Charles de Gaulle.
A creeping sense that there was something wrong swept over her. What she had suffered in the past few weeks still held her in a fearful grip. “Pete, what have you heard—” Bad business, to think and talk at the same time. “Pete—have you heard about my report? I sent one in to Mindy about a week ago. I—I thought I’d hear from New York by now.”
“Love your reports, honey. Everybody does. Don’t worry about it. Sammy, they’re calling my flight, I’ve got to cut this short. Everybody,” Pete Frank added, his voice fading momentarily as though he had turned away from the telephone to check something, “likes the reports. Keep them coming, sweetheart. Sorry about not calling you earlier. Jack has been”—there was only the slightest hesitation—”very tied up since he got back from the Far East.”
Had Jack told Peter Frank to call her? If she needed any confirmation of how things stood, Pete Frank’s last-minute telephone call was it.
“Pete,” she said desperately, remembering one of his jobs was development planning, “the Maison Louvel here in Paris could be a really big opportunity for Jackson Storm International. I sent Jack a proposal about it.” She knew she was talking too fast, blurting out everything, but he’d said he was just about to take a plane. “Someone needs to—”
The voice on the other end of the line stopped her. “Sammy, wait—Sammy, will you listen to me? Look, I hate to say this, kid, but don’t call Mindy’s office anymore. It’s not going to do any good. This is straight from Mindy: Don’t call. Don’t bother Julie or anybody else, do you read me? Am I getting through to you?”
After a long moment’s silence Sam said, “Yes.”
“Good.” She thought she heard him sigh. “Don’t send any reports to Jack. He won’t read them. The office is busy as hell right now getting ready for the big July publicity push. And even if anybody had time to get to them, the word is out—don’t bother. Now, Sammy—Jesus, are you crying?”
“I’m not crying.” She bit her lips, fighting back the tears.
“You know how these things go,” Peter Frank said uncomfortably. “Hell, if you didn’t know how Jack operates before, you do now, right? Cut your losses, Sammy. You want to walk away from this with your dignity intact, because you’ll thank yourself for it later.”
There was another pause. Sam said, “Do I come back to New York now, Peter?”
“You can do what you want, Sammy,” the voice on the other end said quietly, “but if you come back to New York, you don’t come back to Jackson Storm.”
Chapter Fourteen
Samantha started carrying clothes down from the storeroom to the design room by the armfuls. She knew that sooner or later someone in the Maison Louvel would discover what she was doing and she wasn’t disappointed; on her third trip she found Solange Doumer waiting for her at the bottom of the narrow flight of stairs.
The directrice, her creamy skin and dark red hair enhanced by her usual long-sleeved black dress, held her hands propped on her hips, her face an angry white mask. “Mais d’où venez-vous?” Madame Doumer demanded.
“Don’t start that,” Sam said, brushing past her. “I think you understand more English than you let on. And I haven’t got time right now to play games.”
“De quoi vous occupez-vous?” the other woman almost screamed, making a lunge for the clothes Sam was carrying.
Sam stopped. “I’m taking the clothes in the storeroom down to the design room to look them over. I’ll be doing it all morning. If you have a problem with that, you can call Jackson Storm in New York.” For all the good it will do you, she added silently; if I’m out where the buses don’t run, so are you, lady.
Solange Doumer glared at her, eyes narrowed, lips a thin red line. The struggle going on inside the Frenchwoman was plain, as she drew herself up and said with obvious effort, “What are you doing wiz these clothes?” Her English was heavily accented but perfectly understandable. “You must leave clothes where they are!”
Sam fought down an impulse to laugh. “Can’t,” she said in her most laconic Western voice. “I need ‘em.” She started across the landing toward the elevator.
The tapping of high heels followed her rapidly. “I demandez—demand it!” the other woman shouted.
