Still Me Page 6
"What time is your event, ma'am?"
"We have to be there seven thirty."
"We can alter a dress for you in time, Mrs. Gopnik. I'll get Terri to deliver it over to you by six."
"Then let's try the sunflower yellow one there . . . and that one with the sequins."
If I'd known that that afternoon would be the one time in my life I would be trying on three-thousand-dollar dresses, I might have made sure I wasn't wearing comedy knickers with a sausage dog on them and a bra that was held together with a safety pin. I wondered how many times in one week you could end up exposing your breasts to perfect strangers. I wondered if they had ever seen a body like mine before, with actual fatty bits. The shop assistants were far too polite to comment on it, beyond repeatedly offering "corrective" underwear, but simply brought in dress after dress, wrestling me in and out like someone wrangling livestock until Agnes, sitting on an upholstered chair, announced, "Yes! This is the one. What you think, Louisa? It is even perfect length for you with that tulle underskirt."
I stared at my reflection. I wasn't sure who was staring back at me. My waist was nipped in by an inbuilt corset, my bosom hoisted upward into a perfect embonpoint. The color made my skin glow and the long skirt made me a foot taller and entirely unlike myself. The fact that I couldn't breathe was irrelevant.
"We will put your hair up and some earrings. Perfect."
"And this dress is twenty percent off," said one of the shop assistants. "We don't sell much yellow after the Strager event each year . . ."
I almost deflated with relief. And then I gazed at the label. The sale price was $2,575. A month's wages. I think Agnes must have seen my bleached face, for she waved at one of the women. "Louisa, you get changed. Do you have any shoes that will go? We can run to the shoe department?"
"I have shoes. Lots of shoes." I had some gold satin-heeled dancing pumps, which would look fine. I did not want this bill going any higher.
I went back into the changing cubicle and climbed out of the dress carefully, feeling the weight of it fall expensively around me, and as I got dressed, I listened to Agnes and the assistants talking. Agnes summoned a bag and some earrings, gave them a cursory glance and was apparently satisfied. "Charge it to my account."
"Certainly, Mrs. Gopnik."
I met her at the cash desk. As we walked away, me clutching the bags, I said quietly, "So do you want me to be extra careful?"
She looked at me blankly.
"With the dress."
Still she looked blank.
I lowered my voice. "At home we tuck the label in, then you can take it back the next day. You know, as long as there are no accidental wine stains and it doesn't stink too much of cigarettes. Maybe give it a quick squirt of Febreze."
"Take it back?"
"To the shop."
"Why we would do this?" she said, as we climbed back into the waiting car and Garry put the bags into the boot. "Don't look so anxious, Louisa. You think I don't know how you feel? I have nothing when I come here. Me and my friends, we even shared our clothes. But you have to wear good dress when you sit next to me this evening. You can't wear your uniform. This evening you are not staff. And I am happy to pay for this."
"Okay."
"You understand. Yes? Tonight you have to not be staff. It's very important."
I thought of the enormous carrier bag in the boot behind me as the car navigated its way slowly through the Manhattan traffic, a little dumbstruck at the direction this day was taking.
"Leonard says you looked after a man who died."
"I did. His name was Will."
"He says you have--discretion."
"I try."
"And also that you don't know anyone here."
"Just Nathan."
She thought about this. "Nathan. I think he is a good man."
"He really is."
She studied her nails. "You speak Polish?"
"No." I added quickly: "But maybe I could learn, if you--"
"You know what is difficult for me, Louisa?"
I shook my head.
"I don't know who I . . ." She hesitated, then apparently changed her mind about what she was going to say. "I need you to be my friend tonight. Okay? Leonard . . . he will have to do his work thing. Always talking, talking with the men. But you will stay with me, yes? Right by me."
"Whatever you want."
"And if anybody ask, you are my old friend. From when I lived in England. We--we knew each other from school. Not my assistant, okay?"
"Got it. From school."
That seemed to satisfy her. She nodded, and settled back in her seat. She said nothing else the whole way back to the apartment.
