‘No, but I think we’re about to,’ Karen said.
Defina raised her brows and continued. ‘These two women psychiatrists would meet for lunch every week to discuss their cases and check in on each other’s mental health. Anyway, one says to the other: “I’m worried about myself. At breakfast this morning I had a little slip of the tongue in front of my husband and it’s bothering me.” The other says: “Tell me about it. Don’t be ashamed. We ought to discuss these Freudian slips. They could give you an insight to your subconscious.” So the first woman explains: “Well, I was eating breakfast and I looked over at my husband. I meant to say, “Please pass the buttered toast.” And instead, I said: “You ruined my life, you fucking bastard.’”
Their laughter filled the tea room.
Karen slept for eleven hours. The next morning, she was awakened by the rolling cart that room service brought in. Along with dozens of flowers, what looked like fifty newspapers had arrived. They were arrayed across the bed. Jeffrey was already up, and when he saw her stretch he poured her coffee, then brought her juice. Fresh-squeezed orange juice was fourteen dollars a crystal goblet-ful, but she didn’t even feel guilty. While drinking it she looked through the photos in every paper. Jeffrey read her the coverage. Stephanie’s picture, in Karen’s black dress, seemed everywhere, and when Jeffrey snapped on the television they saw that it had even made the morning news show. ‘God! It’s all great. But I hope Tangela isn’t pissed,’ Karen said. It seemed that it wasn’t only her collection but also her niece that was a big hit. Stephanie, in a terrible pun, was already being called ‘the waif of the future.’
Jeffrey read her the faxed Women’s Wear raves aloud. Then the Tribune and the New York Times arrived, and Karen had time to luxuriate in all the attention. Holly Brubach, a really smart fashion journalist, gave her a great write-up. They loved her. They all loved her! This was more than a success – it was a triumph! In fact it was moving from what the French called a succès fort to a succès fou – total madness!
Then she saw the little box at the bottom of the big newspaper page. It was just a tiny squib: NY DESIGNER DIES. She pulled the bottom of the page closer. ‘Willie Artech, well-known on Seventh Avenue, succumbed after a long battle with pneumonia. Staff announced his death in a release yesterday, but the future of his troubled fashion company remains unclear.’ That was all. Karen’s hands went cold. She remembered him, standing alone at the Oakley Awards, and put the paper down. Poor Willie. She sat there and wondered if he had died alone. Then the phone rang.
‘Don’t answer that,’ Jeffrey told her with a leer. ‘I have other plans for you.’ Karen giggled but reached across the bed to the phone.
‘Les Etats Unis pour vous,’ the operator said.
Oh God, it must be Belle. Something wrong with Arnold. Karen knew she shouldn’t have left him but what could she do? Karen clenched the phone, expecting the worst. But for once she was wrong.
‘Hi, this is Sally.’ For a moment Karen listened to the voice and didn’t have a clue as to who Sally was. Then she remembered: Harvey Kramer. Her life was moving too fast if she could forget her own adoption lawyer.
‘Hi, Sally. What’s up?’ Karen felt her heart jump in her rib cage. Sally wouldn’t call Paris if something important hadn’t happened.
‘I know how disappointed you were by Louise. I’m calling with some really good news. I have the perfect mother of the perfect baby-to-be,’ Sally said. ‘Another of our clients had two mothers on the string. One just gave birth, so they’ve released the other girl to us. She’s nineteen, in her sophomore year of college, and due in five weeks. She’s all yours.’
Karen lay there absolutely still. She could hardly believe it. She looked across the room at Jeffrey. ‘They have a baby for us,’ she told him.
‘Well, we don’t have a baby yet,’ Sally corrected. ‘We have a mother for you. With any luck at all, there’ll be a baby.’
‘Can you tell me anything about the mother?’
‘Yeah,’ Sally had said. ‘She’s Catholic. First name is Cyndi. Keep it at first names, Karen. She can’t raise a child right now, but she doesn’t believe in abortions. She’s studying accounting. A bright kid.’
‘What do we do now?’
