Fashionably Late

‘Prove your love,’ Karen said, and they fell onto the bed, hungry for one another.

Afterward, as she lay in his arms, the beautiful sheets rucked up and wrinkled around her, she turned to look at his profile. It was perfect, and if she cast it in gold it would pass for the head of an emperor on a Roman coin. Karen ran her hand along Jeffrey’s sternum and down the thin, soft line of hair that ran from his chest over his stomach to his groin. It was so sweet. He was so sweet.

‘I was thinking of looking for my mother,’ she murmured.

He turned over, ready to go to sleep. ‘Didn’t you have enough of her tonight?’ he asked.

‘No, I mean my real mother.’

He was silent for a few minutes. Karen almost thought he had fallen asleep. ‘What for?’ he said. And she heard him sigh.

‘I don’t know. I just feel like I want to.’

He turned over again, this time on his back so he could see her. ‘Why open a new can of worms?’ he asked. ‘Don’t we have enough to deal with at the moment?’ He put his left arm out so she could lie against his side. She felt comforted by his warmth.

‘Jeffrey, you honestly don’t mind? About the baby, I mean.’

He hugged her closer. ‘Karen, I think I gave up a long time ago. We’re so lucky already. Why should we have everything? It would only tempt the gods.’

‘Don’t be superstitious,’ she told him, though she was herself. ‘Anyway, we can have everything. I’m going to call Sid tomorrow and get him working on an adoption. I was talking to Joyce and she said they have a very good contact in Texas.’

Jeffrey rolled onto his side, away from her, and cradled his head in the crook of his elbow. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘A private adoption, Jeffrey. It’s more expensive but a lot easier than going through the state. We might be too old for that already. And apparently there are a lot of babies available in Texas.’

‘You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not a problem with your ovaries. It’s a problem with your head. You’re obsessed. It runs in your family.’

‘What?’

‘Your mother is an obsessive, your sister is an obsessive, and your nieces are obsessives. You are obsessed with this baby thing.’

Karen didn’t think it was the time to mention that if obsession ran in her family she hadn’t inherited it genetically. ‘What’s so obsessive? Don’t you want a baby?’

‘Karen, I don’t want some stranger’s baby, especially one from Texas. I’m a New York Jew. What would I do with a little cowboy?’

‘Love it,’ she said.

Jeffrey pulled away from her and sat up. ‘Wait a minute.’ His voice sounded flat, ‘I always felt we could live without a baby. You were the one all gung-ho. I did my part. Now it appears that we can’t have one of our own. Okay. Okay. I accept that. But I don’t want to raise somebody else’s.’

Karen felt her stomach tighten and the flesh went clammy on her back and thighs. She sat up, too, and looked across the bed at her husband. He looked back at her.

‘Come on Karen! Not “the look”; I don’t want “the look.” You can’t expect me to go for this. We never discussed it. It was not plan B. Adoption was not plan B. You never know what you are getting in a deal like that.’

‘I never knew you were so opposed to adoption.’

‘You never asked. You wanted your own baby. That’s what we discussed. I wasn’t wild about the idea but I don’t think men usually are. It’s a natural thing. But this isn’t natural. And look what happens. Look at the Woody Allen thing. And Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson. When celebrities adopt, there’s always trouble. And then there’s all the heartbreak when a birth mother reneges. Not to mention the genetic roulette that you’re playing. Wasn’t Son of Sam adopted? And that serial killer in Long Island? Like I said, you never know what you’re getting in a deal like this.’

‘But Jeffrey, I’m adopted.’

‘Yeah, but not by me. I knew you were adopted, but I also knew who you were and how you had turned out. That’s different than nurturing some illiterate, promiscuous, white-trash, trailer-park scum’s offspring. Who knows how they’d turn out?’

‘I can’t believe you’re saying this.’ Was that why he’d been so cool to the idea of her searching out her birth mother? Karen put her hand out, touching his shoulder. Did he think she was the offspring of some promiscuous, white-trash, trailer-park scum? And was she? She realized she didn’t have the courage to ask him. ‘Please, Jeffrey,’ was all she said.

Jeffrey shrugged her hand off his shoulder. ‘I can’t believe you’re asking this,’ he said. He threw his feet over the side of the bed and walked across the room. The light from the window hit him across the shoulders and down one long, lean flank.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘I’m hitting the shower,’ he said.