Sam dragged open the gate to the elevator. She stepped inside and rested her chin on the pile of clothes as she pulled the gate shut with her free hand. “Madame Doumer, I’m telling you now because I haven’t got time to write you a memo—Jackson Storm is going to have a retrospective showing here in the Maison Louvel featuring Mademoiselle Claude’s designs, the third week in July, when all the Paris fashion houses show their fall lines.” She reached for the button for the second floor. “I’m looking forward to getting lots of cooperation from you,” she said through the brass mesh of the elevator gate. “I’ll get you a list of what I need and give it to you later.”
The elevator cage dropped its usual two feet, jerked to a stop and then started to descend. Sam left the Maison Louvel directrice standing on the fourth-floor landing, sliding out of sight and for once speechless.
Brooksie Goodman, however, screamed out loud.
“You what?” she yelled. She looked around, scraped a pile of clothes from a chair in the design room and flopped down in it. Then she patted her spiky, orange-tipped hair with one hand distractedly as she looked around her. “Jeez, Sammy, for a minute I thought you said Jackson Storm was going to hold some kind of showing here.”
“That’s what I said.” Sam lifted a boxy jacket in cream flannel and gave it the nose test. It was definitely musty. She held the jacket at arm’s length and dropped it in the “possibles” pile. “Jackson Storm is going to have a retrospective of Mademoiselle Claude Louvel’s clothes, here, in the Maison Louvel, during Paris press week in July.”
“No,” Brooksie said, shaking her head. “I’m definitely out of it today. I keep hearing you say Jackson Storm is going to have a showing. Crap, I’m having some sort of weird flashback, you know?”
Sam picked up a peacock-blue satin cocktail dress, shook it out and studied the little panniers on the sides, the thousands of tucks in the draped bust and the corseted waist. Peacock-blue, a color of the fifties if ever there was one, she thought. She laid it on the discard pile. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the last few nights and the decisions about literally hundreds of designs from the storeroom were beginning to affect her. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and blinked. One call from New York could put an end to her plans. One visit from Mindy or Peter Frank and the whole thing would go up in smoke. She’d considered the possibilities very carefully.
“You mean you’ve been sitting on this all the time?” Brooksie said incredulously. “You mean, like it’s for real?” She looked around at the piles of clothes spilling over tables, chairs and onto the floor in the design room. “Is that what you’ve been working on—a retrospective? Why a retrospective, for God’s sake? Is Jackson Storm going to send a team over from New York? Jeez—July—that doesn’t give you much time!”
“The material was here,” Sam said carefully. “It just sort of evolved.”
“July,” Brooksie repeated, her eyes narrowing. “You can’t even get invitations out, Sammy. Jack Storm must be off his gourd. How are you going to get on the Syndicale schedule? It’s been made up for months.”
“It isn’t necessary to get on the Syndicale schedule.” Sam busied herself with the clothes. “It’s not as off-the-wall as it looks. A retrospective of Claude Louvel’s clothes is a nice publicity project. It will promote Jackson Storm and the Maison Louvel without making any big moves here in Paris. And we really don’t have to get on the trade association schedule. Look, Brooksie,” she said reasonably, “during July fashion wee
k in New York when all the big dress houses show their clothes, there are always plenty of free riders—scarf and accessory manufacturers, costume jewelry people—that come in and throw their promotion parties during whatever space they can find on the New York Dress Institute schedule, so why not here? All we need is the Paris Syndicale invitation lists for their events.”
“Jackson Storm a free rider? With a retrospective show of a Paris designer nobody ever heard of even thirty or forty years ago?” Brooksie asked, incredulous. “Off the Syndicale schedule? The big week in Paris? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“It will work.” It was a crazy idea, Sam admitted when she let herself think about it, but she had already made up her mind that she wasn’t just going to sit there in Paris until it was time to go home. She had too much talent, for one thing. And, she had decided, she wasn’t going to passively accept what other people were doing to her. Right now, everything revolved around getting Brooksie to help.
“Claude Louvel was a great designer.” Sam shook out the skirt to the boxy suit, then dropped it on the same pile as the jacket. “Call it an historical event.”
