by Zadie Smith
Miss Adele took a deep breath. She stepped back from the counter, pulled her deerstalker off her head and tucked a purple bang behind her ear. Sweat prickled her face for the first time in weeks. She was considering turning on her heel and making that little bell shake till it fell off its damn string when the curtain opened and a mousy girl emerged, with her mother’s arm around her. They were neither of them great beauties. The girl had a pissy look on her face, and moved with an angry slouch, like a prisoner, whereas you could see the mother was at least doing her best to keep things on an even keel. The mother looked beat—and too young to have a teenager. Or maybe she was the exact right age. Devin’s kids were teenagers now. And Miss Adele was almost as old as the President. None of it made any sense, and yet you were still expected to accept it, and carry on, as if it were the most natural process in the world.
“Because they’re not like hands and feet,” a warm and lively voice explained, behind the curtain, “they grow independently.”
“Thank you so much for your advice, Mrs. Alexander,” said the mother, the way you talk to a priest through a screen. “The trouble is this thickness here. All the women in our family got it, unfortunately. Curved ribcage.”
“But actually, you know—it’s inneresting—it’s a totally different curve from you to her. Did you realize that?”
The curtain opened. The speaker was revealed to be a lanky, wasp-waisted woman in her early fifties, with a long, humane face—dimpled, self-amused—and an impressive mass of thick chestnut hair.
“Two birds, two stones. That’s the way we do it here. Everybody needs something different. That’s what the big stores won’t do for you. Individual attention. Mrs. Berman, can I give you a tip?” The young mother looked up at the long-necked Mrs. Alexander, a duck admiring a swan. “Keep it on all the time. Listen to me, I know of what I speak. I’m wearing mine right now, I wear it every day. In my day they gave it to you when you walked out the hospital!”
“Well, you look amazing.”
“Smoke and mirrors. Now, all you need is to make sure the straps are fixed right like I showed you.” She turned to the sulky daughter and put a fingertip on each of the child’s misaligned shoulders. “You’re a lady now, a beautiful young lady, you—” But here again she was interrupted from behind the counter, a sharp exchange of brutal and mysterious phrases, in which—to Miss Adele’s satisfaction—the wife appeared to get the final word. Mrs. Alexander took a cleansing breath and continued: “So you gotta hold yourself like a lady. Right?” She lifted the child’s chin and placed her hand for a moment on her cheek. “Right?” The child straightened up, despite herself. See, some people are trying to ease your passage through this world—so ran Miss Adele’s opinion—while others just want to block you at every damn turn. Think of poor Mamma, cupping her hand around a table’s sharp corner, to protect the skull of one of her passing toddlers. That kind of instinctive, unthinking care. Now that Miss Adele had grown into the clothes of a middle-aged woman, she began to notice this new feeling of affinity toward them, far deeper than she had ever felt for young women, back when she could still fit into the hot pants of a showgirl. She walked through the city struck by these strange partnerships of the soft and the hard. In shops, in restaurants, in line at the CVS. She always had the same question. Why in God’s name are you still married to this asshole? Lady, your children are grown. You have your own credit cards. You’re the one with life force. Can’t you see he’s just a piece of the furniture? It’s not 1850. This is New York. Run, baby, run!
“Who’s waiting? How can I help you?”
Mother and daughter duck followed the shopgirl to the counter, to settle up. The radio, after a brief pause, made its way afresh up the scale of outrage. And Miss Adele? Miss Adele turned like a flower to the sun.
“Well, I need a new corset. A strong one.”
Mrs. Alexander beamed: “Come right this way.”
Together, they stepped into the changing area. But as Miss Adele reached to pull the curtain closed behind them both—separating the ladies from the assholes—a look passed between wife and husband and Mrs. Alexander caught the shabby red velvet swathe in her hand, a little higher up than Miss Adele had, and held it open.
“Wait—let me get Wendy in here. I actually have to go speak with my husband about something. You’ll be all right? The curtain’s for modesty. You modest?”
