A Dress to Die For Read online

  Thirty years later, everyone on the island wore brown, herded sheep, harvested moss from the riverbed, ate turnip soup, and behaved. Then the bottom fell out of the peat moss market. They could harvest their calloused little hands off. They could ship it three times a week instead of two. They could pray. Yet nothing made a difference. The money that the Central Bank switched to the Brunican currency, the tonk, was always the same.

  Herge Forseigh, who wasn’t entirely without a heart, hated to see his people starve. He ate peat moss soup to share their yoke of hunger, which any idiot on the island could have told him was a very bad idea. He took on a spore from eating the soup and died three months later after a crippling bout of dysentery and the eruption of crusty boils on the palms of his hands.

  He left behind a wife, three adult daughters, and an eight-year-old son. The son inherited the throne because not only was Herge a Calvinist who thought pleasure was sinful, he was also a misogynist. The placement of Alexander Forseigh on the throne was the end of Calvinism, as his mother wanted to have sex, and his sisters wanted to make money. High Prince Alexander wanted to play tag, and as long as playmates were provided, he’d agree to anything except something that would take him out of power because he was young, not stupid.

  Apparently, Herge was right. Women were the source of the world’s iniquities. Within a year, Brunico became the Sodom of the South Atlantic.

  Begats were logged in Bibles all over Brunico for the next few decades, with Theodore Forseigh putting in more roads, phone lines, and a second hotel, promising security and privacy to all of his Hollywood friends, of which he had many. Ronaldo Forseigh promised his friends in finance a rock-solid tax shelter at the Central Bank of Brunico, housed in a stone building at the exact center of the island. Three months a year, the island hopped along at a constant nightclub pace. The alcohol and illegal drugs came in on a boat and left in bloodstreams. The beaches were trampled, and the hotels were full.

  But the real happenings on Brunico occurred during the other nine months. Under the wind and rain, through the driving February snow, in the old structures kept warm with nine-foot-high fireplaces, the haven was truly a haven. Deals were brokered in the dead of night, the players coming in and out on silent boats no bigger than dinghies. The hotel rates during winter were astronomical, not because the facilities were fantastic, but because of the guaranteed security.

  And thus were riches amassed and a reputation earned. The traditions of Brunico, however, stayed the same. The citizens remained straight and conservative. No high prince had been without sons to take his place. The monarchy controlled the printing and distribution of all the money, which had been fully, loosely, and enthusiastically changed over at the Central Bank and nowhere else in the world.

  “What do you mean? Brunico happened?” Laura asked. “It’s not like you can just move there. They don’t have immigration.”

  “The high prince can allow a residency. They needed roads fixed, and they wanted a bridge so they could build another hotel. Your father fixed roads and built bridges. And he’d fallen in love.”

  Mom flipped through the album, past herself, Dad, the princess looking un-princess-like in a T-shirt and loose smile, a tall man in the leather hat, and another couple so dour and plain they could have been at the end of a hallway in a horror movie, until she found a picture of a slight redhead with broad shoulders. The man in the photo sat in the corner, smoking a cigarette, while Mom and Princess Philomena pinned the hem of the saffron gown. He didn’t appear anywhere else, and Dad wasn’t in the same shot.

  “His name was Samuel, and I didn’t even see it. Your father was getting distracted. He was practically part of the entourage the entire time they were in New York. Came home when he felt like it. He took care of you guys when he had to, but when he didn’t, he was gone. He could have been an athlete—he was a tennis player at Cornell—but he was dropping things, and he’d get this faraway look in his eye. One night after dinner, he was drying the dishes, and he broke one of Grandma’s bowls. I just exploded. I said, ‘Joseph! Who is he? Just say it. You’re like a schoolgirl!’ He got so upset. Maybe because I called him a schoolgirl. I still don’t know. But he walked out without saying good-bye to you guys, and I didn’t see him until work the next morning.”

