The Paris Seamstress

by Natasha Lester

  The artists soon discovered this too as I sat for them for hours and earned one whole dollar for doing nothing more than posing in a chair and having my image preserved in oil or watercolor or charcoal. Of course they soon wanted to know what I looked like unclothed and, as we needed the money, I acquiesced. As much as my mother denied it, the results are there for all to see in Church’s and Beckwith’s portraits of me.

  Then there was modeling—is there a product that I haven’t lent my face to? Toothpaste. Cold cream. Even becoming a Gibson Girl was nothing, a way to earn money, a way to grift some more, a way to keep Mama in the manner to which she wanted to be accustomed.

  It wasn’t until the theater called that things began to happen. Although I suppose many of you would think I was so corrupted by then that what came after could only be called my just deserts. But I was still an innocent then. Until John. And Stanford. And Harry.

  Fabienne looked up from the page more confused than ever. Who was Evelyn Nesbit and what the hell did she have to do with anything? She switched on her iPad and typed the name into Google, where she found a story of, as Evelyn’s memoir suggested, murder, rape, abuse, lunacy—a gothic story that had more in common with a penny dreadful than the questions she had asked of her grandmother. Then she typed in the name Lena Thaw and found only the briefest of mentions in Harry Thaw’s Wikipedia entry.

  “Excellent,” Fabienne muttered as she read. “The person named on my father’s birth certificate was the ward of a lunatic murderer.”

  Then she tried Alex Montrose. Nothing besides the same description she’d read at the exhibition, which she read properly now, having been too stunned at the time to finish it properly. She gleaned only that Alex Montrose had originally worked for MI6 but had become a liaison between that division and MI9 when the former began to feel that the latter’s activities might encroach on its remit. He’d worked mainly with the escape lines set up across France to spirit Allied forces, especially escaped prisoners of war and airmen who’d crash landed, back to England to reinforce the numbers of the undermanned RAF and army. He’d ensured that the escape lines were staffed with loyal helpers, organized money and supplies for all the passeurs and couriers on the lines, interviewed those who successfully got away and gathered intelligence information from them.

  Fabienne’s fingers twitched over the keyboard. Lena Thaw, she typed, and Alex Montrose. Nothing. Then: Estella Bissette and Alex Montrose. Almost nothing. Just a blurred picture at an American Fashion Critics’ Awards night in 1943 showing them standing in a circle of people. That they’d chatted at a party gave her no good reason why his name should be on her father’s birth certificate.

  So she rang her mother, despite being almost certain she’d be no help. Her mother lived in a world peopled by her patients, not her family, even though she was seventy and could have given up working a long time ago. Fabienne had been a terrible accident; her parents had decided never to have children because they needed only one another. Her father had long since forgiven Fabienne for her sudden appearance into the world but Fabienne wasn’t sure her mother ever had.

  It took some time for the receptionist to locate her mother. Once she was on the line, Fabienne casually mentioned that she’d found some papers when she’d packed up her father’s things, his birth certificate among them.

  Her mother didn’t react. She just said, tiredly, “Keep them if you want.”

  “Do you want them?” Fabienne asked.

  “Your father is in my heart. I don’t need papers to remember him by.”

  Which implied that Fabienne shouldn’t either. In the great battle of who Xander loved more, Fabienne’s mother needed always to win. Fabienne was usually happy to let her. “How are you?” Fabienne asked.

  “As good as I’ll ever be without your father around. Some days I think I should just take enough morphine to finish me off.”

  “Don’t say that,” Fabienne said sharply. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow after work.”

  “Not tomorrow. You look too much like him. It hurts to see you.”

  Fabienne hung up the phone.

  Was that really love, she wondered, not for the first time? The wish only to die when the other did because living became unbearable? Her grandmother had soldiered on for seventeen years after Fabienne’s grandfather died. Did that mean she didn’t love him? Or that she’d found a way to survive without him?

