Love, Loss, and What I Wore (4 page)

On one of her hands she wore a black onyx ring. On the other, a marquise-shaped ring with diamonds and emeralds, which I wear now.

In high school, my friend Fran Todtfeld and I would go to an Army-Navy store to buy real sailor middy blouses. We also bought pea jackets there.

My friend Gay and I wanted to have “basketball sweaters” but we had no team and no boyfriends to give us their sweaters.

We found a store on the Lower East Side that made those sweaters to order but you had to get at least four. So we found two more girls who wanted sweaters and formed a club. We chose maroon sweaters with white stripes and white writing.

You were supposed to have the name of your team on the back of the sweater, but since we had no team, we had no name. We decided on WC’WD, which stood for “We Couldn’t Think of a Name, So We Didn’t.”

When we went to order the sweaters, the salesman measured our chests with a tape measure. We thought he was very vulgar.

Once we had the sweaters, we gave up the club.

A typical outfit worn to high school (Riverdale Country Day School) by my best friend, Dora.

Long-sleeved, white silky blouse with pearl buttons, black ballerina-length full skirt, and black ballet slippers.

Dora usually wore her long, straight, shiny black hair in a high ponytail.

Note Dora’s real beauty mark at the end of her eyebrow.

Dora lived at 22 East 65th Street, across from my grandparents’ store.

Color looked gorgeous on Gay, my second-best friend. She usually wore a chiffon scarf—pink, turquoise, aqua, lavender, or purple—knotted around her neck, and a purple sweater.

The color of the scarf and sweater brought out the extraordinary colors in her eyes, eyelids, and cheeks. She said she never wore eye-makeup but I didn’t believe her.

Gay and I made these yellow-and-black-striped cotton circle skirts. It took forever to hem them.

Gay lived at 30 East 70th Street. Gay and Dora were my best friends. They still are.

Gay had a brother named Peter. He was three years older, taller, darker, and kept to himself.

Gay’s parents were Armenian. Her mother’s name was Zabelle. She made yogurt, wore white satin nightgowns, and read lots of books. They had a baby grand piano in the living room that she played. She visited friends who weren’t feeling well. She used to tell Gay to speak more softly and to speak through the front of her mouth.

Gay’s father’s name was Zarah. He was very handsome and an architect. He also painted Utrillo-like scenes in oils. He drank martinis and often went out with beautiful women. When I went to their house in the morning, sometimes he’d be sleeping on the couch in the living room. I never said a word to him nor he to me.

Long-sleeved black turtleneck jersey, gray quilted circle skirt (or gray accordian-pleated skirt when I could borrow it from Dora), and wide leather belt from Greenwich Village.

This is how we dressed when we went out on a “plain” date to someplace like Jimmy Ryan’s to hear Dixieland or to the movies.

We got more dressed up when we went to the Rainbow Room on top of the RCA Building, the Persian Room at the Plaza, or the Columbia Room on the Astor roof.

My grandmother bought me this dress from MacWise, a very exclusive store between 65th and 66th Streets on Madison. The people who owned the dress store were customers in my grandparents’ store, so my grandmother got it for very little when they couldn’t sell it.

The dress was much too sophisticated for a high-school girl, but my grandmother didn’t know that. It was strapless, with rows of black velvet alternating with rows of black faille. It was very tight.

I wore it to a party I went to with Dora on the West Side. We usually didn’t go to the West Side because we lived on the East Side and we were snobby. We thought the boys on the West Side were too fast. I almost got into trouble at that party (very rare because I was so shy). I think it was because of the dress.

Another dress from MacWise. Although the neckline was much too low, I loved this black-and-brown-striped dress and often wore it on dates.

This red T-strap was a favorite “going-out” shoe. Dora and I wore them but Gay’s feet were too big to wear that style.

Most of the time we wore black Capezio ballet slippers, which we bought on the sixth floor of Bonwit Teller’s on Saturday afternoons.

I bought this coat at Klein’s on 14th Street. It had very avant—garde styling—like a sweater. Dora’s mother saw it and told Dora to get one, too. Mine was red and green. Dora’s was purple and blue.

Dora’s mother, Miriam Landey, was a dress designer for rich ladies who lived on the West Side. She would go to Europe in the summer to buy fine and fancy fabrics. She designed only a few styles but made them up in different fabrics.