The Pink Suit: A Novel (20 page)

In the midst of all this chaos, a man sat at a card table, calmly making notes. He seemed to be an executive. He was wearing a suit and looked unaccustomed to making lists of any kind. His jacket had been burned in several places. His face was dirty.

“Name?”

“Patrick Harris. The butcher.”

The man looked at her oddly. “Harris Meats, across the street?”

“Yes. The Irish butcher.”

“I'm sorry,” he said.

The word made her go cold. “Sorry?”

“Next of kin only.”

The man obviously knew the shop well enough to know that Patrick was unmarried. Kate's heart was pounding so fast, she felt dizzy.

“Then Mike Quinn? My brother-in-law.”

The man checked. Then checked again, just to be sure. “No Quinn. You'll have to call all the hospitals. Have you tried their house?”

Kate ran all the way home.

For the rest of her life, Kate would remember the stench of burning oil—and running. The sun slipped into the river as if exhausted. Without electricity, the neighborhood was dark and smoky. Candles flickered in some of the windows that she passed. She kept on. She ran up the 120 steps of Step Street, straight up, and then down her street, to her building. Once inside, she took the stairs two at a time. She'd lost her shoes. Her feet were bloodied. Her bones felt as if they would break. The door to Maggie's was ajar. The apartment was dark, as was the rest of the neighborhood. Kate knocked.

“I hope that's room service.”

Patrick Harris.

The thin moon shone through the living-room windows. Kate could make him out, but just barely. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against Maggie's ugly couch, wrapped in Big Mike's stadium blanket, which was a blue plaid of suspect origin—not the Quinn tartan. He turned on a flashlight.

“That blue suits you,” she said.

Kate was afraid to touch him; she was afraid that if she did, he'd disappear.

Patrick was covered in soot. His face was burned. His hair was singed away in places. He had never looked more wonderful to Kate.

“You look like a building fell on you.”

“They're heavy things.”

“And Maggie?”

“She's excellent. Your sister was halfway to the bank when it happened. She and Little Mike stopped by the shop on the way, so I know they were unhurt. Thank God she's such a mercenary when it comes to Mike's pay. She swooped in early and avoided the show.”

“Mike?”

Any hint of a smile disappeared from Patrick's face. “I don't know,” he said. “Couldn't find him. Nobody was here when I got here, either.”

“He wasn't on the list, though. I had them check. That's something.”

For a moment, Patrick appeared confused, and then he understood what kind of list she was talking about. He looked relieved. “Good,” he said. “That's a bit of good news.”

Kate held out her hand to him to help him up. He wouldn't take it.

“I don't want to get the sofa dirty.” He handed her the spare key that Maggie kept under the front mat instead. “Don't lose it.”

She held out her hand to him again. “If you wreck her beige carpet, Maggie will be unforgiving.”

“My leg's asleep.”

Kate didn't believe him. She pulled back the blanket. Patrick's leg was bleeding. It was wrapped in someone's cotton shirt, which was soaked with blood.

“It's fine,” he said. “Keep it clean, they told me.” Patrick tried to get up, as if to prove that he was fine, but couldn't.

“It is not fine.”

Patrick's leg was clearly not fine, but they both knew there wasn't anything either one of them could do about it. The hospitals were filled. There were no doctors to call. Kate was suddenly furious.

“You went in. After?” She was nearly shouting, speaking in fistfuls of words. “After it exploded? How could you?”

“How could I not?”

Patrick's eyes were rimmed in tears. He pulled Kate into his arms and held her for a very long time.

When the telephones were working again, Kate called the Old Man. She'd kept the number of Fogarty's Pub in Newtown, even though her father told her that she shouldn't phone unless she hit the National Lottery. The call was passed from a local to an overseas operator, there was ringing and then more ringing, until finally Mrs. Fogarty herself answered. It was half past five in the morning in Cobh. “Kate! Dear!” she shouted over the static. “Are you coming home?” The woman sounded so far away. Kate suddenly missed her so. She had a kind word for everyone, and that always meant a lot.

“I'm sorry if I woke you, Mrs. Fogarty.”

“Woke me? Been up for hours. I'll send one of my boys to get the Old Man. He'll call you back.”

“No. I'll hang on.”

It was a small fortune for every minute, but Kate didn't care.

“Well, aren't you the great success, wasting money on telephone calls? Of course, I'm not surprised. It's hilarious the way the Old Man shows off your pictures. He's got them all hanging on his brag wall.”

For a moment, Kate thought that the woman was confused. She'd never sent the Old Man any pictures of herself. “This is Kate, Mrs. Fogarty. Not Maggie—”

“I know that. I'm not daft. He's got the newspaper photos of all those frocks clipped up nice and hanging on the wall. Quite impressive. I hear you're quite tight with She Who Must Be Obeyed—the Wife. What's she really like?”

“I couldn't say—”

“Of course. Sworn to secrecy and all that.”

In the background, Kate heard one of the Fogarty boys shout, “He's got one leg in his trousers. He'll be here in a flash.”

