A Dress to Die For (13 page)

“Nuts. But in a totally different way than you. If she
squees
one more time...”

Laura smiled. She imagined him rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

He sighed. “Sweetheart, you’re coming with me next time. Or I’m shipping you here without me. Your choice. You’d learn more in a week than most of these people do in a month.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Irrational panic.”

“Ah. The truth comes out. Then it’s settled. We go together.”

She huddled by the wet wall, wishing he’d back off, yet being grateful for him at the same time.

“My boat’s here,” he said. “I’ll be in China. Reception’s going to be spotty. Try anyway, all right?”

“I will.”

“Have a good weekend, and remember you love me.”

“And you love me.”

They hung up on those words. She remembered then that if it was eight o’clock in the morning the next day in Hong Kong, and he was already at the terminal to China, he likely didn’t do his runs in the mornings. She decided not to worry about his meds, or his chest therapy, or the hundred other things she could lose sleep over. She had a mother to watch and an office to manage.

She also had a dress to find.

**

Stu called to tell her he had the album. All she had to do was bring dinner, and they could listen to a folksy crooner over Pad Thai. He unpacked the food while she perused the vinyl LP.

“Wasn’t there a used CD somewhere?” Laura asked.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

He had a record player, of course. What self-respecting Williamsburg hipster relied on MP3s anymore? Low fidelity was the new high fidelity—warm, imperfect, and impermanent.

When he’d answered the door, the first thing she’d noticed was that he smelled nice, as though he’d just showered, put on something cucumbery afterward, then worn clean clothes and brushed his teeth, all the things people did when they wanted to be at their best but not attract attention to the fact.

“You going out?” Laura asked.

“Later.”

“What’s her name?”

“I have neither the recollection nor the inclination to care.” He handed her a twelve-inch LP in a plastic bag that looked as though it had been cut some time in the nineties. On the cover, Samuel Inweigh’s face took up the entire square, every pore and stray facial hair airbrushed away, red hair neat and pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck. A white T-shirt collar just skimmed the bottom edge of the frame. His brand of unhip was practically cutting edge.

“Now,” Stu said as he un-sleeved the record and brushed it clean. “The reason I knew this guy from one record twenty or so years ago is that his music is transcendent. Heartbreaking. I mean, you could set your watch to the teardrops.”

“He wasn’t American, was he?”

“Hell, no. Flag-waving Brunican.”

He handed her the inner sleeve, which had the song lyrics printed in italics on one side. She plopped on a beanbag chair and studied the words.

Where’s the laugh in you, baby?

Where’s the love in you, baby?

I have a cone in my heart, a cone in my heart,

A funnel for your empty breath.

She got the sinking feeling it was going to be a nice but useless diversion. They were love songs, and if they were to Dad, they were going to make her ill. “Do you know if he wrote these before the trip or in the studio?” she asked.

“He was a brilliant improviser, supposedly. They were written on the fly.”

“In New York, in the entourage month.”

Stu put on the record.

She brought me two of her

One with small hands and big heart

One that spun until it burned

And each on a string

Each on a string

There is no other pinned to me

No song without her

So long to know her

And here we are with empty hands

And all the spinning parts

“I don’t know what I expected,” Laura said. “It doesn’t tell me much. Maybe the
two of her
are me and Ruby? And am I the spinner or the small hands?”

“He was in love with someone. That’s for sure. I mean the sheer longing of every song. It’s crystal clear.”

She wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t clear to her at all. It sounded nice, with violins and cellos in the background and Inweigh with his husky crooning. The breaths between verses sounded drawn through a deep pain that came from the gut, but nothing in the words told her who, what, or where. “Play this one. ‘Forgive Me.’”

“Ah.” Stu snapped his fingers. “This one is great.” He placed the needle on the record with a scratch and a hiss.

Forgive me, I was looking at you

Forgive me, I forgot you were two

And there was only half a son

And that was what I stared through

The piece missing

The piece gone

The piece you pretend is still there

I forgive the piece

I forgive the space

I forgive the emptiness

Who do you forgive?

“Ha,” Laura said. “The last thing he should be doling out is forgiveness. Freaking homewrecker.” She tossed the sleeve back to Stu. “This guy was depressive. Total Prozac case. If this is what Dad fell for, that says more about him than Inweigh.” She put aside her Styrofoam tray and pulled out her sketchbook, opening to the last page.

Stu’s phone dinged, and he huffed a little laugh as he tapped out a reply to something. “I feel sorry for you,” he said.

“Me or the girl you’re texting?” Inweigh played in the background, and she worked on a chart in the back of her book.

“All of you. You’re trained to be princesses and brides as kids, and when you become women, you don’t know how to manage the fact that all you want is sex. Society’s mixed you all up.”

“I love how you make up all these big cultural statements just to support the fact that you want to get laid. What’s happening? Some girl actually
likes
you, and you don’t know what to do about it?”

“I’d know what to do about it if I was getting laid.” He popped the last of his spring roll into his mouth and breathed in hard to cut the heat.

“But you are getting laid.”

“Not by her.”

“Yet you stick around, even though, what? She wants to be the only one? Good for her for holding out.”

“It’s all just practice for marriage, and it’s fake.”

“I’m never getting married, but I can stay faithful. Not that hard.”

“The lady doth protest too much.”

“How did I almost date you? Were you always such a pig?”

“No. I used to be a nice guy. This is much more gratifying.” He grabbed his Thai iced tea and sat next to her. “What the hell are you drawing? That’s not a skirt.”