--
The New York Palace Hotel, which held the Strager Foundation Gala, was so grand it was almost comical: a fairytale fortress, with a courtyard and arched windows, it was dotted with liveried footmen in daffodil silk knickerbockers. It was as if they had looked at every grand old hotel in Europe, taken notes about ornate cornicing, marble lobbies, and fiddly bits of gilt and decided to add it all together, sprinkle some Disney fairy dust on it, and ramp it up to camp levels all of its own. I half expected to see a pumpkin coach and the odd glass slipper on the red stair carpet. As we pulled up, I gazed into the glowing interior, the twinkling lights and sea of yellow dresses, and almost wanted to laugh, but Agnes was so tense I didn't dare. Plus my bodice was so tight I would probably have burst my seams.
Garry dropped us outside the main entrance, levering the car into a turning area thick with huge black limousines. We walked in past a crowd of onlookers on the sidewalk. A man took our coats, and for the first time Agnes's dress was fully visible.
She looked astonishing. Hers was not a conventional ballgown like mine, or like any of the other women's, but neon yellow, structured, a floor-length tube with one sculpted shoulder motif that rose up to her head. Her hair was scraped back unforgivingly, tight and sleek, and two enormous gold and yellow-diamond earrings hung from her ears. It should have looked extraordinary. But here, I realized with a faint drop to my stomach, it was somehow too much--out of place in the old-world grandeur of the hotel.
As she stood there, nearby heads swiveled, eyebrows lifting as the matrons in their yellow silk wraps and boned corsets viewed her from the corners of carefully made-up eyes.
Agnes appeared oblivious. She glanced around distractedly, trying to locate her husband. She wouldn't relax until she had hold of his arm. Sometimes I watched them together and saw an almost palpable sense of relief come over her when she felt him beside her.
"Your dress is amazing," I said.
She looked down at me as if she had just remembered I was there. A flashbulb went off and I saw that photographers were moving among us. I stepped away to give Agnes space, but the man motioned toward me. "You too, ma'am. That's it. And smile." She smiled, her gaze flickering toward me as if reassuring herself I was still nearby.
And then Mr. Gopnik appeared. He walked over a little stiffly--Nathan had said he was having a bad week--and kissed his wife's cheek. I heard him murmur something into her ear and she smiled, a sincere, unguarded smile. Their hands briefly clasped, and in that moment I noted that two people could fit all the stereotypes and yet there was something about them that was completely genuine, a delight in each other's presence. It made me feel suddenly wistful for Sam. But then I couldn't imagine him somewhere like this, trussed up in a dinner jacket and bow tie. He would, I thought absently, have hated it.
"Name, please?" The photographer appeared at my shoulder.
Perhaps it was thinking of Sam that made me do it. "Um. Louisa Clark-Fielding," I said, in my most strangulated upper-class accent. "From England."
"Mr. Gopnik! Over here, Mr. Gopnik!" I backed into the crowd as the photographers took pictures of them together, his hand resting lightly on his wife's back, her shoulders straight and chin up as if she could command the gathering. And then I saw him scan the room for me, his eyes meeting mine across
the lobby.
He walked Agnes over. "Darling, I have to talk to some people. Will you two be all right going in on your own?"
"Of course, Mr. Gopnik," I said, as if I did this kind of thing every day.
"Will you be back soon?" Agnes still had hold of his hand.
"I have to talk to Wainwright and Miller. I promised I'd give them ten minutes to go over this bond deal."
Agnes nodded, but her face betrayed her reluctance to let him go. As she walked through the lobby Mr. Gopnik leaned in to me. "Don't let her drink too much. She's nervous."
"Yes, Mr. Gopnik."
He nodded, glanced around him as if deep in thought. Then he turned back to me and smiled. "You look very nice." And then he was gone.
--
The ballroom was jammed, a sea of yellow and black. I wore the yellow and black beaded bracelet Will's daughter, Lily, had given me before I'd left England--and thought privately how much I would have loved to wear my bumblebee tights too. These women didn't look like they'd had fun with their wardrobes their entire lives.
