The Dress in the Window

by Sofia Grant

  That onslaught to the senses when she pulled the door open: the uprush of cool, dank air on her face, the slightly sickening smell of rotting hops and ash and cigar smoke, the stolid clunk of glasses being set down deliberately on rift-sawn oak . . . the yellowish glow of the old brass fixtures that gave everything it illuminated a febrile energy.

  She’d come here only twice, ill-considered outings both. But there had been some domestic urge, then, to be seen together, to be acknowledged even in the most casual way—even in a place such as this. What did she know of coupling, then, besides Henry? Such romantic notions had evaporated quickly, of course . . . but there lingered in Polks the shadow of that once-dear illusion.

  He was sitting on the same stool, almost at the end of the bar, the one he’d always gravitated to. There were glints of silver in his thick brown hair, and in profile he looked more like his brother than ever. Leo Brink had been a smaller man, thinner, stooped later in life—but the nose was the same, the squared-off chin, the workingman’s raw and blockish hands.

  The stools on either side of Frank were occupied, and he appeared to be in the middle of a story, the men nearby paying attention. A recent round, the glasses still brimming, was probably the reason why.

  Thelma waited for a lull, ignoring the curious stares. When all the men laughed at something Frank said, the man on the left slipped off his stool and lumbered to the men’s room. Thelma walked toward Frank on legs that did not feel like her own, and sat on the still-warm stool with her purse clutched primly on her lap.

  Voices fell silent, and Frank—alert to the shifts in his audience, as always, turned her way. The transformation in his face was almost comical. “Thelma?” Then, “My God!”

  He recovered himself quickly, of course—it was one of his best tricks. A papery kiss, a smooth smile, a compliment—“You’re looking exactly the same”—none of them could erase his momentary unmooring, and Thelma plunged in, to take advantage of it.

  “How are Mary and the children?”

  Frank blinked, and a tremor seemed to pass through him. Thelma smiled to herself. She’d learned a few things since she sat in this same spot, mooning like a schoolgirl. There was a time when nothing could have made her say their names . . . but that was before she lost Thomas, before she lost everything. Before she started over with the ones God, in His dubious wisdom, saw fit to send her. The ones she had to care for now.

  “They’re—they’re fine.” He recovered himself a bit, hitching himself taller on the stool. “Elizabeth just had another boy, and Gil—”

  “I need a job, Frank,” Thelma interrupted. She wasn’t here to make small talk. “I need money.”

  Frank goggled at her, as though wondering if it was really her, or some other woman masquerading as Thelma. “I’m not sure what you came here hoping to find,” he finally said. “If you are having . . . financial difficulties, if you need a small loan, perhaps I could—out of respect for our friendship—”

  “Oh, we were never friends,” Thelma said mildly. “But perhaps things can be different now. I don’t need a small loan—what I need is a job. An income.”

  “Well, surely you know that I am no longer in the textiles business. I am employed by Gleaner Manufacturing, in fact.”

  “Though you do still have a mill complex.” Thelma focused her gaze on the bridge of his nose. “A total of thirty thousand square feet on Minisink Avenue, an area that has enjoyed a considerable escalation in land value. And there’s also equipment valued at several thousand dollars. It’s all in the public record, you see.”

  “You—now, Thelma, what you’re talking about—”

  “Your brother’s property, his company, that he purchased himself, before he ever brought you on. The one which you told everyone he deeded to you before he died. Remember? You actually managed to convince Emma not to consult a lawyer, that you would handle all of his affairs.” Thelma let that settle in. “But you used to confide in me, Frank. I was your secret-keeper—you said so yourself. You used to say you could tell me things you could never tell another soul.”

  “That’s—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said, glancing around. “See here, I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I mean, even coming here, to a place like this—”

  “Let me show you something.” Thelma reached into her purse for the envelope and drew out the thin, folded sheet of paper. “This isn’t the deed, of course,” she said. “I’ve taken the precaution of engaging an attorney to hold my papers.” That was not true—she had no idea how to find an attorney, or, more to the point, how to pay one. The box of papers that she had brought home from the mill, all those years ago, was stowed in the basement.