  Fabienne sighed. So many questions. More riddles than answers. When she spoke to her grandmother on the weekend, she’d ask for more of the story.

  Restless, she stood up and tried to tuck the book onto her shelf. There wasn’t room. She pulled out the nearest stack of books and realized they were her old sketchpads, things she hadn’t looked at for so long.

  She sat on the floor, back leaning against the wall, and opened the cover of the first one, cringing when she saw the crude sketch of a dress marked out in pencil, blemished by the heavy-handed mark of an eraser. On the next page was a sketch she’d watercolored like Estella had taught her, more detailed, adequate, she supposed, but lacking any true flair. It was followed by drawings of figures with legs too short and faces too small, the unequal proportions ruining any dress she’d attempted to place on them. Once she’d finished criticizing every sketch in the first book, she opened the second, where the bodies were at last in proportion and she’d done away with heads as being irrelevant to the clothes anyhow. And then the third, where she was surprised by her own evolution as a sketcher, able to see how much she’d changed her ideas, her style, and even her ability, especially by the fourth book. One or two she even liked.

  She jumped when her phone rang and snatched it up when she saw Will’s name on the screen. “Hi there,” she said, as the same uninhibited smile spread across her face the way it did every time she even thought of him.

  “Hi there yourself,” he said, smiling back.

  “Where are you today?” she asked, noting the background wasn’t the same as yesterday.

  “Running late for work,” he said. “I’m still at home even though it’s already eight in the morning. Liss had a rough night and I was up with her so I overslept.”

  “Is she all right?”

  The smile disappeared. “She’s asleep now. Which is good.”

  “I didn’t realize you lived with her.”

  “She’s always had our parents’ apartment. I have a place down in SoHo but I moved back in here this year to keep an eye on her.”

  When Melissa was told she was terminal. Fabienne heard the subtext and wished she could reach out and coax a gentle smile back onto his face, tell him that everything would be all right. But it wouldn’t be. Her mother’s work meant that she knew exactly what would happen to Melissa. That it would be painful and torturous for both the Ogilvies.

  “The doctor told her yesterday that the tumor in her brain has grown.” That it’s near the end. Again Fabienne heard the words he couldn’t say.

  “Please give her my love,” Fabienne said. “I have nothing else of any use, although that’s probably useless too.”

  “She said you’d e-mailed her. It made her happy. So thank you. Anything that makes her happy is great.” His hand rubbed his jaw in a gesture she was beginning to see was characteristic. “I’m being maudlin so let’s talk about something else. What’s all that stuff?” he asked, pointing at the books on Fabienne’s lap.

  “My old sketchbooks,” she said, blushing a little at being caught in the past. “I haven’t looked at them in years. They’re as bad as I remember them,” she said, smiling a little, wanting to mock her futile introspection.

  “You should see my early sketchbooks. Full of garbage. But I always found that the only way to unearth the good stuff was to get all the garbage out first. I bet they’re better than you think they are.”

  “Maybe,” Fabienne shrugged, eager to shift the conversation. “Will you still take Melissa away at the end of the month?”

  “If I book it, then there’s hope
,” he said simply. “We’re going to Hawaii. She needs sun and fresh air.”

  “Hawaii,” Fabienne breathed. “That sounds great. I’ve never been.”

  “Melissa caught me checking out how long it takes to fly from Sydney to Hawaii,” he said casually. “Apparently it’s about nine hours. Doable for a weekend if you just take a day off.”

  “Are you asking me to come?” Fabienne asked incredulously.

  “I am.” He stood up and talked quickly as he paced. “I’ll let you know where Liss and I are staying and you can stay at the same hotel if you want to but if you think you’d like some space, you don’t have to. I always get Liss one of the best rooms because, you know, she might as well take the luxuries while she can and I just make sure I’m nearby on the same floor in case she needs me. But you can be anywhere you like; it’s totally up to you.”