The first thing that struck me was how thin most of them were, hoicked into tiny dresses, clavicles poking out like safety rails. Women of a certain age in Stortfold tended to spread gently outward, cloaking their extra inches in cardigans or long jumpers ("Does it cover my bum?") and paying lip service to looking good in the form of the occasional new mascara or a six-weekly haircut. In my hometown it was as if to pay too much attention to yourself was somehow suspect, or suggested unhealthy self-interest.
But the women in this ballroom looked as if they made their appearance a full-time job. There was no hair not perfectly coiffed into shape, no upper arm that was not toned into submission by some rigorous daily workout. Even the women of uncertain years (it was hard to tell, given the amount of Botox and fillers) looked as if they'd never heard of a bingo wing, let alone flapped one. I thought of Agnes, her personal trainer, her dermatologist, her hairdressing and manicurist appointments and thought, This is her job now. She has to do all that maintenance so she can turn up here and hold her own in this crowd.
Agnes moved slowly among them, her head high, smiling at her husband's friends, who came over to greet her and share a few words while I hovered uncomfortably in the background. The friends were always men. It was only men who smiled at her. The women, while not rude enough to walk away, tended to turn their faces discreetly, as if suddenly distracted by something in the distance so that they didn't have to engage with her. Several times as we continued through the crowd, me walking behind her, I saw a wife's expression tighten, as if Agnes's presence was some kind of transgression.
"Good evening," said a voice at my ear.
I looked up and stumbled backward. Will Traynor stood beside me.
5
Afterward I was glad that the room was so crowded because when I stumbled sideways onto the man next to me, he instinctively reached out a hand and, in an instant, several dinner-suited arms were righting me, a sea of faces, smiling, concerned. As I thanked them, apologizing, I saw my mistake. No, not Will--his hair was the same cut and color, his skin that same caramel hue. But I must have gasped aloud because the man who was not Will said, "I'm sorry, did I startle you?"
"I--no. No." I put my hand to my cheek, my eyes locked on his. "You--you just look like someone I know. Knew." I felt my face flush, the kind of stain that starts at your chest and floods its way up to your hairline.
"You okay?"
"Oh, gosh. Fine. I'm fine." I felt stupid now. My face glowed with it.
"You're English."
"You're not."
"Not even a New Yorker. Bostonian. Joshua William Ryan the Third." He held out his hand.
"You even have his name."
"I'm sorry?"
I took his hand. Close up, he was quite different from Will. His eyes were dark brown, his brow lower. But the similarities had left me completely unbalanced. I tore my gaze away from him, conscious that I was still hanging on to his fingers. "I'm sorry. I'm a little . . ."
"Let me get you a drink."
"I can't. I'm meant to be with my--my friend over there."
He looked at Agnes. "Then I'll get you both a drink. It'll be--uh--easy to find you." He grinned and touched my elbow. I tried not to stare at him as he walked off.
As I approached Agnes, the man who had been talking to her was hauled away by his wife. Agnes lifted a hand as if she were about to say something in response to him and found herself talking to a broad expanse of dinner-jacketed back. She turned, her face rigid.
"Sorry. Got stuck in the crowds."
"My dress is wrong, isn't it?" she whispered at me. "I have made huge mistake."
She had seen it. In the sea of bodies it looked somehow too bright, less avant-garde than vulgar. "What am I going to do? Is disaster. I must change."
I tried to calculate whether she could reasonably make it home and back. Even without traffic she would be gone an hour. And there was always the risk she might not come back . . .
"No! It's not a disaster. Not at all. It's just about . . ." I paused. "You know, a dress like that, you have to style it out."
"What?"
"Own it. Hold your head up. Like you couldn't give a crap."
She stared at me.
"A friend once taught me this. The man I used to work for. He told me to wear my stripy legs with pride."
"Your what?"
