A Dress to Die For (10 page)

Barry came back with drinks, and though she was dedicated to staying sober enough to avoid a hangover, she was at the gin again.

“Were you there when they delivered the saffron gown?” Laura asked.

Barry had attended the setup. He had been late because he had to run home and change.

“Came on an armored truck. No. The T&C blue sperm dress came on an armored truck. Right. The saffron gown came in a white truck like you see all the time.” Barry waved dismissively and clinked the change in his pocket. He had a reputation as a frenetic designer, a capricious employer, and a fun date.

“On the form?” she asked.

Dean splayed himself out on the cushioned bench, palms up, tongue lolling. “I am so bored already.”

“Who pays attention?” Barry answered, kicking Dean’s leg affectionately.

“What do you think of that gown?” Laura asked. “Real or fake?”

“Looks fine to me.”

“Fine?” It still felt weird to question Barry. He’d been her senior thesis mentor at Parson’s, and she had a core of deference she couldn’t shake.

“Dean, honey,” Barry said, “switch with me.”

Dean rolled his eyes and got up. Barry plopped on the cushions next to her in such a relaxed position she thought he might fall asleep. Dean pecked Barry on the lips then moved to the bar and Weave Guy’s attentions.

“He is so stinkin’ hot, isn’t he?” Barry asked as he watched Dean walk away.

“Not my type.”

“Yes,” Barry said. “Let’s talk about that. Your type. I’ve been meaning to bring this up.” He looked at her as if checking her reaction. “What do you call it when you have two of the same thing? And one is unnecessary?”

“Redundancy?”

“Yes. You and Jeremy are redundant. In a work sense. Your skills are the same. Something comes up, you can do it, or he can. Doesn’t matter. But there are too many things neither of you can do.”

“Like what?”

“Now don’t get your knickers in a twist, darling. But you know neither one of you has a strong commercial sense. You throw a lot of shit on the wall and see what sticks. But neither of you is balls-out saleable. You did the same thing at Parson’s. You’re a genius at making a garment and pulling an imaginative stunt. I’m sorry, honey. Sartorial’s cute, but it’s never going to get you that penthouse on 5th. And Jeremy’s stuff is just getting old already.” He must have seen Laura’s forehead tighten. “Don’t look at me like that. I told him to his face. He’s growing too fast, losing control of his aesthetic.” He sat up straight and moved closer, as if what he was getting at required more intimacy. “But that’s neither here nor there. See, you’re just going to dry up over there. You’re coming to the end of what he can teach you. You’re a pure New York garmento. The two of you. Like two garmento peas in a schmatta pod. You know domestic production, which is dying, in case you haven’t noticed. You can’t grow. You’ll never be as useful as you could be if you worked with someone like me.”

“Ah! He comes to the point. You might be taking this joke a little too far, Barry.”

“No. Not joking.”

“How do you think Jeremy would feel if he knew we were having this conversation?”

“It’s business, dear. Your man is nothing if not all business. So…” He took his phone from his pocket and typed some numbers. “I have this in mind. You get my design team to think like they actually have to make a product instead of draw a pretty picture. You travel with me, and you teach my Asia and Eastern Europe factories how to set up a freaking sewing line. You show them how to package patterns and do whatever it is you people do. You’re a design-slash-production-slash-technical VP. You’re under contract. Two years, and it can go more if we have more to do, and we will. This is per year.”

He showed her the number on his phone, but she didn’t look at it. She only looked into those intense blue eyes as the lights dimmed and another performer came out.

“I make more money than I need,” she said.

“You can need so much more.”

She looked at the number and was suddenly very, very sober.

**

Laura stared at the ceiling in Jeremy’s bedroom. She could call Jeremy, but he was in the middle of his day, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t be a bother. They had a conference call set up for the next evening. She’d emailed what needed emailing, and it was all business. She sent him a short note about the specific brown of his eyes but didn’t expect an answer until the morning.