  Frank stared down at the folded paper but didn’t take it, so Thelma was forced to open it and hold it up in front of his face. It was a mimeograph duplicate of the original deed of sale, the faint outline of the Recorder of Deeds seal. The owner was clearly listed as “Leo Wallace Brink and Wife.”

  Frank gazed at it for a long time. Thelma slid the paper into its envelope, the envelope into her purse, and folded her hands on top. “It’s time for the mill to reopen,” she said.

  “You know that’s not possible,” Frank said.

  “It is if I say it is.”

  He pressed his lips together and for a moment he looked almost as though he might cry. “And what—you’ll tell them . . . you’ll tell them . . .”

  Thelma watched him squirm, but she was remembering another Frank—the man who’d first taken her with her face pressed into the blotter on his desk while all around them the stacks belched smoke and the spinners whirred and the looms clacked and sighed. The man who could catch her wrist and twist it, gazing into her eyes in the stolen twilight, just to the brink of cruelty, to the place where reason gave way to the roaring furnace of need.

  She had loved him, though she’d never admit it to another soul.

  “I’ll tell them only what’s necessary,” she said. “That you decided the market seemed right, that you’re getting back in. That you asked me to do the books. I’ll pay myself, by the way,” she added calmly. “A fair wage.”

  “Why don’t you just hand it over to them?” Frank demanded. “Just—just take that paper you’ve got there and ruin me?”

  “Don’t be dramatic,” Thelma snapped. “You landed on your feet. That mill hasn’t earned you a cent since 1940.”

  “I couldn’t go back into production,” Frank protested.

  “Not without cutting Jeanne and Peggy in, you couldn’t. Not without telling them the truth.”

  “They were supposed to be married,” he said bitterly. “They were supposed to be taken care of. I had a family to look after, you know, I had—”

  Thelma found that she didn’t have the appetite to hear any more. She stopped him with a look and got up from the stool. “We all had our burdens,” she said. “You just made the mistake of thinking that yours mattered more than everyone else’s. I’ll plan on starting on Monday. I’ll meet you at the office.”

  “Wait—why this way? Why not just tell the girls?”

  Thelma was silent for a moment. Because she wanted, finally, something for herself. Because she’d tended that stove and cleaned those rooms for too many people, for too long. Because keeping secrets had become as natural to her as breathing. Because . . . because she couldn’t quite bear, despite everything, to hurt him.

  But she couldn’t afford to be sentimental now. She squared her shoulders and turned to go, then remembered something.

  “Don’t worry about opening the place up for me . . . I still have a key.”

  Peggy

  “Have you enjoyed your time here, dear?”

  Miss Perkins gazed placidly at Peggy through the slightly distorting, thick lenses of her glasses. Set with a sparkling rhinestone at each uptilted corner, they gave her the air of a predatory bird—the sort that eviscerates its prey with its claws for sport before plunging its beak deep into the still-beating heart.
That, at least, was the image that had come to Peggy on the occasions when one of the girls had erred, bringing the wrong dress, taking too long, or—worst of all—addressing the customer directly instead of fading into the plush surroundings of the Crystal Salon.

  Miss Perkins had explained the rules on Peggy’s first day on the job. “You’re a good-looking girl,” she’d said. “That could work against you.” Consider yourself a part of the wallpaper, she’d gone on to counsel. Ornamental, pristine, yet unobtrusive, just like the chinoiserie paper decorating Fyfe’s rarified inner sanctum.

  We may not be Paris, the furnishings seemed to announce, the deep velvet upholstery of the chairs and the scrolled occasional tables. But Plainsfield, for the few, can also be exceptional. In the Crystal Salon, an effort was always made. Class distinctions were acknowledged and maintained. The wives of the wealthy, the distinguished, the influential could feel welcome here; the inherent promise of the Crystal Salon was to do its part to secure and maintain the social prominence of its clientele.

