City of Girls Page 12

  But Edna—tiny as she was—had just that kind of self-confidence.

  “You’re magnificent!” she cried to Celia, when I introduced them. “Look at the height on you! And that face. You, my dear, could headline at the Folies Bergère.”

  “That’s in Paris,” I said to Celia, who thankfully did not take note of my patronizing tone, distracted as she was by the compliments.

  “And where are you from, Celia?” Edna asked—tilting her head with curiosity and shining the spotlight of her fullest attention upon my friend.

  “I’m from right here. From New York City,” said Celia.

  (As though that accent could’ve been born anywhere else.)

  “I noticed tonight that you dance exceptionally well for a girl of your height. Did you study ballet? Your carriage would suggest you’d been properly trained.”

  “No,” replied Celia, whose face was now aglow with pleasure.

  “And do you act? The camera must adore you. You look just like a film star.”

  “I act a bit.” Then she added (quite archly for someone who had only ever played a corpse in a B movie): “I am not yet widely known.”

  “Well, you shall be known soon enough, if there’s any justice. Stay at it, my dear. You’re in the right field. You have a face that was made for your times.”

  It’s not difficult to compliment people in order to try to win their affections. What is difficult is to do it in the right way. Everyone told Celia she was beautiful, but nobody had ever told her she had the carriage of a trained ballerina. Nobody had ever told her she had a face made for her times.

  “You know, I’ve just realized something,” said Edna. “In all the excitement, I have not yet unpacked. I wonder if you girls might be free to help me?”

  “Sure!” said Celia eagerly, looking like she was about thirteen years old.

  And to my wonderment, in that instant the goddess became a handmaiden.

  When we arrived upstairs in the fourth-floor apartment that Edna would be sharing with her husband, we found a pile of trunks and parcels and hatboxes on the sitting-room floor—an avalanche of luggage.

  “Oh, dear,” said Edna. “It gives quite the impression of density, doesn’t it? I do hate to trouble you girls, but shall we begin?”

  As for me, I couldn’t wait. I was dying to get my hands on her clothes. I had a feeling they’d be splendid—and indeed they were. Unpacking Edna’s trunks was a lesson in sartorial genius. I soon noticed that there was nothing haphazard about her clothing; it was all in keeping with a particular style that I might call “Little Lord Fauntleroy meets French salon hostess.”

  She certainly had a lot of jackets—that seemed to be the elementary unit of her aesthetic. The jackets were all variations on a theme—fitted, jaunty, slightly martial in tone. Some were trimmed in Persian lamb, others had satin details. Some looked like formal riding jackets, but some were more playful. All of them had gold buttons of different design, and all were lined with jewel-toned silks.

  “I have them specially made,” she told me, when she caught me searching the labels for information. “There’s an Indian tailor in London who has come to know my taste over the years. He never gets bored of creating them for me, and I never get bored of buying them.”

  And then there were the trousers—so many pairs of trousers. Some were long and loose, but others were narrow and looked like they would hit above the ankle. (“I got used to wearing these when I studied dance,” she said of the cropped variety. “All the dancers in Paris wore trousers like that, and heavens, did they make it look chic. I used to call those girls ‘the slim ankle brigade.’”)

  The trousers were a real revelation for me. I’d never been a firm believer in trousers on women until I saw how good they looked on Edna. Not even Garbo and Hepburn had yet convinced me that a woman could be both feminine and glamorous in pants, but looking at Edna’s clothes suddenly made me think that it was the only way a woman could be both feminine and glamorous.

  “I prefer trousers for daily wear,” she explained. “I’m small, but I have a long stride. I need to be able to move about freely. Years ago, a newspaperman wrote that I had a ‘titillating boyishness’ to me, and that’s my favorite thing a man’s ever said about me. What could be better than having a bit of the titillating boy about you?”

  Celia gave a puzzled look, but I understood Edna’s point exactly and loved this idea.

