Kate Jacobs (22 page)

* * *

Georgia was wearing her good suit and nursing a
cup of coffee from Marty's deli as she sat reading the
Times
at the
shop's table. The store was closed on Sundays, but she was there anyway.
Georgia tilted her legs just so, slightly uncomfortable because her skirt was
digging into her waistline. Had she put on some weight recently? It must be all
of Dakota's baking, sitting out there on the kitchen counter begging for a taster.
Through the unlocked door, Darwin strolled in, big bags and a frozen-yogurt
cone in hand; Lucie was right behind, crunching away at the cookie bits
surrounding her frozen treat. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt and black
cotton pants, the shirt large and loose but not ill-fitting like the clothes
she had on the day before. She looked like a new woman.
"Looking great, Luce," said Georgia. "But Ms. Chiu, I thought
you would know that buying clothes is just another way of supporting the
patriarchy."
Darwin put her hands on her hips. "Ha, ha, ha," she said, drawing out
every sound. "They're
Lucie's
clothes, not mine.
I only wear Fair Trade clothes anyway. Nice try, Georgia Walker."
Lucie and Anita exchanged glances, worried that another day's filming would be
derailed if an argument erupted between those two. But the academic simply
smiled. Georgia returned the expression. Lucie and Anita, both perplexed,
raised eyebrows at each other.
"Indeed," murmured Anita. "Will wonders never cease? So, shall
we set up, Lucie?"
Anita had been adamant: If they didn't start filming the video on one of
Lucie's
days off, they'd have to wait until early June.
Because Anita was going to see Nathan and his family for the long weekend and
it was only a week away.
The Memorial Day weekend—the official start of summer. Which, frankly, Georgia
was dreading. Easter dinner had been one thing. James had seemed so sweet,
complimenting her lamb, and Dakota was delighted to have the entire family
together. And then they'd had that…moment. The kiss. So it hadn't seemed like
such a big deal when James suggested, last week, that they spend a day, just
the three of them, doing something fun. She'd nixed the Hyde Park idea, not
wanting to be either trapped in a car or stuck on a train ride next to James,
making small talk but thinking about kissing him. Instead, the three of them
went to the Central Park Zoo for a couple of hours, checking out the polar
bears and the monkeys. It had been surprisingly pleasant, letting Dakota devour
a hot dog from a street vendor, sharing a bready pretzel with mustard with
James. The spring colors were out, the flowering trees in bloom, and it had
just been such a nice day that they rambled on over to the model-boat pond,
renting a
remotecontrol
toy for Dakota to sail.
Holding hands when she wasn't looking. A typical New York Sunday for a regular
city family. Which they weren't, of course. Not even close. But it was nice.
And she had let herself fall into it, the easy feeling of being with James, of feeling
looked after, of fueling herself on Dakota's laughter.
Then came the price. Time to pay up, Walker. Because James Foster, as always,
had something he wanted. No, not Georgia Walker. It was never Georgia, was it?
No, indeed. The minute they had returned to the apartment, James began going on
about his latest and greatest idea. He wanted to take his daughter (
his
daughter? Her daughter and he'd better get that straight in his mind, thought
Georgia now) to Baltimore to meet his parents. And what more perfect time than
the Memorial Day weekend? Georgia had been momentarily stunned. She'd expected
this request at some point but not now, not after all the kissing and flirting
and general
stupidness
. James hadn't changed one bit:
He had been trying to butter up Georgia just to get his way. Fake her out with
a little pretend romance. Just to take Dakota away from her. It would start
with a weekend, then who knew where it would go?
Everything was all about him. It always was. He didn't even think about asking Georgia
first. He didn't even consider asking her to come along on the trip to
Baltimore.
"Absolutely," Dakota replied to her father's suggestion. So there was
Georgia, left to play the bad guy.
She wasn't about to send her daughter out of town with the father that had just
waltzed onto the scene less than a year ago. Even if this trip was the innocent
little family meeting he claimed. Could she trust him to look after Dakota?
After all, her little girl may have been a city kid, but an annual trip to Pennsylvania
does not make someone a seasoned traveler. What if they got separated and
Dakota found herself lost in Baltimore?
And, God forbid, what if he just never brought her back?
"I don't think so, James," said Georgia, her mouth a thin line.
"It's not going to happen."
And Dakota had raced out of the room, slamming the door to her bedroom, her
jagged sobs easy to hear through the thin walls. "I hate you, Mommy, I
hate you."

