“What did you do? I—I thought we were saving for the house. . . .”
The box is as big as the table and about a foot deep, fastened with a pink satin ribbon so wide, it takes me a moment to untie it. When I lift off the lid, I am stunned. I pull out a mink coat of the softest, deepest black. It has a stand-up collar, square-cut shoulders, and deep cuffs.
“Check the lining,” John says.
I open the coat and see my name embroidered in glittery gold thread. “There’s no mistaking who this coat belongs to.”
“Lucia is a noble name,” Patsy says, looking proud of his role in this whole thing. “It means ‘light.’ You are such a lovely girl, you don’t need a mink coat. Many women, they need the mink coat.” He walks back to the bar.
“Honey, can we afford this?” I ask John.
“What do you mean, can we afford it? You get the first fur coat of your life, and you’re worried about how much it costs?”
I should tell John that this is not my first fur. Papa bought me a wool coat with a fox collar when I got my job at B. Altman’s. But John doesn’t need to know that. “It’s just that the house is such an investment. It’s our dream.”
“The house is covered.” John takes a sip of his Manhattan and taps the table with the stirrer impatiently.
There’s something odd about the way he says that, as though the house is covered but other things are not. I think of Ruth, who made me swear that I would have the money talk with my fiancé. I never did. I never thought money was something we would quibble over.
“Look. I didn’t buy you this coat to upset you. I can take it back,” he says.
“No, no, I love it.”
“You don’t act like you love it.”
“Of course I do. You gave it to me. I’m sorry if you think I’m ungrateful.”
“That’s the message I’m getting here. Do you think I ride through midtown and roll down my window and throw a thousand bucks out into the street like it’s confetti? Do you think I go out and spend money like a fool to impress people?”
“No, that’s not—”
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“What are you talking about? I’m going to marry you.”
“But do you trust me?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you.” I can’t believe that the wonderful evening, with this extraordinary gift, has escalated into an argument. I take a deep breath. “Oh, John, come on. I’m jet-lagged, I’m not myself. I love this coat, and I’ll wear it every day that I can.”
John relaxes. “You’re my girl. I just want you to have the best.”
“I do. I have the best.”
“Well, try it on,” he says, pulling the coat out of the box and holding it like a towel for a swimmer emerging from the surf.
“Now?”
“Yes, now. I want to see you in it.”
I stand up and slip into the coat. It is sumptuous, soft and light. Patsy gives a low whistle.
“Thank you, honey.” I lean over and kiss John on the lips. When I open my eyes, I catch my reflection in the serrated mirror behind the booth. In the faceted squares of glass, I see hundreds of me in the mink coat.
“John, are you hungry?” I ask.
“Not really. Are you?”
“Not at all. Why don’t you get the car?”
John smiles and leaves the table. I meet him under the awning in front of the restaurant. He tips his hat. “Where to, ma’am?”
“The Carlyle Hotel, please,” I answer, playing along. November 15 cannot get here fast enough.
Delmarr and Ruth covered for me during the month of August, since Hilda Cramer never likes anyone to take over two weeks of vacation at a time. But after such a long absence, I’m thrilled to push through the doors of the Custom Department and be back in the Hub. I have the silk for my wedding gown and stories galore for Delmarr and Ruth. I come early to get my desk organized before the gang gets in. I check the calendar on the chalkboard.
Instead of the usual system of fittings in yellow chalk and final delivery in pink, there are symbols I haven’t seen before. Ruth’s drawing table seems the same, but the storage bins are different. I push open the doors to the supply room and see the fabric all folded flat and stacked from floor to ceiling, rather than standing on end. A feeling of panic goes through me. I go back into the Hub and into Delmarr’s office. The signed photo of the McGuire Sisters is still on the wall, and his color wheel is still on the desk. I exhale, relieved.
“Corporate spy?” Delmarr says from behind me.
His voice startles me, and I jump. “Don’t do that!” I tell him, and then I throw my arms around his neck.
