Each day, Xander spent time in the workroom lying on a rug or bouncing in his bassinet, cooing at Janie, cooing at Sam when he came in every evening after his paid work had finished. Mrs. Pardy took him every now and again, out for a walk, or to put him to bed, but he spent most of his time with Estella, happy to watch, to be adored. And Estella found herself smiling all the time now because Xander loved to receive her smiles. They made him shriek and grin and bubble over with happiness.
At last they had enough samples. The showing was set for early evening, when the women of the Barbizon had finished work for the day, in the first-floor lounge which had a stage to accommodate the concerts and plays that the actresses and musicians of the Barbizon often performed. There was no decoration, just wooden balustrading that ran around the room, the palm trees wafting fingers of leaves in the corners, the black-and-white tiled floor. And the women, chatting and laughing and eager to find out what they were about to see. Estella had given each of them an order sheet and told them they were the first to ever see the clothes. She sat with them in the audience, studying their reactions to her creations, knowing their faces would tell her everything she needed to know.
Janie glided onto the stage, wearing sample after sample, starting with playsuits, perfect for running around the squash courts in the basement and for moving straight into the dining room for dinner, followed by cotton bathing suits for the Barbizon swimming pool that came with matching wraparound skirts to assuage the scruples of the matron.
Then they moved onto dresses, the off-the-shoulder silk faille called Freedom receiving rapturous applause, which made Estella’s mouth curve into the beginning of a smile. The Stars and Stripes—a navy jersey with thin white horizontal stripes fashioned into a dress with a flared skirt, stitched with one large box pleat at the front and back to make the skirt fuller and the waist more defined, and a red star affixed over the heart—had the women scribbling on their order forms. And the Bastille Day dress, a red cotton skirt fitted to a white sleeveless collared top with a sash of navy blue to draw in the waist stirred more cheers. Every piece was finished with a peony in red, white, or a silvery blue.
The show ended with a dress meant for the most special occasion. It was a triumph of architecture, and she’d based it on the dress she’d made for herself the night she went out to meet Alex at Jimmy Ryan’s and had first seen Lena. Sam’s cutting had achieved what Estella had imagined on paper: backless emerald green jersey with a long sash that created a halter-neck, crossed over the bust, then wrapped over the hip to tie in an arresting flounce, like a peony flower, at the left hipbone. No fastenings, which made it cheaper to produce. Estella had called it I’m Lucky because, sitting at the Barbizon out of a war zone, they all were.
At the end, the applause was thunderous. The order sheets totalled two hundred pieces. Two hundred pieces of clothing to make in just two weeks because that was when she’d promised to deliver.
She used Lena’s money to rent a proper workroom on Seventh Avenue, near 550. It didn’t take any effort at all to persuade Sam to leave his job and take charge of the workroom. She employed two women, for one-month contracts, and Janie said she’d come in every day for fittings. Babe Paley from Vogue, who’d come to the Barbizon showing and had spoken to some of the women who’d ordered the clothes, came in to interview Estella about her unorthodox approach to selling. Babe brought in Louise Dahl-Wolfe to take photographs of Estella at work and promised an article would be published the following month.
At the end of the fortnight, there was a stack of garments on the worktable. Sam’s eyelids looked as if he needed Estella to pin them open, and Janie was opening a bottle of champagne.
“We did it,” Estella breathed.
“We sure did,” Janie crowed.
Sam gave Estella a hug.
“Thank you,” she said to him.
“Thank you,” he said with a grin. “That was the most fun I’ve had in ages.”
“Let’s hope they come back for more though,” Estella said, frowning.
Janie passed her a glass of champagne. “Enjoy the moment. Worry about that tomorrow. Celebrate what you’ve done.”
Estella nodded. “To Lena,” she said, holding up her glass.
“And you,” Sam toasted.
As Estella drank champagne with her friends in her workroom, she prayed that she could keep it for the six months she’d rented it for and beyond. Prayed that Stella Designs would be welcomed with open arms by the women of Manhattan.
The orders came in slowly and steadily from the friends of the women at the Barbizon. Forsyths department stores ordered the entire line and Leo Richier, the owner’s wife, was seen out in both the Stars and Stripes and the silk faille. Then the Vogue article ran and six department stores made appointments to view the collection.
