“Just curious.”
“You shouldn’t get involved, Laura, unless you want the cops at your door again.”
“Thanks for the advice. You’d better go inside before you freeze.”
“Let me get you a cab.”
“I’m walking.” She started to make her way a few steps east.
“I’ll get my jacket.”
“Stu, I’m fine.”
“Laura—”
“Stu?”
The next thing happened so fast she lost a second of her life. Somewhere in there, he removed his hands from his pockets and put them on her cheeks. Then he kissed her, and he was soft and cool and not too wet, and his fingers were warm in her hair, and his tongue found hers before she could push him away.
“You shouldn’t do that!” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t take it back.”
“I don’t want to take it back.”
“No, no, no! Take it back.”
“Why should I?”
And she saw that he wasn’t shivering, even without a coat or an ounce of body fat on him. She couldn’t be here. It confused her. She didn’t want to love Stu, but she didn’t want to not love him, either. She was perfectly comfortable in the limbo of friendship they had built, and he had torn it down. She decided to be mad and stormed south on Broadway, her head down, her boots clopping, and her ears catching Tom’s voice telling Stu, “It’s about time.”
Laura walked home, feeling the bitter February air bite her face. She wanted to think about tomorrow. What she would wear? What she would say to Jeremy? But she could still feel Stu’s lips, and her mind kept calling up the moment as if it should be embossed there forever. Neither rage nor petty distractions could drive it away, so she brought it back to where it had been before drinks, to the murder and freeing Jeremy.
She opened her door in a haze. Why was Jeremy locked up and not Sheldon? She’d fought with both of them the day before. What had happened that Jeremy wasn’t talking about? Who or what was he protecting?
She felt like she was on the right trail when she heard voices upstairs, from the rent-controlled apartment with the view. It was Ruby and Michael, and they were fighting. She caught words like “respect” and “dress” and “love me.” There was plenty of cursing to emphasize points, mostly coming from Michael. Laura slept in the living room and wondered if Jeremy really had been on the factory floor on the night in question, but she fell asleep with the feeling of Stu on her lips.
CHAPTER 13.
Laura didn’t know what to wear. The last time she’d visited Rikers, she’d gone on a whim, expecting nothing and getting everything. This time, she had choices and knowledge, a combination incompatible with punctuality.
She chose a 1970s brown Halston maxi dress that was sure to pick up dampness and sludge at every curb, which made her compare the petty hardship of the wet skirt and the true hardship Jeremy faced. She thought it more of a symbolic gesture than a poor attempt at empathy. She was packing Carmella’s iPad and Mom’s crochet swatch when her phone rang.
“I’m downstairs,” Tinto said when she answered.
She ran down without makeup, decent hair, or coffee. Two of the three could be rectified on the way.
Tinto drove his 1987 black Lincoln Continental like a spaceship, deliberate and slow, not that he had much choice in the seven o’clock traffic on the Harlem River Drive. Laura was grateful for the easy starting and stopping. She didn’t need a mascara stick in her eye.
“Why you’re putting makeup on for Rikers is what I want to know,” Tinto said.
“Because I look like a bag of ass.”
“You don’t have to impress this guy, you know. He’s got other things on his mind.”
Tinto was right, but the force of her habits was strong, and she knew she wouldn’t perform well with Jeremy if her eyes weren’t lined.
“Isn’t there some kind of thing today? Some court thing?” she asked.
“Bail hearing. And a day late because of Sheldon Pomerantz, that prick. He practically blew the judge to keep JJ in jail an extra day. And for what?”
‘For what’ was right. That ‘for what’ must have been what Sheldon had been searching for all morning.
“Tinto, have you seen Jeremy’s contract with Gracie?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Everyone’s talking about it having some big secret in it. Like the reason he killed her is in there.” She cringed, because she had just said that Jeremy killed Gracie.
“It’s one-hundred-percent boilerplate.”
“Sheldon’s been in our office for a day and a half, you know. Poking around, going through stuff.”