“What, Talbot withholding the sugar?” Delmarr hugs me back.
“Not at all. What’s going on here, Delmarr? Everything looks different.”
“Not everything, just a little thing from corporate called inventory. They want to know what we have here: every yard of fabric, every inch of trim, every jet bead in every size. I think Hilda Beast is on the ropes.”
“They’re going to fire her?”
“Ease her out.”
“Then you’ll be the name on the label?”
“Noooooo.” Delmarr sits down and puts his feet on the desk. “Don’t you know anything about the ways of the retail world? The underling of the person they’re putting out to pasture never gets the job. No, they’ll bring in some hotshot.”
“But you’re a hotshot.”
“Thank you. I could be, but I’m not. Not in their eyes, anyway. And they told me as much.”
“Bastards.”
“And it doesn’t help that Helen quit.”
“Quit?”
“She’s swelling up so badly that she can’t work. Violet is in woo-woo land with that cop she’s seeing and can’t focus on anything. She sent out three day suits without hemming them last week. We looked like fools. And then Ruth—”
“What’s wrong with Ruth?”
“Harvey wants her to quit so they can have a baby. He thinks the job is too stressful. And then there’s you. I’ll lose you as soon as John Juan puts the ring on your finger.”
“No, you won’t,” I say.
“Come on, Lucia. Be serious for a moment. I get you girls bright-eyed and bushy-tailed out of high school—”
“Katie Gibbs.”
“Or Katie Gibbs, and you come in here, guns blazing, ready to take on the world. By the time you hit twenty-five you clear out of here like somebody dropped a bomb. You rush to get married, and when you do, you leave me.”
“I won’t, Delmarr. I won’t.”
“Talbot isn’t going to let you work. He’s going to polish you like the hood ornament on his Packard and set you in a china closet in Huntington. That’s your fate, kid.” Delmarr fills a mug with coffee and hands it to me.
I was raised with men, so it never occurs to me that there are any limitations on what I can do. But this isn’t only about what I want; John has a say. “Why does this have to be so hard?” I know that Delmarr is right. Nobody can be a career woman and a housewife. I kept hoping I would figure out a way to do both. But only men get the luxury of a magnificent career and a good home life.
“He loves you, but he loves you if you’re there for him every minute. You’re allowed your dreams if they’re his dreams, too. Trust me. I’m older than you, and I’ve seen this a hundred times.”
I stare down into my coffee cup, which looks like a black pit I’d like to jump into. “It stinks.”
“Yeah, it does. But what are you gonna do? That’s love.” Delmarr swings his legs off his desk and jumps to a standing position. “But for now, in the waning days of the B. Altman Custom Department, I’m going to beg you to finish the Ashfield order. Two evening dresses and a hostess pantset. She’s a chub, so keep the flow loose.”
“A Madame Rouge.” That’s one of our code phrases back at the shop. It refers to our larger-lady clientele. Delmarr came up with it when he took a lady’s me
asurements and the numbers went as high as the red mark on the tape measure.
“The rouge-ee-est.” Delmarr laughs.
“Welcome back, Lucia,” I say aloud.
“Oh yeah, and that, too, kid. Welcome back.”
Every year when I leave for vacation, I harbor a secret fear that when I return, my desk will be cleaned out and my job will be gone. The thing I feared most has happened: I left for a month and came back to my gleaming castle on the third floor of the best department store in New York City only to find it in ruins. I go to my desk and pull my handbag from the drawer. From the zippered pocket, I pull out my little red passbook from the Chase National Bank. On July 5, 1951, I wrote a seventy-five-hundred-dollar check to John for the house. My nest egg is gone. If the department closes, I will have to rely on John for money. I don’t want to rely on anyone! The thought that I will never work again peels through me like a sudden chill.
“How was Italy?” Ruth booms as she sweeps into the Hub.
I quickly put away my bankbook. “Hi!” I say too brightly.