  Fabienne laughed. It was the first time she’d ever seen him flustered and God he was gorgeous. “I wonder if Hawaii would be more fun if I shared a room with someone?” she mused. “Since I haven’t been there before, it might be nice to have someone very close by to show me around.” She stopped speaking because he’d stopped walking and the way he was looking at her made her flush again, a flush that spread from the ache in her stomach, right through to her fingertips.

  “Are you serious?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “If you want to.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve dreamed of you every night since Paris. Sharing a room with you in Hawaii would be…” He flashed a grin like the one that had been on her own face when she proposed the idea. “Something I can’t wait for.”

  She suppressed an overwhelming urge to squeal. “It’s only a month away. I’m sure it’ll fly by.”

  “God I hope it does,” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Needless to say, Estella was delighted when Fabienne telephoned and told her she was going to Hawaii to meet Will. And she didn’t mince words. “Good,” Estella said. “Young people are so arrogant about time. You seem to think there’s an infinite amount, an excess, that age will never come for you. It will. And you also think that love…” She stopped abruptly.

  “What?” Fabienne asked.

  There was a long pause. Fabienne almost asked again, but then she heard Estella sigh.

  “You think that love is an emotion created and sold in movies,” Estella said. “It’s not. It’s the most real thing of all. And it deserves more reverence than it gets. You have all the freedom in the world to love these days but nobody seems to grasp that. Generations past would shake their heads at you, not taking advantage of the things they couldn’t. Loving can hurt spectacularly, but it can also heal. So I hope you’re sharing a room with him.”

  “Mamie!”

  Estella laughed and Fabienne couldn’t help laughing too. How many ninety-seven-year-old women would say that to their granddaughters?

  “I had the nurse find me a picture of him on the internet,” Estella said and Fabienne knew her eyes were twinkling with mischief. “He’s very handsome. I certainly wouldn’t book my own room if I was going to Hawaii with him.”

  “Okay, I’m sharing his room. That’s enough about me and Will.” Fabienne paused, not wanting to spoil the moment, but knowing she had to say something. “I started reading Evelyn Nesbit’s memoir.”

  “And I suppose you have more questions than ever?” The mischief was gone from Estella’s voice.

  “I do.”

  “Evelyn Nesbit,” Estella began, then stopped. She sighed. “I suppose there’s no way to say it that won’t be surprising. Evelyn Nesbit and John Barrymore are my grandparents.”

  “Your grandparents?” Fabienne repeated, trying to work out how on earth a showgirl and an actor, both from America, could possibly be Estella’s grandparents.

  “They were in love, before Evelyn was taken under the abhorrent wings of Stanford White and then Harry Thaw. She fell pregnant to John twice: the first time she had an abortion, disguised as an appendectomy. It made her so ill that, the second time, she had the baby in France, away from newspapers and prying eyes. She gave the baby, my mother, to the nuns to raise. The house on the Rue de Sévigné was Evelyn’s; she bought it with the money men bestowed on her. It was her love nest, the place where she and John were at their happiest. Until Evelyn’s mother decided that John’s pockets were too empty and, with Stanford White’s persuasion, that she could sell her daughter to a higher bidder. Evelyn gifted the house to my mother but something happened to her there and she could never live in it. I thought I could break the curse but…” Estella stopped.

  “I don’t even know what to say,” Fabienne stuttered. “I had no idea why you gave me the memoir to read but I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I suppose I should be grateful, given everything it says about Harry Thaw, that he isn’t your grandfather.”

  A long silence extended through the phone, Fabienne’s mind working to understand the fact that her great-great-grandmother was someone so notorious, that her great-grandmother had been abandoned to be raised by nuns and that, out of it all, had come Estella. That if the house in Paris had been Evelyn’s, who had built the replica in which Estella had always lived in Manhattan? And none of it explained the names on her father’s birth certificate.

  “Are you all right?” Fabienne suddenly asked, aware that Estella hadn’t spoken for some time.