She held up her book. She’d drawn lines, charts, and boxes with names. “Here’s everyone. Jobeth. Barry/Jeremy. The princess. Mom. Samuel. Dad. Brother Bill. The real dress. The fake dress.”

“Okay.”

She drew lines and circles as she talked, and though none of it would make any real sense to anyone living outside her head, seeing it all laid out helped her think. “I’m going to believe Jobeth had the real dress because Lloyd’s agreed to insure it. I’m also going to go with it being in her possession for as long as she says: seven months. And she’s been at the Iroquois for six. Anything where Lloyd’s would have had to ask a question, I’m going to assume was true because they’re sticklers.

“She approached Bernard Nestor in mid-September, which is late. But then Nestor came to Barry, and Barry went to Jeremy, and they partnered on it. The whole thing sailed through on pure excitement. The move was executed by an archivist. I have to get their name from Barry.” She made a note on the side of the page. “Anyway, I saw Barnabas in the pictures Mom had, and he didn’t look like the reckless and passionate type. Mom said he was with this woman named Henrietta, who also wasn’t setting the world on fire. But Mom could be mistaken. So let’s assume Jobeth’s telling the truth. This guy Barnabas went back with the princess, conducted a twenty-year affair with her under her husband’s nose, felt threatened enough seven months ago to send back the dress, then she went and died in a fire. Then Jobeth heard about the show at the Met and donated the dress for the exhibit. What’s wrong with this picture?”

“Why send the dress here?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

Stu’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and pocketed the cell.

“Is it the Miss Holdout or tonight’s trick?” Laura asked.

“Another one. Long dark hair. Unbelievable dancer.”

“It ain’t easy being a player.” She enunciated the last
r
and threw her hands up in a mock gang sign.

“No joke. Do you want to take the album?”

“I have nothing to play it on.”

“You come back any time, player hater.” He enunciated his
r
’s, too, and put his arm around her to walk her down the stairs.

CHAPTER 9

“She said Barnabas was with the princess,” Laura said, poking through Mom’s jewelry box. She’d gotten home just in time to help her mother accessorize for a night out with Jimmy. “Maybe Henrietta was a cover?”

“I don’t remember. The two of them were like furniture.” Mom tried to get an earring into a hole that had pretty much closed up. She tugged the lobe and wiggled the earring but couldn’t get it through. “Barney was American. That’s all I remember about him.”

“And the princess? Was she sneaky enough to have an affair that long?”

“Of course.” Mom threw the earrings back in the box and picked another pair. “People are sneaky. They stink. All of them. And you’re not going to that café without me. You’ll walk out with nothing, I promise. You don’t know these people. You don’t know the vocabulary.”

“I’ll wait until tomorrow so you can come.” Laura got up and gently removed the earring from her mother’s hands.

“No, you won’t. I know you.”

“What’s the difference? It’s not like there’s any real urgency. Nobody’s dying.” She picked through Mom’s jewelry box until she came up with an earring that had a different base shape and a thinner, curved back. “I wonder what Cangemi thinks.” Laura put the other earring in Mom’s ear and looked at her in the mirror. The earrings looked good with the blue drape neck. “Those are better anyway.”

The bell rang, which was funny, since Jimmy was their landlord and had a key. Mom sighed. “I wish we could dispense with this whole ‘date’ nonsense and get to the good part.”

Jimmy looked kind of nice in his bad suit jacket and double Windsor knot. His shoes were shined, and his pants were pressed.

“Get her home before curfew,” Laura said.

“Shut up,” Mom replied.

**

Laura answered emails, worked on Sartorial’s Fall of next year, checked out what everyone else in the fashion world was doing, and looked at the clock at 9:13 p.m. She could go stay in Ruby’s apartment downstairs, or she could go to 24th Street and listen to the hum of Jeremy’s ventilation bubble.

She was locking the front door when Mom and Jimmy strolled down the block.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked.

“Jeremy’s.”

“Listen,” Jimmy said, “your mother was telling me about this thing with the gown. We need to go to that café tonight. You coming?”

She felt as if she were being invited to her own party after everyone declined in the RSVP, but going to ask questions of a bunch of strangers would be easier with a retired cop who had a short temper and a crowbar.

**

Ilha Grande Café sat on a lovely piece of real estate, a cobblestone intersection of five other cobblestone streets on the west side of Manhattan’s southern tip. At night, the area looked like a plaza with the expanse of space and the strict parking regulations. The place was bordered by window-boxed red brick buildings and narrow sidewalks. The café jutted out into the faux-plaza with its small black door and plastic sign no bigger than a sticker that said
Hello! My name is...
, creating an aura of quiet and secrecy right in the middle of the Meatpacking District.

“Do we just go in?” Laura asked after the cab pulled away.

“How are we supposed to know?” Jimmy said.

“Are you going to be a pain in my ass?”

“Yep.”

Laura stomped up to the door and opened it as if she’d been patronizing the café her whole life. Christmas lights hung from the back of the bar that lined the right side of the room to the wall bordering the two rows of square tables to the left. The multitude of colors threw off the hues of the paintings and photographs in gold-painted frames that curled and turned with ornate pretension. The tables were half occupied, and almost everyone sitting at them stared at Laura’s entourage.

A man in a poly-print shirt with the top three buttons undone approached her. “May the high prince rule.”

Laura had no idea what he was talking about, but Mom jumped in, “From a high place.”