Ruth gives me a kiss on the cheek. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I missed you!”
“No, you look shaky. What happened?”
“We’re going to lose our jobs.”
“You already spoke with Delmarr? We’re too high-end for the new B. Altman’s. They want ready-to-wear on every floor. Can you imagine the crap they’ll roll in here? The workmanship will be shoddy, the fabrics will be cheap, the kind that never lose the smell of the dye. Yech! New York class is going to take a powder.”
“Ruth?” My voice quivers as I say her name, alarming her. She puts down her pencil. “I gave John all my savings.”
“You did what?”
“All my money.”
“What did he do with it?”
“He’s putting it into the house.”
“Oh, okay.” Ruth breathes a sigh of relief and clasps her hands behind her head. “You scared me.”
“Well, he wasn’t going to squander it,” I say defensively.
“Okay, okay. I believe you. Lucia, honey. I’ve got something to tell you.” Ruth leans in.
“What?” I try not to panic, but my mind instantly goes to Amanda Parker and how the society girls make sport of stealing men from one another.
“You know Harvey goes to the track once in a while for fun. Since the seder, he’s invited John a couple of times. Last week Harvey came home and told me that John is a serious gambler. Harvey bets a buck on a horse. He said John puts down fifty, a hundred dollars.”
My heart sinks. From the minute I looked at my bankbook and saw that one red withdrawal after pages and pages of deposits, I’ve been gripped by fear. “You don’t think he’s gambling my money, do you?”
“No, no, I’m sure he would never do something like that. But I know you, and you’ve been saving every penny since the day we started here.”
“Why would he need my money for the house if he has so much of his own?” I wonder aloud. I look at Ruth. She was thinking the same thing.
“Sweetie . . .” I know what she’s is going to say before she says it. “You never had the money talk, did you?” I shake my head. She continues, “Hold on. Before we go off half-cocked, let’s think this through. You gave him your savings for your house.”
“Eventually we would combine all our money, anyway,” I tell her, justifying my position. “I wanted to be a full partner in everything. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“Of course not. And he’s going to be your husband. You have to trust him.” Ruth looks at me kindly. “The gambling I wouldn’t worry about. You know, sometimes Harvey goes out with the boys and has a few drinks and comes home slightly plowed. I accept it. One guy’s cocktails are another guy’s horses. What can you do? Everybody has a weakness. You just don’t want the weakness to turn into a habit.”
On my way home from work that night, as I cross Fifth Avenue, I turn and look back at B. Altman’s and burst into tears. The happiest days of my life have been in that building, and now everything is changing.
What will I do without seeing Ruth every day? She knows everything about me, down to such detail that when I confided that I made love to John, she sent me to her uncle, a respected gynecologist on the Upper West Side, so I would be responsible and “use protection.” I’ll also miss Helen Gannon, who cut fabric so precisely that she seemed to be cutting glass with a diamond. It was never hard to assemble a garment that Helen had cut; she’d look at the measurements and the fabric, then cut to the flow and drape of the customer’s figure. Nobody does that anymore, but she did, and now she’ll use that talent making drapes or baby clothes. Even though Violet could be annoying, she was always loyal. If you needed help on anything and had to stay late, you could always count on Violet. And Delmarr took me under his wing back when I didn’t know a Chanel from a Schiaparelli.
But it’s not all about losing my friends. The world itself is losing something. The kind of quality I believe in will no longer be valued. A hand-stitched hem is no longer a study in precision and detail; a garment is slammed through a machine, pulled off the bobbin, and thrown in a bin with dozens of others assembled that day. There’s no Delmarr meeting with a client and asking her what she likes, or studying her coloring and shape to create clothes that make her gorgeous. There’s no personal service in ready-to-wear. Do women really want to paw through a swinging rack jammed with garments in every size and color? The gentility of my working world will be as woefully out-of-date as a snood come the spring of 1952.
“Why the face?” Papa asks as I’m hanging my coat.