  “Just a little tired,” her grandmother said. “Anyway, that’s where the story starts. If Evelyn and John hadn’t happened, then…” Estella paused. “I’ll tell you more of the story when you’re back from Hawaii. Hopefully you’ll be in so blissful a mood that whatever I have to say won’t upset you too much.”

  “Why would it upset me?” Fabienne asked warily. “And what does any of that have to do with Dad?”

  Her grandmother yawned. “As I said, I’ll explain everything after your romantic rendezvous. I promise.”

  Then she hung up the phone and that was that.

  Fabienne’s bags were packed, her body waxed and fake-tanned, and her bikini purchased as the taxi drove to the airport, so slowly that Fabienne wanted to leap into the front seat and drive herself. Instead she reminded herself that it didn’t matter how slowly he drove, the plane would still take off at the same time and it would still be about twelve hours until she saw Will and Melissa again. Until she was able to close a door behind her and Will and kiss him. She forced herself to look out of the window and at the black walls of the tunnel. Fantasies in the back of a cab were not helpful.

  She thought instead of Melissa; Will had wondered if it would be the last trip he’d be able to take her on, had said that the last month had been hard and she knew in his understatement lay a truth that would be difficult to face when she saw Melissa again. They’d been corresponding by text and e-mail most days and it broke Fabienne’s heart to see what a spirited woman Melissa was, to think of the life she could have had, to think of what it would do to Will when her body shut down.

  Her phone rang, surprising her when she saw Estella’s number on the screen. “Mamie?” she said.

  “Sorry, Fabienne, it’s Kate.”

  Mamie’s nurse. Fabienne’s heart contracted. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Estella’s just been taken to the hospital. When I came in this morning she was unresponsive. I think she may have had a stroke.”

  “Oh no!” Fabienne squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m coming. I’m on my way to the airport now in fact. I’ll change my flight and I’ll be there as soon as I can. Is she all right?” Please God let her be all right. I know she’s old but you don’t need her. You have enough people. You have my father. You’re taking Melissa. Leave my grandmother alone.

  “She’s alive,” Kate said simply.

  She’s alive. Fabienne would focus on that, would pray to God that Estella hung on long enough for Fabienne to get there.

  She rang the airline and changed her flight. Then she called Unity at work and told her she needed a few more d
ays off. Unity wasn’t pleased but Fabienne assured her that she’d work while she was away, that she’d be in e-mail and phone contact, that it’d be just like she was still there. She could tell Unity didn’t believe her but Fabienne didn’t care. She wasn’t going to leave her grandmother in a hospital on the other side of the world all by herself.

  She checked her watch. Will and Melissa would be in the air. She texted them both, explaining what had happened and apologized. To Will she said, I’m so, so sorry. I wanted this weekend so much. I hope that we can make it work another time. I really do. Then she hesitated and wrote, Love Fabienne.

  Fabienne sobbed as she sat by Estella’s bed, holding her hand and doing all of the other pointless things that people did at hospital bedsides, including telling her grandmother, like she’d told her father only two months ago, that she wasn’t allowed to die. Even as she’d said it to her father, she’d known she couldn’t make it true, that nobody would ever recover from the pallor of his skin. And now her grandmother looked the same as he had, or worse even, because her body was already so desiccated.

  The doctors told her that her grandmother had had a stroke. They would have to wait and see how much damage it had done. She would be kept sedated for another twenty-four hours. Fabienne should come back then.

  What if she dies while I’m not here? Fabienne wanted to ask. But after much persuasion from the nurses, and their reassurance that they’d call if there was even the slightest change, Fabienne dragged herself back to her grandmother’s house to shower, put on fresh clothes and eat. She changed the sheets on her grandmother’s bed, bought peonies for a vase by the bedside table, plumped the pillows and made the room look so inviting that Estella would have no choice but to return.

  Then she read the message Will had left: I’m sorry too. I hope your grandmother is doing okay. Call me if you can. Love Will.