“Going through what?”
Laura shrugged. She was embarrassed that she didn’t really know. “The books, I guess. I mean, he’s Gracie’s husband, so I guess he inherited them, and it’s not like we have a leader right now, and there’s a show to put on, so no one really paid attention, except for the fact that he’s been such a bossy asshole.”
“You’re in the bandshell?”
“Yeah, Friday night. Last one of the week.”
Tinto whistled as if he understood just how serious that was. The last show was the most coveted, and the bandshell proper was the best location. New York Fashion Week, which had been hungry for a home for as long as there had been runway shows, settled on the Central Park bandshell that year. The park had been covered with the largest heated tent ever constructed, which was surrounded by smaller tents for smaller shows. WWD and the CFDA called it “Fashion City,” but everyone in the business referred to it as the “Garmento Ghetto.”
“Did you tell him about the TOP?” Tinto asked.
“No.”
“And it still looks good?”
“Yeah. Hem is still perfect. Like Jeremy did it himself.” She admitted that with some rue, as Jeremy’s own facility with tailoring was keeping him locked up.
“But they’ll say he didn’t do nothing, Laura. They’ll say it was already perfect, and he never went to the factory, unless we can find a sample with a bad hem.”
“I don’t even know where to look any more,” she said.
Tinto got pensive for a good ten minutes, and she responded by shutting her mouth and looking out the window.
“The police haven’t been in the office,” Tinto said.
“Not since Tuesday.”
“I know. I was stating a fact. They got him on fibers from the zebra header, timing, and that they were mixing it up that day. They got his prints on the shredder.”
“It’s his shredder,” she said.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“You think Sheldon bought off the cops?”
“This ain’t a movie, Laura.” With an apology in his voice, he added, “It means they don’t think there’s anything there. It means they got evidence they’re working on already.”
“Well, Sheldon disagrees.”
“Maybe so. Maybe he wants to run a clothing business. His dad was a garmento, you know. Hand knit Christmas sweaters out of Hong Kong. With the bells on ‘em and shit.”
“Gross.”
Tinto darkened. “His company employed seventy people in New York and God knows how many in Kowloon, and he gave his kids a chance for a good life. They’re still open, as a matter of fact, so people somewhere still wear them. And JJ’s parents made school uniforms and ten-dollar Quiana blouses out of that factory on 40th. He got lucky. Not everyone gets to be so fancy.”
“I’d rather work at McDonald’s.”
“You might, very soon. So that attitude can come down a notch.”
She considered apologizing, but nursed hurt feelings instead, fingering her striped scarf, feeling the scratchy Tollridge & Cherry label. Ruby had pulled it off a rack one day when Laura found herself unprepared for a December night, and she had kept it because it was useful. Stuff like that happened all the time. Some garmento loaned out some emergency sample to a friend, a
nd the friend said, “When do you want this back?” The garmento waved their hand, and said something like, “It’s a reject,” or “It delivered already,” and the friend wore the sample until they found it in their closet years later and wondered where it came from.
Unless you worked at a ready-to-wear house like Jeremy’s, in which case you always got your sample back. Always. Because the company paid for samples, and likely the lining cost fifty a yard. So you didn’t just slip that on a friend’s shoulders on the way to a club. And if you did, you kept your friend away from lit cigarettes and fruity drinks, because you spent the night panicking.
She wondered if she was going to have to get a job at T&C as a technical designer. How would she manage the compromises? How would she move from deadlines for a runway show in Central Park’s bandshell to twenty-four catalogs per year? How would she perfect the fit by emails to China? And Pakistan? And Turkey? If she couldn’t sit at a machine and sew it herself to see if it worked, then how could she do her job?
She felt her luck as keenly at the same time as she felt the sting of Tinto’s reprimand, which was uncalled for. And correct. But annoying.
As if he could see the scribbled cloud of annoyance over her head, Tinto said, “Jeremy’s been talking about opening a lower-priced thing, so just get your head outta the clouds. Okay?”
