Fashionably Late

by Beth Kendrick

  “Well…” My trusty women’s intuition was whispering that I pumped Claire and Aimee for information about your personal life and savored every juicy morsel they threw my way was the wrong way to go with this. “She’s kind of famous among the Rhapsody employees.”

  “Famous or infamous?”

  “Depends on who you talk to.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Do you guys actually do any work at work, or just spread gossip and innuendo?”

  “We spread gossip and innuendo while we work,” I explained. “Think of it as esprit de corps.”

  “I can only imagine what unsavory rumors are circulating about me.”

  “I’ll never tell.” I settled back in my chair. “Now back to business: a plucky young lass like me, how much do you think five hours of my sewing expertise is worth?”

  10

  Do you want to hear something crazy?” I asked Claire on Sunday afternoon as we pored over paint colors at a tragically hip home design shop in Brentwood. “Like, absolutely stark raving mad?”

  “Sure. Hit me.”

  “You know how I have the appointment with the Miriam Russo boutique tomorrow morning? Well, Connor thinks I should charge nine hundred dollars for one of my corsets.” I waited for the gales of laughter.

  But she merely pored over the celadon paint chips. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “Nine hundred dollars? Are you kidding me? No one’s going to pay that!”

  “Of course they are.” She plucked at the cream cashmere sweater she’d thrown on over her jeans and James Perse T-shirt. “This sweater cost almost that much.”

  “You have nine hundred dollars to shell out on a sweater?”

  She shrugged. “Andrew does. I keep telling you, Becks, it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.”

  “Easy there, Ivana. Let’s just stick to the corset.”

  “Fine. But you should listen to Connor when he says that Angelenos are into image. Cars, clothes, connections. It’s not what you know…it’s who you know, what you drive, what gym you belong to, and how many quasi-celebrities you can wrangle into showing up at your parties.”

  “Is that why Courteney and Jennifer were at your wedding?”

  She ignored this. “Do you think most people you see in brand-new Boxsters on the 405 can actually afford their lifestyles? No. Most people are hopelessly in debt. I was, until I met Andrew. And, just between you and me, we had to take out some pretty hefty loans to afford the wedding and the house and the new cars. Because you need constant cash flow to maintain the image.”

  I thought about Aimee’s Chanel bag and Lily the bartender’s Escalade. “Ah, yes. The all-important image.”

  “If you want to be successful, you’re going to have to be a lot more sympathetic to your target demographic,” she said.

  “And my target demographic is women with lots of money, lots of time to shop, and a desire to impress other women with lots of money?”

  “Thin women with lots of money,” she corrected. “More precisely, thin women who want to look like they have lots of money. Which is why you’ll be charging nine hundred dollars. If it’s not hard to find and impossible for the average E! viewer to afford, nobody wants it.”

  “Except for all those E! viewers.”

  “That’s right. And when they finally do get their hands on it, it becomes passé, like the whole pashmina phenomenon. If you want to play with the big girls, you have to do more than sketch and sew and fantasize about a world without polyester. You have to start thinking like a ruthless competitor. Women have to work twice as hard and be twice as smart as men to get ahead in the business world,” declared the girl who’d never spent a single day in an office.

  I managed, through Herculean effort, not to roll my eyes. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Good. Now, if we’re done with today’s Q & A session, I have other things to discuss. First up: How would you feel about doing the interior décor for the nursery? I’ll knock a hundred bucks off your rent.”

  “You’re not charging me any rent,” I pointed out.

  “Okay, then I won’t throw you out in the streets.”

  “Tough but fair. But what happened to the world-famous Italian artiste in Santa Monica?”

  “Eh. He’s been done to death.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want the exact same nursery as every other mom on the A-list. I want something new and different. You know, cutting edge.”

  “I’m not sure ‘cutting edge’ and ‘nursery’ are terms we should really be putting together. Besides, I hate to be the one to point this out, but there is no actual baby to occupy this nursery.”

  She turned to me, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. “Until now.”

