The Dress in the Window

by Sofia Grant

  “Oh heavens, don’t blame yourself,” Thelma said briskly. “People drift apart. And besides, this is business. He needs help, and I know that operation inside and out.”

  Memories of the mill flooded Jeanne—of the dust motes dancing in the sun streaming through the narrow windows, the sound of the looms humming, her father’s office with its pipe tobacco smell and books full of silky sample squares. The workers tipping their caps respectfully when their mother brought her and Peggy to visit.

  Jeanne especially had loved those visits, had loved dressing up and holding her mother’s gloved hand, had loved how one elderly worker in particular used to bow and call her “Miss Jeannie” and let her move the handle that lifted the warp threads. Jeanne had felt so safe there, so sure of her place in the world. To recapture even a little of that feeling . . . but it seemed impossible.

  “What about Tommie?” she asked.

  “I’ll need to talk to Peggy,” Thelma said. “She’s just going to have to face facts and realize she needs to stay home. It’s not even another year until Tommie’s in school all day, and maybe she can work something out with Fyfe’s then.”

  “But, Thelma, all I know how to do is type and file.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Thelma snapped. “You’re a smart girl. I’ll teach you. You can take over invoicing and sales processing.”

  Could she really do it? The possibility was tantalizing. “But why wouldn’t Frank just hire someone with experience?”

  “I am the person with experience,” Thelma said. “Frank knows that. He was good with sales, but your father always took care of follow-up with the accounts. And they were both hopeless with the books.”

  Jeanne had never seen Thelma this animated, her eyes bright and hopeful. Possibility fluttered within her. More money, more responsibility—and Peggy would have to do her part too, for a change.

  Jeanne shrugged off the ugly combination of resentment and guilt that accompanied every thought of Peggy these days. If what Thelma was saying was true, and Jeanne could earn more working for Frank than in her current job, then Peggy couldn’t possibly expect her to pass up the opportunity.

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Yes, I’d like to come work with you.”

  “Well, that settles it,” Thelma said. “Come, let’s get that child before she falls in and ruins her dress.”

  August 1949

  Peggy

  The first week on the job was an education, a view of the couture salon through a new lens. Before her promotion, Peggy had come to the store in her old leather shoes with her suede pumps in her purse, and stored her lunch and bag away in the employee locker room along with everyone else employed at the store: the sales staff from every department, the accountants and cleaners and shipping clerks. Now, she changed her shoes on the trolley, arriving half an hour before the store opened. She used her very own key to go in the side entrance, and took the elevator to the third floor, where she walked through the ready-to-wear dress department to the gilded entrance to the Crystal Salon.

  This was her favorite moment of the day. Without the buzz of activity, the customers and the ringing cash registers, it sometimes seemed as though the entire store was waiting for her arrival. Long ago, before the war, before Tommie, before she’d even met Thomas, Peggy had loved to walk into a party, loved the moment when everyone noticed her and there seemed to be a break in the humming pulse, just because she was there. Now, it was as though the mannequins were lined up for her approval, their long elegant hands upturned, their smooth chins raised regally, luscious handbags dangling from their wrists, shoes slipping from their narrow heels.

  Each day she examined the store with a critical eye, trying to apply whatever she had learned the day before. This cotton skirt might have suited Mrs. Pendegast from church, who’d finally shed what she called her “winter weight.” That one really shouldn’t have been made in seersucker—a better-draping fabric would have kept the waist from puffing out awkwardly. A notched collar was a poor choice for this slim jacket, as it would make all but the leanest women look too wide in the bust.

  And this was all while she was still on the floor in ready-to-wear! Once she entered the salon, it was another matter entirely. The gowns presented to the salon’s clientele were selected carefully for each woman’s shape and size, and would undergo a series of fittings before they were ever worn in public. Flaws would be concealed and assets emphasized. Moreover, the entire staff worked hard to shield their clients from unsuitable dresses, as there was nothing worse than having a customer fall in love with a gown that could never be made to flatter her—or, worse yet, a gown one was saving for another client, who very well might see her at luncheons and balls and dinners.