She had a way about her. Her face expressed emotion in layers: elevated, ironic eyebrows, mournful violet eyes and sly, elastic mouth. She looked like one of the old movie stars. But which one?
“You’re a funny lady,” said Miss Adele.
“A life like mine, you have to laugh—Marcus, please, one minute—” For he was barking at her—really going for it—practically insisting that she stop talking to that schwarze, which prompted Mrs. Alexander to lean out of the changing room to say something like: What is wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m busy here? before turning back with a strained smile to her new friend and confidante, Miss Adele. “Is it okay if I don’t measure you personally? Wendy can do it in a moment. I’ve just got to deal with—but listen, if you’re in a hurry, don’t panic, our eyes, they’re like hands.”
“Can I just show you what I had?”
“Please.”
Miss Adele unzipped her handbag and pulled out the ruin.
“Oh! You’re breaking my heart! From here?”
“I don’t remember. It’s possible. But maybe ten years ago.”
“Makes sense, we don’t sell these anymore. Ten years is ten years. Time for a change. What’s it to go under? Strapless? Short? Long?”
“Everything. I’m trying to hide some of this.”
“You and the rest of the world. Well, that’s my job.” She leaned over and put her lips just a little shy of Miss Adele’s ear: “Now I’m going to whisper. What you got up there? You can tell me. Flesh or feathers?”
“Not the former.”
“Got it. WENDY! I need a Futura and a Queen Bee, corsets, front fastening, forty-six. Bring a forty-eight, too. Marcus—please. One minute, okay? And bring the Paramount in, too! The crossover! Some people, you ask them these questions, they get offended. Everything offends them. Personally, I don’t believe in ‘political correctness,’” she said, articulating the phrase carefully, with great sincerity, as if she had recently coined it. “My mouth’s too big. I gotta say what’s on my mind! Now, when Wendy comes, take off everything to here and try each corset on at its tightest setting. If you want a defined middle, frankly it’s going to hurt. But I’m guessing you know that already.”
“Loretta Young,” called Miss Adele to Mrs. Alexander’s back, as she approached the counter. “You look like Loretta Young. Know who that is?”
“Do I know who Loretta Young is? Excuse me one minute, will you?”
Mrs. Alexander lifted her arms and said something to her husband, the only parts of which Miss Adele could fully comprehend were the triple repetition of the phrase “Loretta Young.” In response, the husband made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a grunt.
“Do me a favor,” said Mrs. Alexander, turning back to Miss Adele. “Put it in writing, put it in the mail—then he can read it over and over. He’s a reader.”
The curtain closed. But not entirely. An inch hung open and through it Miss Adele watched a silent movie—silent only in the sense that the gestures were everything. It was a marital drama, conducted in another language, but otherwise identical to those she and Devin had watched as children, through a crack in the door of their parents’ bedroom. Appalled, fascinated, she watched the husband, making his noxious point, whatever it was (You bring shame upon this family?), and Mrs. Alexander, apparently objecting (I’ve given my life to this family?); she watched as he became belligerent (You should be ashamed?) and she grew sarcastic (Right, because you’re such a good man?), their voices competing with the radio (THOU SH
ALT NOT?), and reaching an unreasonable level of drama. Miss Adele strained to separate the sounds into words she might google later. If only there was an app that translated the arguments of strangers! A lot of people would buy that app. Miss Adele had read in The Times that a person could make eight hundred grand off such an app—just for having the idea for the app. (And Miss Adele had always considered herself a person of many ideas, really a very creative person who happened never to have quite found her medium; a person who, in more recent years, had often wondered whether finally the world and technology had caught up with precisely the kind of creative talents she had long possessed, although they had been serially and tragically neglected, first by her parents—who had wanted twin boy preachers—and later by her teachers, who saw her only as an isolated black child in Bible college, a sole Egyptian among the Israelites; and finally in New York, where her gifts had taken second place to her cheekbones and her ass.) You want to know what Miss Adele would do with eight hundred grand? She’d buy a studio down in Battery Park, and do nothing all day but watch the helicopters fly over the water. (And if you think Miss Adele couldn’t find a studio in Battery Park for eight hundred grand you’re crazy. If she had any genius at all, it was for real estate.)
