Envy: A Luxe Novel Part 13

Penelope, however, went on watching Henry as he moved through the little tables and marble statuary that filled the room. He pa.s.sed Adelaide Wetmore and Lydia Vreewold, ensconced in conversation, and the painter Lispenard Bradley, who appeared to be waiting for a vacancy beside Mrs. Schoonmaker. Once Henry had drawn close, Penelope turned a bright, counterfeit smile back on him.

"Have you missed me terribly?" she said loud enough for several known gossips to hear.

The bodice of Penelope's dress was braided and layered, and the effect was something like armor. Despite the abundant fabric, there was an angular quality to it. There seemed to be nothing capable of movement underneath the fitted satin, and Henry wondered not for the first time if her blood ran red or black. The answer didn't matter to him anymore.

"No," he said finally.

Penelope's long black lashes batted back just an eighth of an inch. She pressed her oversize lips together and let the perfect oval of her face a.s.sume an implacable expression. If she felt embarra.s.sment, she was trying awfully hard to make sure no one else noticed it.

"I was looking for my father. Is he here, Isabelle?"

Isabelle, who had been engaged in a silent exchange with Bradley, showed Henry an innocent face that betrayed just how carefully she had been monitoring the words between her stepson and daughter-in-law. "No," she said eventually. "He went to the club, but we expect him for dinner at the Hayeses' tonight. You can talk to him there, later. But do stay now, Henry-you are never any help when we have good people over."

The glow coming through the windows was fading slowly to evening light, and the colors that women wore during the day began to appear garish. Already Isabelle was thinking of the next gown she would wear, he knew, although, as usual, she would not want to part with those who had kept her company during the day. She collected furniture, but somewhat indifferently-her real pa.s.sion was for collecting people.

"I don't feel so much like socializing now," Henry replied curtly. "There's something that I need to discuss with the old man-it's important, and I won't be much fun until we've had our talk."

He nodded his goodbye, and moved to leave the drawing room. He'd nearly reached the door when he realized that his wife had matched his every step. All the heads in the room twisted so as to better observe her, and when Henry fully comprehended that the attention of the a.s.sembled was on them, he paused and tried to appear a little normal.

"What is it you want to talk to your father about?" she asked in a low voice.

Henry's eyes went everywhere-to alabaster torcheres and angels carved out of wood, to the postures of people who were trying not to seem to spy, to anything but her. "I'd really rather not-"

"If it's about me, I hope you'd have the courage to say it to my face."

Henry's hands moved awkwardly across his black jacket and he sighed.

Penelope's eyes brightened with a prideful gleam. "Here it is," she replied, extending her neck so that her head came closer to his. Though her tone was sweet, there was a challenge in it, too.

The Schoonmaker guests had gone back to their little talks and were at least keeping up the illusion that they had no interest in the newlyweds by the mahogany doorframe. He had told her once before: He didn't know why he was finding it so difficult to muster the words now. Maybe she seemed a more pitiable figure to him after everything.

"Is this about that nonsense you were babbling about in Florida?" She laughed, as at a very urbane joke. There must have been something in his countenance that affirmed this, because she went on: "What would people say, Henry. It would be so awfully irregular." She brought a gloved hand up to cover her mouth and laughed again, this time in a more quiet, simmering way. "Would you like to know what I think? I think you don't have the guts to tell your father."

Henry took a hoa.r.s.e breath. There was a taunting quality in her voice, and it made him pity her somewhat less. He held her gaze, and p.r.o.nounced his next statement with great care. "I'm going to tell him tonight."

Only now did Penelope's smile begin to falter, although she held it enough that her sharp cheekbones emerged against her skin to catch the last of the outside light.

"You wouldn't." Her voice had fallen to a hiss, and she stepped forward as though she might find a way to physically prevent him from altering her plans.

"Yes." Now that he'd said this much aloud, he felt as though the conversation with his father was a foregone conclusion. Henry thought maybe a parade down Fifth Avenue should be planned to honor his bravery, and he was already almost experiencing the thrill of falling confetti. "I would."

There were many more things he might have gone on to say-about how she deserved it, or that she was cold and venal, or how flimsy his interest in her had ever been-but he knew somehow that the right thing to do at that moment was to keep quiet. There was no need to prolong the war when his exit strategy was so perfectly clear.

He nodded a polite goodbye, turned on his heel, and left the room, his blood charging through his veins and his thoughts soaring to a triumphal tune.