Estella ran into the workroom, grabbing Sam’s arm and hauling him away from the worktable, eyes shining, holding out the letters. “Appointments!” she shrieked. “With the buyers from Lord & Taylor, Saks, Best & Co., and Gimbels.”
“Really?” Sam said, reading over the letters and grinning too. “Hooray!” he shouted, taking her by the waist and twirling her around. They both began to laugh and the women in the workroom stared at them.
“We’re in business,” Estella declared.
“You were the only one who ever doubted it would happen.” Sam kissed her cheek.
As he released her and she looked around at the seamstresses, so like Estella and her mother and Nannette and Marie had once been, she felt her smile collapse. This is what her mother had wanted her to do, had urged her to do when she’d put her on the train out of Paris almost two years before. And she’d done it, but she couldn’t write to tell her mother, didn’t even know if she wanted to write and tell her mother, didn’t even know if her mother was alive.
But, standing in her own workroom at last, Estella knew that, despite everything, all she wanted was for her mother to survive. And Alex too. How long would it be before she heard anything of the fate of either of them?
One year passed by. How could it be March 1943, Estella wondered as she opened the door of the offices at 550 Seventh Avenue, offices with a sign in silver lettering that read Stella Designs Incorporated. She walked through the front reception, where a receptionist dressed in Stella clothes greeted her. She peeped into the salon, which was decorated with an Art Deco chaise, three chairs, coffee tables, and photographs on the wall of Janie wearing Stella Designs.
Then she walked into the workroom where thirty women sat around tables, the chatter rising up like optimism as clothes were cut and sewed and embellished and finished, as deliveries came in and went out. Sam stood in the center of it all, making sure everything was perfect. He waved to her as she walked over to her worktable, placed right beside the window, and looked through the designs she’d begun working on for the summer collection.
On her desk sat a letter from Elizabeth Hawes, inviting Estella to take her place in the Fashion Group as Elizabeth was stepping down. Estella had received it a week ago but hadn’t yet replied; did she really know enough, was she really successful enough to sit beside those other women who were far more expert than she? Beside the letter was a photograph of Xander, who’d fitted into Estella’s life like a button into a buttonhole. It didn’t take him long to look for Estella, to search for her in a room, to recognize her, to prefer her to all others. It didn’t take him long to call her Maman, because that was what Mrs. Pardy called her, despite Estella’s protests that she wasn’t his mother.
“You’re more like a mother than anyone he’ll ever have,” Mrs. Pardy had replied firmly.
He needs a father too, Estella didn’t say, but knew the truth of it. She hadn’t heard anything from Alex, didn’t know where he was. The war had only gotten darker and dirtier and more dangerous. Stay alive, she prayed every day. Stay alive so I can bring Xander to you when it’s all over. And you too, Maman.
Xander spent his mornings with Mrs. Pardy and his afternoons with Estella, toddling around tables, picking up pins, playing with buttons, doing everything that was probably unsafe but he emerged at the end of each day unscathed. His hair had grown in dark like both his mother’s and his father’s and he, hauntingly, had Alex’s dark eyes and Lena’s fine bones. The smiles and the happiness and the laughter were all Xander’s own.
Manhattan had been told, via Babe Paley and Leo Richier, people Estella had trusted to clarify the situation if it was gossiped about, that Xander was the son of a relative who had died. It was a risk she had to take because she couldn’t run a business and be an unmarried woman with a child; nobody would have dealings with a woman thought to be so unchaste. Luckily, Estella had been so very obviously not pregnant at her first showing in 1941, which coincided with the birth of the child, so society had no choice but to believe her.
That day was going to be a little different from usual because she’d been invited to attend the American Fashion Critics’ Awards. She, Sam, Janie, and Nate all intended to go and have a damn good time. She’d decided to wear the emerald green backless jersey dress that had won her so much success from the Barbizon showing. She’d made Janie a dress from tulle—tulle was cheap, off-ration, and underused, perfect for Stella Designs—in a bright yellow, sunny like Janie. It was strapless, showing off Janie’s figure to full advantage, with a love heart neckline, ruched horizontally through the waist and flaring out into a full and long skirt so that Janie looked every bit the princess she was.
