The White Rose

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

  The blond man raises an eyebrow. The eyebrow, Oliver notices, is brown. He’s wearing a blond wig.

  “I mean,” he says, “I definitely need to buy something. I need help.”

  The man folds down his laptop.

  “But I just…I know this is a store for drag queens. And that’s great. I’ve got nothing against drag queens. I’m just not a drag queen.”

  “Shocking news,” the blond man says. “And here I had you pegged for Wigstock.”

  “I’m…I need…” Oliver falters. “I have to buy some clothes. I mean, not clothes for a man. I have to get…”

  The man puts up a hand. “Please. This is hurting me. You can stop.”

  Oliver stops.

  “Drag queens. Yes,” he says. “Downstairs. Everything from Joan Crawford to Bette Midler at the baths. Leather in the back room. But everything else is just for your garden variety cross-dresser. Suburbia to Wall Street. Suitable for parents’ night at the middle school. Nothing Faerie Queen. Nothing offensive to your very heterosexual requirements, I promise.”

  “But I just said—”

  “Cross-dressing,” the man says, rolling his eyes. “Look, here’s a cram sheet: drag queen equals gay, cross-dresser equals straight. Straight?” he repeats, taking in Oliver’s confusion. “As in, I like to wear the dress, the tasteful pumps, and the understated jewelry, whenever my wife takes the kids to visit her folks in Iowa? By the time she gets back I’m so revved up I practically have to make my move in the SUV. Yes?”

  Dumbly, Oliver nods. “Okay. I didn’t know that.”

  “Sit down,” he says, pointing to a chair. “And my name is Jan.”

  Oliver sits. He wonders if he is obligated to give his name, too.

  “Your first time, I take it?”

  First and last, Oliver wants to say. But it isn’t his first time. And it won’t be his last.

  “It’s a long story,” he tells Jan. “I sort of did it by accident once. Now I need to do it again. I need to be this…person.”

  “You liked it, in other words,” Jan observes, and Oliver is about to object: No, of course he hadn’t liked it. Then he remembers: the flirting with Barton, the sweet, strange seduction, of and by Marian, on the couch in her living room. He had liked that. But it was too complicated to explain.

  “Yes,” he says.

  Jan smiles, showing small, even teeth. “Fine.” He gets up. He is a small man, with narrow shoulders. He is wearing a silk shirt, unbuttoned to just above the navel, showing a hairless, honey-toned torso, and jeans. “So tell me all about her.”

  “About…?” says Oliver. He is sweating now and wants to take off his jacket, but he is afraid to do it. Taking off his jacket means he is staying, which means he is actually doing this.

  “This person you mentioned. Tell me about her. Then we’ll figure out her wardrobe.”

  Oliver takes a breath. “She’s a graduate student. She’s…”

  A gay man, he has been about to say. A straight woman. He can barely keep it all clear anymore.

  “She’s a very nice girl.”

  “I’m sure,” Jan drawls. “Does she go out or stay in?”

  “She goes out,” Oliver says. “I mean, not nightclubs. But she needs to be able to walk down the street. Just…not flashy, okay?”

  “I got it,” says Jan. “Tweed, cashmere, no stilettos, am I warm?”

  Very warm, Oliver considers, thinking about Marian’s clothing. He nods.

  “So let’s go shopping.”

  It takes nearly an hour, most of it spent in the dressing room. After allowing Oliver to choose a wig nearly indistinguishable from Marian’s and wordlessly handing him a boxed item that proves to be a bra with separate breastlike fillers, Jan directs Oliver to the dressing room at the back of the store and shifts into a Zen-like shopping zone from which he both procures and rejects, evaluating each combination of garments with either a “yes” or a “no.” In short order, Jan confers approval on a red boatneck cashmere sweater, a beige button-down silk shirt not unlike the one he himself is wearing, a brown skirt that zips up the side and falls to Oliver’s knees. He brings two pairs of tights, rejects one of them, rejects the other, and goes back for a third, which satisfies him. He produces a gold necklace and takes it away, to Oliver’s relief. He brings shoes that are too tight, shoes that are too loose, and, finally, shoes that do not hurt too much, do not look too wrong, and with heels that are not too high. “Nice legs,” Jan observes.