"He . . . Well, he was telling me it was okay to be different from everyone else. Agnes, you look about a hundred times better than any of the other women here. You're gorgeous. And the dress is striking. So just let it be a giant finger to them. You know? I'll wear what I like."
She was watching me intently. "You think so?"
"Oh, yes."
She took a deep breath. "You're right. I will be giant finger." She straightened her shoulders. "And no men care what dress you wear anyway, yes?"
"Not one."
She smiled, gave me a knowing look. "They just care what is underneath."
"That's quite a dress, ma'am," said Joshua, appearing at my side. He handed us each a slim glass. "Champagne. The only yellow drink was Chartreuse and it made me feel kind of queasy just looking at it."
"Thank you." I took a glass.
He held out his hand to Agnes. "Joshua William Ryan the Third."
"You really have to have made up that name."
They both turned to look at me.
"Nobody outside soap operas can actually be called that," I said, and then realized I had meant to think it rather than say it aloud.
"Okay. Well. You can call me Josh," he said equably.
"Louisa Clark," I said, then added, "The First."
His eyes narrowed just a little.
"Mrs. Leonard Gopnik. The Second," said Agnes. "But then you probably knew that."
"I did indeed. You are the talk of the town." His words could have landed hard, but he said it with warmth. I watched Agnes's shoulders relax a little.
Josh, he told us, was there with his aunt as her husband was traveling and she hadn't wanted to attend alone. He worked for a securities firm, talking to money managers and hedge funds about how best to manage risk. He specialized, he said, in corporate equity and debt.
"I don't have a clue what any of that means," I said.
"Most days I don't either."
He was being charming, of course. But suddenly the room felt a little less chilly. He was from Back Bay Boston, had just moved to what he described as a rabbit-hutch apartment in SoHo, and had put on five pounds since arriving in New York because the restaurants downtown were so good. He said a lot more, but I couldn't tell you what because I couldn't stop staring at him.
"And how about you, Miss Louisa Clark the First? What do you do?"
"I--"
"Louisa is a friend of mine. Just visiting from England."
"And how are you finding New York?"
"I love it," I said. "I don't think my head has stopped spinning."
The evening was flying by, eased by a second glass of champagne. At dinner, I was placed between Agnes and a man who failed to give me his name and spoke to me only once, asking my breasts who they knew, then turning his back when it became clear that the answer was not very many people at all. I watched what Agnes drank, on Mr. Gopnik's orders, and when I caught him looking at me I switched her full glass for my near-empty one, feeling relief when his subtle smile signaled approval. Agnes talked too loudly to the man on her right, her laugh a little too high, her gestures brittle and fluttery. I watched the other women at the table, all of them forty and above, and saw the way they looked at her, their eyes sliding heavily toward each other, as if to confirm some dark opinion expressed in private. It was horrible.
Mr. Gopnik could not reach her from his position across the table, but I saw his eyes flickering toward her frequently, even as he smiled and shook hands and appeared, on the surface, to be the most relaxed man on the planet.
"Where is she?"
I leaned in to hear Agnes more clearly.
"Leonard's ex-wife. Where is she? You have to find out, Louisa. I can't relax until I know. I can feel her."
Big Purple. "I'll check the place settings," I said, and excused myself from the table.
I stood at the huge printed stand at the entrance to the dining room. There were around eight hundred closely printed names and I didn't know if the first Mrs. Gopnik even went by Gopnik anymore. I swore under my breath just as Josh appeared behind me.
"Lost someone?"
I lowered my voice. "I need to find out where the first Mrs. Gopnik is seated. Would you happen to know if she goes by her old name? Agnes would like . . . to have an idea where she is."
He frowned.
"She's a little stressed," I added.
"No idea, I'm afraid. But my aunt might. She knows everyone. Stay right here." He touched my bare shoulder lightly and strode off into the dining room, while I tried to rearrange my facial expression into that of someone who was scanning the board to confirm the presence of half a dozen close friends, not someone whose skin had just colored an unexpected shade of pink.
He was back within a minute.