“It’s called being nuts!” Brooksie yelled. “It takes a year to set up a Paris show, Sammy. Jeez, Jack Storm’s a garment man—he ought to know that!”
“It takes a year to do a line of new designs and bring them out,” Sam corrected her. “Claude Louvel’s clothes are already made. Outside of some cleaning and repair we’ve only got to set up the showing.” Sam bent over to pick up the pile of clothes Brooksie had pushed to the floor. “All we need is the invitation lists and the Syndicale schedule.”
Brooksie swiveled in her chair to stare at her. “Do you know what you’re saying, Sammy? You’re telling me that Jack Storm wants to squeeze into the fashion shows here in Paris in July. Like, throw a crazy retrospective in between Cardin and Givenchy and St. Laurent and everybody else?” She gave a skeptical snort. “What’s he going to give away to bring the crowd over here to the Maison Louvel? Free dishes? A door prize of a year’s supply of Sam Laredo jeans?” Brooksie jumped to her feet. “Do you know how nuts this idea is? I can’t believe Jack Storm thought this up! What’s the point behind it, anyway?”
Suddenly, Brooksie stopped short in the middle of the room. She stared into space, struck by a totally new idea. “If it doesn’t work, he can fold the Maison Louvel, right? And say it was just a publicity stunt?”
Sam let out her breath carefully. “It’s going to be a retrospective of an old and brilliant designer. I can’t say any more than that at this time.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the truth, either. Neither was letting Brooksie think the retrospective had Jack Storm’s blessing. “As far as Claude Louvel is concerned, she may never have made it big, but does that really matter? Who remembers—ah, Maggy Rouf? Schiaparelli?” She wracked her brains trying to think of the couturiers of the past. “Or—ah, Mainbocher?”
“Plenty of people remember Schiaparelli. They just had a big retrospective of her clothes a couple of years ago when they opened Les Halles.”
Sam needed Brooksie. She didn’t know how she could do it without her. And she didn’t know anybody in Paris she could hire at the last minute to help set up the retrospective. Brooksie had put her finger on it when she mentioned time. It would be a miracle if they got everything done in the remaining weeks.
“I’m going to pay you.” Sam lifted up a black satin peignoir. Never knock yourself out explaining, Jack had taught her, just quote the price. “I want you to take on a job with the Jackson Storm retrospective as a fashion consultant, coordinator, publicity person, all the usual things.” She had already been through the Bank of Paris account and the balance for her accumulated paychecks; she knew what she could offer Brooksie. “A thousand dollars for the Syndicale invitation list and an advance copy of the schedule of the showings.”
Brooksie sucked in her breath. “A thousand dollars?” For a moment she considered it, then she shook her head. “Sammy, I can’t get any invitation list from the Syndicale. What do you think I am—the CIA? That stuff’s classified!”
Samantha bent over the design-room table, carefully sorting the clothes she had selected into two separate “possible” piles. “Okay, twelve hundred for the list.” She’d been prepared to go that much. “Plus another thousand as retainer for the rest of your services, like writing press releases, getting the models lined up, finding somebody to narrate the show.”
Brooksie stared into space. “By July? With no team of PR people from New York?” She was already leaping ahead. “Sammy, listen, was Claude Louvel all that good? I mean, is there any reason to look at these clothes? The Syndicale invitation list has practically every important newspaper in America plus Vogue, Harper’s, all the French press and media, the world wire services. This is a big deal. Jack Storm could fall on his face.”
“She’s that good, take my word for it.” Sam straightened up and pushed the pile of clothes to one side. “Besides, what does it matter? You said it, the Jackson Storm retrospective is a public relations event. Even if Claude Louvel’s stuff stank, which it doesn’t, you and I know the fashion business runs on hype, publicity, getting in the newspapers. The retrospective would get Jackson Storm of New York out in front worldwide, no matter what happens. And if it’s a bust, Jack can always say he was just honoring Paris fashion history. We’ll give the clothes to a museum.” She met Brooksie’s eye directly. “Do you want in or not?”
