July 2015
At half past nine, Fabienne walked into the atelier where she’d asked everyone to gather. This was it. Her one chance to convince them she had what it took to sit at Estella’s desk. She’d arrived in New York just yesterday and had spent most of the hours of the night thinking of what she would say.
As soon as she appeared, the noise of the workroom quieted. The spreading machines stopped their work of laying out fabric, the graders halted their resizing of the pattern pieces, the cutters turned off their blades, the machinists took their feet from the treadles. And as Fabienne looked around at the faces in front of her, many of whom she knew because they’d worked for her grandmother for years, she felt the tightness in her stomach relax. She’d spent so many summers on the factory floor, being shown by the seamstresses how to sew, by the finishers how to trim, by the cutters how to cut. They used to buy her gifts, bring her cookies, ask for her to sit beside them while they worked. Remembering that, she smiled. Perhaps she had always belonged here; perhaps Estella’s business was as much in her blood as her grandmother had always said.
“I know the last few weeks have been shocking,” she said. “We all knew Estella was old, but I think most of us had hoped she was also immortal.”
A murmur of assent rippled around the room.
“One of my fondest memories is of Estella telling me about the early days of this business. That she had a workroom set up in her home in Gramercy Park and Janie, who we all miss terribly, would stand in the center of the room, looking amazing in anything Estella put on her. My grandfather would, in his gentle way, teach Estella everything she needed to know to help her transform her sketches into things that could be worn. When she told me those stories, I thought it was so romantic; that she and my grandfather had met over a shared desire to make beautiful but wearable clothes, that their love for the things they made had eventually transformed into love for one another.”
Fabienne paused and breathed as deeply as she could. She was not going to cry today. Today was all about fresh starts. Nobody in the room moved; they watched her, intent, and she believed that they were also imagining Estella and Sam and the wonderful way they had always worked together.
“Estella had so much love to give,” Fabienne continued. “For a long time I thought that everything she said to me, everything she did—making up one of my designs for each collection for instance—was a simple act of love. But while Estella was a loving grandmother, she was always a businesswoman. She had to be; she quite literally started with nothing, leaving Paris during the war with only a suitcase and a sewing machine. And out of nothing, she made this.” Fabienne gestured to the room they all stood in, the factory at 550 Seventh Avenue that had been the home of Stella Designs for seventy years.
“So I know that, when she asked me to take on her business, it was because she thought I could do it. I can’t let any of this go. What, then, was Estella’s life for? Why else was she brave enough to move countries, to make the kind of clothes women had needed for so long but had never been able to find? Her legacy should not stop here. And I don’t intend to let it.”
She had more to say, but the uproar of applause that followed her words meant that she would need to say it another time. And she finally and truly understood that everyone at Stella Designs had, like her grandmother, been waiting for Fabienne.
It was a thought that both thrilled and terrified her. She had two months until the spring/summer collection had to be launched to prove that she was worthy of their trust.
Over coffee the next morning, sitting in the front room at Gramercy Park, looking out over the lushness of the park, Fabienne read about herself in the New York Times: “Fashion Matriarch’s Granddaughter to Take Over Stella Designs.”
Fabienne smiled. How Estella would have rebelled at being called a matriarch. Like dowager, it was a word Estella had always felt did not apply to her.
Fabienne’s phone rang and she answered it with a huge smile. “Hi!”
“Seems like you made quite an impression yesterday,” Will said, lightly enough, but she could tell that he wasn’t himself.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I was going to call you this morning to let you know I was here. It was a bit of a last-minute decision to come. Do you want to grab some lunch?”
“Lunch would be just the kind of mundane thing I would love to do right now,” he said wistfully. “But Liss is…not expected to last the week. I keep going to call you and then I don’t know what to say…” He stopped, but not before Fabienne heard the sound of his heart breaking in his words.
“Will…”
Neither spoke and Fabienne knew it was because he couldn’t, and nor could she. She also knew why he’d telephoned, rather than used FaceTime. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to hold it together.
“Can I visit her?” she asked.
“She’d love to see you. But she might seem confused. She’s not eating. She can’t get out of bed. Her hands…Her hands are blue. She looks…”
“Melissa always looks beautiful,” Fabienne said firmly. “I’ll come tonight after work. I have something for her. Is she at home?”
“Yes. Home is the best place for her now.”
“Will?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
She heard a sharp and sad intake of breath as he hung up the phone.