  On the other hand, the women who shopped in ready-to-wear did not have that luxury. The racks might hold four of a dress in blue, but only one in yellow in the wrong size; clever girls might be able to take in a bust dart or shorten a hem, but most of these garments would be worn just as they were. Peggy sometimes heard laughter and conversation when she passed the communal dressing room, women shopping together, praising or evaluating each other’s choices. Other women left armfuls of clothing in the dressing rooms and gave up in frustration, unable to find anything flattering to wear.

  It was these women Peggy found herself most interested in, despite the fact that she now held a job coveted by all of her former peers. The runners and mannequins looked at her differently now. Their easy camaraderie had turned hollow, their envy laced with resentment. How had she, no more remarkable to look at than most of them, curried Miss Perkins’s favor? How had the more senior girls, the more obsequious employees, been passed over for her?

  Until her promotion, Miss Perkins had worked alone. That Lavinia Cole was granted an assistant was a result of not only the money that the Crystal Salon brought to the chain’s balance sheet, but also—even more important—the status conferred on the Fyfe’s name by the salon’s rarefied clientele. This complicated social calculus seemed beyond some of the other girls.

  Adding to their consternation was Miss Perkins’s selection of Lavinia Cole to succeed her. Peggy too had been briefly surprised that it was Lavinia, not especially remarkable among the sales staff, who had been plucked out of the pool and placed in charge. But over her first few days in the new position, Peggy gradually realized why Lavinia was perfect for the job.

  She didn’t come from money.

  She hadn’t gone to a prestigious college.

  And she wasn’t especially ingratiating with her staff.

  But what Lavinia had, the quality that was easy for others to miss, was a flawless rapport with the Crystal Salon customers. She moved easily among them, neither cowed by their wealth nor contemptuous of their flaws. She mirrored their mannerisms when she was with them and dropped them the moment they left, reverting to her impatient, demanding ways with the staff. Moreover, she cultivated a quiet air of authority, whether by accident or design, that made women listen when she advised them on trends or style.

  “That shade invokes royalty,” Peggy had overheard Lavinia say one day while she was helping a customer to choose between two gowns, and whether it was true or not, her words had struck Peggy as much less important than the fact that the customer believed them. The customer purchased the mauve dress recommended by Lavinia, along with the gloves and shoes and bag that she suggested.

  Peggy watched. She learned.

  Morning coffee became a ritual. Peggy arrived before Lavinia and laid out the service, making sure the silver shone, the linens were neatly pressed, and the coffee was blistering hot. When Lavinia arrived, she dotted her face with a handkerchief if the morning was warm, and took a seat behind her desk. Not until she’d had her first sip—eyes closed, followed by a luxuriant sigh—did she greet Peggy, who would be waiting with the date book open on her lap.

  Peggy would then lay the book on the desk blotter for Lavinia’s review. If the salesgirl who made the appointment had been slo
ppy, if there were misspellings or careless abbreviations, Peggy erased and rewrote them. She also copied relevant notes from the file that they kept in a lacquered box. Each card held details about a customer’s measurements, coloring, and personal tastes; there were notations for husbands and children, board and club memberships and associations. There were also notes about what each client had spent each year that she had ordered clothing from the Crystal Salon, which was one of the reasons the box was locked up whenever Lavinia or Peggy was not in the office.

  Some of the cards, those belonging to their longest-term clients, had entries going back twenty years, copied from the records kept in the flagship store. Some of the cards bore the handwriting of women who were no longer working—and some who were no longer alive. Some of the oldest clients had daughters and even granddaughters with their own cards. Some things were too delicate to be written directly, even in this closely guarded resource: a weight gain was signaled with a mere “+” and the new measurements; a scandal such as a husband’s affair or a financial reversal was indicated by a star and the notation “see Miss Perkins.” An unpaid bill earned a delicate red border made with a pen that Lavinia, like Miss Perkins before her, kept in the top drawer of her desk.