Thirty Seven It is a truth universally acknowledged that there will always be a gentleman to dance with, except at just the moment when you require one most.

-MAEVE DE JONG, LOVE AND OTHER FOLLIES OF THE GREAT FAMILIES OF OLD NEW YORK I T WAS THE DAY FOLLOWING ELIZABETH'S CONFESSION to her mother, and by afternoon she was struggling for her old composure. The guilt and fear were still tremblingly there, not to mention the nausea and fatigue, but she tried hard for some steadiness in her fingers as she did the row of tiny b.u.t.tons that ran along her sleeve from her wrist to the inside of her elbow. She arranged her hair high above her forehead, the blond strands at the nape rising upward from her tall black collar. Already you could see where her small body was growing larger-but not dressed, not with the thick wine-colored skirt hugging her waist and falling down past her toes. There was some time yet, although the idea of how little made her feel sick all over again. Will had died two months ago now-her predicament would be visible quite soon.

"Claire," she said as she descended the main stair into the foyer. The red-haired maid looked up at her tiredly from her work. She paused in the dark woodpaneled s.p.a.ce, but did not release the broom from her hand as Elizabeth placed her foot on the final step. "I am going to call on an old friend."

If Claire noted something unusual about this-for it had been months since Elizabeth had done anything of the kind-she did not show it on her face. She rested the broom against the wall, wiped her hands against each other, and went to the cloakroom, which was built under the stairs. As she waited, Elizabeth gazed out through the gla.s.s in the doorframe. She could see the slight movement of the trees in the park, but no pa.s.sersby, and realized that it must be very cold outside. Over the past months, with the Holland household staff so reduced, Elizabeth had taken to fetching and putting on her own coats, but she resisted that impulse when Claire reemerged with the brown tartan cape. She waited to be helped into both arms and have the large cloth b.u.t.tons done up in the chest. Then she met the maid's eyes, but only for a moment, and only with the most cursory of smiles.

She had recently become conscious of the possibility that Claire was behind the revelation of Diana's indiscretion with Henry Schoonmaker, and though she had always trusted the girl implicitly she found herself acting guarded around her now and pinning every stray piece of gossip one heard about the Hollands on her. She certainly didn't want her to get wind of any brewing scandals.

"Tell Aunt Edith that I will be back for dinner, unless I am invited elsewhere," she said as she came down the final step. She wasn't sure quite what she meant by that statement, but she blinked as though it were perfectly obvious and moved forward toward the door. She wavered for a moment in front of the gla.s.s, wanting to give Claire a rea.s.suring look, or perhaps to receive one. But then she remembered how dire her situation was-every time it occurred to her it was like a bath in ice-and she fortified herself. She had once had a deft hand for perfectly manipulating any social situation; she might yet have it again. But she could not vacillate or pause for niceties or succ.u.mb to the nervous energy within.

The city was very still at that hour, and if she had not known better she would have thought there was nothing doing. But she did know better. She knew that the end of tea was coming soon, and the ladies of New York were employing all their daintiest gestures while thinking of what sort of antics they would get up to at dinner. They were thinking of slights and how to make them and engagements and how to enter into them. She was on a mission herself, one for which she would be well advised to keep a cool head and her wits in regimental order-and yet, she was surprised to find a warm and pleasant antic.i.p.ation fanning through her chest as they rode up Madison Avenue into the thirties.

She told the hansom not to wait and presented her card at the door.

"Is Mr. Cutting in?" she asked, and though she had planned to smile, the one that came was so natural, glistening on her face like a sunset on waves, that she was embarra.s.sed by it. "Mr. Teddy Cutting."

She could not see the Cuttings' butler's expression through his beard, but his initial silence made her wonder if she hadn't been too forward or if her delight in saying the name aloud had not been too obvious. She knew that, for herself and according to her own standards, it had been inappropriate. "I will see, mademoiselle," he said eventually, and then he led her to the drawing room.

A fire was going under the restrained marble mantel there, and the ferns overgrew their pedestals. The walls were covered in striped purple wallpaper and all the surfaces were populated by cut crystal, and on the ivory Turkish love seats sat Mrs. Cutting and two of her daughters, Alice and Julia. They were looking unusually dour-that was the first thing Elizabeth noticed. The second was that there were fewer people than she might have antic.i.p.ated in a drawing room of this stature and at that hour.

"Miss Elizabeth Holland," the butler said, and when the three women looked up she realized that they had all been crying. Elizabeth's small mouth began to work, but she could not get hold of any appropriate words. The butler withdrew and she stepped forward into the warmth of the room.