“Aaaah—” Brooksie looked wildly uncertain. “The whole thing’s not going to work, it’s too late, it’s too-off-the-wall. Oh, hell, Sammy, why don’t you just call Jack Storm and tell him to forget it? It’s just too damned crazy!”
“The whole rag trade is crazy.”
Brooksie lifted her spiky, orange-tipped head and shrugged. “Fifteen hundred for the invitation lists,” the writer said. “And two thousand for the retainer.”
That was more than she’d planned on, but not out of sight. Sam stuck out her hand to shake on it. She said, “I’ll write you a check.”
It was done. Now all they had to do was get the planning down on paper. She kept Brooksie working in the design room until it was almost too late for lunch. When they broke to go up to Sam’s apartment for sandwiches, both of them were so tired they ate in silence, more than a little overwhelmed by the work that lay ahead of them.
Brooksie had done a workmanlike job of plotting the overall structure of the retrospective during the morning, but the more the project was laid out the more it expanded into even more avenues of work. There was going to be a problem getting models that week in July. Bettina and Sophie Litvak were the big agencies, but their mannequins were spoken for months in advance by the big couture houses. That meant going to some of the second-and third-string model agencies.
“Somebody’s going to have to rehearse the models,” Brooksie groaned. “Then all the clothes have to be fitted. Nobody’s a standard size six in Paris.”
“I’ll rehearse the models.” Sam had had an intensive course in how to show the Sam Laredo line and she still remembered how to do it. The fittings were more complicated. With only one fitter available in the Maison Louvel, Nannette, the only solution was to shut down the atelier, postpone the orders currently being worked on and switch the seamstresses over to the retrospective. That was going to cause trouble.
“I’m going to have to bribe somebody over at the Syndicale to get those invitation lists,” Brooksie moaned, “and jeez, I don’t even know where to start. Then we got a problem with addresses if you’re going to send them out at the last moment to the hotels where the press is staying. And how do you know if they’ll even come?”
“That’s always a risk.” Free-rider show invitations were always waiting at the hotels when the press checked in, that was standard. And there was no other way to get around the problem of launching the retrospective without Jackson Storm New York headquarters hearing about it, unless they issued the press releases and sent out the invitati
ons as late as possible. There was no way of explaining that to Brooksie, Sam knew, sighing.
In the afternoon, unable to sit in the design room any longer, Sam went back to work bringing clothes down from the storeroom. As she was bringing the last armful of the day out, she heard the elevator stop on the floor below. She paused at the top of the steps, looking down to the fourth-floor landing to see a man in a tight-fitting gray business suit carrying a small black leather sample case to the elevator gate. He had his back to her but already the width of his shoulders, the lean lines of his body told her who he was.
There were times, Sam thought, when she just prayed never to have to lay eyes on Chip again. Life would be so much simpler that way. When he turned, she braced herself, fighting the same panicky confusion that always attacked her when she saw that big body. Damn him, was all she could think.
He strolled down the hallway to the bottom of the stairs, put down his sample case and looked up at her. “Solange called me.”
He looked tough and sleekly businesslike in the light gray suit, blue shirt and striped silk tie. She saw the change in his eyes immediately.
She looked different, Sam remembered. The new haircut fell against her cheeks and brushed her shoulders in sleek waves. She was wearing her usual jeans to work in, but she had on a draped, wrap-over crepe silk blouse from Laure’s boutique that was cut to the waist and exposed a good bit of silky, round cleavage. Chip’s gypsy-black gaze missed nothing.
“Solange wanted me to come over and talk to you,” he said pleasantly.
She might have expected it. “I haven’t got anything to discuss with you.”
“Her English isn’t really all that good.” He still bent that dark, assessing gaze on her. “Solange thinks you said something to her about having some sort of showing here. She’s pretty upset.”
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