He was still staffing the office. The big players were hired, but they’d been sorting through resumes for weeks, and he had three days’ worth of interviews for a patternmaker, three development people, and a production manager. Then he was off to the New Sunny factories for corrections, directions, and—yes, Ruby’s favorite thing—bossiness. Just overall bossiness. She smiled into her pillow. So childish, and accurate, and necessary, somehow to her peace of mind. Because she knew it was one of the things that made her feel the safest with him, when the anxiety that dogged her for so many years stopped gripping her chest. It had been weighing on her as long as she could remember, possibly since the day her father had left, the real day, not the fake one. Possibly, she had been born into a state of constant anxiety. But not with Jeremy. Like the motor shutting off or the air conditioner winding down, the feeling stopped, leaving only peace with its sudden absence. She called the safe feeling into existence, quieting the pounding in her rib cage, and finally fell asleep.

CHAPTER 7

Laura couldn’t swim. Not a stroke. When she and Ruby were kids, Mom had taken them to Manhattan Beach, and the water terrified her. Ruby bodysurfed so hard she once lost her bikini bottoms in the sea, but Laura was content to play in the sand. Mom had bribed Laura with a candy apple once, saying she’d get it if she put her head under water. The feeling of impending doom touching every inch of her skin gave her a panic attack, and she had gotten out, eaten the candy apple, and vowed never to return. But she knew how to tread water. She hated it, but she could do it.

That was the feeling she had in the office the next day. She kept her head above water, made decisions, and instructed her staff on what to do and in what order. She spent half the day at 40th Street, moving machines and sewers to make room for a line of Jeremy’s vests that had last-minute orders. She brought the design assistants over to teach them how to set up a line and had a panic attack over a closet that hadn’t been dusted of wool fibers.

And then it was seven o’clock.

She bolted out, barely saying good-bye, and ran back to 38th Street.

**

Jeremy was already on the video conference screen in their office, his hotel room behind him. As she ran in, huffing and puffing, he took a handful of pills. For him, it was 7:10 a.m., the next day.

“Easy, tiger,” he said.

“I was afraid I’d miss you. I was at 40th, and they hadn’t done the fifth floor storage—”

“Breathe.”

“Your head is huge.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I mean the screen is so big.”

He moved his chair back. “Better?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve got about four hundred emails, and it looks like you’ve been taking care of everything. What do you want to do with Heidi?”

“If we get rid of her, they’re going to send her back to Romania.”

“And?”

“And. No.”

“Put her at reception.”

“Would you stop? She’s fine. It was a mistake.”

“A series of mistakes. That wasn’t the only origin label at the sideseam.”

She crossed her arms. He crossed his arms. They stood like that for a while, at an impasse, with a few thousand miles between them. Then she smiled. And he smiled.

Jeremy broke the silence. “If you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for it.”

“Deal.”

“Have you been staying at my place?”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about going through all your things. Do you have any secrets you want to tell me about before I find them in the back of a drawer?”

“I don’t keep them in the drawers.” His expression promised plenty for her to uncover. “The dress? Anything I should know about?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “It’s complicated. And I don’t really have much.”

He leaned forward, put his elbow on the desk, and leaned his cheek on his palm. “I’m not due in the office until nine, so go ahead.”

She sat on the table, so she’d be big in the screen for him, as well. “I went out with Stu, and—”

“That didn’t take long.”

She ignored his remark. “The guy Dad ran away with? His name was Samuel Inweigh. He was a singer from Brunico. He recorded an album the month they were here with the entourage. There’s not much on an Internet search, but Stu’s getting me the recording.”

“And you’re giving him the story.”

“How perceptive of you.”

“Of all the things I love about you, that you think people are good-hearted… definitely up there.”

“And my body?”

“Neck and neck with the other thing. And by the way, I miss it.”

“It speaks fondly of you.”

“Is that it? That’s not enough to make me late.”

“I saw Barry and Dean last night. They say hello. But Barry told me he didn’t see the dress get unloaded when he went to do the setup. You know, like he just turned around, and it was there. Said it came on a plain white truck. That’s it. So, anyway, also… I was going to tell you something, but I don’t want you to get mad.” She paused.