  Mom took a breath and closed the book as though she didn’t want those faces watching her when she said the next part. “He said I was right. He was in love, and he was going back to the island when the fittings were done. He told me it was Samuel, and I think I cried. I was happy for him, but I was so lonely. I didn’t realize how lonely until he told me he’d fallen in love, but it all hit me right then. I feel so selfish, because you know… it was like he really was gone. It wasn’t a joke or a phase. I was really being left behind. I said awful things. I called him names I’d never call anyone. And then he left for work, and I never saw him again.” Mom sniffed, and tears rolled down her face.

  “Mom, please don’t cry,” Laura said, rummaging through drawers, looking for a tissue.

  “I can’t help but think I left you without a father because I was feeling jilted and I just had to insult him.”

  “What could anyone say that would keep a father from his children?” Not finding any tissues, Laura went to the bathroom and unspooled a bouquet of toilet paper. “Really, Mom, if all it took was you saying nasty things because you were hurt, he didn’t love us.”

  “He loved you,” Mom insisted.

  Laura bent to look Mom in the eye. “No. He did not love Ruby and me. He never did. You loved us enough for two people. The end.”

  Mom shook her head and looked at her crumpled toilet paper. “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m wrong a lot. But I know what it feels like to be loved, and I know who loves me.”

  Mom shook her head, sniffed hard, and got herself under control. “I can’t tell you what to believe, Laura. When you’re ready to hear the truth, I’m here to tell it to you.”

  “Mom—”

  “Let’s go to bed.” Mom put her arms around Laura, kissed her on the forehead, and slipped out. The room seemed deathly quiet after the door closed.

  Laura wanted to go to Jeremy’s loft again and slide into bed next to him. If she could spin the energy to get out of bed and get dressed, she’d wake up to him and those big brown eyes.

  CHAPTER 5

  Since being given five years of her life she’d forgotten, Laura found clips of memory popping up in her mind unbidden, as if someone behind her had the TV remote and was flipping around in the middle of a show. She couldn’t always catch more than a snatch of a voice or a swatch of color. Hair on Dad’s face. Him standing next to Mom, drying the dishes she washed. Someone stroking her hair while she watched TV. Sometimes she found objects jogged a memory loose, as if a tree had shaken, dropping fruit at her feet, finished and perfect in color and texture, but still not ripe enough to digest.

  The memory of the beads was different. As she cut the armhole seam on the Syracuse jacket, slicing through a thread and splashing beads on the floor, the remote control changed the show, and she saw Mom’s table in the rent-controlled apartment. Laura held a dish of seed beads in her left hand and a needle in her right. The vision started like the other reawakened memories, splashing on her ankles like a wave that had crashed at a safe distance. The rest of the memories had gone back out to sea. But the water got higher and more vivid with the smell of something Mom had been cooking and Laura threading the saffron orange beads with fingers as small as a doll’s. Mom sat across from her, threading at lightning speed and setting aside the rows of orange crystals to be applied to the dress. Thread, thread, thread. Bead, bead, bead. The tide of memory came in with the smell of the dishes in a clogged sink and the sound of the door opening as Dad came home, finally, and Laura was filled with love and relief even as she threaded five, six, seven orange seed beads.

  “Ow!” Kelly jumped away, holding her shoulder.

  “Laura!” Ruby shouted.

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nbsp; “I’m so sorry!” Laura felt terrible for sticking the fit model while she pinned the sleeve head. She’d never stuck anyone. “Are you okay?”

  Kelly took off the White Plains jacket. The pinprick wasn’t bleeding. “You can stick your next model all you want.” She gave Laura the Big Eyes. Kelly wasn’t a giraffe, per se, but a fit model with a perfectly average body. She worked hard to keep it that way, standing for hours on end in high heels, smiling her way through people slashing and pinning what she wore, and maintaining a fantastic attitude, all while going to graduate school for accounting.