“What kind of lower-priced?” she asked, trying to sound chipper.
“Lower. Low enough so the company can make some money.”
“Is he doing a line for Target or H&M or something?”
“Not like that.”
“Like what, then?”
“You find the time to ask him this morning, and you’ll know,” he said as they crossed the bridge to Rikers Island, “but you won’t find time.”
“Did André have to rush through his conversation yesterday?” She was honestly piqued, even though André outranked her by four or five promotional stratum.
“I wasn’t there yesterday, so I wouldn’t know.”
They pulled past the first guard station.
Jeremy looked like hell. It was alarming what had happened in the past two days. A tempered-glass sheen glazed his eyes. His forehead reddened under sallow cheeks. He looked like a wax statue of himself and, when he spoke, he over-punctuated with coughs and wheezes.
“What happened?” Laura exclaimed.
He waved her off. “Show me the fitting.”
While she retrieved the iPad, Tinto broke in, “You have five minutes, JJ. We have a hearing to prepare for.”
“That’s what I’m paying you for,” Jeremy whispered, eyes on the photos as they came up.
Laura scrolled. Jeremy’s eyes flicked. He said nothing. She watched him, and the more she did, the worse he looked.
“Did they send you to a doctor?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Do they even know you’re sick? Jeremy, please, what’s going on?”
“Laura,” he said tersely enough to start a coughing fit. In the middle of it, she saw the rage in his face that he was wasting his time coughing when he should be working. Laura felt guilty for stressing him out with her concern. He slapped his hand on the desk, as if demanding immediate quiet from his lungs, and oddly, his lungs obeyed.
“Focus,” he whispered, looking her in the eyes. “Let me see the Amanda.”
She flipped to it, her eyes averted. She couldn’t look at him. She’d rather look at Noë, whose smile lit up the top of the photo, where she was cut off at the nose. Jeremy made finger motions for back, forth, forth, back, back.
“Okay, let me see the rest,” he said. She flipped through the rest of the fitting. She saw his reactions, but couldn’t see what he was looking at. Then, he nodded and drew a line across his throat with his finger. She was done.
He had a stubby pencil and a legal pad she hadn’t noticed, and he used them to make notes. “What is Carmella doing?” he asked, while scribbling.
“She was there.”
“Is she focused?”
“Seventy percent. She needs you.”
“Keep an eye on her for me.” As if the effort of talking had loosened something vital, he coughed a huge, wet cough. She shifted in her seat. He scratched the top of his head, which was flaking and red under a thinning spot she had never noticed before.
Didn’t he know he was supposed to be perfect? No, not perfect, but the imperfections were meant to be charming and delightful, not like this. Not phlegm and skin flakes and rashes and rheumy eyes, his flaws should be more like his front left tooth, which overlapped the right one ever so slightly, but was perfectly white and straight otherwise, like the rest of them. They should complement the perfection, like the way he moved and walked, like he was propelled on his own jetstream. Not like this. Not like moving was painful. Not with the throat-clearing tics and skin scratching.
“André wanted something out of the closet,” she said, and he stopped sketching for a beat, then resumed. “I know you said not to give anyone anything out of there without you saying so.”
“Give him whatever he wants.” And that was that. She was made subservient to André’s whims in five words.
“And he wants the matte jersey group reinstated for Federated.”
“Give it to Tony.”
Four words and André got more power over the patternmaking department. She didn’t even want to ask about the Delphi green twill, or it would take Jeremy three words to make André the CEO.
When he had filled two legal-sized pages with writing and sketching, he slipped the paper under the glass.
“Thank you,” Tinto said to her before he turned to Jeremy. “Let’s get you out of here.” Tinto handed Laura the yellow paper without looking at it. “You need a Metro card?”
She realized she wasn’t getting a lift back. That was fine, she needed to ride home in silence. “No, I’m good.”
“You don’t talk to nobody about him being sick, you hear?”
She looked at Jeremy, who was hunched behind the little counter, the glass between them adding to the yellow tint of his skin.