  Together, Peggy and Lavinia reviewed the day’s appointments, discussing the dresses that were to be shown, the sales strategies to be employed. Peggy had learned quickly: the best outcome was a dress that flattered the wearer, and thus indirectly the store, so care had to be taken that a client not fall in love with an unsuitable garment. A large invoice was good news; a repeat customer was even better news. Referrals had to be handled with tact. In Europe, a couturier might refuse admission to anyone not known to the staff, but at Fyfe’s, subtler strategies had to be employed. A prospective client with insufficient means might be told there simply wasn’t anything in the current collections that would flatter her, and referred to another department. One who had offended an existing client, or been late to pay her balance, might receive the message in starker terms.

  Peggy and Lavinia also reviewed the sales from the day before, the tailor assigned to each client, the schedule of fittings and any updates concerning the garment’s purpose. If the dress was to be debuted at an important occasion, a note was made of that as well: the customer counted on Fyfe’s to ensure that no other woman would show up wearing a similar dress.

  A week into her new role, Peggy stepped into the back room one morning, where the girls assembled before the store opened. Abruptly, their conversations stopped; their laughter died. Peggy scanned the room as she hung her jacket, and her gaze fell upon a crumpled puddle of hosiery in the corner.

  “Oh dear,” she said mildly. “What happened here?”

  “Tildy got a run,” one of the runners explained, earning a dark look from the unlucky owner of the stockings.

  Peggy checked her watch. “Well, luckily there’s still ten minutes before the store opens. Why don’t you go get a new pair from downstairs, and tell them to bill me. You can pay me back later.”

  The girls glanced at one another. Peggy saw their uncertainty, their pooled resentment, and felt it flow through her like her own hot blood. She suppressed a smile.

  “You can’t tell her what to do,” the haughtiest of the mannequins said. “You don’t write our checks.”

  “You’re right,” Peggy said amenably. “But I’ll do my best to get you my discount, all right? And I’ll tell you what, if Lavinia gets angry, I’ll say they were for me. I won’t even mention your name.”

  The tone shifted. The owner of the stockings exhaled. There were reluctant nods of acquiescence.

  Peggy took her seat in the chair next to Lavinia’s desk, the one that everyone now knew to leave vacant for her. She took a small notebook from her purse, the gold-plated pencil that had long ago been a gift upon her graduation from high school. She flipped the notebook open and wrote something. No one needed to know that she had merely sketched a star next to a drawing of a shoe she’d seen in Harper’s Bazaar. It didn’t matter what she wrote; the girls’ imaginations would fill in the rest.

  She would tell Lavinia, of course. She’d tell her that the girl came to her, unsure what to do about her stockings, and was it all right that Peggy had taken care of it? She’d let Lavinia decide. For now, she’d let Lavinia believe she was in charge.

  LAVINIA TURNED OUT to be a surprisingly adept mentor.

  The next day, Peggy came to work in the same woolen skirt and charmeuse blouse she’d worn on her first day on the job. When Lavinia arrived, she took an assessing look at Peggy before closing the door behind her, something that happened so rarely that Peggy had forgotten the back room had a door.

  She unlocked a cabinet in the corner of the back room, the one in which the declines were stored—the items ordered and tailored for clients who refused them for whatever reason: issues with tailoring, the properties of the materials, or simply (and most commonly) because they had changed their minds. Only the most valuable customers could get away with this last excuse, but as Lavinia had once said to Peggy, “If Elizabeth Craig keeps buying two-hundred-dollar suits, then I’m not going to quibble about a sixty-dollar blouse.”

  “This one, I think,” she said, taking out a navy jersey Balmain that the intended owner had judged too form-fitting. “Now you’ll need to check the appointment book before you wear it. It wouldn’t do for you to have it on when Mrs. Reinhold comes in, not after she called the dress ‘ghastly,’ and we agreed.”