  I squealed so loudly, the shop clerk paused mid-phone conversation to shush us. “Are you serious?”

  “Yep.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “This morning. In the bathroom. I peed, the little line turned pink, I cried; it would have been a great commercial for First Response.”

  “I’m going to be an aunt!” We grabbed each other’s hands and hopped up and down. The salesgirl upped the voltage on her death ray glare. “Does Andrew know?”

  “I’m telling him tonight. After dinner.” Her whole face glowed. “Somehow, it didn’t seem like phone material.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s better to do it in person. And he seems pretty busy at work.” This was a huge understatement—I’d barely seen the man since I’d moved into his backyard bungalow.

  “Well, that’s because he has, like, a whole department of people reporting to him.” She sighed dreamily, then patted her cashmere-encased stomach. “He’s very busy and important, you know.”

  “What do you think he’ll say when you break the news?”

  “He’ll be thrilled, of course. At first I was afraid it was wedding stress making my period late, but nope, turns out I’m just incredibly fertile. We must have conceived one of the very first times we tried.”

  I squeezed her hand. “A wedding, a new house, a new baby—that’s a lot of life changes all at once.”

  “But it’s what I want.” She laughed. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you, Becks—you have to know what you want. And then, when you get it, you can really appreciate it.” Her eyes misted up as she gazed at the massive diamond weighing down her left ring finger. “This baby is the last piece of the puzzle. I have everything I’ve ever wished for.”

  Her cell phone rang, breaking her reverie. She checked the incoming call screen—“It’s Andrew. I can’t talk to him now or I’ll spill my guts and ruin the surprise”—then shut the phone off. “Now.” She grabbed my elbow and steered me back toward the paint chips. “I know you’ll do a great job planning my baby shower. I’m thinking finger sandwiches, petits fours, very country club kitsch. I’ll give you the list of people to invite—don’t you dare forget Courteney and Jennifer.”

  Aimee tagged along to the appointment at the Miriam Russo Boutique and insisted on wearing her prototype of my corset design, her argument being, “It’ll look good on a mannequin, but it looks even better on me.”

  Immodest but true.

  We hurried down Robertson together, me a bundle of nerves in what I hoped was a sufficiently stylish and professional black, V-neck wrap dress, she a head-turning sylph in azure chiffon and tight white pants.

  We paused a block away from the boutique so I could straighten my hair, reapply lipstick, and think calm, confident thoughts.

  “I’m gonna collapse,” I announced, bracing a hand on a park bench to steady myself. “When the paramedics arrive, tell them I’m blood type O negative and allergic to sulfa drugs.”

  “Chica. You must chill.” She tossed her head, whipped off her sunglasses, and checked out the driver of a passing BMW. “You’re going to be great. Miriam will love you, she’ll buy every single article of clothing you can put together, you’ll quit your job at Rhapsody, sign me as the official face of Be
cca Davis designs, and finally give in and sleep with Connor and live happily ever after.”

  I stopped fretting about corsets and sulfa drugs for a second. “I’ll what?”

  “Don’t play coy with me. There’s enough chemistry between you two to keep DuPont labs going for a year. Everybody knows it.”

  “And who, may I ask, is ‘everybody’?”

  “The entire waitstaff at Rhapsody. Even though I wanted him for myself, I forgive you. If I can’t get him, at least he’s going to someone I love.”

  I started sputtering outraged denials, but she just said, “Come on, we’re going to be late,” planted both hands on my shoulder blades, and propelled me toward the high priestess of high fashion.

  “First of all, if you’re going to work with me, you’re going to have to change your name. Rebecca Davis? Blah.” Miriam Russo crinkled her tan, freakishly small nose. Claire had warned me that Miriam had been the victim of a rhinoplasty gone horribly awry in the early nineties and I was not to call attention to it under any circumstances.

  “But that’s my name,” I said meekly, focusing on everything except Miriam’s lopsided nostrils: her platinum pageboy, the white silk wallcoverings, the bejeweled cuff bracelets displayed beneath the glass counter.