He was still elbow-on-the-desk, early-morning Jeremy, as she’d seen him for five years in the first few hours of the day before he put on his bossy late-day face.

She took a deep breath and spit it out. “He offered me a job.”

“He’s always offering you a job. It’s his way of teasing me.”

“He gave me a number.”

He picked up his head. “What kind of number?”

“Big number. Two-year contract.” Her hands had gone as cold as Jeremy’s expression. He had been relaxed and warm, and now he looked like he wanted to break something. “See?” she said. “You’re mad.”

He hid his face behind his hands and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t have to say a word. Her revelation was tantamount to her telling him his best friend had put his hand up her skirt.

“Jeremy?”

“Tell me you’re joking.” His voice was muffled behind his hands.

She figured she might as well tell him the whole thing, not just the hand up the skirt but the soft caresses and whispered promises. “He pitched it to me like I was done learning anything here, and you and I are redundant, which I don’t agree with. But he said I could manage the divas on his design team and set up production in all his overseas facilities. But it’s not like I’m a big world traveler, so I don’t know what he’s thinking.”

Jeremy took his hands away. His eyes were reddened from his fingertips. “He’s right to poach you. You want to pull a creative with domestic floor experience, and there are about seventeen of us left.” He rubbed the scissor callus inside his second finger, a tell for when he was upset.

“I can’t leave Sartorial and run all over the world setting up modular systems.”

“Sweetheart, I really can’t talk. I’m too—”

“I’m not taking it.”

“That’s not the point. I have to go.”

They said good-bye, with all the familiar affectionate phrases attached, but he was far away emotionally. His feelings were hurt, at the very least. At one point in the middle of the night before, she’d thought that she would take the job to see what it was like to work with someone else, but after his reaction, all she wanted to do was reassure him that she was his, body, soul, and career, so long as he wouldn’t have that hurt look on his face. His vulnerability made her very uncomfortable. She wanted to protect him, and herself, from it.

**

The call of the previous night wasn’t forgotten the next day but shoved to the back burner in the face of a series of fittings at 40th Street that seemed to go on and on. Heidi was a nervous wreck and kept calling out the wrong measurements.

“Your job is safe, Heidi.” Laura leaned down to adjust the hem on a floor-length skirt. It was too curved in the back, yet too short. She would adjust the curve at the bottom first, then drop the curve back down from the waistline.

The correction wasn’t new, but the sweat in her palms was, and the way the box of pins sat just so on the carpet, and the pins in her mouth, the way they pressed into her lips. The worry over losing a job. The tension of reassurance. She tried not to breathe too hard, or she would swallow a pin. It had all happened before… when she was small.

The flashback floated in on the wave of remembered concerns. Mom kneeled at the model’s feet, pinning up a curve.
Nothing in fitting is what it seems. A problem with the back is sometimes a problem with the front. Sometimes, you have to solve the problem at the waist to solve the problem at the hem.
Mom’s big blue eyes stared her down, transmitting decades of knowledge, which Laura understood and assimilated in all its nuance and depth.

In her mind, Laura saw the Scaasi studio with its huge windows and exposed brick, and she smelled that smell of Dad, dusty leather and fabric softener. He and Mom spoke words she couldn’t remember because she was thinking about how top affects bottom and back affects front. Dad took her hand, and some other memory associated itself with the memory of the curved back hem, and like a dog on a leash, it came trailing after her. Walking on some street by the Lincoln Tunnel, they were on their way to the unemployment office. Dad was sad. Dad didn’t talk too much. She wondered if he was mad at her. He was walking too fast. They passed a big building with a loading dock in back, and out of the loading dock, a kid who might have been a third grader ticked something on a clipboard as a bolt of fabric was carried out of the truck. Laura thought,
lucky kid
, just as Dad mumbled, “Poor kid. I won’t have you in that stinking business, Lala. If it’s the last—”