The Paris Seamstress

by Natasha Lester

  He nodded. “Once I decided to take it, I did. But Liss was right, it took me about a week to accept because I was terrified of screwing it up. Then once I’d agreed to do it, that all fell away. Jean Schlumberger has always been an inspiration to me and to be able to see all of his work in the archives and be a Tiffany designer like he was is pretty incredible.”

  “The Tiffany Head of Design, no less,” she said, smiling at the way he’d described himself, as if he was just one of many designers. “Does jewelry design work like fashion design? You start with a sketch and go from there?”

  He nodded. “I think it’s probably much the same. You have an idea of a theme for a collection, you sketch out the pieces, get them made up, some of them work, some of them don’t, and after lots of trial and error, you have a collection.”

  “So simple,” she teased.

  “Do you sketch as well? Fashion, I mean.” He signaled to the waiter for more espresso for both of them.

  “I do. My father taught me. He was so talented, was supposed to take over the business from my grandmother. He’d been immersed in fashion design since he was a boy and he had such a feel for it.”

  “What happened?” asked Will.

  “He fell in love,” she said, telling the story that everyone swooned over when her father used to relate it. “He went to Australia for a summer holiday, for inspiration. He’d designed just one collection for Stella and it was a sensation. An iconic fashion moment. The press said he had the potential to be even better than Estella. But in Australia he met my mother at a party. She was an oncologist and she’d just set up a clinic specializing in women’s cancers. Of course she couldn’t up and leave and go to New York, not when women’s lives depended on her. So my father gave up everything for her instead. Back then there was no internet, no way to work overseas. So his are the shoes I’d have to fill, the lost potential I’d always feel I had to compensate for. It seemed easier not to try, I guess.”

  “It was a big move for your father.”

  Fabienne tried not to read anything into his words, tried not to ascribe to him any particular thoughts on the trickeries of long-distance relationships and the inevitable sacrifices that were involved. “He always said it wasn’t love if you wouldn’t give up everything for the other. Otherwise it was just a flame, not worth the candle it was lit upon.” And every time he said that, he’d look at my grandmother and she would turn away and her eyes would be full of tears and I would think it was because he’d moved so far away from her but now I’m not so sure, Fabienne thought but didn’t say.

  “Your father was very poetic.”

  “And an utter romantic. I miss him.” The words fell out before she could stop them, her voice wavering a little as she spoke.

  “Did something happen to him?” Will asked, reaching out for her hand.

  “He died last month. A stroke. Nothing’s been quite the same since.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said and she knew that he did, that nothing in his life would have been the same since his sister had been told she was dying. The prospect of death changed everything, made all the ordinary rules of restraint and politeness fall away, made beautiful moments into precious keepsakes, made the future, once taken for granted, seem extraordinary.

  Church bells sang through the morning, ringing in the hour, and Fabienne realized she’d been so engrossed in their conversation that time had flown by, that she hadn’t once looked around the café at the beautiful Parisians sipping coffee or taken in the hipper-than-hip decor. Will Ogilvie had arrested her full attention.

  “I have to go,” she said reluctantly. She searched through her handbag and extracted a card. “You have my phone number but here’s my e-mail address too. New York and Sydney aren’t that far away via e-mail,” she added lightly, as if the distance was a paltry thing, wanting to emphasize that she didn’t expect grand gestures like her father’s, which belonged to a less prudent past.

  “And here’s mine.” Will passed her a card. “I’m glad you bumped into me twice,” he said, smiling as he stood up.

  “Technically, I only bumped into you once. The second time I said excuse me before I pushed past you.” Light and easy, thought Fabienne. They were doing such a good job of light and easy. Until they reached the footpath and a cab pulled over then he put her suitcase in the trunk and she said, “I think I have to kiss you again before I go.”

  She stepped into his arms, lips brushing his. How was it possible for a kiss to be so heady, for the hard muscles of his back to feel so good beneath her hands, for the press of his body against hers to feel like something she could lose herself in forever?

  “Fabienne,” Will murmured eventually. “We need to stop otherwise I will do everything I can to persuade you to stay here for one more night and then you’ll miss your plane.”

  The way he looked at her was more than enough to convey exactly how he’d like to spend that one more night. She moved back reluctantly. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t stay. She had a six-hour layover in Manhattan, which she needed to use to ask her grandmother some questions, and then she was on the last possible flight to Sydney in order to start her new job on time.

  “Thanks for a perfect weekend,” she said and then she climbed into the taxi and closed the door before temptation won out over sense.

  On the way to the airport, she saw that he’d sent her a friend request on Facebook, which she accepted. She spent the next ten minutes scrolling through his profile and looking at all the pictures of him, of which there weren’t enough. Then she received a text from Melissa, which read: Will’s just arrived back looking like the cat who ate the canary. I take it you two have been getting along. I’m glad. He hasn’t smiled like that in a long time. I’ve stolen your number from him so we can keep in touch. I hope you don’t mind. x

  Fabienne texted back: I don’t mind at all. I’d love to keep in touch. So glad I met you both. x

  And then one from Will: I miss you already.

  So do I, she texted straight back. So do I.

