Fashionably Late

by Beth Kendrick

  “Nope.” The phone started ringing. “Come on in, I’ll make us some lunch. Empty carbs—that’ll cure what ails you.”

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” I asked, nodding toward the cordless phone on the hall table.

  “No. I’m sure it’s my so-called husband, calling to shove even more bad news down my throat. ‘Sorry, angel, I lost my job.’ ‘Sorry, angel, we’re going to have to sell the house.’ ‘Guess what, angel? I found a great apartment in”—she stopped, taking a moment to suppress her gag reflex—“Van Nuys, and our baby’s going to be born into Dickensian squalor and you’ll have to get a job.’ ”

  “Did he find a new job yet?” I knew it had only been a few days, but my understanding was that executives bounced from studio to studio like tennis balls at Wimbledon.

  “Be serious. Do you know what he said the last time I made the mistake of picking up the phone? He said he’s interviewing for work as a PA.”

  “A what?”

  “A production assistant.”

  I had no idea what that was, but interviewing had to be a good thing, right? “Well, that sounds encouraging.”

  “Becca. Going from his job to a production assistant would be like Diane von Furstenberg becoming a cashier at T.J. Maxx.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know what? I can’t even discuss this without wanting to bawl my eyes out. Let’s go make a whole stack of grilled cheese sandwiches.” Our childhood comfort food. “That’s the only upside of being pregnant, poor, and saddled with a deadbeat husband: I can eat whatever I want and not have to worry about what my nonexistent personal trainer will say.”

  The phone rang again as we started down the hall. She shook her head. “He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.”

  “Are you ever going to talk to him?” I leaned against the cool granite counter while the upper half of Claire’s body disappeared into the refrigerator.

  “Let’s see…butter, bread, cheese…it’s going to have to be heart-healthy fake cheese, but you can deal with that, can’t you? And no, I’m not going to talk to him.”

  While she pulled out a frying pan and fired up the gas stove, I tried to make myself useful, rummaging through the cherry cabinets for glasses. Even the kitchen shelves looked like a photograph from a Williams-Sonoma catalog—lots of big white plates and thick-walled tumblers, all lined up and dried by hand to prevent unsightly spots.

  “But you’ll have to talk to him, eventually. What about…you know?” I glanced pointedly at her stomach.

  “What about it?” She snatched up a spatula. “It’s not like he’ll be able to support a child on a PA’s salary. Marrying him was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.” Her eyes blazed. “See? This is what happens when you fall in love. You get your hopes built up, you settle in for happily ever after, and then wham! Just when you least expect it, the bottom drops out and you end up in the gutter.”

  “Claire—”

  “I’m done with him! Done! Do you hear me?”

  “So you’re actually thinking divorce?”

  “Divorce?” She stared at me. “I wish!”

  “But you just said…”

  “How can I possibly divorce him? I’m trapped; I know I’m trapped.” She rested one hand on her belly. “I have no job, no professional skills—except slinking around in a swimsuit on the set of a beer commercial—which is not a viable career option for an aging pregnant chick who can’t afford to get her roots bleached every two weeks at Fred Segal Beauty—no money of my own, and a pile of debt the size of Mount Everest. Who’d want me now? I had one chance to find security and I backed the wrong horse. Like it or not, I’m stuck with him.”

  As if on cue, the phone started ringing again. She continued fuming without missing a beat.

  “Now I’ll have to go live in some horrible apartment and we’ll be just like everyone else. Bickering over stupid minutiae. Telling ourselves that ‘love is all we need’ and then worrying about how we’re going to afford car insurance and still cover the electric bill. Decorating our tiny bedroom with those hideous wallpaper borders and bed-in-a-bag sets from Linens ‘n’ Things and thinking it’s the height of fashion.” She looked very tired and pale, two faint creases deepening across her forehead. “You know. Turning into Mom and Dad.”