  And by dressing in the fashions carefully selected by the legendary Annabel Ingram, couture buyer for the Fyfe’s chain and direct boss of Miss Perkins, the Crystal Salon’s clientele could rest assured that the gowns they would wear to occasions in suburban Philadelphia—or the city itself, or even Manhattan—would be appropriate, exquisite, and singular. That, most important, they would not see themselves coming and going. Miss Ingram attended the shows in New York and Paris and London, and in recent months had added Ireland and Italy to her trips. She purchased pieces from the collections presented by Balenciaga, Jean Dessès, Balmain, and Schiaparelli, and ordered slight modifications to make them more appropriate to the Fyfe’s customer, generally forgoing the most outlandish flourishes and details for more understated versions.

  All of this Peggy had picked up by listening, taking any opportunity to observe Miss Perkins at her desk and listen to her telephone conversations and review her correspondence. “I’ve been really happy here, Miss Perkins,” Peggy said, smoothing her skirt. “I’ve learned a lot, and I enjoy helping our customers.”

  This wasn’t exactly true. Peggy did not enjoy helping the wealthy wives, some of them only a few years older than she, who pretended not to see her. She did not enjoy bringing armloads of dresses that she would never get to wear, that she, in fact, was allowed to touch only while wearing white cotton gloves. She did not enjoy standing at attention with her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her like a novitiate, and she most especially did not enjoy the way the salesgirls treated her with disdain, never letting her forget where she was in the pecking order.

  “I’m so glad to hear that.” Miss Perkins’s smile turned calculating. “You’ve caught my eye, you know. Tell me, what do you think of the way we conduct business here in the Crystal Salon?”

  Here it was, the critical moment, the one Peggy had been preparing for since her first day. The autumn collections would be arriving in the next few weeks; the best customers would be invited to informal showings. Scheduled several times a day at the start of the season, ladies came two or three at a time, and the store’s mannequins tirelessly modeled the pieces selected for them by Miss Perkins. Diplomacy was critical, and it was here that Miss Perkins showed her true talent, because she had to anticipate which pieces would suit which clients. A gown promised to one woman could not be shown to another; the promise of a much-anticipated gown could be used to reward her loyalty or pique her hunger for it. Customers could try on the samples, but of course they never fit; the real work would come later when the clothes arrived and individual fittings—typically at least three per garment—were scheduled.

  The collections served another purpose: illustrations of couture gowns went into the newspaper advertisements that brought the ready-made customer to shop. She had no illusions that she would be going home with a two-hundred-dollar Balenciaga, but she might be more than happy to pay eighteen dollars for a dress from the misses department that borrowed details from the designers’ latest styles.

  Peggy had done a little discreet inquiring and knew that Lester Creighton, the illustrator who’d created Fyfe’s advertisements for many years, was approaching seventy. It seemed reasonable that he might want to retire—or that a mild stroke or heart attack might force the issue. At the very least, wouldn’t a man of his age welcome a reduction in his workload?

  Peggy drew a breath and prepared to take a gamble. She was counting on Miss Perkins, herself known for ruthless ambition, to appreciate her audacity.

  “I believe there are specific reasons why Wanamaker’s continues to out-perform Fyfe’s not just in ready-to-wear but in couture,” Peggy said, a slight quaver to her voice. She had practiced in front of the bathroom mirror late at night, whispering in the silence of the tiny house. “Our customer service is exceptional and of course, Miss Ingram’s taste is widely admired. But I can’t help but wonder . . .”

  She paused on the cusp of the words she would not be able to take back.

  “Yes, Peggy?” Faint bemusement glittered behind those obscuring lenses. Miss Perkins clicked her vermillion-lacquered nails on the desk.