Estella left the office just after lunch and actually had her hair styled properly, eschewing an updo, but allowing the black length of it to be rolled into glossy curls that even she had to admit were rather spectacular.
Sam collected her and even though he’d cut the dress and seen it a thousand times, he still whistled. “You look beautiful,” he said, kissing her cheek and she smiled, knowing Sam would say that no matter what she wore. He’d proven himself over and over to be her true friend, and every day she was grateful that she’d had the good fortune to catch a boat with him to New York.
“You should start dating again, now that the hard work is done,” she said as she stepped into the cab with him. Over the past year, they’d all been working so hard that she suddenly realized Sam’s love life, which had always been steady but fluid, never fixing on any one woman for too long, had become nonexistent. “Otherwise I’ll feel like I’m ruining your life.”
“Estella, you’ve done the exact opposite of ruin my life.”
He sounded like he meant it but she told herself to be sure to give him some space at the party so women could approach him without Estella getting in the way.
They arrived at the Met at the same time as Janie and Nate, and when Estella saw the way Nate was eyeing his wife, she knew Janie’s dress was definitely one she would put into production. She slipped her arm through Sam’s and walked through the doors of the museum.
The first person she saw was Alex.
The shock was so acute that she stopped walking and the person behind ran straight into her.
“Sorry,” she heard Sam apologize because Estella was incapable of speech.
Alex—it was most certainly Alex—stood across the room looking devastatingly handsome in his tuxedo, laughing with someone, jaw more stubbled than it should be, as if he’d only arrived in the country that afternoon and had come straight to the party. Indeed, his eyes looked tired and his face harder, as if he’d seen things that had changed him. Given everything he’d witnessed in the past, Estella dreaded to think what more he could have seen to make him look like that.
Sam followed her gaze across to where Alex stood. “Oh,” he said.
“I didn’t know he was in Manhattan,” Estella whispered.
At the same moment, a blonde in a white dress in the bustle style that Estella hated slid her arm through Alex’s. He looked up at the same time and saw Estella. The shock on his face seemed to be as acute as it had been for her and he actually stepped on the toe of the blonde, who pouted. Sam turned Estella around and led her in the direction of the bar.
“A large sidecar,” she ordered.
“Estella! Bonsoir.” Babe Paley kissed her cheeks and nodded at her glass. “You look as if you plan to have a good time.”
“I do,” Estella said cheerily as if nothing at all was the matter and she was simply at a party to enjoy herself.
“Let me introduce you to some people,” Babe said. “Sam, you don’t mind if I borrow Estella for a moment do you?” As she asked it, Estella realized that Babe thought she and Sam were an item.
Sam must have had the same realization because he grinned at Estella. “See you soon, lover,” he said as he waved her off, which at least made Estella laugh. That was a good thing because, for some reason, Babe was zeroing in on the blonde who was staring up at Alex with simpering adoration. They reached the group far too quickly for Estella to properly compose herself.
“Eugenie, this is the woman I told you about. Estella Bissette, who created my dress for tonight,” Babe said to Alex’s date.
“I’m sorry I haven’t heard of you.” Eugenie’s faux-apologetic smile was flashier than a billboard. “I don’t want to offend you by saying that but I’m just so used to my Parisian designers. Of course with this horrible war on I can’t get my hands on anything remotely fashionable and I keep telling Daddy to convince all his Senate friends not to ration anything and to let us all have the dresses we want but he just laughs as if I haven’t a clue.”
Estella could have sworn she saw Alex wince at Eugenie’s use of the phrase “horrible war” just as Estella herself had winced. But she was keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Eugenie and not on Alex. “Enchantée,” she said, being as French as possible for reasons unknown but feeling it was essential to keep herself together.
“Oh, you’re French!” beamed Eugenie, as if that had elevated her opinion of Estella considerably. “What on earth are you doing all the way over here?”
“Making mischief and beautiful clothes,” Alex interjected, clearly having recovered himself and using the suave tone Estella hated, his on-show voice, the one he’d used at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, the one he used when he was working, which she hoped he must be tonight as it would be the only possible reason for him to escort a woman like Eugenie to a fashion party.
