“April! Jordan! Stop gaping!” Justine hissed at them. “In six months you’ll both be as bored by this as they are. Can’t you hear them thinking ‘another day, another dollar’?”
“Nice try, boss,” Jordan muttered, unable to take her eyes away from the girls who were harem-esque as they sat, half in and half out of their Ritz peignoirs: chatting animatedly or intimately on cellular phones with their bare legs flung up on the counters as if they were alone; sipping out of bottles of Coke and Evian as they compared Filofax entries; scrutinizing their toenail polish, curling their eyelashes or inspecting the all-but-invisible veins in the whites of their eyes; a minority reading paperback books, one or two humanly imperfect enough to wear glasses; groups of them locked together in whispered gossip; clearly none of them interested in the clothes, since getting paid triple to show the work of an unknown designer must mean the stuff was a disaster. There were girls lighting cigarettes, girls putting out cigarettes and girls lost in a cloud of smoke. I blessed, for the thousandth time, the luck of the draw that had given me three nonsmokers to chaperone. A scattering of girls turned to wave at Mike, several at Justine, but their eyes became blank as they passed over Jordan and April. We’re the original Broadway cast, their lack of interest seemed to say, we’re in and you’re out, make no mistake, the two of you are a couple of understudies, hired for a single day’s stunt.
“Where’s Lombardi?” Justine demanded.
“Probably behind those girls,” Mike said, pointing to a lineup of six models who stood in a row with their backs toward us, their legs hidden by a table. From our vantage point they were wearing identical suit jackets in a marvelous hyacinth-blue wool; snugly fitted, small shouldered, narrowly belted.
Justine herded the girls in Marco’s direction, her hands on their shoulders. “Jordan and April are here,” she said to him as he sat behind a table covered with accessories like a giant mosaic.
“They’re late,” he said, not looking at her.
“Paris traffic,” she informed him without apology.
“Take them to their dresser,” Lombardi said to Justine. “Put on the hats,” he ordered, turning away. I watched his assistants adjust close-fitting, hair-covering, pistachio-green felt cloches over six of the highest-paid heads in the world. Each cloche sported a single white rose and the skirt of each of the lightweight, elegantly pared-down suits was in a different length, from a slightly-less-than-fingertip mini to a skirt that ended at the ankle bone. The skirts had the same modified A-line shape, widening as they grew longer. Each of the girls wore sheer beige hose and identical medium-heeled black patent leather pumps. It was impossible to say that one length was more becoming or more fashionable than another. Marco stood up, giving Kate Moss’ knee-covering skirt a tug at the waistline.
“Divinity,” he cooed at her.
“He never even looked at us,” April wailed as we pushed backward through the crowd. “Didn’t say so much as hello.”
“It has nothing to do with you, he’ll come around,” Justine reassured her. “Not a dumb idea, those different lengths,” she commented to me, annoyed but honest.
“Fence sitting,” I grumbled, but I had to admit that if fashion editors still thought skirt lengths were any kind of an issue—and didn’t they all?—Marco had just made a dramatic statement, too convincing for the media to overlook.
We finally reached the two racks of clothes with April’s and Jordan’s name marked in crayon on a cardboard sign. The girls, their patience at an end, lunged for the clothes, paying no attention to the flustered, protesting dresser. They flipped through the racks like dogs chasing a rabbit, exclaiming with excitement, their yelps of approval growing louder and louder, while Mike photographed them looking like crazed shoppers on some game show.
“Girls, for God’s sake!” Justine protested. “Control yourselves!”
“Look at this,” April screeched. “A mohair cape in fire engine red, lined in pale pink satin and a dress that matches the lining … I crave it!”
“I’ve got the reverse, cape in pink, dress in red!” Jordan exclaimed.
“Hey, hey!” April exclaimed, holding up a wide-skirted, strapless lilac satin ball gown with an intricate pleated chocolate sash and a tiny, snug bolero covered with chocolate glitter, a dress worthy of a young Sophia Loren.