fourteen

Surely there comes a day when you're just
resigned to it,
thought Cat. When the negativity becomes so rote that you don't even notice it.
But that moment kept eluding her, and she felt bruised by every cruel comment
her husband doled out. By the lack of attention. By the overwhelming sensation
of hate that left her imagining endless horrible deaths for him.
She should have left long ago, back when she'd still had a chance—at a career,
another marriage, kids. Thirty-seven might not seem old if your life was your
own, but Cat had signed hers away years ago. She was almost thirty when she
clued in to her parents' admonitions that she couldn't just run home. Their
response to her crying phone calls in the early months of her marriage was
simply a long-married couple's reaction to the seemingly overwrought hysterics
of a young girl, settled down before she'd fully grown up. If they'd truly
known the verbal abuse and emotional rejection she received from Adam—from the
entire Phillips family—she came to believe that they would have helped her,
would have welcomed her back, encouraged her to pursue that PhD in art history.
But by that point she couldn't ask them, having buried them following a fatal
collision with a drunk driver. And, well, she was well looked after, wasn't
she? Didn't have any need of money. Or so they must have assumed, she having
long since stopped complaining about Adam. Their will had given all their
assets over to her siblings, left her some good pieces of furniture and her
mother's engagement ring. Nothing she could use to steal away in the middle of
the night and begin anew.
Instead, she absorbed a powerful lesson: she was all alone. Support was
fleeting, at the convenience of the giver. There was no one to turn to and
nowhere to go, unless she was willing to make a stand and find her own way in
the world.
She'd tried to tell herself that she could suffer all the little
indignities—his one-night stands, the emotional affairs, the relationships
(Adam being a man who required a harem to service his ego and other,
substantially smaller, parts of his anatomy)—for the good silver and the
unlimited charge card at Bergdorf. Now she wasn't so sure. But home didn't
exist anymore, her siblings had their own lives, she had no skills, and she
knew that Adam would wring her out in court if she tried to get her share of
his money.
So who could believe it? That day at the dermatologist, the snappy article
about some yarn shop and the quirky single mom who started it from nothing. The
name jumping out at her, an echo she could barely hear, from a world she had
long since given up as a dream. When she was herself.
Yet there it was. What had she expected? To find Georgia Walker waiting for her
all this time, arms outstretched, remembering all the serious conversations and
double dates and laughter? To find Georgia Walker still ready to fight her
battles, to give her a hug, to back her up against all comers?
She knew that's what she had wanted. But to be confronted with Georgia's
beautiful life, the darling little girl, the store filled with women (and a few
men!) happy to be there, sharing a love of a craft. It had been agony. There
had never been any doubt about Georgia. No, never any doubt about her. She was
always the one who put her head down and got the job done. Cathy had been the
dilettante, clever but never directed. She should have known she'd never get
anywhere without Georgia.