Which was entirely unfair. He was allowed to date whomever he chose.
He leaned over to kiss her cheek, which she supposed he couldn’t get out of, his lips touching her skin as quickly and lightly as possible but it still made her feel as if he’d actually run his hand over her cheek, along her neck and all the way down to her stomach.
“Well, definitely the latter,” she said. “I leave the mischief to you.”
He laughed and instantly looked more like the Alex she knew, guard let down by her smooth rejoinder.
“You two know each other?” Eugenie interrupted, her voice a notch higher than before, head turning back and forth between them, stepping a little closer to Alex as if that would give her the right of possession.
“Eugenie is Senator Winton-Wood’s daughter,” Babe interjected. “She’s interested in fashion and is spending a month at the Vogue offices. We’re educating her in American fashion. Perhaps I could bring Eugenie to your showroom tomorrow so she can see what Stella Designs is doing?”
“Certainement,” Estella said magnanimously. “J’ai hate de vous voir a demain.” Of course she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Eugenie tomorrow but she owed Babe at least that small favor.
She opened her purse, searching for the distraction of a cigarette, and then put one in her mouth only to discover that Alex was leaning across to light it for her. It was such an ordinary gesture, something men did for women all over the country every day. But now it seemed the most intimate of gestures, the way he had to move closer to her, the way he had to watch her, the way both her face and his flared in the light, the way she had to be silent until she’d inhaled, and was then able to turn and exhale the smoke away, hoping her hand wasn’t shaking, wishing she could exhale away every last piece of attraction she felt for Alex.
“Excuse me,” she said to Babe and Eugenie.
As she walked away to find a bathroom she didn’t need, she heard Eugenie call out a garbled mix of French words that she assumed were supposed to mean lovely to meet you, but which made no sense at all. In the bathroom she sat in a chair and smoked her cigarette slowly, wishing she could stay there all night.
She finally took herself back to the party and this time she ran straight into Harry Thaw. But rather than quail, Estella suddenly realized he could do no more harm. He’d revealed the secret. She’d lost Alex. There was nothing left for Harry to destroy.
“Well, if it isn’t Harry Thaw,” she said in a loud voice that was meant to carry. “Who are you going to shoot tonight?”
The maniacal smile froze on his face as every set of eyes turned their way. He clearly hadn’t expected her to be so openly combative. There was an imperceptible and clearly hostile movement of the crowd toward Harry.
He tried one of his laughs, but Estella now saw it as the action of a bully who didn’t know how to fight the strong, a madman who assaulted the young, a coward who’d been allowed to get away with too much. She didn’t intend to let him get away with anything more where it concerned herself and Lena. “You’re standing in a room full of women. I know better than anybody how you molest and abuse women. So unless you want me to start documenting every despicable thing you’ve done, I suggest you leave the room, and leave every woman who crosses your path in the future, alone.”
For one long minute, she and Harry stood with gazes locked. But this was her patch. Here, she was the strong one. He had no more power over her.
He was the one to look down at the floor.
“Good-bye, Harry,” Estella said. She knew it would be the last time she’d see him, that he wouldn’t come back for more, not now.
He walked away, the wall of the crowd opening to let him through then closing behind him, circling Estella, offering her, not Harry, their protection.
Before Estella had time to recover, the room was called to order. Everyone was asked to take their seats. Sam, with a worried look on his face, escorted her to their table at the side of the room.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. And she was. The worry of when she’d next see Harry had gone. She’d met him again and she’d survived. She had other things to think about now. Like Alex’s back, directly in her line of sight, held rigid, leaning over occasionally to smile politely at whatever Eugenie was saying. Eugenie seemed to have no trouble finding excuses to pat his arm, or to dangle her cleavage in front of him.
Speeches followed, mildly interesting. Then Babe took the stage, diminutive and delightful, and everyone clapped because Babe was impossible not to like.