  For once, the plane was on time and as soon as she’d landed in New York and cleared customs, Fabienne took a taxi to her grandmother’s house in Gramercy Park. She unlocked the door and let herself in, listening. No movement, no sound; her grandmother must be in bed.

  She hurried upstairs and found the nurse propping Mamie up onto the pillows. Fabienne kissed Estella’s cheeks, the thinness of the skin like a translucent gauze crumpled into folds, not able to withstand the everyday wear and tear of living for much longer.

  You can’t die too, Fabienne suddenly thought, for the first time genuinely shocked by Mamie’s fragility. Of course she knew her grandmother was old, that she was ninety-seven, couldn’t walk, had to go everywhere in a wheelchair, rarely left the house except if Fabienne or the nurse pushed her awkwardly over the gravel paths in Gramercy Park. But she suddenly seemed finite, whereas Fabienne had always thought of her as immortal. Perhaps that meant she shouldn’t ask, that she should let her grandmother keep whatever secret her father’s birth certificate implied. But Fabienne knew she couldn’t do that. With the death of Xander, Fabienne’s father, Estella had become the last thread connecting the past and the present and if Fabienne didn’t ask now, she knew she never would.

  “Paris seems to have agreed with you,” Estella said, eyeing Fabienne in a way that made her blush. “What happened there to make you look like that?”

  Fabienne picked up her grandmother’s curled hand, smoothing out the fingers, tracing over the veins that ridged the skin like skeins of purple wool. “I met someone,” she said.

  Estella lifted Fabienne’s chin and her gaze took in the smile Fabienne was unable to hide, the flush of red on her cheeks, the way her eyes tried to duck and dodge Mamie’s stare. “He must be quite someone,” Estella said.

  “He was,” Fabienne said. “He really was.”

  “Was? Or is?”

  “He lives in New York. Ours is destined to be no more than a
n e-mail correspondence, or a series of flirtatious text messages.”

  Estella cackled. “Ahh, the text message. I wonder how I ever survived or loved without it? But surely you can see him again?”

  “In a year’s time when I’m back in New York? It’s not the way to have a relationship. Besides, we didn’t really talk about it.”

  “Young people never talk about what matters,” Estella scolded. “Everyone’s too busy protecting their own hearts to do what’s best for them. I sometimes think you all need to go back seventy years and see how we used to get along when we had no other way to communicate besides speaking to one another. To a time when courage was saved for things that mattered, rather than simply being open about your feelings. It might do you all a world of good.”

  Perhaps it would, thought Fabienne. And so she opened her purse and unfolded her father’s birth certificate, then held it out to Estella.

  “What is it?” Estella asked, reaching for her glasses and peering at the paper.

  Fabienne’s finger pointed to the words. Estella Bissette was not named as Xander’s mother. And Fabienne’s grandfather was not named as Xander’s father.

  “Who are Alex Montrose and Lena Thaw?”

  Part Three

  Estella

  Chapter Ten

  December 1940

  Estella knocked on Sam’s door half an hour after fleeing the club. “It’s Estella,” she called.

  She heard movement inside and the door opened. Sam, in his striped pajama pants, rubbed a hand across his eyes. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he yawned.

  “Do I need an excuse to visit my friend?” she replied, trying for glib but falling several feet short. She pushed past him before he could see her face. But he obviously heard her tone.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I…” she began, but faltered, stopping by his dresser, back turned to him.

  She heard him sit down on the edge of the bed and put on his pajama shirt. Then he patted the space next to him. “Come here,” he said.

  Estella sank onto the bed beside him and he slipped his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against him, eyes fixed wide open as if that would stop the stupid tears from falling.

  Sam reached behind him. “Lucky Strike?”

  Estella nodded and he took two out of the pack, put them in his mouth, lit them and passed one to her. She inhaled deeply then exhaled blue smoke into the gray light of the apartment.

  “What time is it?” he asked, collapsing back onto the bed and closing his eyes. “I need to lie down.”

  Estella couldn’t help laughing. “I love that you’re the only man I can trust to say that to me with no expectations.”

  He laughed too. “I never have expectations of you, Estella. You always shatter them.” He wriggled back up onto the bed so his head was on the pillow.

  Estella scooted up the bed, leaning her back against the wall. “I went to a jazz club. I met a man…”

  “Did he hurt you?” Sam raised himself up as if he might leap out into the night and track down any assailant of Estella’s.

  Estella took a long drag on her cigarette. “He didn’t hurt me. Not physically. But he was with a woman who looked just like me.” She shook her head. “That’s an understatement. She was me, Sam. Exactly. Not just a close resemblance, or similar hair. It was like looking in the mirror and watching myself step out of the glass.”

  Sam whistled. “But how? Why does nothing normal ever happen when you’re around?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Come here,” Sam said and Estella curled in beside her friend, his arm resting chastely around her. “You look as if all the ghosts of Manhattan had escaped their graves and come chasing after you. Even in the middle of the ocean with a German submarine minutes away from torpedoing us, I’ve never seen you scared before.”

  “I’m not scared. I’m terrified.”