  Oliver, lost in his own reflection, only nods.

  The astounding thing, he thinks, is that she really is here, even more present than the first time. Olivia—Marian’s devoted research assistant and the object of Barton’s dogged attentions—has taken on her own freight of character in the dressing room at Transformations, with every small decision contributing to the person she has become. Oliver sees her now. She is not pretty, exactly, but she is sweet, and a little shy, and also very determined to have what she deserves. She is…alluring, Oliver decides, scrutinizing her in a guy way. Not the girl you notice the first time you sweep the room, in other words, but the one you wake up wondering about five days later.

  Looking at himself in the mirror, from the front, the side, the front again, is a queasy, out-of-body experience. Oliver’s instinct is to avert his eyes, but at the same time, he can’t seem to look away. He forces himself to take several deep breaths, and meets his own gaze.

  “Hello, Olivia,” Oliver says, experimentally.

  “Hello,” Olivia says.

  Jan returns, his arms full. “You need a coat,” he says briskly. “You can’t wear this with your jacket. You need a purse.”

  “No purse,” says Oliver, snapping out of it.

  “Don’t be silly. Nice girl like you wouldn’t go out without a purse.”

  Oliver lets him choose a purse. He lets Jan show him how to hold it. He lets Jan pick a coat, camel’s hair.

  “You could use a little makeup,” Jan observes. “You have pretty good skin, but makeup never hurts.”

  “No makeup,” says Oliver, and this time he holds his ground.

  “Whatever,” Jan puts up his hands. “Okay, that’s one outfit. How about some evening wear?”

  Oliver gets out his wallet. “This is fine, thank you. You want to ring it all up and I’ll get changed?”

  “Get changed?” Jan asks. “What for? You look great. I’ll throw your other clothes in a shopping bag.”

  “No, no,” he shakes his head. “I couldn’t.”

  “Don’t be silly. You said she has to be able to walk down a street. If a man can’t walk down Christopher Street in drag, where can he, pray tell?”

  Oliver smiles, but he shakes his head.

  “Look, you live on Commerce, right? What is that, like, three minutes? If you can’t walk home from here, why have you wasted your time with all this?”

  Oliver considers. Jan is, of course, perfectly correct. Three minutes. And when will he ever have the nerve to practice again?

  “All right,” Oliver says. He pays, using his Visa card, and stands looking between the two leather-clad mannequins at the now darkening street as Jan totals the bill. Outside is an unknown country.

  “I’m here on Tuesdays and Fridays,” Jan says. “In case you don’t want to start over again with somebody else, next time.”

  “Thank you,” says Oliver, meaning it.

  “You look beautiful,” Jan says, appraising him. “I mean it about your legs. Don’t hide them.”

  “Okay,” Oliver stammers. “I’ll try.” He takes the bag of his clothes, his own safe clothes, and goes outside.

  The wind seems to rush at him, nudging him off balance. Every step is a separately strange experience. The hose rub between his thighs. There is an odd flutter of skirt against his knees. His feet pinch. Why do women wear heels? Oliver thinks crossly. It is not natural to walk on tiptoe. He stops, only feet from the beginning of his journey, and looks at himself in the window reflection of Christop
her Wines, against a display of Chardonnays. That is why they wear heels, thinks Oliver, noting the rounded calf and narrow, nearly graceful angle of his ankle. Nice legs. Marian had said that to him, too. She’d said he had nicer legs than hers, when was that? The first time he had shown them, really, in Olivia’s clothes. He squints at his legs now. He lifts one, just slightly, and admires it, and then movement from inside the shop makes him look up. A young man is watching him from inside. Oliver’s heart thrashes as he recognizes his admirer. The Violet Pen, he reaches. The Violet Pencil, wasn’t that it? The man frowns at him. Oliver looks away so fast he totters on his heels, then pulls his new coat tight at the throat and walks off down the street, carefully, one foot deliberately in front of the other. With each step, one knee and then the other makes its appearance through the slit of his open coat.