“Yeah,” she whispered and turned away. She heard a knock on the window behind her. Jeremy had his palm up against the glass. His eyes beckoned through the illness. She stepped toward him, waiting for him to speak, but his lips pressed together, and she knew he was speaking to her with his hand, whitened against the glass, lines darkened like a palm-reader’s dream.
She thought for a moment, hoping she wasn’t misunderstanding him, and then put her fingertips against his, pressing her palm to the warm part of the partition.
He mouthed the words, “Thank you,” and she reluctantly moved her hand, walking away without so much as a “You’re welcome.” It would have seemed insufficient.
CHAPTER 14.
Laura didn’t read Jeremy’s notes until she settled on the downtown train. They were detailed instructions on how to correct the fits and style the models. He trusted her to make sure pants were comfortable in the crotch, but when it came to their length and concept, he was the master. He removed pockets, added belt loops, lengthened hems, and had her turn collars up or down for the show. He reminded her to make sure a jacket was open so the photographers could see the buttons on the shirt. He sketched shapes and made diagrams—“More tail on the shirttail.” He made big declarations—“Skirts must be six inches above the knee or eight inches below. No more, no less”—and lastly, in a scribble that illustrated massive fatigue, one note on the Amanda. “Crochet approved. Bare to skin at back—approved.”
She basked in that warm nugget of validation until the train stopped at 49th street. There was an announcement as the doors closed. A female conductor apologized for the inconvenience and made an explanation that the speakers garbled. Or it was in a foreign tongue. A few passengers lunged for the doors, holding them open with umbrellas and bags, using all their strength to keep the doors open wide enough to get out. Others stared at each other, asking into the air, “What did she say?” M
ore got out on faith; even more stayed for the same reason. Laura was too comfortable to budge, wondering how Jeremy, who loved his business more than life itself, who could never compromise, who worked so hard he made himself sick about four times a year, could have killed the one woman capable of keeping the company afloat. More importantly, how could the police think that? What piece of evidence did they have that she couldn’t see? It couldn’t be a missing TOP sample. Or was it just an ignorance of who he was and what made him tick? There was too much she didn’t know, and it frustrated her. The show took up too much time, time she could be using to help Jeremy.
The train slowed by 42nd, but didn’t stop. By the time they got to 34th street, the passengers didn’t expect to stop, just going back to their papers, or gritting their teeth and mumbling with their faces pressed against the windows that looked into the blackness of the tunnel. Finally, at Union Station, the train stopped, and the doors snapped open. Laura got out with the angry flow and started her walk uptown.
The crowds got thicker as she traveled up Lexington. Sawhorses blocked traffic, and pedestrians were relegated to the sidewalks, further snarling movement. It felt like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, which she had never braved. Helicopters gurgled overhead, and news vans lined up in loading zones. Akiko Kamichura stood in the middle of the street with a Liz Claiborne scarf and a microphone shaped like a baguette, sweeping her hand over the crowd, which roared when they became the subject of the newscast. A big red Mercedes convertible with the top closed drove behind the hearse. Laura craned her neck to see who got first billing and, naturally, Sheldon sat behind the wheel, obviously not too sad to drive. She wanted to look for a tissue, or a hanky, or someone else in the car patting his back, but she was pushed three feet and lost sight of him.
Men and woman in winter wear jostled, pushed, and pinned Laura with their bags, coats, and boots. There were no chants, posters, or placards, just a disorganized mess of bodies with no direction, creating chaos with their presence in one place at the same time. The gates and the blocked street of Gramercy Park ahead clued her in to the fact that she stood in the middle of the culture jam, the theory of which was simple. Stop the culture from working. Subvert it. Apprehend it. Gather together, legally, in one place, in such a way as to prevent the machine from churning out the news story it expects. Turn an inconvenience over a rich woman’s funeral into an event where the rich woman is no longer the story. The massive, chaotic, traffic-stopping presence of the non-rich becomes the news.
Dead is the New Black Page 9