Then Mrs. Fogarty said, “Just between us girls, the Old Man misses you something fierce. We all know you're doing well, but he stands out on the docks every morning and watches the ships come in. He's done it ever since you left. Are you coming home? Is that why you called? Because if that's why—”

The Old Man was winded when he took the phone away. “What happened?” He sounded as if he'd aged twenty years since Kate left, instead of just a handful.

Kate told him all she knew. The day was cold. The boiler was new but had not been inspected. “It smashed through the lunchroom like a rocket, bouncing off the ceiling and walls, maiming and killing everything in its path, one hundred and nineteen people in all—mostly phone operators and linesmen. Mike was hurt, but not that badly. He and some of the other linesmen helped the wounded out of the building. He's fine. Although Maggie was out of her mind with worry.”

The line went quiet. Kate thought she heard a seagull's cry, but it was a cry of another sort. And so she told her father the other reason why she'd called—the reason that had become so very clear from the moment she opened the door to Maggie's and saw Patrick Harris slumped against the sofa. It was time for the poor, bedraggled Jesus of Prague to come in. “We're getting married.”

All of the moral objections against Patrick and Kate were suddenly meaningless. The Irish butcher had run into the fire, and in a neighborhood like Inwood, that made him a hero.

The great Father John, the most famed of all the Blood and Bandages of Cork, wept at the altar when, for the benefit of church and state, Patrick and Kate finally said, “I do.”

Even though Kate had taken the time to sew the matching pink bouclé skirt by hand, just as Chanel required, and did place the scapular back in its hem, she did not wear the pink suit for her wedding. She wore her mother's wedding dress, as Maggie had, instead.

May 1963

F
or the Blue Book set, maternity fashion began with Hermès. He'd designed the Kelly bag for Princess Grace of Monaco in 1955. The large, square purse was to be carried in the crook of the arm to hide pregnancy from photographers whose assignment was to “get one of the belly.” If so inclined, the owner of the bag could also pop the “paparazzi” in the head with it,
La Dolce Vita
–style. The purse was quite durable, and the gold hardware could leave a fairly impressive gash.

For seven years, the Kelly bag was the only stylish thing about pregnancy. Then, in 1963, Her Elegance announced that there would be a third child, and it was suddenly fashionable to be pregnant, as long as you were wearing the “Young Arrogant Look,” as some of the press called it, of Maison Blanche. A-line dresses—even if you weren't with child—were a “must-have.” And the chemise, which could be cut wide at the hips, was once again adored. Lane Bryant, who specialized in larger sizes and maternity clothes, designed an entire line of “First Lady maternity wear” and advertised it in every major magazine.

Miss Nona and Miss Sophie could feel the money raining down on them both, a torrential flood of cash, but there was something about it all that made Kate uneasy. The Wife's first pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage, and then there was a stillborn baby. Her boy and girl both had to be delivered by cesarean section.
What if it goes wrong?
Kate thought. Although she seemed to be the only person worried. The Ladies were working up dozens of drawings for a maternity collection for the Wife. The back room was filled with bolts of fabric flown in especially from Milan. From velvet to silk, each bolt was a shade of the rich vermilion red of Renaissance painters—the kind of red that Mrs. Vreeland, who was now the editor in chief of
Vogue,
adored.

At the planning meeting, the back-room team sat around the table. Maeve had liberated a tin of Danish butter cookies and made tea. Some of the bolts were laid out across the worktable. Even with all her apprehensions, it was difficult for Kate not be excited.

“I've never seen reds this beautiful. We've even ordered some ermine for trim. We'll have Her Elegance on the cover of
Vogue
in all her maternal glory.”

“If she's not too busy heaving,” Maeve said.

True. But that serene face, set against the deepest reds of the Renaissance, on the cover of
Vogue—
Kate could clearly imagine it. A short waistcoat beaded in pearls, and maybe pearls wrapped around her hair, too.

Schwinn was also inspired. “Just a thin line of ermine around the neck. And one of her dogs at her feet. She has a spaniel, doesn't she? Titian, Botticelli—they all loved spaniels.”

“But is it too Italian? She's always been so...”

“French fried?” Maeve said.

“Court of Versailles,” said Schwinn. “French revolution with a modern evolution. Modern and simple.”

“I'm not sure she'll go Italian,” Kate said.

“She went Indian.”

“Not really.”

“The Italians practically trademarked
la bella figura,
the good impression, with their fine designs,” Schwinn said. “The Wife will surely embrace the Renaissance for her last pregnancy. It's very noble.”

“Her last pregnancy?” Kate said. “How do you know that?”

Everyone at the table began to laugh, even Schwinn. “Cookie, do you know how
old
she is?”

“My age,” Kate said, which sounded more defensive than she wanted it to.

“Dream on,” Maeve said. “She's had some practice. You—they'd put you in the Guinness World Records.”

They had talked about having children—two or three, at least. But the problem was not Kate's age; it was Patrick. She'd become afraid to even touch him. It was as if he could shatter. His limp was profound. His skin was pale. He barely spoke. Hardly ate. In his dreams, the walls of the telephone company would come crashing down around him over and over again. Sometimes, he'd cry out. Sometimes she'd wake up in the middle of the night and find him looking out at the rubble of the building across the street.