  Oliver watches his knees, watches the pavement under them. He lets himself believe that it is fascinating to observe this, but the truth is that he is terrified to look up, to see anyone seeing him. This is a level of physical self-consciousness he has not experienced since adolescence, thinks Oliver, crossing Bleecker with attention to the ground. Someone nudges him, an invisible body of great height, and Oliver looks up, involuntarily, into ardent eyes. A man in an orange down vest, bald-headed, a stranger. “Sorry,” the man says, standing his ground.

  Oliver hurries away.

  At Bedford, he turns left, and, leaving the busier thoroughfare, he actually slows down. The street is nearly empty, and with the light rapidly fading, the few people he does share the sidewalk with are focused on their own business. Oliver feels…not safe, precisely, but—easier. Still, he forces himself to linger before every other shop, feeling himself shift his weight and stand, examining the merchandise. Oliver idles before a restaurant—Le Rouge. He pretends to read the menu, then, slowly, he unclenches his coat and lets it fall open. The earth does not stop turning. He puts his hands on his hips.

  “We’re open,” a waiter says, opening the door and smiling at him. “Like to come in?” He has a thick French accent, almost a stage-French accent.

  “Oh,” Oliver says. Looking past the man, into the restaurant’s dim interior, he can make out the table where he once, an eternity ago, sat with Marian. “No, but another time.”

  The guy nods. He wears thick silver earrings, like jacks, in both ears. He grins, not just with warmth, but with heat. “Any time,” he tells Oliver. “Ask for me. My name is Valéry.”

  Valéry, thinks Oliver. Like Valerie.

  Then he smiles.

  “Thank you!” Oliver says, and walks off down Bedford.

  On the next block, Oliver walks briskly to the smoke shop and enters, so focused now that he has nearly blocked out the reality of his altered appearance. They know him here, or do in his normal guise. He comes in for emergency milk, the Daily News whenever there is some scandal too undignified for the Times to cover, Häagen-Dazs from the freezer in the back, but never for what he is purchasing today. There is one copy of the Ascendant left in the rack. Oliver puts it on the counter and fishes out cash from his new purse. He does not look at the man behind the counter, a Sikh in a red topknotted turban. He does not wonder if the man sees him, knows him. He grabs his paper and goes, anxious to get home, gleeful at this new idea. It’s all going to work, he thinks, turning down Commerce, which is empty of people. He holds his coat closed with one hand and fishes in his pocket with the other for his keys. With each step, his plan crystallizes. He sees how to do this. He knows precisely how to get Mort Klein to the Black Horse Inn on Thursday night.

  He opens the shop door and shuts it behind him. Then he goes upstairs.

  It is after five o’clock now. She may not be there. She may be home, preparing for some party, or meeting someone for a drink, spreading some nasty rumor or other. He opens the salmon-colored newspaper on his kitchen table and turns on the light. He skims her hateful column, noting a gushed reference to Henry Rosenthal and his lovely new girlfriend, then finds her profile of Barton Ochstein, bachelor bridegroom, Warburg, preservationist, on the verge of marrying his fortune. It’s a fawning piece of writing, culminating in a gleeful See you all at the wedding! but Oliver knows that Valerie Annis won’t be seeing anyone at the wedding. Sophie absolutely forbade it. The Celebrant would not be pleased about that, thinks Oliver. The Celebrant would not be unwilling to embarrass a man who’d embarrassed her.

  At last, in the second section of the paper, he finds the phone number on the bottom of the page and dials. The next edition of the paper comes out on Friday. Olivia’s assignation with Barton is to take place on Thursday. It can work. It can absolutely work. He won’t think about the alternative.

  “Ascendant!” chirps a voice, female.

  “I would like to speak to Valerie Annis,” says Oliver, enunciating with care. “My name is Olivia.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Another Woman

  At just before three P.M. on Monday, Sophie stands on a raised, circular pedestal, carpeted in beige, being tugged and pinned and glared at with varying degrees of impatience by three women.

  “Hold up your arm a little bit,” says Suki, one of the whippet-thin women Vera Wang has hired in an effort to make her customers feel gargantuan.

  Sophie raises her arm. The illusion sleeve puckers at her armpit.

  “You lost weight,” says the seamstress, with discernible aggravation.

  “Sophie,” says Frieda, who is sitting on an upholstered ottoman in the corner of the dressing room, her aristocratic legs crossed at the ankle.

  “Sorry,” Sophie says, automatically.