“I have it too,” Jordan breathed, brandishing a hanger with the same gown in biting brown, the sash in lilac and the bolero flashing lavender sequins. “Are we Wins?”
“Don’t know. Wow, princess coat, princess coat!” April squealed, showing us a flared, tucked and buttoned coat in a featherweight, dove-grey flannel with a deceptively demure sliver of a white silk dress. “A person could get married in this … Jordan, you?”
“Same coat, in apple-green tweed, one-shouldered dress in pale turquoise organza … look at this yellow velvet jacket over a lipstick-pink chiffon cocktail dress … yummy! But velvet for spring?—still, isn’t it exactly the right yellow? Justine, is this the most perfect yellow or what?”
“Let me try it on,” Justine begged, stripping off her own jacket.
“No way. You’ll get it dirty … here’s one in sky blue, it’s almost the same cut.…” Jordan threw the velvet jacket deftly at Justine and slipped fast forward through the masses of juicy, joyous, jubilant color on her rack, as if she had exactly one minute to shop for the rest of her life. “Look, just look, each dress has a coat or jacket, every cocktail dress or ball gown has a long cape or a coat or a bolero … somebody finally realizes that women spend most of their time in air-conditioning. Oh my God! Look at this!”
Jordan grabbed a ball gown in plaid taffeta woven in a half-dozen exquisitely melting pastels. “Hoop skirts! As I live and breathe! And the cape, did you ever see a more marvelous pink, oh, oh, here’s a hood lined in plaid!” She flung the cape around her shoulders, snuggled into the ravishing frame of the hood and preened beatifically in the mirror. “I’m never taking this off, not for anybody!”
April gave a hair-raising Confederate yell. By this time the noise and excitement generated by our two girls had aroused enough attention to set the superstar models to investigating the contents of their own racks, the same clothes they had been ignoring while making themselves comfortable and staking out their territory. Soon the entire dressing room was full of girls exclaiming and comparing, pouting in disappointment at the rare sight of grey or navy or black and, their superiority swept away by enthusiasm, posturing in delight behind a garden of pure, intense spring colors.
“Girls!” Marco yelled, standing up. “Don’t exchange clothes! Don’t even try on another girl’s clothes! Stop it immediately! If you behave I promise that as soon as they’re finished being photographed I’ll give them to you and you can trade to your heart’s content. There’s enough of my perfect pinks for everybody, enough daffodil yellows, enough new grass greens, enough apple blossom whites—put the hangers back where you found them, this minute! Pay attention to your dressers. Now, I want Karen, Kate and Shalom dressed in their first numbers, and make it quick.”
“That maggot is in pig heaven right now,” Justine whispered in my ear as she wriggled into the intricate column of Jordan’s bias-cut, lilac chiffon ball gown. “The girls have told him all he needs to know about his success. Nobody cares less about clothes than they do.” She wrapped herself in a sweeping Parma-violet cape with a deeply ruffled taffeta collar and hem. “How do I look? Is this me, mouse, or is this me?”
I was too busy trying to get into April’s slinky navy satin cocktail suit with Mae West white marabou collar and cuffs to answer.
24
I heard the bell to my room ring at a delicious moment in a dream that vanished forever as, blinking and swearing, and falling out of my nightgown, I automatically staggered out of bed.
“Who the hell is it?” I barked through the door, in a way that made it plain that my much-needed and-deserved sleep had been outrageously disturbed.
“Tom. I didn’t want
to wake you, Frankie, but Tinker insisted.”
“What time is it, for crying out loud?”
“Three in the afternoon.”
“Oh good God! Tom, wait a minute, I’ve got to put on a robe.”
As I splashed water on my face and quickly brushed my teeth, I found it damn near incredible that I’d slept so late. We’d all returned to the hotel at seven in the morning, granted, and then wound down over a gigantic breakfast in my sitting room, but still to sleep to mid-afternoon … I’d never done it in my life. I can imagine what my mother would have thought.
