Fashionably Late

‘Now I know I’m really in trouble. Nuclear holocaust wouldn’t wake you.’

‘Well. It wasn’t just the collection,’ Defina admitted. ‘Tangela came in at six this morning and made so much goddamn noise I couldn’t get back to sleep.’ More beautiful even than Defina had been, Tangela was giving both of them a lot of trouble. Karen sighed. If Tangela had been out all night it wouldn’t be a good afternoon in the fitting rooms.

Mrs Cruz scurried in with two cups, steaming full of cafe Cubano. Silently she put them down on Karen’s work table and scurried out. Karen sank into the glove-leather swivel chair behind her work table and sighed again.

She had hired Defina just a few months after she’d hired Mrs Cruz, more than a dozen years ago. Defina had been tall, black, beautiful, and hungry. She was still all four, but had put on forty or fifty pounds since then. Naomi Sims had made the cover of Fashions of the Times back in 1967 but it had taken a lot longer for women of color to be accepted on the runways. Out of desperation, when she was broke, Karen had employed Defina as a runway model in her first show, and she’d been the first Seventh Avenue designer to use a black model. Both the clothes and Defina had been a sensation, and they’d worked together ever since: through Karen’s marriage, Defina’s various affairs, through the birth of Defina’s daughter – Tangela was Karen’s godchild – and on and on. Defina ran the showroom and modelling staff now, handling the sales force and sometimes even taking orders. Karen and Defina were more than close: they were a living diary for one another. They remembered the small day-to-day memories of more than a decade of working together, often for ten or twelve or fifteen hours a day.

‘Listen, there were plenty of times you stayed out all night back when you were eighteen,’ Karen reminded her. ‘That’s what you do when you’re young.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t let no guy start fucking me on the kitchen table and wake up my mama.’ Defina shook her head. ‘He had her panties off and her bare black ass was pressed down against my white marble-topped table like dough on a pie tin. He’d climbed up onto the table and had his Johnson out when I walked in.’ She shook her head.

‘What did you do?’

‘I threw his sorry ass out of my house! That’s my house, my kitchen, and my goddamn table. I don’t need to sponge up no funky pubic hairs of his off of it.’ Defina was a big woman – close to six foot tall – and Karen knew she was quite capable of throwing a man out of her elegant townhouse on East 138th Street. She’d done it many times before.

Now Defina crossed her arms, turned away, and stared out the window. ‘You know the saddest thing? I stopped myself – for only a minute – and wondered if I wasn’t just a little bit jealous. I mean, I know the man is worthless dogmeat, but I doubted myself for a moment. You know, it’s been almost half a year since I got any. Probably be more than that till I do get any.’ Defina shook her head.

Karen patted her shoulder. ‘Hey, just remember. It isn’t you. It’s New York in the nineties. None of my single girlfriends can find a decent man. If I wasn’t with Jeffrey, I’d kill myself.’

‘Well, just try being single, almost forty, and a black woman. Forget it! There ain’t no one out there for me. Any black man with a brain, a job, and a Johnson that’s working is chained down by the bitch he’s already with.’ Defina shook her head.

She dropped the street argot. Sometimes Karen felt Dee used it to protect herself. Defina sighed. ‘I don’t have to tell you how hard it is. I get lonely but I don’t want to settle. And I don’t want a white man. Not that I’ve had too many offers lately.’ She shook her head. ‘But what kind of example is that for Tangela? I chose to raise her in Harlem. I wanted her to be black, to be proud. But I also wanted her to be educated, to know all three Mets: the opera, the museum of art, and the baseball team. Maybe I’ve pushed her too hard. I knew it would be confusing for her, making her exceptional, but in her generation there are other educated, cultured blacks. Doctors’ sons. Lawyers’ sons. They’re going to be good men. That’s why it’s so important that Tangela meets a good man now, not some drug-dealing trash like this poor excuse for a pecker.’

Karen patted Defina again, then walked across the room to her chair. The big black woman turned to her and brightened. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ she said, going back to street talk. ‘I’m gonna put a hex on him,’ Defina said. ‘Gonna see Madame Renault and put a hex on him.’