“This is my favorite part of the evening,” she announced. “We have a new award to give out, for a designer who has caught the eye of the fashion world, a designer we believe will be back here again next year, will be the name on the lips of every woman on Manhattan’s sidewalks. One whose clothes you must all rush out and buy tomorrow because, by next year, you’ll need to spend twice as much on them. Someone who has shaken us up, someone who brings an unerring sense of style to clothes women actually want to wear. Estella Bissette, come up here right now and claim your award.”
Estella shook her head. “Did she just say my name?” she whispered to Sam but she knew Babe must have because Sam was whooping and leaning over to kiss her cheek, grinning and saying, “Stand up! Go get it! You earned it.”
Somehow she rose out of her seat. The sound of clapping rang on and on, several people pushed back their chairs to congratulate her as she walked past. Her path took her directly by Alex’s table and she felt as if she’d been knocked sideways when he pushed back his chair too, stood, hand grazing the bare skin of her back as he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.”
Then she was on the stage, listening to Babe telling everyone more about Estella and her designs, one hand straying up to the ear into which Alex had spoken, hearing again the low murmur, that voice she’d never heard him use with anyone besides her: I’m so proud of you. And after that, so low she almost didn’t hear: God I miss you.
Babe held out her hand to Estella and welcomed her to the microphone. Estella knew exactly what she would say.
“This award should go to my mother, who taught me everything I know. She put a needle in my hand when I was four years old, along with a piece of fabric and she told me to make something; it only needed to be simple. I made what I thought was an exact replica of a Schiaparelli evening gown. I don’t think it was quite what she had in mind.” She paused for the laughter, saw Alex smiling too.
“Nobody stands on a stage and receives an award because of what they alone did. It’s always because so many other people helped more than anyone will ever know. Without my mother’s devotion and dedication to me, I wouldn’t be standing here today. Without my friends Janie and Sam I wouldn’t be standing here today. Without my sister Lena I wouldn’t be standing here today.” She heard a squall of whispers at this official acknowledgment of Lena as her sister. “But, as well as being functional and technical, any kind of art is an emotional thing. It comes out of what you know and what you experience; what you feel. So there’s another person I have to thank. To the man from the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
With that she turned to leave the stage, knowing that to have done anything else would be dishonest; without Alex, an entire part of her would not exist.
The rest of the night was a whirl, a blur. She danced with Sam for a while, laughing, spinning, twirling, trying out every crazy move they could think of. She drank many sidecars. She had her photograph taken by a dozen newspapers and magazines. She sat at a table to talk to Babe but people kept coming over to congratulate her and she started telling her story about being a sketcher and sending copied designs to America, and the euphoria and the whiskey made her put it together like a funny tale and more people gathered to listen and soon she realized there was quite a crowd assembled around her, that she was sitting in a circle of peers and they cared enough to listen.
It struck her speechless momentarily and she lost her train of thought, which meant that somehow the next sentence came out in French. She shook her head and laughed. “I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
It took some time for the crowd to disperse and, when they did, she stepped out onto the roof of the Met, breath stolen away by the view: New York City laid out around her like the most intricately patterned fabric, sequinned with light, embroidered with skyscrapers, a shining button of moon at the very center. She smiled, felt like shouting out because there was so much joy in her. She’d done what she set out to do when she left Paris. She had her own fashion label. She’d won an award for it. So why then did it still feel as if something was missing?
Because it would be nice to have Lena beside her, to show Lena that the world was still capable of good things. Because she didn’t know if she could ever forgive her mother; acknowledgment and forgiveness were not quite the same thing. And because she wished there wasn’t a man in the same room whose very soul she’d once held in her hands, like the loveliest and most precious gift of all, but from whom she was now hopelessly and irrevocably estranged.
Alex watched her for a long time. That smile; it hit you like whiskey straight from the bottle, making every part of you feel instantly alive. Those eyes: like the argent light of the early morning hours when he’d left her in Paris the night after they’d learned too much about the other and he had, against all reason, fallen more in love with her than ever. Her body: he could see the tanned skin of her back where the fabric had been cut away, the gentle curve of her spine and her slim and lovely arms. The only thing he wanted to do was to step up behind her, place both his hands on her skin, kiss her neck, watch her eyes close, feel her lean into him and then she would turn and he would kiss her the way he kissed her every night in his dreams.