“Poor Tom,” I said remorsefully, as soon as I joined him in the sitting room. “Tinker must be going crazy with curiosity. I was sure I’d be up earlier so I didn’t set my alarm. No sign of anybody else, not even Mike?”
“Nope. I’ve been sitting in her doorway, halfway into the corridor so I couldn’t miss any of you. The only person I saw to speak to was Peaches and she couldn’t tell me anything.”
“How much sleep did you get?” I asked.
“I don’t think I got any. I lay on top of the covers with Tinker’s arm tied to mine by the belt of her bathrobe co she couldn’t get out of bed without my knowing it, but I kept myself awake so I wouldn’t roll over on her.”
“Enjoying the fashion business?”
“It wasn’t the worst ordeal in the world.”
“How’s she feeling?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“She insists that she’s totally recovered. She’s raging because I won’t let her out of bed except to go to the bathroom.”
“No more crazy talking?”
“Not crazy … well maybe a little crazy but more like compulsive impatience,” he sighed.
“Tom, listen, you’re the only one who’s seen anything of her. Tell me if you think Tinker’s on any sort of drug—she’s in really weird shape.”
“It can’t be speed, that’s for sure. I knew lots of people on speed in the ad business and they didn’t totally fall apart after work the way Tinker does, like a rag doll. She doesn’t unwind, she drops in her tracks. And if she’s getting any other drug from that shitfaced little creep she’s working for, I haven’t noticed it. Señora Varga? No, why would she be giving Tinker anything? It might disturb her concentration on the sacred fucking tango. If you ask me the drug she’s on is pure raging ambition, that crazy feeling she has that getting a runway walk and winning this contest will give her an identity. What she keeps saying is, ‘I just want to get up there, that’s all, just get up and do my stuff’—over and over again.”
“That’s natural talk, Tom. The best runway girls are like racehorses, they can’t wait for the show to begin. If someone didn’t control them they’d all come swarming out at the same time, tripping each other up on purpose.”
“If that’s the case, she’s got it made. Please, Frankie, take pity on me and go tell her every last detail about last night. I’m falling asleep talking to you.”
“Take the couch. I’ll go see Tinker and have something to eat with her.”
I wrapped a coat around my bathrobe and rushed down the corridor of the hotel. Tinker was lying back on the pillows, one leg lashed firmly to the bedpost, the phone too far away for her to reach it, looking like the heroine in a comic book who’s been tied down on the train tracks and is about to be run over.
“You’ve got to admit that he’s thorough, that Tom,” I said as I untied her, trying not to laugh at her expression of fury.
“I’m going to kill that motherfucker.” Tinker’s voice sounded like an out-of-tune harpsichord with shredded velvet strings. “You have no idea what he subjected me to all night. He’s criminally insane.”
“Now be fair. He was only doing what we asked him to do. Don’t have a hissy fit, Tinker, Tom was good, loyal and true.”
“Every last one of you is overreacting,” Tinker moaned, rubbing her leg and then jumping up and pacing around the room. “There’s nothing wrong with me, you can see that, can’t you? Nothing! Nothing! What cunt wore my dresses?”
“Gee, Tinker, I remember when you wouldn’t even say ‘damn’—in fact I think you spelled out ‘darn.’ ” Cunt! No wonder Tom said she was talking a little crazy. “As it happens, the lady who wore your dresses was Janine, a former house model Marco had fired. She’s chic but dull-looking, but she still managed to look fabulous because your clothes are far and away the best in the show.”
I was trying to reassure her, of course, but everything I said was a fact. “Marco’s really done you proud, Tink. And your dresser has everything lined up, totally accessorized, just waiting for you. Of course your skirts were way too long on Janine, but it didn’t matter. Even without them the show would have been a total sensation. An absolutely genuine smash, the kind of turning-point show fashion people talk about for years. Everybody’s sky high about it. Everything you said is true—Marco’s a genius, much as I hate to admit it.”