Karen never knew whether Defina was serious or not when she talked about hexing. She knew that Defina did visit Madame Renault often and wasn’t sure whether the woman was a palm reader, a voodooer, or something worse. Karen didn’t like to inquire.

‘What did you say to Tangela?’

‘Don’t matter what I said. Matters what she heard. Which was nothing. Purely nothing. She was passed right out. Couldn’t rouse her. Left here there, bare-assed, on the cold marble. She’ll have a hell of a backache when she comes to.’ Defina shook her head. ‘Doesn’t the girl have any shame?’ she asked. Her pink lower lip trembled.

Karen got up from her chair and crossed the room. She put her arms around Defina – no easy trick. Karen held Dee for a moment until Defina hugged her back. ‘Oh, Dee, she’ll be okay. It’s just a phase. She’s a good girl.’

Defina wiped her eyes. ‘She’s been a bitch to raise. I never counted on her being so good-looking. It’s a curse for a black woman. It draws trouble to us. She’s too pretty for her own damn good.’

Karen laughed. ‘That’s what your grandma said about you. You sound just like her.’ Defina had been raised by her paternal grandma after her own mother died of a drug overdose.

‘Well,’ Defina said, brightening, ‘that’s the truth. And I didn’t turn out too bad.’

Karen laughed. ‘Oh, you’re bad all right. I saw you flirting with that photographer at the Oakley Awards. Was he drinking age?’

‘C’est pour moi de savoir et pour vous à découvrir.’

Karen made a face. ‘It sounds fancy in French but it’s still just fourth grade “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” You’re a baby. And you still don’t know how to dress. Take that turban thing off, why don’t you? And lose the beads.’ Defina wore most of Karen’s line and looked ravishing in it. The beiges, creams, and soft browns that Karen favored worked to perfection against Defina’s deep brown skin. Defina was very black; the darkest mahogany with only the slightest red undertone. And the layers of silk, cashmere, chiffon, cotton, and linen suited her down to her undergarments. But to Karen’s complete frustration, Defina insisted on adding enough jewelry, chains, beads, amulets, and charms to open a botanica. And this didn’t include the scarves, the clacking bangle bracelets, or the batik turban.

Now Karen shook her head. ‘Jesus, you have everything hanging off your neck but the kitchen sink. You’re a woman, not a store window! What is all that stuff? Why don’t you just stick your IUD on a chain and wear it around your neck?’

‘There’s an idea,’ Defina mused. ‘But I don’t use an IUD anymore, and I don’t think punching a hole through my diaphragm would be good for my uterus. Not that it gets much use.’ Defina paused then to consider. ‘Maybe I still do have my old copper T somewhere. I like copper jewelry.’ Karen shuddered. Sometimes she couldn’t tell when Defina was putting her on. ‘So, speaking of the uterus, how did it go yesterday with the doctor of all doctors?’ Defina asked.

Karen turned her head, just a bit, away from Defina and toward the windows that looked south.

‘Okay,’ she said, but she knew she wouldn’t get away with it.

‘Yeah. And I’m first cousin to the Duchess of Kent. What’s with you, girlfriend? Still trying to keep secrets from old Defina?’

‘No. Well … Look, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Honey, I told you over and over again: you want babies, you come with me to my herb woman and …’

‘Defina, would you stop it? You’re a Columbia University graduate and I am not going in for Santeria. No chicken’s blood will be shed in my name. I know you don’t really believe in that voodoo.’

‘It isn’t voodoo, and it isn’t Santeria, either. I wouldn’t have anything to do with that tacky, country thing. But Madame Renault has powers.’

Defina’s father was Haitian, though her mother had been from South Carolina. Raised in Harlem by her father’s mother, old Madame Pompey, Defina was into some weird stuff. For two years now, she’d been begging Karen to consult with Madame Renault on fertility, and had even gone so far as bringing Karen a little velvet bag, sewn closed, to sleep with. Only God and Madame Renault knew what was inside it. Defina had cautioned Karen not to open it, and Karen hadn’t even been tempted. It was a measure of her desperation that she had actually put the bag under her pillow for a few nights, until Ernesta found it and threw it away. Anyway, it hadn’t worked.

‘Well, I can see when a subject is closed. So, listen: I’m concerned about the Paris show. I really am.’