  Then we came to the trunk filled with Edna’s blouses. So many of them had quaint jabots, or ornamental ruffles. This attention to detail, I grasped, is how a woman could wear a suit and still look like a woman. There was one high-necked crepe de chine chemise in the softest pink you could imagine, and it made my heart ache with longing when I touched it. Then I pulled out an elegant little ivory number of finest silk, with tiny pearl buttons at the neck, and the most infinitesimal sleeves.

  “What an impeccable blouse!” I said.

  “Thank you for noticing, Vivian. You’ve got a good eye. That little blouse came from Coco Chanel herself. She gave it to me—if you can imagine Coco ever giving somebody something for free! It must have been a weak moment for her. Perhaps she had food poisoning that day.”

  Celia and I both gasped, and I cried out, “You know Coco Chanel?”

  “Nobody knows Coco, my dear. She would never allow for that. But I can say that we are acquainted. I met her years ago when I was acting in Paris and living on the Quai Voltaire. That was back when I was learning French—which is a good language to learn as an actress, because it teaches you how to use your mouth.”

  Well, that was the most sophisticated combination of words I’d ever heard.

  “But what’s she like?”

  “What’s Coco like?” Edna paused, closed her eyes, and seemed to be searching for the right words. She opened her eyes and smiled. “Coco Chanel is a gifted, ambitious, cunning, unloved, and hardworking eel of a woman. I’m more afraid of her taking dominion over the world than I am of Mussolini or Hitler. No, I’m teasing—she’s a fine enough specimen of a person. One is only ever in danger from Coco when she starts calling you her friend. But she’s far more interesting than I’m making her sound. Girls, what do you think of this hat?”

  She had pulled from a box a homburg—like something a man would wear, but not at all. Soft and plum colored, and dressed with a single red feather. She modeled it for us with a bright smile.

  “It’s wonderful on you,” I said. “But it doesn’t look like anything I’m seeing people wearing right now.”

  “Thank you,” said Edna. “I can’t bear the hats that are in style just now. I can’t endure a hat that substitutes a pile of miscellany on the top of your head for the pleasing simplicity of a line. A homburg will always give you a perfect line, if it’s specially made for you. The wrong hat makes me feel cross and oppressed. And there are so many wrong hats. But alas—milliners need to eat, too, I suppose.”

  “I love this,” said Celia, pulling out a long, yellow silk scarf, and wrapping it around her head.

  “Well done, Celia!” said Edna. “You are the infrequent sort of girl who looks good with a scarf wrapped around her head. How fortunate for you! If I wore that scarf in that manner, I would look like a dead saint. Do you like it? You may keep it.”

  “Gee, thanks!” said Celia, parading around Edna’s room, searching for a mirror.

  “I can’t think why I ever bought that scarf in the first place, girls. I suppose I bought it during a year when yellow scarves were in fashion. And let that be a lesson to you! The thing about fashion, my dears, is that you don’t need to follow it, no matter what they say. No fashion trend is compulsory, remember—and if you dress too much in the style of the moment, it makes you look like a nervous person. Paris is all well and good, but we can’t just follow Paris for the sake of Paris, now can we?”

  We can’t just follow Paris for the sake of Paris!

  As long as I live, I shall never forget those words. That speech was certainly mo
re stirring to me than anything Churchill had ever said.

  Celia and I were now busy unpacking a trunk filled with the most delicious items of bath and beauty—articles of toilette that made us swoon with joy. There were carnation-scented bath oils, lavender alcohol rubs, pomander balls to spice up the drawers and closets, and so many alluring glass vials of lotions with French instructions. It was positively intoxicating. I would have been embarrassed by our overenthusiasm, but Edna seemed to be genuinely enjoying our squeaks and squeals of delight. In fact, she seemed to be having just as much fun as we were. I had the craziest sensation that Edna might actually like us. This was interesting to me then, and it is still interesting now. Older women don’t always relish the company of beautiful young girls, for obvious reasons. But not Edna.

  “Girls,” she said, “I could watch the two of you effervesce for hours!”

  And boy, did we effervesce. I’d never seen such a wardrobe. Edna even had a valise filled with nothing but gloves—each pair wrapped lovingly in its own silk.