Sweating with effort and anxiety, Miss Adele got stuck at her middle section, which had become, somehow, Devin’s middle section. Her fingers fumbled with the heavy-duty eyes and hooks. She found she was breathing heavily. ABOMINATION, yelled the radio. Get it out of my store! cried the man, in all likelihood. Have mercy! pleaded the woman, basically. That thirty percent of extra Devin-schlub had replicated itself exactly around her own once-lovely waist. No matter how she pulled she simply could not contain it. So much effort! She could hear herself making odd noises, grunts almost.
“Hey, you okay in there?”
“First doesn’t work. Trying the second.”
“No, don’t do that. Wait. Wendy, get in there.”
In a second the girl was in front of her, and as close as anybody had been to Miss Adele’s bare body in a long time. Without a word, a little hand reached out for the corset, took hold of one side of it and, with surprising strength, pulled it toward the other end until both sides met. The girl nodded, and this was Miss Adele’s cue to hook the thing together while the girl squatted like a weightlifter and took a series of short, fierce breaths. Outside of the curtain, the argument had resumed.
“Breathe,” said the girl.
“They always talk to each other like that?” asked Miss Adele.
The girl looked up, uncomprehending.
“Okay now?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
The girl ducked out. Miss Adele examined her new silhouette. It was as good as it was going to get. She turned to the side and frowned at three days of chest stubble. In winter certain grooming habits became hard to keep up. She pulled her shirt over her head to see the clothed effect from the opposite angle and, in the transition, got a fresh view of the husband, still berating Mrs. Alexander, though now in a violent whisper. At the same moment, he seemed to become aware of being observed and looked up at Miss Adele—not as far as her eyes, but tracing, from the neck down, the contours of her body. RIGHTEOUSNESS, cried the radio, RIGHTEOUSNESS AND RAGE! Miss Adele felt like a nail being hammered into the floor. She grabbed the curtain and yanked it shut. She heard the husband end the conversation abruptly—as had been her own father’s way—not with reason or persuasion, but sheer volume. Above the door to the emporium, the little bell rang.
“Molly! So good to see you! How’re the kids? I’m just with a customer!” Mrs. Alexander’s long, pale fingers curled round the hem of the velvet. “May I?”
Miss Adele opened the curtain.
“Oh, it’s good! See, you got shape now.”
Miss Adele shrugged, dangerously close to tears: “It works.”
“Good. Marcus said it would work. He can spot a corset size at forty paces, believe me. He’s good for that at least. So, if that works, the other will work. Why not take both? Then you don’t have to come back for another twenty years! It’s a bargain. Molly, I’m right with you.”
In the store there had appeared a gaggle of children, small and large, and two motherly-looking women, who were greeting the husband and being greeted warmly in turn, smiled at, kissed on both cheeks, et cetera. Miss Adele picked up her enormous coat and began the process of re-weatherizing herself. She observed Mrs. Alexander’s husband reaching over the counter to joke with two young children, ruffling their hair, while his wife—whom she watched even more intently—stood over this phony operation, smiling, as if all that had passed between him and her were nothing at all, only a little domestic incident, some silly wrangle about the accounts, or whatnot. Oh, Loretta Young. Whatever you need to tell yourself. Family first! A phrase that sounded, to Miss Adele, so broad, so empty; one of those convenient pits into which folk will throw any and every thing they can’t deal with alone. A hole for cowards to hide in. So you could have your hands round your wife’s throat, you could have your terrified little boys cowering in a corner—but when the bell rings, it’s time for tea and “Family First!,” with the congregants as your audience, and Mamma’s cakes, and smiles all round. These are my sons, Devin and Darren. Two shows a day for seventeen years. Once you’ve seen behind the curtain, you can never look at it the same way again.