‘Great. Like I’m not already frantic. Can’t you undermine my self-confidence a little more? You want me to jump out the window?’

Defina laughed. ‘Knowing you, on the way down you’ll be yelling out that you want me to cut velvet.’

Karen had to laugh. It was the oldest joke in the rag trade: the dress manufacturer at the end of a bad season who didn’t know what to do next. In despair, he throws himself out the window, but on the way down he sees what his competitors are doing and yells up to his partner, ‘Sam! Cut vel-v-e-t!’ Karen knew that the business was in her blood that deep.

But the pressure felt more intense than ever. Maybe it was the Oakley Award that had heated everything up. But along with the rest of the stuff she had on her mind, Karen had decided that this was the season she would finally show in Paris – and she was petrified. Her fear wasn’t helping the collection. Defina’s comments weren’t helping either. ‘This stuff has got to be really good. It’s got to be great. I’m not going to get away with a little deconstruction or grunge.’

Defina pursed her lips and stuck out her tongue. It was very, very pink against her smooth black face. ‘Grunge,’ she spat dismissively. ‘The lambada of style.’ Dee’s face turned serious. ‘Look, you’ve always been different from the other designers.’

‘Yeah. For one thing all of them are gay and male.’

Defina shrugged. ‘Honey, saying “gay male fashion designer” is like saying “white Caucasian.” It’s redundant. Anyway, they’re going to be showing all kinds of wild stuff. This line can’t compete. The thing is, Karen, that none of the collection is bad. It just ain’t good.’

‘Oh, great. There’s a comfort. I’ve finally lived up to my ambition: to achieve mediocrity. And just in time for the pret. What should I do? Copy myself? You know what Chanel used to say? ‘When I can no longer create anything, I’ll be done for.’

‘Hey, Karen, don’t take it so personally. It’s a business. I figure as long as you don’t copy out of the Koran you’ll be okay. That nearly ended Claudia Schiffer’s and the Kaiser’s careers.’ Defina raised her already arched eyebrows. ‘And also try to remember that sarcasm is the devil’s weapon. I’m just trying to help.’

‘Well, you ain’t helping this morning. Do me a favor and don’t come in early again. In fact, if I see you in the office before ten A.M. ever again, you’re fired!’

Defina stuck out her pink tongue again and turned and walked out of the office. Now she’d avoid Karen. But she’d already had her say.

And Defina was right. Karen shouldn’t take it all so personally. Fashion was a funny thing – it was creative but it was so grounded in reality that its very limitations were its opportunities. And everything started with the body. Karen looked down at her own and sighed. She was herself a part of the baby-boomer generation that was now aging and needed forgiving clothes.

Young bodies, beautiful bodies, were the ones that didn’t need the disguise of clothes to cover a sagging line, rounding shoulders, or a thickening trunk. Young bodies could look great in a thirty-eight-dollar sweater dress from The Gap. It was older women who needed artifice. But the irony was that only young bodies modeled the clothes. Few girls would actually be able to afford Karen’s clothing. Karen knew her clientele: women her age and older who – no matter how thin – felt they had to camouflage their bellies or their thighs – or sometimes both. Like Defina, they’d put on weight. Or the few who hadn’t still had necks and elbows and upper arms that weren’t what they had been.

Karen’s job was to help them look great. She’d created a code for her goals. She called it ‘the three esses and the two cees’: soft, sensual, and sexy; comfortable and classy. To do it, she herself had to concentrate. She certainly hadn’t achieved it in the new collection. Now, she lined up three sketch pads on the big table in front of her. For some unknown reason, most women designers worked with the cloth on the model, while most men worked in sketches. Karen did both. She wondered, for a minute, if that made her bisexual. She grinned at her own joke, but the blank pads wiped the smile off her face. It was always hard to get started. When sketching, she worked quickly, using the three at once, so if she got stuck on something she moved to another pad before she got cold. She had already opened her drawer and pulled out a number six pencil – she felt like she needed the freedom a number six would give her – when she was interrupted. She looked up, annoyed.

‘Yes, Mrs Cruz?’ Very unusual for Mrs Cruz to come to the front offices again. What was up?

‘You want more coffee?’