  “We don’t have a next model, Kelly. Stop worrying about the scan.”

  “It’s just… I pay for school with the money, and if I lose it...” She drifted off while slipping on the jacket again. The next day, she had an appointment to stand in a box and have lasers shine on her body. A computer would take her measurements, and the form factory would use the computer model to create a perfect mannequin of her perfect body. “Jeremy St. James, Inc.” would be stamped across the hips, with KELLY underneath it. Forever young, an exclusive shape and form. Scans struck terror into younger fit models with years of work ahead of them. Older ones took the bonus money and ran.

  “It’s just for the China office,” Laura said.

  “We had them at T&C,” Ruby added. “And we still had to travel with the model twice a year, so don’t even worry.”

  Kelly seemed satisfied for the moment, and Laura pinned the rest of the cap without incident.

  “Okay,” Laura said. “Can you get the Baltimore shorts on? And I’ll leave your shoulders alone for a few.”

  Kelly went into the changing room. Laura handed Heidi the jacket and sent her back to her desk.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Ruby asked. “You’re late, you look like someone wrung you out, and now you’re sticking Kelly.”

  “This gown thing is bothering me.”

  “Oh, it’s the gown, huh?” Ruby crossed her arms. “Just admit you want to see Dad.”

  “No, I don’t. He left Mom for some redheaded guy named Samuel from Brunico. Dad probably got dumped or deported, and now guess what? He’s back. Well, too bad.”

  “Redhead, huh?”

  “Cute, too. Not drop dead, but not bad. Smoker.” She wrinkled her nose.

  Kelly came out in the Baltimore shorts, yanking at the waist and crotch, and Laura forgot about Dad for a minute as she fixed the unfixable and fit the unwearable.

  **

  Laura dropped her stuff on her desk and sighed.

  Jeremy tapped at his computer. “Where are you staying when I’m away?” he asked, still clicking at his keyboard.

  “Home?”

  “You’ll be handling a lot. That commute’s going to be rough.”

  “It’s not like I can rent a place now, JJ.”

  She heard the clink of metal on metal and caught the keys midair. They were two new silver house keys on a metal ring, and she knew they were for his place.

  “Just don’t turn off the air system,” he said.

  “Jeremy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Isn’t it soon for this?”

  “Are we on a schedule? I didn’t see anything on the calendar.”

  It was the second time she’d questioned his timing. The first had been about six weeks previous, on her birthday, which she didn’t make a big deal about or even mention to anyone. At eleven o’clock, when they had gone out for dinner after work, she thought she’d gotten away with it. One more hour, and she’d be past the birthday zone.

  But once the waiter left with their order, Jeremy put a little box on the table and pushed it toward her. “Happy birthday.”

  “Who told you?”

  “You did, about three years ago. I never forgot anything you told me about yourself.”

  “This is a small blue box.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She glanced up at him, his face scruffy late in the day. They were both tired from a brutal conference call with the Hong Kong office over grade rules and staffing.

  “Jeremy, I didn’t say anything about my birthday because I knew you’d try to make some kind of grand gesture, and it’s too soon for small things from 57th Street.”

  He leaned forward, and the table suddenly seemed too big because she couldn’t reach his lips with hers. “If we’re on some sort of timetable,” he said, “you need to get it on a spreadsheet and review it with me first.”

  “Aren’t you afraid you’re going to scare me away?”

  He considered for a second, then put his hand on the box. “You’re right. I’ll get you a scarf.”

  He’d pulled the box back toward himself, and she couldn’t help it. Her hand darted out and landed on his.

  “I already have a scarf,” she said, weaving her fingers in his and slipping the box away. She had it in front of her, like an appetizer. She smiled so hard her face hurt because she was just human after all. She fumbled with the white bow, slid off the top, and opened the velvety box. Inside sparkled a pair of diamond earrings. “Oh.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m supposed to tell you it’s too early in our relationship for these, and you should take them back.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I want them.”