  “She didn’t think it was ghastly when she ordered it,” Peggy said. She had still been a runner the day the imperious woman had sent her to fetch gown after gown. “She had to have it the moment she saw it.”

  “Our clients’ memories can be short,” Lavinia chided. “But they pay for that privilege.”

  “But what do they think we do with the returns?”

  Lavinia shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps they think we donate them to the urchins on the street. More likely they don’t give it a second thought. Still, we must preserve the illusion that their taste is above reproach, which means they really shouldn’t see their discarded garment anywhere. Now listen, you’re going to need a tailor who knows what he’s doing. Not our staff—they talk, and that won’t do; you’ll need someone outside the store, especially since Mrs. Reinhold has a waist like a longshoreman. I can recommend someone—”

  “I’ve—I’ve got a girl,” Peggy stammered.

  “Good. Now, since you’re going to be helping me with the books, let’s go ahead and put this one through.” Lavinia got the large linen-bound order book down from the shelf behind her desk.

  “Lavinia,” Peggy said haltingly, “I’m not sure that—I mean, even after the discount, I don’t know if I can—”

  “Ah, Peggy,” Lavinia said, sliding on her glasses and motioning her to sit at the chair across her desk. “No, no, no. You see, this is altered merchandise, which means we can’t possibly sell it to a customer. Now you’re going to have to start thinking like a businesswoman. Let me introduce you to the beauty of the internal write-off.”

  Later, when she showed the dress to Jeanne and Thelma that night, Jeanne asked Peggy to explain the practice twice. “But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “The balance sheet still has to balance. If you take a loss on that dress—a hundred and forty-five dollars, you said?—it has to come from somewhere.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” Peggy said, feigning confidence. “But that’s for Central Accounting to deal with. All I have to do is turn in our books every Friday and they . . . do the rest.”

  “Reconcile them,” Jeanne said, barely looking up from the dress, which she had turned inside out so she could examine the seams. Of course Jeanne would know the right term—she’d probably done it herself, in the city, before she quit. The old envy—Jeanne coming home from school with As on every paper from the same teachers who seemed to take such pleasure in giving Peggy Ds the following year—flared inside her and extinguished the pride she
’d been feeling. “This would take a lot of work, Peggy—I’d have to take apart the entire thing and cut the panels down. I can’t just take a few inches off the waist, you know.”

  “But I’ll be ever so grateful,” Peggy wheedled, barely keeping her impatience in check. Wasn’t a genuine couture piece worth a little effort? And after she had been there a bit longer, maybe she could “buy” returns for Jeanne and Thelma too.

  Still, you couldn’t just say something like that to Jeanne. Jeanne was the more delicate sister and always had been. Jeanne’s feelings had to be anticipated and nurtured and soothed; a careless word or the smallest act of thoughtlessness could send her into a funk that could last for days. It hadn’t been so bad when their mother was alive; Emma Brink could cajole and tease Jeanne out of her dark moods, even at the end, when her hold on life was so tenuous that she was little more than a whisper in a darkened room.

  Jeanne laid the jersey dress down on the kitchen table, and Peggy immediately snatched it up—the surface was still damp from Thelma wiping it off after dinner. Thelma and Jeanne exchanged a glance.

  “Peggy,” Thelma said. “Jeanne isn’t going to have time to tailor your dress.”

  Tommie, drawing at the little table Thelma had set up in a corner of the kitchen, looked up in surprise at Thelma’s curt tone.

  Since the argument about Peggy accepting the new promotion, things had been fairly peaceful; she’d made a point of getting Tommie ready before school, and taking her off Thelma’s hands when she arrived home after work. She’d completely given up any semblance of time to herself, and went to bed each night exhausted from Tommie’s bath and nighttime routine. She’d done everything she could to show that she was doing her part—and yet it still wasn’t enough for them?