To Karen it sounded like he wanted to hit her.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_c0fb5b9f-037d-59e2-b0ae-841ebc8c16b5)

Hard Labor (#ulink_c0fb5b9f-037d-59e2-b0ae-841ebc8c16b5)

Karen never did get to call Lisa the night before and left way too early to do it the next morning. Karen got to her office by half past seven, but that was nothing new: ever since she’d had a single employee – Mrs Cruz from Corona, Queens – she’d gotten in early. All these years later Mrs Cruz was still with her, now one of her two chief patternmakers, supervising a workroom that held over two hundred employees. Mrs Cruz had two long subway rides to get to 550 Seventh Avenue. Still, almost every morning, including this one, Karen met Mrs Cruz there, outside the legendary building that now housed

KInc, and they rode the elevator up to the ninth floor together where both of them had keys to open up the floor. On the way up, they passed the showrooms and offices of Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan, and Bill Blass. All of the foreign fashion world was there, too: Karl Lagerfeld and Hanae Mori. Five-fifty was the temple of high fashion in the United States. Karen still couldn’t get over the thrill of seeing her name on the elevator directory along with those others.

But Karen knew what a slippery ride it could be. Back in January 1985, way before she had moved in, the Halston Originals showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue was dismantled. Whatever fixtures and furnishings hadn’t already been carted away were sold to the next tenant, a newcomer in the fashion business named Donna Karan.

No one thought of Halston anymore. He wasn’t just dead, he was forgotten. He had been the first American designer to sell his name, and in his case it had meant his destruction. A corporate entity licensed Halston everythings, while poor Roy Halston Froleich had been legally stopped from using ‘Halston’ ever again. He’d been well-paid but robbed of his work and identity. Karen thought of poor sick Willie Artech. What would happen to his work and his name? She shivered, and turned to the dark woman beside her.

‘Good morning, Mrs Cruz,’ Karen said, and smiled at the short, stout co-worker whose black, glossy hair showed an inch of steel gray at the roots. Karen looked at Mrs Cruz’s face and realized that the woman had had both children and grandchildren over the years they’d worked together, while Karen had remained childless. ‘How’s the new grandson?’ she asked.

‘Fat as a little piglet. How are you this morning, Karen?’ Mrs Cruz inquired. She nodded to a brown bag she held. ‘Would you like some fresh pan de manteca?’

‘Oh Mrs Cruz. You’re killing me. I’ll wind up fat as a little piglet. I swore I was starting my diet this morning.’

Mrs Cruz shrugged. ‘You’re thin enough. Coffee?’

Karen couldn’t resist either the Cuban coffee Mrs Cruz carried in a big, shiny metal thermos or the freshly baked bread. ‘Yes, please. And a thin slice of pan de manteca.’

Mrs Cruz smiled, pleased. They arrived on nine to find the door already opened. That was unusual. Was a thief loose on the floor or was some competitor going through her designs? Karen had heard of a hundred tricks that magazines and competitors used to snoop, to spy, to get a fashion scoop. One magazine regularly sent pretty girls to apply as fitting models to all the designers, including

KInc. Just last month Defina had caught one sketching a design. Once a sketcher had dressed up as a florist’s assistant, complete with a smock, and delivered a huge bouquet personally to Karen while they were doing a final run-through of the line. He had been sent by a competitor, but they’d never been able to prove it was Norris Cleveland. Now, as word leaked out that she was doing the Elise Elliot wedding, someone could be snooping. Or had NormCo sent a due diligence team over to do a little unauthorized auditing? Or even worse: Did the camera crew that had been working on Elle Halle’s show decide to do a surprise morning visit? Karen wondered for a moment if she had time to put a little blush on before she got ambushed. She decided she didn’t, but she winced at her blurry reflection in the stainless steel elevator walls. The two women shrugged at one another and stepped out onto the floor. The only entrance was here, through the showroom.

The lights were on and Defina Pompey was standing at a pipe rack of clothes, flicking through each one and rattling the hangers as she moved along. Defina was never there until ten – and sometimes a little later. It had always been a bone of contention between them, but the few times Defina had shown up at nine had convinced Karen she didn’t want Defina earlier. Defina was a night person, and stayed to all hours cheerfully. It was just in the mornings that she was dangerous.

‘Aye. Caramba!’ Mrs Cruz muttered and scuttled across the beige carpeting to the door of the workrooms. The Cuban pollo. Defina confused Mrs Cruz in a number of ways and the Cuban was scared of her. For one thing, Defina spoke Spanish with a perfect upper-class Madrid lisp. Mrs Cruz could barely understand it. Why should an American black woman from Harlem be able to speak like that? Plus, all the workroom said Defina knew some strong Santeria magic. Mrs Cruz avoided Defina whenever she could.

Now Karen smiled cautiously at Defina. The big woman scowled back.

‘You’re in trouble, girlfriend,’ Defina growled.

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Karen sighed and walked past Defina to her office suite at the corner of the floor. Defina followed her. ‘What’s up? How come you’re in so early?’

‘I must have been thinking about the collection for Paris while I was sleeping. It woke me up.’