  “Okay.” I accepted the grilled cheese sandwich she offered up on a Limoges plate. “I grant you that the wallpaper border smacks slightly of quiet desperation. But the rest of it? I’m pretty sure that’s what marriage is. I know that’s what motherhood is.”

  “Pointless bickering and obsessive worrying?”

  “Remember how much you hated Mom when you were in high school? How many arguments you guys had over whether you should be allowed to wear thongs under your jeans?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “When you went to the senior prom and didn’t come home until noon the next day and Dad called the police?”

  “God, don’t remind me.” She pushed her hair back with both hands. “And they say I overdramatize things!”

  “My point is, that’s family for ya. Do you really think living in a huge house in a swanky neighborhood and driving a Mercedes will change any of that?”

  “Of course.” The creases in her forehead multiplied as she faced the prospect of motherhood without the Swiss au pair or play dates with children named Apple, Ryder, and Phinnaeus. “My child will be different.”

  “Hang on—I’m going to write this down so I can laugh my ass off in fifteen years.”

  “No, I mean…Mom and Dad have never been to Europe, they’ve never had oysters on the halfshell, they just plod through life, balancing checkbooks and clipping coupons and watching those endless Civil War documentaries together, day after mind-numbing day. Who wants to live like that?”

  “They do.” I bit into a grilled cheese, relishing the buttery goodness. “They’re happy.”

  “But I want something more out of life. That’s why I moved out here. I wanted to be one of the special ones.”

  “You are.”

  “Yeah, for about five more days. And when all this great stuff is gone, it’ll just be me and Andrew, and let me tell you something: I’m not the type to watch Civil War documentaries.”

  “Is he?”

  She paused. “I have no idea.” And then she dissolved into tears. “What are we going to do? I barely know him and now I’m destitute! And with child! I wish I were dead!”

  “Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

  She blew her nose into a starched linen napkin. “But I’ll have to get a job, and I’m qualified for nothing.”

  “You can always temp.”

  “Temping. Oh, the humanity.” She flung herself down on a hand-carved mahogany chair by the kitchen table. “The only thing that’s going to make today bearable is an enormous bottle of Ketel One—oh hell, I can’t drink anymore, can I?”

  “No, you can’t. And you can’t smoke or drive recklessly. Or ride Space Mountain at Disneyland,” I added helpfully.

  “And no sushi, no hot baths, no Crystal Light…”

  “Crystal Light?”

  “Pregnant women aren’t supposed to have aspartame.” She downed a monstrous multivitamin with her final bite of grilled cheese. “Or sorbitol, I forget which.”

  “Look who’s been doing her prenatal research.”

  “Yeah, well, just because my life’s a karmic shitstorm doesn’t mean the kid should have to suffer. Which reminds me—come with me to my first prenatal appointment on Wednesday? I’m not quite eight weeks along yet, but I have to do it now, before Andrew’s top-of-the-line health insurance runs out.”

  The phone started to ring again. There was a brief pause while voice mail picked up, after which the ringing resumed.

  “You sure there’s not somebody else you should be bringing to that appointment?” I asked.

  She smiled serenely, picked up the receiver midring, an
d slammed it back down. “Nope, nobody else.”

  14

  Monday morning marked a new low point for both Davis sisters. While Claire slogged her sushi-deprived self into the Trailblazer Temp Agency for a typing test, I devoted the day to hunting down Fiona Fitzgerald, who proved a wily adversary in the game of phone tag.

  Her assistant’s upbeat tone never wavered as she rattled off the many reasons why Fiona was unreachable: she was in a meeting. She was en route to a photo shoot. She was laid up in a full body cast and couldn’t possibly hold a phone to her ear.

  “Sorry,” she chirped. “But she’ll return your call the minute she gets back to the office.”

  “That’s what you said three hours ago,” I pointed out.

  “And I’m still saying it now.” She started cracking her gum in my ear. “She’ll call you back, I promise. I know she’s eager to speak with you.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet she is,” I muttered. “Don’t think I’ll get tired and go away—I’ve programmed this number into my speed dial.”