  His laughter snapped the tautness of the air like a rubber band. She dug the earrings out of the little slits in the cushion. Jeremy reached forward and helped her get them in her ears, and when he leaned back to look at her, he seemed to approve. She’d touched them all night, making sure they were still there, loving their weight and hardness, feeling a little lighter in the chest, a little more birthday wearing them. They were silly and impractical, and they made her feel loved and secure.

  Though the concerns about the speed of their intimacy were the same when he tossed her his keys, the businesslike attitude that accompanied the key toss differentiated the two.

  He looked up from his work. “It’ll be easier for you to handle everything if you’re close by. Half your wardrobe’s there anyway.” He leaned back in his chair. “Do what you want. If you can handle the traveling, handle it. But you have the option.”

  She clicked the keys together, feeling them scrape against each other. Yes, he had the right idea. She pulled her bunch of key chains from her bag, a bunch that seemed to get bigger every month. She slipped his keys on next to hers, using a different ring than the pink rabbit’s foot tchotchke she’d gotten from some swag bag. “I read that they’re putting the saffron gown back up today. Dressed for Infamy is complete again.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Another one? Please do.”

  “It looks fake as hell to me.”

  She wasn’t surprised that Jeremy could see through a fake. For one, he’d spent years counterfeiting his own clothes, but second, he had an incredibly sharp eye. What surprised her was that Bernard Nestor didn’t see it. Or he said he didn’t see it and was either protecting his reputation, his source, or the people who had stolen the real one.

  **

  Laura spent the rest of the day helping half the company prep for their trip. Desks were cleared, decisions made, and comments sent to China in anticipation of corrected garments being ready in time for more corrections and approvals. She felt as if she were on a stationary bike, sweating her way to nowhere. But at seven-thirty, most of the team, including Ruby, packed themselves and their gear into a limo and left for JFK. She and Jeremy took a cab.

  “You’ll call me if you get overwhelmed?” he asked as the car’s tires clip-clipped over each bump on the Brooklyn Bridge.

  “I will. Do you have all your meds?”

  “More than enough. We have shipments due at Long Beach. Customs is going to be inspecting everything because they’re our first really big units from Asia. Fortieth Street needs watching. I didn’t realize how much they’d slipped.”

  He hadn’t been to the factory regularly for years because the particles and dust aggravated his cystic
fibrosis. He’d needed a mask to be there more than a few hours. One of the first things she had done when she became his partner was to bring in a team to clean every corner and surface. Hinges clotted with old wool fibers were replaced. Machines were cleaned and lubed. Light fixtures with bugs in the glass were swapped for new. The vents were retrofitted, and a professional protocol was put into place to keep the building spotless. So he could go to 40th Street and be as bossy as he wanted, for as many hours as he needed.

  “Did you set your phone to remind you to do your physio?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I’m fine. We have a scheduled conference every night. Have a little faith in me.”

  “I have faith in you. But the fake dress, that’s what I worry about.”

  “Would you shut up about that already?” She elbowed him affectionately. As annoying as he was, she enjoyed the fact that he knew her flaws.

  “I want you to go next time. You’re driving blind until you do.”

  She looked away. She was terrified of Asia. It was just a big blob of color on the map. A totally different world. Different language. Different culture. She felt as if the laws of physics somehow didn’t apply there. The fact that her fears were both unfounded and unreasonable didn’t make them any less real. “I can’t leave Sartorial,” she said.

  They pulled up to the terminal.

  “Ruby’s going to want to move more out of there,” he said. “Sartorial’s going to need you to go.”

  “I don’t want to be away from you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re lying to me or yourself.”

  She was about to get into a huff over it when he kissed her, and she fell into it, because he was going away and she already missed him.

  She watched him walk through the revolving doors. She loved seeing him walk because he was an embodiment of unselfconscious grace. He checked his watch, glanced back once, waved, and disappeared.