But he didn’t do any of that. Instead he walked up behind her and said her name and saw her stiffen, every inch of her body instantly alert, saw her hands grab the rail, the joy flee from her face. What he wouldn’t give to not be the cause of that; what he wouldn’t give to be the reason she smiled rather than the reason she tensed.
“How are you?” she asked disinterestedly.
“Fine,” he said.
“How long are you back for?”
“Just a week. Government meetings. Eugenie’s date pulled out at the last minute and her father asked me to chaperone her.” He hoped she’d hear the subtext: I never want to be with any other woman besides you.
She turned around and looked at him and her next words were like a slap because he’d thought he was doing a good job of hiding everything he’d seen in France over the last year. But she saw everything.
“It looks as though it’s been rough,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
How to respond? How to even speak? How to tell her that every night he went to bed with nightmares in his eyes even before he closed them?
He’d been asked to liaise with America, to help the United States Department of War with a unit they’d set up to operate as MI9 did. But he’d said no and, after this, he was going straight back into the field, that place of living on one’s wits, where there was only danger and risk, where there was no chance to think of anything other than surviving. He couldn’t tell her any of it, couldn’t say that her country was ruined. Couldn’t tell her about all the people—not murdered because that would be the better option, but tormented, hoping to die yet unable to because their enemies wanted them to suffer. How to describe any of this and keep his eyes dry, his voice smooth, his face clear?
“It’s worse than what we read in the newspapers then?” she asked, reading everything he hadn’t wanted to say into his lack of response.
He nodded. “Just last week I saw a cattle train filled with Jewish children being taken to a camp.” He stopped abruptly. He’d said far too much.
She let out a long breath. “And yet the world still turns indifferently. I still make dresses. We all stand around here and drink champagne.”
“Stopping those things won’t change what’s happening.”
“I know. But it seems wrong that we leave it all to a few people like you to take on the burdens that the rest of us are unable to face. Thank you.”
Goddammit! He was going to cry. He could feel a tear leaking into his eye, welling up from a place he’d long thought had turned to drought and he busied himself with finding a cigarette and lighting it, turning away from her as if the wind was bothering him when in fact there was no wind at all.
“Your mother’s alive,” he said abruptly. “I haven’t seen her. I just know she’s back working the escape line. Not in Paris though.”
Estella froze at the news, tears the only part of her that moved, running freely down her face. She swiped at them before he could reach out to stroke them away with the pads of his fingers.
“Thank God,” she breathed at last. Hands visibly shaking, she opened her purse and pulled out a cigarette, then fumbled some more, uttering a “Damn,” which made him realize she didn’t have a lighter.
It meant he’d have to do it again, even though lighting her cigarette earlier had almost undone him. At least then they were surrounded by people but now they were alone together and he had to rely on his willpower, which he was finding, despite years of tempering, wasn’t as great as he’d always thought.
He flicked the flint, saw the flame leap, saw her eyes flash, saw her curve her lips around the cigarette, saw her eyes fixed to his and as much as he wanted to look away, it was impossible to break that gaze.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Then, studying his chin, “You have a new scar.”
His heart leaped when he remembered the last time she’d traced each scar on his body. But he didn’t refer to that night at his home in the Hudson Valley over a year ago. Didn’t mention their last awful encounter because it hurt too damn much and her leaving him was what he’d always expected would happen anyway—that she’d wake up one day and realize she could do so much better than a peripatetic spy with a checkered past who all of Manhattan thought was dissolute at best. He didn’t want to hear her repeat those awful words—I made a mistake—not now, not when he was feeling so bloody tired.
He was about to thank her for what she’d said in her speech but then she said the most peculiar thing. “I need to see you. There’s something I have to show you. For Lena’s sake. Please?”
For Lena’s sake? What the hell was she talking about?
“Gramercy Park. At nine tomorrow morning.” Then Estella spun around and disappeared into the party. He saw her cross the room and speak to Sam who led her onto the dance floor and she was, in a few minutes, smiling a little.
Alex had a sudden and awful feeling about what she would say to him in the park tomorrow. For she certainly hadn’t smiled at him the way she’d just smiled at Sam.