"Oh, Elizabeth," Alice wailed. She hurried across the room and threw her arms around her brother's old friend's neck. Like her mother and sister, she wore black, with a little American flag ribbon pinned to the chest. "If you only knew! If you only knew..."

"Whatever's happened?" Elizabeth felt the tight clump of hope within her begin to dissolve. Something much darker was coming. For a moment she wondered if she wasn't some kind of curse, and if a violence hadn't been visited on Teddy just like the one that had taken Will. "Why so sad today?"

Alice drew her into the sitting area, and Julia poured her a cup of tea. She pa.s.sed it to Elizabeth, who managed only to hold it politely. As she waited for the bad news, which she could already feel nipping at her toes, she sensed that even tepid liquid might scald her.

"It's Teddy, of course." Alice sat down beside their guest and rested her hands on the other girl's knees. Her gray eyes were just the same shade as her brother's, and she had the same broad and slightly horselike features. "He's gone."

Elizabeth's eyelids squeezed shut, but only for just a second. "Gone where?" she asked, when they opened again. Her teacup had begun to clatter in her saucer, and she brought her other hand up to stop the shaking.

"Gone to war." Julia, who was sitting beside their mother on the opposite love seat, looked at Elizabeth as though it might somehow be her fault. For all she knew, it was. "He said that he met some soldiers on the train who showed him what it meant to be a real American, and that even Elizabeth Holland had endured more hards.h.i.+p and fought back more bravely in her life than he ever had from anything...."

Elizabeth put down the tea and her hand moved involuntarily to her waist. She looked backward to the memory of her time with Teddy in Florida as though at a best friend standing onboard a s.h.i.+p moving inexorably out to sea. What had she said to him that made him want to go so far away? She couldn't place it, and only wished that she'd let him know how very heroic he might have been to her, right there in New York. She would have traded a great deal just to have stayed a little longer on the dance floor with him the night he had tried to propose.

"So soon?" she said eventually, as though it were only the timing of this news that shocked her, and not the revelation of absence itself.

"Yes." Mrs. Cutting's voice broke over the word, and she brought a handkerchief to her face. Her fair hair was going gray and her whole soft body shook a little with the sorrow of it all. She had ever been a lady whose singular joy in life was the presence and success of her children; her only miseries, their pain. "He enlisted and already they've s.h.i.+pped him out to San Francisco! From there he goes to the Philippines."

Elizabeth wondered at what point in that journey her old friend was at now, for after all, it was one she herself had made. But then, that did not make him any more reachable.

"You must be terribly proud of him," she said sincerely.

The three Cutting ladies nodded wretchedly, and then went on to discuss all their greatest fears and nightmares, all their prayers for his safety, and what drastic measures they would take upon their own lives if anything should happen to him. Elizabeth knit her brow in sympathy and crooned in agreement, but her spirit had already left that parlor. That morning she had had a plan, and that afternoon she had felt a rising optimism, but by the end of tea she saw these things anew, for all their foolishness and futility.

Thirty Eight The happy, rich Henry Schoonmakers are back from Florida and apparently cannot spend a moment apart. They will be attending a small, intimate dinner at the home of the bride's family, the Hayeses, this evening, along with a few select guests. One can only conclude that for their happiness they depend very little on those outside their circle.

-FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE, THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1900 W HEN, UPON HER RETURN FROM THE SOUTHERN sojourn, Penelope had insisted that her mother throw a dinner for her family-in-law, she could not possibly have imagined that so little would have been accomplished in the intervening days, or that she would have been so incapable of improving upon her situation even to the slightest degree. While it was true that there had been very little in her favor on the return trip, still she would not have believed that so much time and so much of her own effort and beauty would not have turned things around.

Even now, sitting in front of the large, beveled mirrors in the ladies' lounge, where on the evenings of grand b.a.l.l.s scores of women crowded around, trying to look even half as beautiful as the hosts' young daughter, she found it incomprehensible. For those were her slim shoulders and her unblemished forehead and her almost phosph.o.r.escent complexion. That was her exquisitely fitting pale pink chiffon dress, which was layered and tucked so that her decolletage might reflect the candlelight and her waist could just barely exist.

"Henry will stop being such a cad and pay more attention to you soon," said Isabelle, who was sitting next to her in a dress of ivory overlaid with beige lace, as though she had been reading Penelope's thoughts. Though her words seemed intended to rea.s.sure, her tone did nothing to enforce that sentiment.