That day at work, Fabienne outlined more of her plan. The line, while still strong, had drifted a little from its origins over the past couple of years since Estella had been too frail to spend any time in the office, leaving much of the work to designers who had certainly tried their best, but who also wanted to make their own mark. Fabienne wanted only to strengthen her grandmother’s mark.
She spent the day in the archive, looking through sketches, finding ones from the very first showing Estella had ever done in the Gramercy Park house, a showing Fabienne hadn’t ever known about. She now understood, as she read over a short piece from Women’s Wear Daily, that this showing was what Estella had been referring to when she’d told Fabienne she’d once made a mistake and that it had been her biggest learning experience.
In the archive were a couple of photographs and a clipping from Vogue with a picture of Estella looking so young and so beautiful that Fabienne shook her head. How was it possible for Estella to really be dead, she wondered anew. Another photograph showed a group of people: Janie—gorgeous Janie who’d taught Fabienne to carry herself with grace—and Sam, her kind and loving grandfather.
Grandfather. Her mind recalled the birth certificate which named two strangers as her grandparents, and the marriage certificate which seemed to confirm that her father couldn’t have been Sam and Estella’s child. Fabienne closed her eyes as if she could draw the curtains over those hurtful thoughts.
When she reopened them, her eyes fell onto a line of text in the Vogue article: “The first showing of Stella Designs at Lena Thaw’s home in Gramercy Park.” Fabienne drew the page closer. Was she so tired from the flight and from throwing herself straight into work that she was hallucinating? The page was a facsimile, a poor quality copy but, even so, the words Lena Thaw were distinct enough, as was the wall in the background with the Frida Kahlo picture above the fireplace. It was definitely Estella’s house. So why did the article say the house was owned by Lena Thaw, the same woman whose name was on her father’s birth certificate?
Fabienne pushed everything back into the folder and took out her phone. She typed in Lena Thaw, just as she’d done months before, and again the meaningless search results came back. Then she opened up the New York Public Library’s website and clicked through to the digital image collection. This time, when she typed in the name Lena Thaw, she found two pictures. Both looked to have been taken at parties. Both showed a woman who was Estella, except the caption called her another name entirely. The second of the two pictures, from the social pages of the New York Times, showed Lena/Estella in July 1940 dancing with a man. The caption read: “Lena Thaw and Alex Montrose.”
So they were real, these people who, until now, had just been names.
The only thing to do after such an unsettling discovery was to work. Her mind was too jumpy to focus on Stella Designs so she took out the dress she’d started to make for Melissa, opened her grandmother’s beautiful old sewing box and sat down at the sewing machine, the very one Estella had brought with her from Paris in 1940. It had always stood on its own special desk in Estella’s office and it still worked as well as ever. For the next two hours, Fabienne did nothing besides cut and sew. She too needed to work on her cutting skills but she felt certain she could do a good enough job on this piece.
When it was done, she smiled. It was good. And it had helped her to forget. She put the dress aside and threw herself into drawing, using the sketches from Estella’s very first showing as her inspiration. At six o’clock, satisfied that she had the start of a collection before her, she picked up Melissa’s dress and caught a taxi to the Upper West Side.
Will answered the door looking even worse than she’d expected. He hadn’t shaved for days and the skin below his eyes was stained dark with fatigue. He wore a crumpled white T-shirt, jeans, and bare feet.
“Come here,” he said, holding out his arms.
She stepped into them gladly, felt him take a shaky breath and knew he was fighting to control his emotions. “I missed you,” she whispered into his shoulder.
“I missed you too,” he said feelingly and they stood for a long moment, holding one another.
Eventually, he let her go. “I know the last time I saw you I promised the same city, no taxis, and no sadness,” he said. “But I’m already breaking my promise.”
“Two out of three is better than zero,” she said. “Let’s go see Melissa.”
He led her through to Melissa’s room and, even though Fabienne had willed herself not to react, it was almost impossible. Melissa was shrunken, thin, her body so slack it was as if her soul had already escaped and all that was left were the physical remains. Fabienne saw Melissa’s hands resting on top of the covers, saw the telltale blue of circulation shutting down and she knew from her mother’s work that death wasn’t far away.
Melissa’s eyes flickered open. It took her a long moment to rouse enough to comprehend where she was and who was in the room and Fabienne’s chest compressed as she saw the realization flood Melissa’s eyes—as it must every time she awoke—that she was, as yet, still alive.