“The store. The Custom Department is getting overhauled.” I don’t want to get into the details with him, so I go into the kitchen. But he follows me.
“What about your job?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I tell him in a tone meant to indicate that the discussion is over.
Mama comes downstairs and joins us in the kitchen. “Lu, I think I’ve decided to wear coral at your wedding. I was sold on the turquoise, but then I thought, I want something brighter, happier. What do you think?”
“Lucia is losing her job,” my father tells her.
“Papa,” I say.
“So? She’s getting married,” Mama says lightly. “She doesn’t need to work. She’ll have more than enough to do at home.”
“Now you sound like Claudia DeMartino,” Papa says to her.
“Why bring her up?” Mama counters.
“Because she has the same ideas about Lucia that you do.” Papa spears a meatball from the pot of sauce simmering on the stove.
Mama gets him a small plate and says, “Antonio, I want you to listen to me. Lucia has chosen a very nice, sophisticated man to marry. They are not going to live like we live. He is a worldly type, he travels, he is part of”—she waves her hand in the air—“uptown. They are going to live in a suburb, okay? With a view of the ocean. In a house with a chandelier from Murano in the entryway. You see what I have? I have the lamp in the hallway that was there when we moved in. This girl is different from us, and you need to accept it.” Mama puts her arm around me. “We have one daughter, and I don’t want to lose her because you think that no man she brings home is good enough.”
“No man is good enough,” Papa says, “but some are better than others.”
“Papa, what is your problem with him?”
“I don’t understand him, Lucia.”
“Why do you need to understand him?” Mama interjects. “You don’t have to live with him, she does.”
“You don’t want me to marry anybody!” I say.
“That’s not true. I accepted Rosemary and have grown to love her. I left my son Exodus in Italy with Orsola because I saw in her many of the things I saw in your mother. They are a good match. If I felt that John Talbot had the qualities of a good husband, I would support you. I don’t question that he is in love with you, but I worry, that’s all. I worry. I’m sorry. I can’t hel
p it.”
If only Papa knew how much I needed to talk to him about my fears, today of all days. But he makes it impossible. I constantly feel as though I have to defend my feelings for my fiancé, so I can’t be honest. I’m afraid, terribly afraid, that I won’t be able to keep up with the pace of John’s world, that I’ll have to turn a blind eye whenever he wants to invest in another venture or buy something we can’t afford. I don’t even know how much money he has. I’m afraid to ask and make him angry. I grew up watching my parents share all the responsibilities involving finances, but John acts like those sorts of questions are insignificant, irritating, beneath him. Maybe this is what I’m really scared of: I’m not enough for John Talbot.
“Papa, please don’t worry. I need your support. Please.” I must look pitiful, because Papa puts his arms around me.
“I will always be here,” he says.
“And someday he will love John,” Mama promises.
“That would make me very happy,” I say. Papa looks so weary in the bright yellow light over the kitchen sink. I’m causing my father to get old before his time.
As I climb the stairs to my room, I wish the floors would never end, that I could keep climbing until I found some kind of peace. I especially miss my brother Exodus tonight. Somehow, when we were all together under one roof, I believed that no harm could ever come to us, curse or no curse.
In the final days before the wedding, I find myself waking up earlier and earlier (today it was three a.m.) and being unable to get back to sleep. I lie in bed and think of John.
This morning I replay a scene from last July in my mind. I’m in John’s car, and he’s driving me home from work. I ask him to come into the house, but he can’t, because he has a business meeting. I’m about to get out of the car, and he says with a big smile, “Do you have the check?” I pull out my checkbook and write out a check to John Talbot. I fold the check at the crease and gently tear it out. “This is all the money I have in the world, honey,” I tell him. He takes the check without looking at it, folds it into a small rectangle, then slides it into the handkerchief pocket of his suit jacket. “It ain’t much, baby, but it’s all you’ve got,” he says, laughing, and then he kisses me. I know it’s a joke, but it stings like a slap.