"I'm not worried," Penelope replied, sitting back against the little stool. She looked at herself in the mirror and willed her white neck to lengthen. She was a girl long adept at saying precisely the opposite of what she meant, and yet there was a little strain in the lie tonight. She wouldn't have believed that Henry had the nerve to tell his father he wanted to leave his wife, but there had been some awful determination in the way he carried himself that afternoon in Isabelle's drawing room. She was full of trepidation, wondering what he might do tonight, and she felt woefully devoid of any idea how she might fight back.

Grayson appeared just then in the doorframe and Isabelle stood up hopefully-a gesture that the younger matron could not help but regard with a little internal scoffing, for truly, Isabelle should have been over him by now. Though he had once paid her sweet attention, Mr. Hayes didn't appear to so much as register her presence. It was clear that it was his sister he had come for.

Out in the hall, Penelope noticed Buck, his huge chest covered in a blinding white dress s.h.i.+rt. Penelope couldn't be quite sure why, but she had lately found his presence insufferable. Perhaps it had something to do with how little he had been able to do for her during this, her time of need, or maybe it was because he knew how very much she wanted in this world and what a slight percentage of it she truly had. For too long a moment Isabelle waited for Grayson to turn around for her, and when he did not she allowed Buck to take her arm instead so that he might accompany her in to dinner.

Grayson put on a serious expression and offered his arm to his younger sister. "You look very lovely this evening," he said as they stepped onto the black-and-white checked marble flooring of the halls. Buck and Isabelle were far enough that they wouldn't be able to hear the Hayes siblings' conversation, and the sound of all their custom-made heels rang out through the intervening yards. Penelope noted the seriousness of his tone, and wondered for a gleeful moment if perhaps he had already found a way to punish Diana. Then she'd have that to dangle in front of Henry, and perhaps all would not be lost.

"Thank you."

Penelope walked at a relaxed gait, leaning against her brother's arm. Isabelle was probably now longing to turn her head, which was heaped with blond curls, but propriety and pride made even a small gesture of that kind impossible.

"I will need to give you the money back."

The tight grin that Penelope's lips wore began to slacken. "The money?"

"Yes."

"Don't you need it anymore?"

"Yes."

There was something new in his voice, almost like earnestness, which Penelope found both mysterious and painfully annoying. But she would have disliked what he said regardless of tone. "Well then, why, dear brother?"

They had reached the entryway to the parlor that adjoined the dining room, with its burgundy club chairs and gold vases filled with pampas gra.s.s. Inside that oak-paneled s.p.a.ce were her family, and Henry's, and the painter Lispenard Bradley and a few others, loitering on the camel-hair rug and fingering their drinks. The gentlemen were moving slowly to take up the ladies' arms to escort them into the dining room. They appeared very stupid and useless to Penelope at that moment, and then she noticed something else.

"What is she doing here?"

Diana Holland could not possibly have heard her, but still she looked up from her place by the fire and her old aunt Edith, who was apparently the best she could do for a chaperone, and looked directly at Penelope. There was no smile on her face, and in her eyes a certain veiled challenge. She was wearing a pale green dress, the color of melon, which Penelope distinctly remembered her wearing on more than one occasion during the fall season.

"I invited her," Grayson said.

"My G.o.d, why?"

"Because you asked me to-" He broke off and his eyes glazed dreamily. "And because I'm beginning to think I might be in love with her."

When Penelope saw the expression on his face, and the puppy-dog look in his eyes, she felt the full crus.h.i.+ng weight of his idiocy. What was it about that short creature with her wild hair and spurious air of purity, and why would anyone, much less two men, love her, and to such disastrous ends?

They could linger on the threshold no more, and she felt herself pulled by his arm, which was-even after this latest betrayal-still linked to hers at the crook of their elbows. If her mother hadn't been there searching out compliments about their enormous house, or her father muttering into his drink, or the elder Schoonmaker looking judgmentally at all the objects in the room, she would have pointed out to Grayson that his was a desperate situation, or insisted that they had made a deal he could not back out of. But there was the low hum of people greeting each other in the evening, and Penelope reluctantly a.s.sumed the smile of a gracious daughter and new wife as she went forward into the room. She had never hated the word love quite so much as at that moment.