Fabienne kissed Melissa’s cheeks, enveloped her in a hug. “I brought you something,” she said, furiously staring at a spot on the wall over Melissa’s shoulder so that her eyes would not cry. “You said you were bored of nightgowns so…” Fabienne passed Melissa a wrapped present.
“What is it?” Melissa asked, sounding as ebullient as she always had.
“Take a look,” Fabienne said as Will sat down on the other side of the bed, eyes on his sister, expression so wretched that Fabienne wanted to lay his head in her lap, to stroke his hair until he fell asleep, to comfort him even though she knew he was beyond comfort.
Melissa’s fingers struggled with the bow, eventually working it off so that the paper fell away to reveal a gold dress. Not just any gold dress. An exact replica of the one they’d been standing in front of at the Met the evening they’d first met. The dress Melissa had said was fabulous.
“It’s probably not as good as the original,” Fabienne admitted. “I’m rustier than I’d thought. Even so, I think it’ll be almost splendid enough for you.”
“Are you kidding?” Melissa’s voice was thin. “It’s much too splendid for me.”
Fabienne blinked hard. “I’ll help you put it on.”
“Turn around,” Melissa commanded Will.
He did as he was told and Fabienne lifted Melissa’s little body toward her, helped her take off her nightgown, and drew the gold dress over her head. Then she took a brush out of her bag, redid Melissa’s hair, propped the pillows, leaned her back against them and dabbed some gloss on her lips. “Perfect,” Fabienne said, smiling. “Don’t you think?”
Will turned to face his sister and the look on his face made Fabienne’s throat ache and her heart crack just a little more. Oh God, she was going to cry, even after all the promises she’d made. But it was okay because Melissa was the first to break, a tear sliding down her cheek. Then Will, holding the tears in his eyes but they shone with a telltale brightness, and then Fabienne too as Melissa held out her arms and gathered them both to her and nobody moved for such a long time, holding on in an embrace that Fabienne would remember all of her life.
After an hour or so, Melissa fell back asleep. Fabienne and Will watched her for a few minutes, then Will said, “Fabienne, I’m not going to be much use for a while. I feel like I’ve strung you along—you could be out with someone right now, not sitting here.”
“You heard Jasper that night, didn’t you?” Fabienne asked and Will nodded.
“Jasper’s my ex,” she said. “In fact, he’s the reason I’m in New York. He reminded me what I used to love. Not him,” she said gently, “but fashion design. Sketching. Drawing. I have a collection to launch in less than three months’ time. So I’m here because I want to be; I have work to do. But I’m also here for you and for Melissa, and I don’t expect anything from you. Not until you’re ready. I’m happy to wait.”
“Really?” he asked, eyes shining again and Fabienne couldn’t sit on the other side of the bed any longer. She moved across and slid her arm around him.
“Really,” she said. “Take as long as you need.”
“I’m terrified I’m going to mess this up,” Will admitted. “That all we have is bad timing and I’m going to look back on this in a few months and know it was the kind of love I should have done anything to hold on to.”
“It is that kind of love,” Fabienne said. “And that kind of love can wait for as long as it needs to.”
She reached out to wipe away the tears that sat in the hollows below his eyes. Then she kissed him gently on the lips. He responded with a kiss so soft and tender that it hurt and she felt the most staggering, sweeping sensation rush over her and her grandmother’s words—loving can hurt—rang in her ears. It did hurt, loving Will. It hurt so much she almost couldn’t stand it. Because he was in pain beyond anything and bearing witness to that was almost worse than feeling her own pain at Estella’s death.
She swiped at her own cheeks. “Before I end up a blubbering mess,” she said, “I should go. I’ll come every night just to sit with her. Just to see how you are.”
“I love you, Fabienne,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered before she left. “I know.”
In the taxi on the way back to Gramercy Park her mind whirled. Melissa was dying. She and Will wouldn’t be together, not properly, for a long time. Not until the grief had diminished somewhat. She had a collection to throw her thoughts and energies into. And she had a mystery to solve. A box of secrets to reopen. Yes, Mamie, she thought. Loving can hurt. It hurts so much that you aren’t really mine. But who do I belong to? Who did my father belong to? Maybe she should find out. Perhaps her love for her grandmother could stretch to taking in the secrets Estella obviously wanted her to know.