The good news was that all of the paperwork, the medical history, the sonogram, and the other tests had already been completed. All Karen had to do was write a check to reimburse the couple who had previously paid for all this and to get on the phone with Cyndi and help her through her last month. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy establishing contact long distance from Paris, but Karen knew she could manage. And then she’d be back in New York in just a few days. There was the madness of the New York shows, but after Paris, that would be child’s play! Karen smiled. Child’s play! Soon there’d be a child to play with!
Cyndi was in Bloomington, Indiana, and Karen immediately offered to pay for her next year of school. Sally said her office would check into the legality of it, and Karen only had to wait until this evening to talk to the girl. Sally said she had explained to Cyndi that Karen and Jeffrey were on vacation, but that Cyndi shouldn’t know anything further. Karen agreed, and Sally gave her the phone number.
Karen hung up and felt as if she was almost too happy. ‘Are you glad?’ she asked Jeffrey. He smiled indulgently.
‘I am for you,’ he said. ‘I guess it will take me a little longer to be happy for me.’
‘I want you to be happy for us,’ Karen said, and reached up to kiss him. He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Oh, monsieur!’ Karen breathed.
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Karen said with surprise. ‘I didn’t remember to ask.’ Then she grinned and uttered the sentence uttered by all real mothers-to-be. ‘As long as it’s healthy.’
They both laughed, and Jeffrey insisted on ordering some celebratory champagne. ‘Let’s just not mention this baby deal to anyone yet,’ he cautioned. ‘Not till we know,’ and she agreed. They breakfasted on toast and scrambled eggs and then they showered, made love again, and fell asleep in each other’s arms. It was only a short nap, but when Karen awoke it was some time past ten. She had just enough time to get ready for her eleven o’clock meeting. More than the press, more than the congratulations of her staff, more important even than the orders that were pouring in, was the fact that, for the first time, she had been approached by European mills to design fabrics for them. She had agreed to meet them. Afterward, she and Jeffrey had a lunch date with Bill Wolper. She lay still for a minute, savoring everything. For the first time in a long while she felt perfectly happy. She’d get her baby, she had her husband, and her career was better than ever. She would have it all! She left Jeffrey sleeping in the tousled sheets, a note on her pillow telling him she’d meet him back at the hotel at one.
It was every great designer’s dream. Designing fabrics meant that she would not have to choose from other people’s designs, but could create her own. Now there would be no limitations but her own on what she could create. Brocheir, the wonderful Lyons manufacturer, wanted her, and Darquer of Calais had also left a message to call. Their recognition meant more to her than even the Oakley Award. It was like giving an artist unlimited colors to work with, when before they could only use another’s paint box. Karen was thrilled, and if Brocheir and Darquer had approached her, maybe Gandini and Taroni of Milan would follow.
But she didn’t have time to gloat, because she had to come back to the room to call Bloomington, Indiana, for the first conversation with the mother of her child-to-be. She was still trembling with the excitement of the meeting with Brocheir representatives, and her nervousness now just increased the shaking in her hands. She decided to make the call alone, without Jeffrey. He would only increase her nervousness and this was a pitch more important to her than NormCo had been.
She called the hotel operator and gave her the US number. Then she hung up and waited.
It was a long five minutes, and by the time
the phone shrilled, Karen was trembling all over. She took a deep breath. If she was Catholic by birth, she would have liked to cross herself right now. Instead, she crossed her fingers and reached for the receiver.
‘Hello,’ a voice was saying at the other end of the line. Hello?’
‘Hello,’ Karen answered back. ‘Is this Cyndi?’
‘Yes. Are you Karen?’
The connection was good, and it sounded as if Cyndi was in another room of the hotel instead of a whole ocean and half a continent away.
‘I’m glad to hear from you,’ Cyndi said. ‘You’re on vacation? It was nice of you to call.’
The girl was thanking her? She sounded like a nice kid, but she sounded scared. Karen couldn’t help but compare Cyndi’s upbeat voice to Louise’s dead one. Maybe everything had worked out for the best, Karen hoped, but the thought didn’t stop her trembling. ‘How are you feeling?’ Karen asked.