  “Okay! Have a great day!” She hung up with a lot more force than necessary.

  Finally, finally, after hours of relentless telestalking, my cell phone rang.

  “Darling! Hi!” Fiona sounded determinedly carefree. “I take it you saw the photos of the Body Language premiere.”

  “Yes, I did—”

  “Isn’t it exciting? Rachelle looked phenomenal. What a fantastic start to your career!”

  I nearly dropped the phone. “My career?”

  “Well, of course! We all adored the corset. We’re going to manufacture it in a whole range of colors for our debut collection. We need you to finalize a manufacturing pattern as soon as possible.”

  Who in the what now?

  “Fiona. I don’t want to be difficult or anything, but did you happen to read any of the interview quotes from the red carpet?”

  More girlish laughter. “Of course.”

  “Last week, you said I’d be credited as a designer, but Rachelle said that she made the corset all by herself.”

  “Oh, darling, you’re upset about that? That quote was taken entirely out of context!”

  Out of context? Wasn’t that the hoariest old chestnut next to “don’t call us, we’ll call you”? I wanted to believe her, truly I did, but…“Come on.”

  “No, honestly, darling. Rachelle would never…” She sighed. “You work with the media long enough, you’ll see how these things happen.”

  “I’m sure I will, but explain it to me anyway. For my own edification.”

  “I spoke with Rachelle this morning to clear the whole thing up—I was afraid you might misinterpret it. Well, turns out she did mention that one of her new design team members had whipped up the prototype for the corset, but did that idiot reporter include that in his story? No, of course not. He felt—correctly, if I may say so—that his readers want news and information about Rachelle, not her behind-the-scenes team.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I understand what you’re going through, Becca, believe me.” She adopted a soothing tone that I imagined she used with Rachelle when some ignorant peon dared to put red roses in her trailer when her contract rider plainly stipulated white orchids only. “You work hard and you want credit for your work.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “I promise you, Rachelle did mention your name. If you look at the part of the quote with ellipses and the brackets, the line that reads: ‘This corset…[is] just a little something I whipped up between takes’? Well, those ellipses mean that part of Rachelle’s sentence was cut out. And guess which part the reporter cut?”

  “The part where I was actually sewing the corset?”

  “Bingo. They wanted to break the news about the fashion line without using up too much text. So there you go.”

  Apparently, Fiona thought I was all bustier, no brain. “Uh-huh.”

  “Honestly. I wouldn’t lie to you, darling,” she vowed. “Hand to God. I can request the original interview transcript and fax it to you. It’ll take a few days, but if that’s what it’ll take to prove to you—”

  I finally relented. “No, that’s okay. I was just—”

  “Disappointed. I understand completely. But have no fear. Once we start doing line launches and runway shows, you’ll get the acknowledgment and applause you deserve.”

  I started salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs. “Runway shows?”

  “Oh yes—we’re going to start with midpriced casualwear in the major department stores, but eventually we plan to move up to evening gowns, baby clothes, even a men’s line. The sky’s the limit! We like what we’ve seen, and we’re hiring you on. You got the job! Congratulations!”

  I stopped sulking about the news story long enough to imagine myself striding down a runway behind a passel of willowy, impeccably dressed models, all of them applauding me, and the crowd beneath the catwalk going wild…Rachelle Robinson herself stepping up to give me a congratulatory hug…

  Back in the real world, Fiona was still yapping. “Drop by my office later this afternoon and we’ll sign the contract.”

  I smiled, nonexistent clapping still ringing in my ears. “Well, I can pick the contract up today, but obviously I can’t sign it until I find a lawyer to go over it with me.”

  Long pause. “You can’t?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Well, I’m leaving for Australia with Rachelle tonight and I’ll be gone for at least a week.”

  “Then I’ll have it ready for you when you get back,” I promised.