  “Well, it doesn’t work at all.” She closed her leather glasses case with a snap. “You need a name that people will remember. But we’ll get to all that in good time, if necessary. Let’s see your samples. I have another appointment in twenty minutes, so make it snappy.”

  Before I could unwrap the perfectly seamed corset I’d packed in tissue and plastic, Aimee strutted into the fray and struck a pose, complete with vampy lips and jutting hips. “Violà,” she announced, making love to a nonexistent camera. “The Becca Davis couture corset.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Miriam’s expression was that of a caffeine-deprived teenager in her fifth hour of traffic school.

  “I do lots of other things, too,” I hastened to add. “Dresses, tops, even wedding gowns. And I’m working on getting a website together, and a media portfolio…”

  She waved these details away. “How much?”

  “For the corset?”

  “Yes, Rebecca Davis. How much would you suggest I charge for one of your little…creations?”

  “Um.” I blinked. Aimee flailed wildly in the background, jabbing upward with both thumbs. “Eight—no, nine hundred?”

  “I see.” She looked profoundly unimpressed.

  “I could actually come in and do the measurements myself, if you want. I do custom fittings and alterations…”

  One eyebrow shot up over that tiny crooked nose. “You do your own sewing?”

  “Yes. Eventually, I’ll hire some seamstresses, of course, but for now—”

  “That explains why there’s no zipper.” She whipped her glasses back out of their case and put them on.

  “No zipper? You mean, on the corset?”

  “If one of my clients is going to pay nearly one thousand American dollars for a corset, she’ll rightfully expect to be able to put it on without assistance.”

  “But…” I pointed to Aimee, who turned around to display her back like the dutiful spokesmodel she was. “There’s lacing right there.”

  “Yes, but she can’t possibly lace herself up, now can she?” Miriam demanded, her hawklike gaze zooming in on the crisscrossed ribbons cinching the garment closed. “Fashion is pointless without function.”

  I wanted to argue this point (because, really, what about feather boas, stiletto heels, and those horrible jelly shoes from the eighties?), but knew that forcing a debate would only hurt my cause. So I chose my next words carefully. “But I’ve managed to try these on without help from anyone else.”

  A polite, close-lipped smile flashed across her face. “How wonderful for you. But my clients won’t be able to. They have delicate manicures, they have sore shoulders from going to the gym, and even if they manage to get it on, they’ll have a perfect bitch of a time getting it off if they’re drunk, in a hurry, or in the dark. You need to consider the needs of your clientele,” she scolded, sounding eerily like Claire.

  “So…you’re passing?” I winced as soon as the words left my mouth.

  The eyebrow went up again. “Add a zipper, give me fifty-five percent of the purchase price, and we might have a deal.”

  Aimee’s jaw dropped at “fifty-five percent,” but I had stopped listening long before that.

  “You really want me to put in a zipper? On a chiffon corset?”

  “Just tuck it in by a side seam. No one will notice.”

  “But it’ll ruin the drape of the fabric.”

  “Then fix that. You’re a designer, aren’t you?”

  “But I can’t mix lightweight silk with a heavy metal fastener like a zipper. It’ll just…well, don’t you think it’ll look odd?”

  “Listen. Rebecca.” My name sounded so horribly provincial when she said it. Listen. Billie Jean. Sammy Jo. Misty Mae.

  I studied the plush beige carpet. “Yes?”

  “I’m sure you’re a very talented young lady, but I’m running a business here and I don’t have time for stubborn artistic purists. Add a zipper and we’ll talk. Otherwise”—she tapped her fingernails on the spotless glass counter—“it was lovely to meet you, and I’ll give you a call if I ever need a piece for a costume gala.”

  And that was the end of that. I emerged from the whispery cool cocoon of elegance into the heat and the honking horns outside.

  “I am such an idiot,” I keened as the smell of smog and stale sweat smacked me in the face. “Idiot!”

  “Are you kidding me?” Aimee darted out behind me, slinging one arm around my shoulder. “That was fantastic! You stuck to your guns, you refused to give up your vision and your principles. It was so David Bowie!”