Now old Schoonmaker, who had just arrived, was saying something kind to Diana, and Henry, who had paused at the arm of Mrs. Hayes, had turned to stare. He was only there, Penelope knew in a glance, because of the intentions he'd declared that afternoon, and he was only waiting for the moment when he had his father to himself. His neck was twisted for a better view, and lamplight played against his clean-shaven throat. For once, there was nothing inscrutable about his black eyes. The way he was looking at her made Penelope want to shriek and throw something. She would have liked to charge across the room and pull the humble ribbons from Diana's hair. She could have proclaimed to the whole room that these Hollands, with their superior poverty and their old-fas.h.i.+oned airs, were in fact two perverse girls-one of whom had given away all to another woman's husband, while the other had quite possibly conceived a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. But just as the tide of fury was rising within, a perfect solution crested in her consciousness.

Grayson was moving like a man possessed through the exclusive gaggle of people, but Penelope was quick enough on her feet that she made her presence at his side appear very natural. She followed close behind him to the place where seemingly all eyes were focused. She followed him all the way to Diana.

"Miss Diana, I am so pleased you were able to attend," he said.

"I am very glad to have been invited," she returned. Penelope noted the tone, and deduced that there was a private joke between them, and then Diana turned her pointed chin and gave the older girl a jaunty smile that in private might have been an invitation to a slap. But Penelope's idea was a good one. She felt no need for violence anymore, and instead smiled back at the little twit and waited until Rathmill, the butler, appeared from the dining room and announced that dinner was served.

"May I escort you?" Grayson asked Diana. She smiled and they moved together, Grayson in his black tails and Diana in her tiered dress, leaving behind the lady that he had entered the room with.

Penelope looked around affecting an expression of helplessness, knowing full well that everyone had already paired up. Then she met old Schoonmaker's eyes. He was a large man, his face a bloated version of Henry's, although the dark eyes and hard jaw were still intact. He offered his arm, and they took a step in pursuit of Grayson and Diana. Behind them came Henry and Isabelle, and then all the rest.

"Don't they look handsome together?" Penelope whispered airily, gesturing with her chin at her traitorous brother and the pet.i.te tramp.

"I suppose," William Schoonmaker, ever the discriminator, answered.

"Oh, you must agree, on a night like tonight, you could almost imagine such a couple on the altar."

Schoonmaker made a vague grunting noise, of neither agreement nor disagreement.

"But don't worry, Father," she went on, her voice growing more delicate and feminine even as she added volume. She had never called him "Father" before, but it seemed to her like a nice touch. "I am not one of those women who, once wed, can think of nothing to do but make matches. It's not that I don't enjoy the pastime! Perhaps just a little less than other ladies. But the real reason is, I fear I will be not much in society this summer and fall, and after that I believe there will be a new addition to our family."

Penelope phrased this with quiet care, and at the precise moment she knew those within earshot would understand her meaning, Old Schoonmaker's face lit up as though she had just told him she'd found a cache of Standard Oil stock in his safe, and his response was so voluble that she knew there would be toasts. She would have loved to see Henry's face then, but the thing to do was to keep controlled and go on facing her husband's father with that aura of angelic magnificence.

The full genius of her coup was only just occurring to her-soon everyone would know how tightly bound she and Henry were-and she could not resist the satisfaction of glancing away once or twice, to observe how the younger Holland sister's shoulders had jumped and locked together, and also the stricken expression she now wore. She had the look of a starving rabbit run out of her hole by a fox. That one hurt, Penelope knew, much more than anything Grayson could have engineered for her.

Thirty Nine It is difficult for the once poor to ever play truly rich. But this is a city full of those who will try.

-MRS. L. A. M. BRECKINRIDGE, THE LAWS OF BEING IN WELL-MANNERED CIRCLES D ARKNESS FELL QUICKLY ALL OVER MANHATTAN, and those who could huddled near a fire. There were waifs in doorways who would not make it through the night, though Carolina was not like those unfortunates, and for plenty of reasons. She was wearing a coat of brindled otter fur, which she had borrowed temporarily from the divorcee Lucy Carr, and even as she stumbled through the anonymous and gloomy streets, she knew that she had been chosen for a destiny that had far better lighting.

This had not, however, been the opinion of Mrs. Portia Tilt. The western lady had imagined a more modest future for Carolina, one that involved remaining in the shadows whenever handsome or rich people, or those with fine names, were about. She had imparted this opinion to her former social secretary with particular vehemence and an articulateness that she had not heretofore exhibited, late on the previous evening when Carolina had returned from an hours-long cab ride without a destination. It was lucky that the Tilt staff was an unhappy one, and the head housekeeper had seen to it that the fired employee had a bed for the night. But in the morning there was nothing more they could do for her, and so Carolina had taken up her little suitcase and gone out into the city.