What had happened was impossible to forget, even if you tried. Even now, months later, Patrick and Kate were still finding fragments from the blast in the neighborhood, such as purses and shoes that had ended up on rooftops. There was a small leather diary in the alley behind the shop that was still locked but had had most of its pages burned away. Everything was a constant reminder.

Kate had written her father, asking for advice. He was the only parent she and Patrick had left between them.

“The sea has a way of healing,” the Old Man wrote her. “It's time to come home.”

Home.

The deep calm of the harbor and the soft silence of the countryside—Kate still longed for it all. The Island, with all its mystical ways, made her feel part of something primal and grand—part of life, perhaps. And without the operators from the telephone company, the butcher shop was failing. Some from the parish had recently decided that they couldn't live any longer without black pudding and bacon that was not smoked but fish that was. It still wasn't enough. The shop would close within the year. Patrick and Kate both knew it.

After the meeting at Chez Ninon, and after all that talk about babies, that night, Kate told Patrick about the Old Man's letter. He said nothing for a long time; he was thinking. And then it was Yeats. Always Yeats.

“Home, then?”

“Home.”

There was moonlight, yes, but it was unnecessary. The cadence of their heartbeats was enough. Each kiss was like their last. But then there was one more and one more and more, until gravity felt as if it had been shattered and they were falling through the dark sea themselves, naked—innocent and not—lost in the tangle of sheets, tasting of sorrow and salt.
Finally, healed,
Kate thought and hoped it was true. They were going home.

The next week, there was an announcement that the Wife was canceling all her engagements until after the birth of her third child. No press requests would be honored. No further statements would be made.

The press release was clearly a bad sign. In the past, the Wife never completely ignored reporters. During her previous pregnancy, even though she was confined to her bed, she put on a brave face, rolled out from underneath the covers, and hosted a debate-watching party in Hyannis Port, wearing a single strand of pearls and a coral silk maternity dress. Technically, she was still following the doctor's orders: with her feet up, she didn't stray from her bright-yellow couch all night.

She looked radiant.

It was a brilliant strategy. Despite the fact that her husband had won the debate against Nixon, and that Nixon's mother had called her son shortly after the televised event to ask if he was ill, because Nixon did look ill, the Wife's perfect health was all the press wanted to talk about.

That was why this press release was disturbing. Her Elegance, always the tactician, had never strayed from the limelight before. The Ladies agreed and put the maternity line on hold. The bolts of beautiful red fabric were shelved in the remnant room. Not even Maeve dared to liberate them.

“It's going to be fine,” Maeve told everyone, and checked the stock daily to make sure no one had walked off with a bolt or two. No one even tried.

Kate understood how Maeve felt, and how everyone came to feel. The reams of vermilion fabric seemed sacred. Just the sight of them made her think that maybe, just maybe, having a baby when you were past the age of thirty wasn't as dangerous as everyone thought it was.

Maybe it was a very good idea, indeed.

In June, however, when word leaked out about the acquisition of a new maternity evening dress, Kate had an awful feeling. The “leak” seemed like a desperate measure on the part of Maison Blanche. The evening dress that everyone was talking about was too extravagant—a deep-turquoise silk Empire gown embroidered with gold flowers and a matching upper coat. It was summer. “Where would you wear such a thing in summer?” Kate asked Maeve. “She's living at the beach.”

“Well, she's not sitting home watching the telly in that,” Maeve said. She was clearly buoyed by the rumor, as was everyone else was.

Maybe that was the point,
Kate thought. A ball gown is for dancing. Dancing is what healthy women do. The Maison Blanche crowd was a very clever lot.

But if the maternity evening gown was a sleight of hand, a distraction, a bit of smoke to cover the truth, the Ladies didn't see that. The next morning, the back room was filled with pillows of all sizes, for all stages of pregnancy. The Wife's model, Suze, spent the entire day with sofa cushions tied to her slender waist, and her arms in the air, while the Ladies spun around her, like fairy godmothers from a bedtime story, pinning, tucking, and cackling. They were relieved. There would be a third child. A baby. It gave everyone hope—and a potentially enormous source of revenue.

“God bless the Wife,” Miss Nona said.

“God bless every beautiful inch of her,” said Miss Sophie.

And, even though she was leery of it all, Kate, who had begun to pray again, put a good word in to God herself.

Within the week, Chez Ninon had a line of Maison Blanche maternity wear. The clothes, mostly dresses, were beautiful, and flexible enough to be modified for the non-pregnant. And red—they were every deep and vibrant shade of red.

“Red is the new pink,” Miss Sophie said.

Miss Nona called Mrs. Vreeland at
Vogue
to tell her so.

The sheer number of orders was historic for the small shop. Hundreds of dresses had to be made by the end of summer to meet the demand. Kate quickly found herself knee-deep in elastic waistbands and expandable rubber panels.

She hadn't quite told the Ladies she was going home yet. She'd tried but couldn't say the words. It didn't quite seem true.