  “Well, it’s the newspaper advertisements. As I’m sure you know, the circulation of the Inquirer alone is nearly three hundred fifty thousand households, and Fyfe’s purchases a full-page spread in at least three regional papers most Sundays. We have the exposure, but—well, I just wonder if the presentation couldn’t be a bit fresher.”

  Glitter, glitter. Miss Perkins’s perfectly plucked eyebrow lifted. “Fresher?”

  Peggy reached for her handbag and pulled out the small sketchbook she’d carefully crafted into a miniature portfolio.

  “This is last Sunday’s ad,” she said, flipping the book open to a page on which she had pasted the illustration. She’d trimmed the ad to focus on Lester’s rendering of a boy’s romper. It was unfair to the old man, because it was the weakest of his drawings that week, the tot’s legs out of proportion, his face obviously erased and reworked. “And this is the text style that we’ve been using for at least two years.”

  “I am quite familiar with our advertising,” Miss Perkins said drily.

  Peggy swallowed and flipped the page. “And here is a New York Times ad for Neiman Marcus. You see they are using the new typeface, and their logo is larger. But what really sets these apart, I think, are the drawings. Mr. Creighton has a beautiful command of his medium, of course. But you see in these other ads, there is a move away from technical precision. The figure is sketched with a minimum of detail and here—where you see this ink wash—the fabric’s folds are merely suggested. I’ve made a few sketches of my own in this style, from the new collections.”

  One more flip of the page: there, on the creamy paper, worked late last night in the light of the bedside lamp while Tommie slept a few feet away, was Peggy’s best effort.

  Miss Perkins took the sketchbook from her hands, pushing her glasses up her nose. She studied the long, languid leg, the fall of crêpe de chine, the figure’s face in profile. Finally she set the notebook on the desk.

  Then she burst into laughter. “My, my, Peggy, I had no idea we’d hired an artiste.”

  The way she pronounced it—Miss Perkins was in the habit of peppering her conversation with French words—did not sound like a compliment.

  “But, Peggy, dear, I’m afraid I haven’t been clear with you. I invited you here because I’d like to offer you a new position.”

  Peggy kept the smile fixed in place, willing herself not to show any emotion. The girls who proved themselves as runners occasionally worked their way up to mannequin, but these were usually girls with figures like Jeanne’s, tall, thin girls with long necks and endless legs and graceful arms. Peggy knew some of the other runners hoped for the position, but these were the same girls who had few other aspirations other than to marry a wealthy man. Peggy, whose figure had been curvy to begin with and had weathered Tommie’s arrival with only a slight lowering of the bosom and ro
unding of the stomach, knew she possessed the most common sort of good looks, the kind that would play well only in places where they didn’t know better. The head of the famous Powers modeling agency was famous for saying that “an interesting face is more effective than a flawless one,” and Peggy had nothing like Jean Patchett’s beauty mark or Elizabeth Gibbons’s heavy eyelids, some minor imperfection that might make her stand out.

  Peggy’s looks, she knew, were as interesting as a box of baking soda. She’d languish as a mannequin, and soon she’d be too old, anyway. But put a pencil in her hand and she felt transformed.

  “Miss Perkins,” she blurted, “it’s just that I’ve worked really hard on my illustrations. I’ve got stacks and stacks I could show you, and I can do different styles too, I—”

  “Dear, I don’t have the first thing to do with advertising.” Miss Perkins cut her off impatiently. “I see the sheets about ten minutes before the rest of you girls do. It’s really not our concern—the marketing department is responsible for getting the customer in the store. It’s our job to sell to them once they’re here. Do you understand the distinction?”

  Miss Perkins’s gaze was unflinching, assessing. It was, Peggy understood, her do-or-die moment. She was being given a choice. Only there wasn’t really a choice—she couldn’t be a runner forever. The mannequin’s job could at least be parlayed into a future. The mannequins went out with men with good jobs and cars and bank accounts; they were taken to the theater, restaurants, clubs. It would be tricky for Peggy, burdened with a child, but she could pass for twenty-five, and she could have more children—