‘Oh, I’m healthy as a horse. Big as one, too. I actually lost weight the first trimester because I had morning sickness so bad. I don’t know why they call it morning sickness, anyway. I had it all day long. So, I lost twelve pounds, but now I gained all of that back, and another twenty-six to boot.’
‘What does your doctor say?’
‘He says I’m fine. But it’s sure getting hard to fold the laundry. My stomach gets in the way of everything. I had to stop wearing sneakers because I couldn’t tie them.’
‘Don’t you have anyone to help you?’ Karen could have bitten her tongue. Of course she didn’t. ‘Well, why don’t I tell you a little bit about myself, and my husband?’
‘Sure. That would be neat.’
‘We both work in the garment industry. I make women’s clothes.’
‘Oh, yeah? I used to sew in high school, but not good enough to be professional.’
She probably sews better than I do, Karen thought, but let it drop. ‘We live in New York City. You know that, right?’
‘Yeah. So did the other couple. They were from Queens. That’s New York City, right?’
Karen wouldn’t even attempt to explain how it was only a bridge and at the same time a world away from Manhattan. ‘Yes.’
‘Are there good schools there?’
Karen smiled. ‘There are some very good schools,’ she told the girl. ‘And we would be sure to send the baby to the best one we could find. We could afford private schools.’
They talked for a long time. Cyndi was sweet and very open. She talked about her boyfriend, how they had been very serious and had hoped to marry some day. When she got pregnant, he’d gotten hysterical. She had three years of college to finish and he wanted to go on to law school. He’d insisted on an abortion, but she wouldn’t do it. They’d broken up over it.
‘I was really sad at first, you know, but in the end, I think it was a good thing. I mean I found out the kind of person he really was, you know? I wouldn’t want to marry a man who couldn’t love our child.’ Karen, for a moment, thought of Jeffrey, and wondered if he would come around to loving this baby whose own father had rejected it. Men, she decided, were not just another gender, they were another species.
Cyndi went on talking. She was the first person in her family to get into college, and she was determined to graduate. Karen thought she sounded brave. She felt lucky that the girl was pregnant and was going to bear the child instead of aborting it, although Karen wasn’t sure how she could stand to do it and then give the child up.
For a moment, she wondered what the baby would come to feel: whether this unborn child would grow up with the same longing for its real mother that she, Karen, felt. But even if it did, Karen was willing to raise it.
‘This must be costing you a fortune,’ Cyndi said at last.
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Karen assured her. But perhaps the girl had had as much as she could take in their first conversation. ‘I tell you what: I’ll call you from New York next week. Is that okay?’ Cyndi agreed cheerfully. ‘In the meantime, if you have any problems, you just call Sally at Mr Kramer’s office. We’ll take good care of you,’ Karen promised.
For the first time, Cyndi’s voice choked up. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to hear that.’ She paused. ‘I just want to be sure my baby will have a good home.’
‘It will,’ Karen promised. ‘I’m sure it will.’
Karen sat back, sinking into the red banquette of Maxim’s. After her conversation with Cyndi, Karen’s trembling had finally stopped. She’d told Jeffrey all about the news, and then she’d been filled with nothing but joy. Everything had fallen into place at last, and here was the place to celebrate it. Maxim’s was a classic, a relic of the Parisian Art Nouveau period. Now it was owned by Pierre Cardin, the richest designer in the world. Everything was upholstered red as a womb, from the flocked wallpaper to the patterned carpet. For some reason no one who was anyone had dinner there, but for business lunches it was de rigueur. Needless to say, when they arrived, Bill had already secured the best corner table.
Karen knew she looked good, and men’s eyes definitely followed her across the room. Carl had gotten a lot of good word of mouth from the show, and models were flocking to his room for private consultations. But Karen had ten minutes after her phone call to Cyndi and she stopped by his room so he could give her hair some attention. Anyway, now the dim lights were kind. Plus, European men had room for women over forty. It wasn’t like New York or – God forbid – LA, where you were finished at thirty-five.
Maybe that was why European women didn’t hate their bodies the way American women did. Aside from peplums and a few other older-women-tricks-of-the-trade, French females seemed more sure of themselves the older they got. In America, most women lost their courage as they aged. Karen sometimes wondered if she would, too.