The sun had still been high then, and the memory of Leland, and the kindness in his pale blue eyes, still fresh. All of Carolina's self-regard had been renewed, and so while she might have gone back to Tristan's she did not seriously consider it. The kisses they had shared seemed tawdry now, and the ways that he had helped her inexcusable. It had been a moment of weakness, she told herself, something she had done to survive, and then she thought of it no more. Meanwhile, she carried with her all the true ingredients of her career-her height, her carriage, and her taste, which was not innate but had been one of Longhorn's many gifts to her. All she needed was an inconspicuous job, only for a little while, and then she would find a way to be herself again. She had managed thus far-why should this crater be any different from any of the other holes she had clawed her way out of?

There had been several places she had considered going in and asking for employment, although in each of them the idea of Carolina Broad and where she had come from stood in her way. First there had been the ladies' tearoom, where she had imagined for herself an office in the back overseeing the decor of the place and scolding the waitresses for their slovenly appearance. But then she had seen, through the wide windows, the girls in their uniforms, like a little herd running scared, and the prospect that the owner might make her wear one of those black-and-white getups had caused her heart to sink. Later, pa.s.sing a newly opened hotel, she'd wondered if perhaps she could dust the rooms of wealthy visitors when they were empty. But she knew there would be more than dusting, and that if she were lucky enough to acquire a job like that, it would come with the t.i.tle of maid. Bile rose in her throat at the thought of that terrible word.

It was only now that the color had gone out of the sky and she seemed to be the only female left on the streets that she began to wonder if a tearoom or a hotel wouldn't have been a good place for her after all. Just for a day and a night. Maybe they would have had a cot where she could have slept or a place for her to put down her small suitcase. Maybe Leland would appear there by chance, in the morning, his chin freshly shaved against his stiff, new collar, and upon seeing his love in such duress, would spring into action. Maybe he would even carry her out, like a princess in a bedtime story. Carolina pressed her teeth into her bee-stung bottom lip at the thought of it, but then she opened her eyes and saw the cobblestones and pools of water ominous in the night, and all her nice fantasies flagged and the desperate ones began to loom.

She couldn't help but think sorrowfully of Longhorn, who had protected her so gallantly and who had made so many of her evenings comfortable and light. The world outside was a very harsh place, and her chin trembled a little to think how furious he would be to see her thrown into it. But here she was now, with nothing to do but trudge on. She did so, stepping forward along the pavement, but she came down on something soft. Squealing followed, first from the rat underfoot, and then from her own throat when she jumped back and felt the little creature crawl across her other foot and skitter off into the gutter. "Oh," she said, feeling the shudder up to her shoulders. After that, coat or no coat, she was chilled to the bone. She hurried now, and the next time she saw light spilling from windows onto the sidewalk, she went and pressed her nose into the plate gla.s.s.

Inside, young women with clean faces were bent over tables piled with l.u.s.trous materials. They ran their fingers over seams and brought dresses and skirts and little jackets under the arms of churning sewing machines. They were all bathed in a modern electric light, and for a moment, out in the cold, Carolina thought it actually might be nice in there. Moving between the tables was a full-bodied woman with reddish hair fading to gray, arranged in a fan above her head. She bent to see what the younger women were doing, occasionally pausing to undo their st.i.tches. Carolina craned her neck to look up at the sign above the door, which read, MADAME FITZGERALD, DRESSMAKER, and then took a deep breath and opened the door.

It was warmer inside than she had imagined, and the air was thick with floating fibers. The machines whirred and there was also the sound of fabric swoos.h.i.+ng, although the girls themselves were very quiet. When the door swung shut behind Carolina, the older woman turned to stare. She had a face as broad and unyielding as a man's, and though it seemed for a moment that she might say something welcoming, it soon became clear that she had no intention of speaking first.

"May I talk to Madame Fitzgerald?"

Now several of the girls did glance up to see what was happening, although their hands kept moving over their projects, and their feet never let up on the pedals.

"You're looking at her," replied the woman.

"Oh, I-" Carolina found herself blus.h.i.+ng furiously. "h.e.l.lo."

The older woman sighed in exasperation and put a fist on her hip.

"I was just pa.s.sing by and your shop seemed so nice and I thought-I wondered if-I hoped that-"

"You hoped what?" the woman prodded. Her voice came down hard through her sinuses.