Miss Adele stared down a teenage girl leaning on the counter, who now remembered her manners, looked away and closed her mouth. “Can I ask you a question?” she asked Mrs. Alexander as she approached, carrying two corsets packed back into their boxes. “You got kids?”
“Five!”
Miss Adele felt exhausted. She had read in The Times that by 2050 most of the city would be single-occupant households. Which was meant to be bad news somehow.
“Jesus Christ,” she said.
“No,” said Mrs. Alexander, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “He was definitely not involved. I’ll be with you in one minute, Sarah! It’s been so—” She broke off to snap violently at her husband, and to be snapped at in return, before seamlessly returning to her sentence. “Long. So long! And look at these girls! They’re really tall now!”
Miss Adele took the corsets and reached for her wallet.
“Sorry, but am I causing you some kind of issue? I mean, between you and your . . .”
Both women looked over at the husband, who did not look up, for he was busy fussing with the radio’s antenna as the shouting sputtered into static.
“You?” said Mrs. Alexander, and with so innocent a face Miss Adele was tempted to award her the Oscar right there and then, though it was only February. “How do you mean, issue?”
Miss Adele smiled.
“You should be on the stage. You could be my warm-up act.”
“Oh, I doubt you need much warming—even in these temperatures. No, you don’t pay me, you pay him.” A small child ran by Mrs. Alexander with a pink bra on his head. Without a word she lifted it, folded it in half and tucked the straps neatly within the cups. “You got kids?”
Miss Adele was so surprised, so utterly wrong-footed by this question, she found herself speaking the truth.
“My twin—he does. He has kids. We’re identical twins. I guess I feel like his kids are mine, too.”
Mrs. Alexander put her hands on her tiny waist and shook her head.
“Now, that is fascinating. You know, I never thought of that before. Genetics is an amazing thing—amazing! If I wasn’t in the corset business, I’m telling you, that would have been my line. Better luck next time, right?” She laughed sadly, and looked over at the counter. “He listens to his lectures all day, he’s educated. I missed out on all that. Okay, so—are we happy?”
Are you happy? Are you really happy, Loretta Young? Would you tell me if you weren’t, Loretta Young, the Bishop’s Wife? Oh, Loretta Young, Loretta Young! Would you tell anybody?
“Molly, don’t say another word—I know exactly what you need. Nice meeting you,” said Mrs. Alexander to Miss Adele, over her shoulder, as she took her new customer behind the curtain. “If you go over to my husband, you can settle up with him. Have a good day.”
Miss Adele approached the counter and placed her corsets upon it. She looked hard at the side of Mrs. Alexander’s husband’s head. He picked up the first box. He looked at it as if he’d never seen a corset box before. Slowly he wrote something down in a notepad in front of him. He picked up the second and repeated the procedure, but with even less haste. Then, without looking up, he pushed both boxes to his left, until they reached the hands of the shopgirl, Wendy.
“Forty-six fifty,” said Wendy, though she didn’t sound very sure. “Um . . . Mr. Alexander—is there discount on Paramount?”
He was in his own world, staring straight ahead. Wendy let a finger brush the boss’s sleeve; it seemed to waken him from his stupor. Suddenly he sat very tall on his stool and thumped a fist upon the counter—just like Daddy casting out the Devil over breakfast—and started right back up shouting at his wife, it was some form of stinging question, which he repeated over and over, in that relentless way these men always have. Miss Adele strained to understand it. Something like: You happy now? Or: Is this what you want? Or: See what you’ve done? See what you’ve done? See what you’ve done?
“Hey, you,” said Miss Adele, “yes, you, sir. If I’m so disgusting to you? If I’m so beneath your contempt? Why’re you taking my money? Huh? You’re going to take my money? My money? Then, please: look me in the eye. Do me that favor, okay? Look me in the eye.”
Very slowly a pair of blue eyes rose to meet Miss Adele’s own green contacts. The blue was unexpected, like the inner markings of some otherwise unremarkable butterfly, and the black lashes were wet and long and trembling. His voice, too, was the opposite of his wife’s, slow and deliberate, as if each word had been weighed against eternity before being chosen for use.
