All That Glitters

“It was very nice.”

“I love your dress, Ivory,” Mrs. Johnson called as she joined her husband with her knitting in her hand. “Did you make it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“You’ll be famous one day, my dear,” the elderly lady said with a smile. “I hope you’ll still come and see us then.”

“You know I will.” She called them a cheerful good-night and went on to her apartment. She felt as if her feet didn’t even touch the floor, despite her own misgivings at letting a man who was practically a stranger kiss her. It hadn’t seemed that way, and she’d enjoyed kissing him very much. But apparently, judging from his reaction, he could take or leave her. It was probably a routine thing for him, kissing women. She had to stop thinking about that. She had a design to improve, and the first real chance of her career. She wasn’t going to waste it, or be sidetracked, even by a very attractive man like Curry Kells.

Miss Raines was venomous when she heard that Mr. Kells had added Ivory’s design to the collection. She was even more venomous about Ivory being taken off repairs. They’d never make the schedule now. She shouldn’t have mentioned the girl to Curry Kells. She’d inadvertently called attention to Ivory, which had been the very thing she’d tried to prevent.

Several people had remarked that Mr. Kells took Ivory home from the party and didn’t come back for a couple of hours. No wonder the girl had been given a chance, she thought viciously. Ivory had seduced the boss and turned his head. Now she was reaping the benefits. But that design wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Miss Raines knew good style when she saw it, and that dress would be the laughingstock of the company. Mr. Kells owned the company, but he was no fashion expert. His protégé was going to fall flat on her face, and Miss Raines could hardly wait to see it.

She wasn’t openly hostile, however. She’d even smiled when she congratulated Ivory on her promotion to junior designer.

“She smiles like a barracuda,” Dee remarked coldly. “You watch her. She isn’t happy about this. I’ll bet she’s boiling inside. You don’t know much about company politics, but I’ll tell you, people can be underhanded in this business. Some of them will do anything to keep their jobs or prevent other people from promotion.”

“Miss Raines isn’t spiteful,” Ivory protested.

“Her job isn’t on the line—yet. If you’re ever in the position of competing with her, look out. You’ve got fresh and original ideas, and most of hers came out of Chanel back in the sixties. Chanel moved easily into the contemporary market, but Virginia Raines wouldn’t know modern fashion if it bit her on the nose. You watch your back, so that she doesn’t put a knife in it.”

“I’ll watch,” Ivory promised, smiling. “But I think you’re wrong.”

“I hope I am,” Dee said fervently. “But be careful, just the same.”

“How was your late date last night?” Ivory asked, to change the subject.

Dee chuckled. “Well, it was a start. I like him, I really do. He’s a Midwestern farm boy who came to the big city for a chance and found one doing commercials. With that face and body, I’m not one bit surprised that he was discovered so quickly. I have contacts, too, so maybe I can help his career along.”

Just for an instant, Ivory wondered if Dee’s escort might have had that in mind. She decided that she was much too suspicious of people and went back to work.

* * *

TERESA KELLS HAD large black eyes, salt-and-pepper hair that she wore in a bun, and hands that were twisted with arthritis. In her simple black dress and her low-heeled black lace-up shoes, she sat clutching her designer purse in her lap tightly as they waited impatiently in the lab for the radiologist to come back and explain the radiation treatment she was to have.

Diverted by the movement of her son beside her, she turned her head and smiled at him uneasily. He was a good man. All his adult life he’d looked after her. She shouldn’t be so possessive of him, she knew, but he was all she had left. Her daughter, married now to that overbearing computer executive she didn’t like, and vice president of a major corporation, wouldn’t listen to her anymore. Her mentally challenged son had never recognized her. She had no husband, because the father of Curry and her other children had vanished twenty years ago. She had friends, but they were no substitute for this son of hers who cared so deeply for her welfare. She was keenly aware, as well, that her being Puerto Rican and Catholic had subjected her to discrimination far too often in the past.

Curry resembled her, with his black eye; but his wavy hair was more deep brown than black, and his olive complexion wasn’t overly dark. Besides that, he had a well-modulated voice with no trace of an accent, although he spoke Spanish as fluently as she did, along with several other languages.