  “Never buy inexpensive or poorly made gloves,” Edna instructed us. “That’s not the place to save your money. Whenever you are faced with the prospect of purchasing gloves, you must ask yourself if you would be bereft to lose one of them in the back of a taxicab. If not, then don’t buy them. You should only buy gloves so beautiful that to lose one of them would break your heart.”

  At some point, Edna’s husband walked in, but he was inconsequential (handsome as he was) compared to this exotic wardrobe. She kissed his cheek and sent him on his way, saying, “There’s no room in here yet for a man, Arthur. Go have a drink somewhere and entertain yourself until these dear girls are done, and then I promise I’ll find space for you and your one sorry little duffel bag.”

  He sulked a bit, but did her bidding.

  After he left, Celia said, “Say, but he’s a looker, ain’t he!”

  I thought Edna might be offended, but she only laughed. “He is indeed, as you say, a looker. I’ve never before seen his like, to be candid with you. We’ve been married nearly a decade, and I haven’t grown tired of looking at him yet.”

  “But he’s young.”

  I could’ve kicked Celia for her rudeness, but Edna, again, didn’t seem to mind. “Yes, dear Celia. He is young—far younger than me, in fact. One of my greatest achievements, I daresay.”

  “You don’t get worried?” Celia pressed on. “There’s gotta be a lot of young dishes out there who want to put the moves on him.”

  “I don’t worry about dishes, my dear. Dishes break.”

  “Ooh!” said Celia, and her face lit up with something like awe.

  “When you have found your own success as a woman,” explained Edna, “you may do such a fun thing as marry a handsome man who is very much your junior. Consider it a reward for all your hard work. When first I met Arthur, he was just a boy—a set carpenter for an Ibsen play I was doing. An Enemy of the People. I was Mrs. Stockmann, and oh, it’s a dull role. But meeting Arthur livened things up for me during the run of that play—and he has kept things lively for me since. I’m awfully fond of him, girls. He’s my third husband, of course. Nobody’s first husband looks like Arthur. My first husband was a civil servant, and I don’t mind saying that he made love like a civil servant, too. My second husband was a theater director. I won’t make that mistake again. And now there is dear Arthur, so handsome and yet so cozy. My gift, till the end of my days. I’m so fond of him that I even took his name—though my theater friends warned me not to, since my own name was already well known. I’d never taken the names of any of my other husbands before, you see. But Edna Parker Watson has a nice ring to it, don’t you agree? And what about you, Celia? Have you ever had any husbands?”

  I wanted to say: She’s had many husbands, Edna—but only one of them was her own.

  “Yeah,” said Celia. “I had a husband once. He played the saxophone.”

  “Oh, dear. So we may assume that didn’t last?”

  “Yeah, you guessed it, lady.” Celia drew a line across her own throat, to indicate, I guess, the death of love.

  “And what about you, Vivian? Married? Engaged?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Anybody special?”

  “Nobody special,” I said, and something about the way I uttered the word “special” made Edna burst out laughing.

  “Ah, but you have a somebody, I can see.”

  “She has a few somebodies,” Celia said, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Good work, Vivian!” Edna gave me an appraising second look. “You’re growing more interesting to me by the moment!”

  Later on in the evening—it must have been well after midnight by then—Peg came in to check on us. She settled into a deep chair with a nightcap in her hand and watched with pleasure as Celia and I finished unpacking Edna’s trunks.

  “Gadzooks, Edna,” Peg said. “You have a lot of clothes.”

  “This is a mere fraction of the collection, Peg. You should see my wardrobe back home.” She paused. “Oh, dear. I’ve just now remembered again that I’ve lost everything back home. My contribution to the war effort, I suppose. Evidently Mr. Goering needed to destroy my more-than-three-decades-in-the-making costume collection as part of his plan for making the world safe for the Aryan race. I don’t quite see how it served him, but the sad deed is done.”

  I marveled at how lightly she seemed to take the destruction of her home. So, apparently, did Peg, who said, “I must admit, Edna, I was expecting to find you a bit more shaken up by all this.”