  He didn’t offer any platitudes, thankfully. Estella couldn’t have borne them. He just held her, not asking any more and she was glad he knew that she didn’t want to talk about it and also that she didn’t want to be alone. Glad that he didn’t try to persuade her that she’d imagined everything because that would have meant remembering the woman aloud; running over every contour of the woman’s face in her head was bad enough without putting her too-similar features into words.

  Eventually, even though she knew he’d been trying to fight it for more than an hour for her sake in case she changed her mind and needed him to listen, he fell asleep. But Estella didn’t. She sat on the bed in the green dress she’d made for a rendezvous that had turned into the worst kind of catastrophe, Alex’s face and the woman’s face a stubborn chimera before her.

  She was up at dawn, trying noiselessly to escape when she heard Sam’s voice. “Quick getaway?”

  She smiled ruefully. “I obviously haven’t had enough practice at sneaking out of men’s apartments. After rudely waking you last night, I wanted to let you sleep. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Sam sat up, his blond hair a disordered mess, his face soft as a child’s from sleep, his eyes fixed on her. “Are you going to find out who she is?”

  This time, Estella had an answer. “No. I’m going to get my sewing machine, bring it here and spend the day working. I’ll have sketches ready for you to cut tonight. If…” She paused. “If you’re still willing to help.”

  “Of course I am. But do you think it’s the right thing to do?”

  She knew he meant about the woman, not about working on the designs. But she pretended to misunderstand him. “It’s the only thing to do,” she said.

  With her sewing machine and sketchpad, Estella returned to Sam’s apartment and drew clothes that were less about fuss and frippery and more about ease; easy to put on, easy to move around in, easy to care for. Clothes that had style, clothes that understood exactly what a girl might get up to when wearing them.

  She started with the bathing suit, drawing it properly. It was a suit to swim in, rather than just splash about in, the white shirt style of the bodice making it look almost too chic to be confined to a swimming pool. Then onto clothes meant for work. Each design carried just a single embellishment in the form of a flower: a thin spray of pink blossoms softening the dark collar of a suit, a white silk lily just visible on a white cotton shirt, a gold rose pinned to the shoulder of a black evening dress.

  At the end of the day, she leaned back and surveyed the desk. Most of them she probably wouldn’t be able to use but, out of experimenting, of following where her pencil took her, she had some designs that she thought might work.

  The next thing she needed to do was to visit the fabric manufacturers; she had to find a jersey in black and one in silvery-gray, the colors of the water the ship had sat upon when facing down the German U-boat as the light shifted from night to dawn. Tomorrow she’d go back to the Garment District and visit every fabric manufacturer until she found one who could do what she wanted. White cotton would be easy but the silvery-gray less so. Plus, she wanted two other colors: a deep green that wasn’t too bold for work but that could also take a woman out to a bar or a dinner after work, and a pale gold, like the triumphant dawn they’d sailed into after the Germans had let them go, a color that might make a woman feel confident, unique. A color that would set the wearer apart, but which would still make her feel as if she belonged.

  She was thinking this as she stepped out onto West 23rd Street in the early evening, intending to return to the Barbizon. Someone stepped in beside her and she knew, without looking, who it was. A man with hair as black as her own, and dark eyes to match.

  Her mind raced; she could keep walking but Alex would, no doubt, stick fast. She could run, but where would that get her? It wasn’t as if she could run away from the vision scored in her mind of the woman from Jimmy Ryan’s. Every time he turned up, her life fragmented like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, re-forming into something that looked similar on the surface but
hurt so much more.

  “I have no interest in talking to you,” she snapped. It was impossible to tell if her words bothered him; he wore the same inscrutable expression she remembered from Paris.

  “Don’t you want to know who she is? Who you are?” he asked.

  “Clearly not as much as you do,” she said. “Did she send you here?”

  “No.”

  “Then what business is it of yours?”

  His expression hardened and she thought he was probably not a man to get on the wrong side of but she was so angry she couldn’t help being blunt.

  “Look,” he said, “the house you took me to in the Marais belongs to a Jeanne Bissette. I had to check after we met in Paris to make sure all our tracks were covered. Is she any relation of yours?”

  Estella stiffened. There was no possible way her mother could own that house. Her mother earned a seamstress’s wage, had no money to speak of, couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a once-noble home. “You’re mistaken. It’s an abandoned house, like so many in the Marais. Nobody owns it.”

  “No. You’re mistaken.”

  His voice was flat, unemotional, stating a fact as plain for all to see as the snarls of pedestrians around them. Why was he lying to her? How the hell had she gotten mixed up with him? And what was she mixed up in?

  “Meet Lena. Tomorrow night.”

  Lena. So that was her name. “No.”

  “I’ll keep turning up like this if you don’t.”

  “Goddammit! How would you feel if it had been you?” Estella bit her lip, clamped her mouth shut, not wanting those words said, words that made her vulnerable because they showed just how agitated she was by the events of the night before. Her entire life had shifted out from under her and now she stood dangling over the void of everything she’d ever believed about herself. First the revelation that Estella had an American father and had been born in New York. Now the preposterous idea that her mother owned the house in the Marais? And a woman who looked like Estella was here in Manhattan.