  “Yeah. Except he’s a musical genius, and I’m a hack from Arizona. A stupid hack. Even Donna Karan probably had to suck it up and defer to the Man when she was getting started.” I smote my forehead in time with my words. “Idiot! Idiot! IDIOT!”

  “Oh, who cares? There’s plenty more where she came from, and she was trying to fleece you anyway. Fifty-five percent.” She charged off toward the parking garage. “Why didn’t she just stick a gun in your face? Outrageous. Although, I have to admit, she was probably spot-on about the name change.”

  “ ‘Spot on’?” I snapped. “What, are you British now?”

  “No, I’m internationally fabulous. And don’t you get snarky with me just because Miriam Russo doesn’t have the fashion sense God gave Britney Spears’s Chihuahua.” She dug through her purse for her cigarettes and a lighter. “Anyway, think about what you want your clothing labels to say. ’Cause ‘Becca Davis’ ain’t working.”

  “At all?”

  “Sweetie. David Bowie was born David Robert Jones. You see what I’m saying here?”

  “The only thing I see is that I’m an idiot.” I started whacking my forehead again.

  “A very chic idiot who’s got a celebrity stylist to call.” She opened her car door and ushered me inside. “You’ve got customers pounding down your door. To hell with Miriam Russo. You’re about to get your big break.”

  11

  I spent the next hour nursing my rejection over a latte and an enormous slab of cake at the chichi bakery down the street from Rhapsody. After a few indelicately large mouthfuls of chocolate, life somehow seemed worth living again, and I decided to try my luck with Fiona Fitzgerald, stylist to the stars.

  “Of course I remember you!” she trilled into the phone when I introduced myself. “Or at least, I remember that fantastic bustier you made for the hostess at Rhapsody. I simply must have one for Rachelle.”

  “Okay.” I prepared to open price negotiations. “I use only the best materials and I make every piece by hand, so—”

  “Of course you do, darling—that’s what makes you so fabulous. Now. I’m at my office near the corner of Santa Monica and La Cienega. Where are you?”<
br />
  “Right now, you mean?”

  “Yes.” Her laugh was light and tinkly. “Where are you this very instant?”

  I licked a smear of chocolate frosting off my index finger. “I’m just leaving Sweet Lady Jane on Melrose, actually.”

  “Perfect! Do you have a few seconds to come by and chat?”

  Ten minutes later I was trying—and failing—to look dignified in the giant pink overstuffed chair in her office, fidgeting as I stared at the lumpy garment bags draped over every available flat surface and hoping that I didn’t have telltale traces of cake left on my cheeks.

  “I’d be delighted to whip up a corset for Rachelle,” I said, trying to keep my hands still in my lap. “What colors were you thinking?”

  Fiona, a small and wiry woman in her mid-forties with tilted green eyes, a sleek black bob, and a stack of gold bangles snaking up her right arm, said, “Given her coloring? Red. Blood red.”

  I nodded. “Maybe a black ribbon lacing up the back?”

  “I think black would be perfect. Sexy, very bold!” She got up from behind her desk and circled the perimeter of the room, coming to a halt directly in front of me. “I’ll fax her measurements over this afternoon. But that’s not why I called you here today.”

  “It isn’t?” I stared up at her, acutely aware that we still hadn’t touched on the issue of money.

  “No. I called you here today because—now this is a huge secret, can you keep a secret and sign a legally binding confidentiality agreement if asked?”

  “As long as it isn’t about Jimmy Hoffa or the grassy knoll, I’m cool.” I smiled.

  She didn’t smile back.

  “Yes, I can keep a secret.” Chastened, I turned my gaze down to the gleaming hardwood floor.

  “All right then. Rachelle is known for her glamour and her unique sense of style. She’s a red carpet icon and every girl in America wants to grow up and be just like her.” She paused for dramatic effect. “So we’re going to give them all a chance to have a little piece of her mystique. She’s starting her own fashion label.”