  “No, no, that won’t work. I need it signed before I go tonight. If you’re going to work on our team, we need you to start working on your patterns and sizing charts immediately so we can start choosing fabrics, hiring seamstresses, scouting out factories…”

  “But I don’t have a lawyer yet.”

  “You can read, can’t you? Either sign the contract this afternoon or we find someone else.”

  Holy split-second transformation from guppy to great white, Batman.

  “Well?” she snapped. “What’s it going to be? Do you want the job or do I call up one of the hundreds of other designers who have been begging us to look at their samples?”

  Let’s see. My options were this or Miriam Russo, Zipper Zealot. Talk about your tough calls.

  “Becca? I’m giving you ten more seconds to get on board, or I’m moving on to the next name on our list.”

  “But—”

  “Ten…nine…eight…”

  “What’s the pay?” I broke in, halfway to hyperventilation.

  “We pay you a lump sum of five hundred dollars for every pattern you turn in and a variable commission for each piece we end up manufacturing.”

  “Okay…” Think, dammit, think! “Um…”

  “Five…four…three…”

  “All right, all right!” I finally folded. “I want the job, dammit! I’ll take the job!”

  “Fantastic.” My sweet ’n’ sunny fairy godmother was back. “See you before five.”

  I pounced on Connor the second he stepped through the restaurant’s sleek glass doors that evening. “I have bad news and more bad news.”

  “Hmmm.” He pretended to consider this. “I’ll take the bad news first.”

  “Okay. The bad news is, I’m quitting my job here. The other bad news is”—I smiled hopefully—“I’m giving slightly less than two weeks’ notice?”

  “You got that job with the celebrity stylist?”

  “Yep. I’m officially in the design business!” I announced, striking a spokesmodel pose I’d picked up from Aimee. “Got the contract this afternoon!”

  “Congratulations. Didn’t I tell you everything would work out?”

  “That you did.”

  “See? Life is about risks. You can’t be afraid to take chances.”

  “You’ve taught me well, Obi Wan.” I bowed.

  “I’ll give you the name of my attorney. Give him a call
and he’ll look over the contract for you.”

  My smile dimmed a few volts. “Oh. Um. About that…”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  Don’t tell him! Don’t tell him! Don’t—“Actually, now that you mention it, I kind of already signed the papers.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “Why the hell would you do something like that? Didn’t we just talk about the importance of—”

  “Yes, but she said she’s leaving for a business trip tonight and if I didn’t sign this afternoon, she’d move on to the next desperate designer.”

  “And you fell for that?”

  I drew myself up to my full height (5′7″ in stilettos) and squared my shoulders. “Yes, I did.”

  “Becca.” He started kneading his forehead. “She was bluffing.”

  “How do you know? She really does have a trip to Australia! She’s going with Rachelle to—”

  “Trust me. She was bluffing.”

  This possibility had occurred to me, but only after I’d signed everything in ink. “Well, I didn’t want to take the chance. I need this job.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t need them as much as they need you.”

  “If only that were true.”

  “It is,” he insisted.

  “Well, either way, I wanted a design job and now I have one.” I crossed my arms. “It’s a bit of a risk, but you just said—”

  “I also said don’t sign anything without a lawyer.”

  I threw up my hands. “I guess we all said a lot of things. But the bottom line is, I’m giving notice.”

  “Fair enough.” He stopped treating his forehead like Play-Doh. “Have a glass of champagne to celebrate.”

  “Can’t. I’m on the clock, remember?”

  “I hereby give you permission to have a glass of champagne during your shift. What the hell, Aimee can have one, too.”

  “The good stuff?” Aimee, who had apparently been eavesdropping on the entire conversation, yelled over from the hostess stand.

  “Hands off the Dom,” he warned.

  “Taittinger?” she pressed.

  “Fine.” He turned back to me as Aimee started bopping toward the bar, fingers snapping. “So. Becca.”