“I told you!”
“There was a real breeze of fresh air—no, make that a tornado—and it didn’t stop all night.”
“I knew it! Tell me more!”
“The clothes had that thing editors always pray for … I guess it’s a quiver of something genuinely new. Nothing was reminiscent of any other designer, and his color sense—my God, Justine and I were fighting to try on April’s and Jordan’s clothes. They made me feel that no matter how expensive they were, they were worth it—transfiguring, flattering, luscious, edible—yet everything was so basically wearable that it’s hard to believe that not a single piece was dull. It was awful—I bad to have them and I knew I couldn’t possibly afford even one. I’ve never felt that way about clothes before. It was like sex! No, better!”
“What about April and Jordan?” Tinker asked sharply. “How did they look?”
“Well …”
“Tell me, Frankie! Damn it! I have to hear the truth,” Tinker demanded roughly.
“Extraordinary. Each in her own way—of course, in those clothes they couldn’t miss.”
“I’ll look better.”
“Damn right.” It wouldn’t be a good idea to disagree with her, I thought, looking closely at Tinker’s essential magic. If she was on drugs I knew she couldn’t have had access to any since early yesterday and she hadn’t changed all that much even after a good rest.
Tinker’s normal expression was a tender, somewhat brooding joy, attentive to the world around her, rather than to herself. Today, as she quizzed me, she blazed with attention and impatience, all turned inward toward a vision of how she would look tonight. Her pale skin had more color in it than I’d ever seen, her eyes glittered harshly, almost dangerously, even the flags of her hair seemed a brighter shade of red than usual, as if she were on fire. Overrehearsed, I thought, trying to calm my fears, overrehearsal followed by frustration, followed by first-night nerves. But she’ll settle down once we get to the Ritz, once she’s back on the job. She had to.
“I’m ordering from room service, Tinker. What can I get you?”
“Nothing, damn it … what the fuck makes everybody think I’m hungry? Tom’s been force-feeding me ever since I got here. I know I’ve gained two pounds,” Tinker said angrily.
“Nobody can gain two pounds in twenty-six hours,” I said in my most reasonable voice. “Two pounds of fat equals eight thousand extra calories.”
“But how can I burn calories normally when I’m imprisoned in this fucking bed with my muscles atrophying? Listen, Frankie, there’s still time for another tango lesson before tonight! Call Señora Varga and tell her I’m practically on my way.”
“Tinker! If there’s one thing you don’t need it’s another tango lesson. You could tango in your sleep.”
“It’d warm up my muscles,” Tinker pleaded, rapidly stripping naked and hunting for her clothes.
“We have to be at the Ritz in a little more than two hours, for hair and makeup,” I said, sternly. “What you need is to take a long shower, have something to eat and calm down, you’re not as
rested as you think you are and it’s going to be a long night. You’re not leaving this hotel until we all go together. I’ll sit here until you’ve finished in the bathroom. Then we’ll go to the suite and play poker, like last night.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“No, I’ll wait for you.”
Tinker glared at me and slammed the bathroom door behind her. I called my suite and got Tom to wake Justine.
“Tinker’s in a rage … wanted to take another tango lesson … asked ‘what cunt’ had worn her dresses.”
“Is she tripping out like yesterday?”
“Not quite as bad, she’s not raving, but she’s not like herself either. But Tom doesn’t think she’s on anything—I just can’t tell.”
“Damn this timing! It’s driving everyone around the bend. She’ll calm down once the show starts.”
“You honestly think so?”
“Frankie, what’s the choice? As long as Tinker’s upright, she has to have her chance.”
“Wake everybody, will you, Justine? And get out the cards. We’ll be along as soon as she gets out of the shower.”
“Frankie … how nervous are you about tonight?”
“Not more than you are, kiddo.”
“And we’re not even doing the show. Come back soon. It’s worse when you’re not here.”
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