  “I need to take in more,” says the seamstress, and she pins. Sophie holds up her arm, idly looking at herself in the mirror.

  The pucker under her arm is not the only pucker in evidence. The dress has gone from sleek at its first fitting to baggy this afternoon. She would not want to marry Oliver in this dress, Sophie thinks. Actually, she would not want to marry anyone in this dress.

  “I don’t think we’re finished,” says Suki sadly.

  “No,” Sophie agrees.

  “I think we need one more. Wednesday?”

  “What?” says Sophie.

  “For a fitting,” Frieda says. “Yes,” she says, taking it upon herself to answer. “We come back on Wednesday. It must be ready the next morning, though. We are leaving for the wedding on Thursday.”

  “Fine. And bring your undergarments when you come,” Suki says, tapping a note into her Palm Pilot.

  “My what?” Sophie says, rousing herself.

  “Well, you’re not going to wear that bra,” Suki says with a mincing shake of her exquisite head. She looks up, worried. “Are you?”

  Sophie shrugs. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  There is general awe at this remark.

  “You know,” says Suki, “there is a very good lingerie shop. Near Bloomingdale’s?” she says deliberately, as though Sophie, lifelong New Yorker that she is, might not know where that is.

  “I know where Bloomingdale’s is,” says Sophie.

  “I have their card. I think you should go right now. Let them fit you. Tell them you’re wearing strapless with illusion sleeves.”

  “Oh, I can’t go right now,” she says vaguely, though there’s nothing pressing right now. There is no work. There is no Oliver. Her only occupation, all this week, is to prepare for a wedding.

  “Why not?” says Frieda shrilly, and Sophie shrugs again, making the seamstress actually grunt in frustration.

  “I have my paper. Remember? To get ready for the conference?”

  “You have this wedding. Remember? To get ready for being married?”

  “Fine,” Sophie says.

  Frieda and Suki exchange a look.

  When the first arm is done, Sophie lifts the other arm. No one speaks but the seamstress, asking for more pins, then chalk. Sophie is thrilled when she finally gets the dress off her body. She has to resist an urge to kick it as she steps from
its fallen circle.

  “Are you coming?” Sophie asks Frieda when she emerges from the dressing room, clad—out of deference to Vera Wang and to Frieda—in a black suit.

  “Nein. Let me take your veil home. I think you can buy a bra without me.”

  “Really,” Sophie says, allowing the tiniest smile. “Why, thank you, Frieda. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  “Besides, today I need to fight with the caterer.”

  “Oh. Well, have fun.”

  “And your father canceled his dinner. I will need to order something for him.”

  “What’s going on?” asks Sophie, concerned.

  “Nothing terrible, I think. Just saving his energy.”

  “I could come have dinner with him,” Sophie says, holding open the door. Frieda passes through. She is carrying the large Vera Wang shopping bag, laden with Sophie’s deftly packed veil.

  “No,” Frieda says and shakes her head. Her expensively maintained copper hair shines in the afternoon light. “You buy your bra, and after that go home and do your work. Maybe then, by the weekend, you can begin to act like a bride. Really, Sophie. All of this effort.”

  “All right,” she says sadly, and they walk north to the corner together. “Give him my love,” she calls, watching Frieda until she crosses Seventy-ninth. Then Sophie turns east to Park and begins to walk downtown.

  It’s a chilly day, and Sophie keeps her hands in her pockets, one of them fingering the business card Suki handed to her. The lingerie shop is not, as it turns out, unknown to her: a block or two south of Bloomingdale’s on Lexington, run—at least, in the past—by a crotchety Russian woman who determined bra size by gazing balefully at her customer’s chest and then called out the correct numbers and letters. Sophie had gone there once… when was it? In high school, she thinks, when she failed the self-serve test of Bloomingdale’s own chaotic lingerie department. How many bras has she bought, and worn, and washed to death, since then?

  She stops at a red light and reaches down to pat a bichon frise.

  “Pretty dog,” Sophie observes to its owner, a brittle old lady in mink, though she does not think the dog is at all pretty. The woman smiles, gratified, her powdered skin shockingly white around the mouth. Standing beside her on the street corner, two schoolboys in Collegiate blazers puff at cigarettes.