* * *

Maybe if she'd been a famous knitwear designer
already
,
Georgia thought, she'd have some sort of company that delivered her gowns for
her. As it was, she offered six for the price of one: designer, pattern-maker,
knitter, seamstress, steamer, and messenger girl. Though a very handsome price,
indeed.
She sat in the front seat of the taxi, in between the driver's clipboard, water
bottle, and newspaper to read during heavy traffic, glancing every other second
at the two garment bags laid one atop the other in the back seat. The first,
she knew, imagining the feel of the scrumptious golden material, a cashmere
blend shot through with glittery threads to give it the shine and sensation of
gold. The gown itself was a rather delicate affair, fitted repeatedly on Cat's
slender frame, to hug every curve and shimmy over her body as she walked. The
bodice was a low V, all the way down to the middle of Cat's abdomen (already
toned, but Georgia knew she'd been hitting the gym harder than usual), the two
sections over the bust pulled together by only three skinny knit bands.
("All the better to see your favorite assets," Georgia told her,
motioning to her
bustline
. Cat had loved it.) The
sleeveless top was all garter, but the stitches were unbelievably fine—she was
certain to need glasses after this job!—and the piece continued its tight
descent down the body. Then the skirt, a separate section, all seed stitch to
give it the texture of crushed taffeta, the glitter in the wool reminiscent of
that ubiquitous party material. Only this version was more sophisticated and,
thankfully, quieter. More slink than rustle. It blossomed just above the hip,
making Cat's derriere look a bit more rounded, her waist even tinier, before
falling softly to the floor, just enough folding to maintain the feeling of
fullness without verging into plumpness. It was an outfit to keep anyone
guessing—eye-popping on the top, all softness below. Georgia named all of her unique
creations, secretly talked to them as she worked the stitches. The golden dress
she called Phoenix. It was her triumph.
And then her old friend had come up with a need for a second outfit! Georgia
had outdone herself, completing it in just over four weeks versus the six weeks
of intense labor it took to do the first one. The style and shape of the next
dress—what she called Powder Puff in her mind—was Cat's homage to Audrey
Hepburn. The material was made of raw silk fiber, which had certainly made it more
of a challenge to knit, but it resulted in an exquisitely delicate creation.
With a mandarin collar that revealed just the right hint of collarbone, and a
cap sleeve that showed off Cat's toned arms, the dress nipped in at the waist
before racing straight to the floor, the soft pink interrupted only by the
flash of thigh, thanks to the slit in the skirt that was cut all the way up to
the hip. The style hinted at demure, but the wearer, who demanded the slit be
ever higher, was anything but. It, too, was a showstopper, paired with dangling
earrings that Cat had received from Adam the previous Christmas. ("Oh,
these," she had said. "They're real diamonds—I had them appraised
after he gave them to me. He must be in love with his latest paramour; usually,
I just get a watch.")

* * *

Ten minutes late. Damn! Georgia hated to be
delayed. The cab screeched off Broadway, began navigating the smaller
streets—Mercer, then Prince, then Greene—before stopping at the entrance of
Cat's building. Georgia rushed out, carefully gathering Cat's dresses, and rode
the elevator, the one that opened right up into the loft, for what she figured
would be the last time. No more Wednesday-afternoon meetings, no more fittings,
redesigns, scrambling to get enough luxury yarn for the project. She felt a
little
ooky
. A kind of twinge she couldn't quite put
her finger on. A sprinkling of anxiety. She was always sad to say good-bye to
her creations, to Phoenix and Powder Puff, just like all the baby blankets and
sweaters that had gone before them. The doors opened up and there was Cat,
dressed casually in overpriced jeans and a boat-necked cream shell, a
fine-gauge cotton cardigan wrapped preppie-style around her shoulders, a pair
of shiny new cowboy boots gleaming on her feet. Her hair, typically blown out
smoothly, was instead
moussed
and teased to make
whatever wave was naturally in there come alive. She looked like an upscale
version of Georgia. Cat stood there, grinning, motioning the knitter to come
in.
"Hey! Notice anything different?" said Cat, smiling wider. Two months
ago, Georgia would have been so completely offended. Would have presumed
parody, instead of flattery. But now she could see what had been obscured by
the mascara and that attitude. The glimmer of a girl she once knew. Funny.
Exuberant. Playful.
Georgia felt that little something boogying around her stomach. Yup, hard to
believe, but that bad feeling probably wasn't about Powder Puff. Or Phoenix.
It was going to be sad to say good-bye to Cat.

* * *

Scanning the foyer of the museum in one quick
glance, pleased she had chosen the golden gown after all, a sheer gossamer wrap
in an almost translucent shade of nude dangling from her hands, Cat did a quick
evaluation. She was definitively the best-looking woman in the room.
One-two-three…contact. Every man's—and his wife's—eyes were drinking in their
fill. And right on cue, Adam broke away from his little pack of buddies talking
money in the corner, squared out his chest with pride, and began swaggering his
way over to claim her. Show the crowd she was his.
"Hi, sweetheart," she purred.
"You look like a brick shithouse, babe," he replied, stepping to her
side in preparation for putting his arm around her shoulders. The public
display of ownership.
She moved away, just a bit. "Don't muss the hair, Adam," she cooed,
giving his friend Chip a little wavy-wave as his eyes lingered. Cat didn't turn
her head, continued speaking to her husband.
"I have a little something for you, Adam."
"Will it wait 'til we get home or do I have to sneak you into the men's
room?" He chuckled, that conservative-white-male laugh of satisfaction.
"Oh, no, let's do it right here, darling dear." Cat had stopped
smiling. She shook her arms free of her wrap, a manila envelope underneath in
her hands. "Mr. Phillips, you've just been served."