  “Oh, Peg, you know me better than that! Or have you forgotten how good I am at adjusting to circumstances? You can’t lead the sort of patched-together life that I’ve lived and get too sentimental about things.”

  Peg grinned. “Show people,” she said to me, shaking her head with an insider’s appreciation.

  Celia had just now pulled out an elegant floor-length, high-necked, black crepe gown with long sleeves, and a small pearl brooch set deliberately off center.

  “Now that’s something,” said Celia.

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you?” said Edna, holding the dress up to herself. “But I’ve had a difficult relationship with this dress. Black can be the smartest of colors, or it can be the dowdiest, depending on the line. I wore this gown only once, and I felt like a Greek widow in it. But I’ve kept it because I like the pearl detail.”

  I approached the dress, respectfully. “May I?” I asked.

  Edna handed me the dress and I laid it out on the couch, touching it here and there, and getting a better sense of it.

  “The problem isn’t the color,” I diagnosed. “The problem is the sleeves. The material of the sleeves is heavier than the material of the bodice—can you see that? This dress should have chiffon sleeves—or none at all, which would be better for you, petite as you are.”

  Edna studied the gown and then looked at me with surprise.

  “I believe you’re on to something there, Vivian.”

  “I could fix it for you, if you’ll trust me with it.”

  “Our Vivvie can sew like the devil!” Celia said, proudly.

  “It’s true,” put in Peg. “Vivian is our resident dress professor.”

  “She makes all the costumes for the shows,” said Celia. “She made the ballet tutus everyone was wearing tonight.”

  “Did you?” said Edna, more impressed than she should’ve been. (Your cat could sew a tutu, Angela.) “So you’re not only beautiful, but gifted as well? Imagine that! And they say the Lord never gives with both hands!”

  I shrugged. “All I know is that I can fix this. I would shorten it, as well. It would be better for you if it landed at mid-ankle.”

  “Well, it appears as if you know a good deal more about clothes than I do,” said Edna, “because I was ready to relegate this poor old gown to the ash heap. And here I’ve been, filling your ears all night with my noise and opinions about fashion and style. I should be the one listen
ing to you. So tell me, my dear—where did you learn how to understand a dress so well?”

  I can’t imagine that it was fascinating for a woman of Edna Parker Watson’s stature to listen to a nineteen-year-old girl blather on about her grandmother for the next several hours, but that’s exactly what happened, and she bore it nobly. More than nobly—she hung on every word.

  Somewhere during the course of my monologue, Celia wandered out of the room. I wouldn’t see her again until just before dawn, when she would come tumbling into our bed at the usual hour, in her usual state of drunken disarray. Peg ended up excusing herself, as well—once she got a sharp knock on the door and a reminder from Olive that it was past her bedtime.

  So it ended up being just me and Edna—curled up on the couch of her new apartment at the Lily—talking into the wee hours. The well-raised girl within me did not want to monopolize her time, but I could not resist her attentions. Edna wanted to know everything about my grandmother and delighted in the details of her frivolities and eccentricities. (“What a character! She should be put in a play!”) Every time I tried to turn the subject of the conversation away from myself, Edna would turn it back to me. She expressed sincere curiosity about my love of sewing and was astonished when I told her that I could make a whalebone corset if I had to.

  “Then you’re born to be a costume designer!” she said. “The difference between making a dress and making a costume, of course, is that dresses are sewn, but costumes are built. Many people these days can sew, but not many know how to build. A costume is a prop for the stage, Vivvie, as much as any piece of furniture, and it needs to be strong. You never know what’s going to happen in a performance, and so the costume must be ready for anything.”

  I told Edna about how my grandmother used to find the tiniest hidden flaws in my outfits and demand that I fix the offending article on the spot. I used to protest that “Nobody will notice!” but Grandmother Morris would say, “That is not true, Vivian. People will notice, but they won’t know what they’re noticing. They will just notice that something is wrong. Don’t give them that opportunity.”