But at least right now she felt radiant and as secure and attractive as she ever had in her life. Well, why not, she asked herself? After all, her husband loved her, she was about to have a baby (even if it was by proxy), her show was the hit of the season, and – if she let him – the man sitting across the table from her was about to make her very, very rich. It hadn’t been easy but it seemed it was going to be worth it.
Bill and Jeffrey shook hands warily, but not as antagonists. Karen looked at the two of them. She sometimes wondered what the mysterious world of men was like. It seemed so territorial: you were either the head of some team, a team member, or one of those poor animals not strong enough or smart enough to maintain a territory of its own. It was all about winning or losing. She knew that Jeffrey felt like a winner, but he also must feel that he was giving up some of his turf to Wolper, the man with the monogram. And Jeffrey had never been much of a team player.
‘So, may I add my congratulations to the pile?’ Wolper asked. ‘Quite a coup, Karen. You’ve really made your mark.’
Karen made some deprecatory noise in her throat. Jeffrey beamed. The waiter came over for their order, but before Karen even looked at the menu, Wolper interrupted. ‘I’ve ordered the pâté and the special veal for you,’ Wolper told them. ‘It’s the best choice in the house. Not to be missed. And I’ve taken the liberty to begin with this Pinot Noir.’ Veal! Karen never ate it. Just the idea of the poor calves made her sick. But the great and powerful Oz had spoken. Karen didn’t know if she felt attended to or bullied. It seemed to be a familiar feeling when you were around Bill Wolper. She had to hand it to him: he always staked out his turf. She wondered how Jeffrey would take it, but he seemed amused rather than annoyed. ‘So, what’s next?’ Bill asked.
‘We’re taking the show to Milano,’ Jeffrey said. Karen turned her head to look at him. What was he talking about? Milano was finished a week ago. Were they mounting an independent show? Or was this bullshit?
Wolper simply nodded his head. ‘Risky, but if you did this in Paris you’ll get by in Milan. And it wouldn’t hurt the image. I mean, now you really are talking international. What’s your timing like?’
Karen expected Jeffrey to begin to phum
pher, to try and fake something. But Jeffrey began to rattle off dates and plans. ‘Friday we fly in. We’re meeting with Bennezotti, we have an interview with Anna Piaggi, and have the show set up for the twenty-fourth. We’re giving a dinner after the La Scala performance that night. And a big contribution to the opera.’
Wolper nodded. ‘It should make the morning edition of L’Espresso.’ Karen blinked. Had Jeffrey actually arranged all of this? Without discussing any of it with her? She looked over at Bill. ‘Well, here’s why I ask: I would like to get the contracts back from you by the end of the month.’
Jeffrey smiled. ‘We’re negotiating a few last issues. I’m sure Basil kept you in the picture.’
Wolper smiled back. ‘I don’t think there’s anything much left to quibble over,’ he said. ‘After all, I want you to be happy.’ He turned and, for the first time since the conversation started, he looked at Karen. ‘I want you to be happy,’ he said. ‘So, if we have got all of the fine print straightened out, is there anything that is stopping you from accepting?’ he asked directly.
She cleared her throat. Jeffrey had been right. The success in Paris had made them even more desirable, and for all she knew he did have a show planned for Milano.
Well, she’d made the Real Deal. She’d announced the buyout plan to her staff, and now, with Sally’s help, it looked as if she’d get her baby, but still, she hung back. She thought of Arnold in his hospital bed. Was this a deal with the devil? She might be adopted, but she was Arnold’s daughter nonetheless. The waiter came and set down three plates; the tiny slabs of pâté were frosted beautifully with a green and white dressing, all arranged with the most meticulous care. Tiny leaves of basil, small as a baby’s tears, were set in an arc along one side of the plate. It was food to feast your eyes on, but she looked up and across the table to Bill.
Despite the Real Deal, despite Cyndi and the baby waiting for her, Karen realized that there was still an obstacle. ‘There’s only one thing that’s stopping me from signing,’ she said. ‘I have a last concern.’
Fashionably Late Page 41
