Dead is the New Black (29 page)

Mom pressed her fingers to the table, picking up the salt and crumbs and brushing her fingertips over her plate. “I don’t think this Jeremy person is for you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go with him for a time but, he’s not good. Not at all.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Laura’s hackles stood on end. That was why she didn’t tell Mom anything. She expected to hear something like, “He’s more Ruby’s type,” or “He’ll cast a long shadow over you.”

But she didn’t. Instead, her mother said, “He used this woman for money. I don’t like that. I don’t think he’s capable of just being with someone unless he has some use for them. I don’t know what he’s using you for, honey, but it’s something.” Laura tried to hide the look of disappointment on her face, but when Mom backpedaled, she knew she’d done a bad job. “There’s nothing wrong with that. We all use each other for something. But what use do you have for him?”

She had a hundred “uses” for Jeremy. His business acumen, his skill, his very presence in a room was powerful, but that’s not what she wanted from him. She wanted someone to go out with. Someone to eat breakfast with. A boyfriend. No more, no less.

“Do you say these kinds of things to Ruby?”

“What kinds of things?” Mom answered, picking up her plate and fork.

“Implying that someone isn’t right for her, or that she doesn’t have any control of her life, or that someone’s trying to get one over on her? Or do you reserve these talks for just me?”

Mom didn’t answer. She placed the plates in the sink and ran the water. “I don’t have any dish soap,” she muttered, as she looked behind the Cascade under the sink. She shrugged and shook a flurry of dishwasher soap into the sink. Laura thought she had forgotten or ignored her question, but then she said, “I don’t like Michael. He’s too uptight for your sister, but she always wants security, and what Ruby wants, Ruby finds. And yes, I told her that.”

“You still managed to insult me in there, though.”

“How’s that?”

“By saying, ‘what Ruby wants, Ruby finds,’ you imply that I can’t find what I want because I’m incapable.”

To Laura’s surprise, her unflappable mother slapped the box of Cascade onto the counter, sending a trail of soap smoke puffing out the opening. “Everything about your sister is not a reflection of you, Laura Priscilla Carnegie. You’re two separate people. Get out of the womb already.”

Laura felt chastened, then justified, but just as she was about to send up her own cloud of smoke, her mother continued, “I could have been more sensitive when you were growing up, but I can’t walk on eggshells with you your whole life. You’re a woman now, and so is your sister, and you have a choice. You can be with each other and be your own people at the same time, or you can stop having a relationship and figure out who you are. But you both cannot keep living like you’re each other’s enemy and still be together. That’s just a habit, and I won’t watch it anymore.”

Laura sat back in her chair. Was Mom implying Ruby had baggage with Laura’s name on it? She hadn’t even considered that, and she wanted to ask Mom what it was that Ruby found superior about Laura. She had to know, or she would be up all night, staring at the ceiling.

“Ruby’s thinner and taller,” Laura said. “Everybody loves her, and she always gets the guy she wants. I’m the one who has to live with that, whether we hang out together or not.”

“And you can make things. You have competencies and talents no one else has. You’ll never starve, Laura. You think that’s easy to live with?”

“She can learn all that stuff. I’m not getting any taller.” But even as she said it, she knew how hard Ruby had tried to learn to sew and draft patterns. From the time Laura started cutting sleeve cap shapes out of newspapers, to their years at Parson’s, she had struggled.

Mom shook her head and washed the dishes, piling them up on a towel because she didn’t have a drying rack. “I love you both the same,” she said as a point of immutable fact, before pointing to Laura’s laundry. “You better go before rush hour.”

Mom was right, as always. They hauled the dishwasher out to the curb and left a handwritten sign on it that read, “I WORK!” By the time Laura came back down with her laundry bag slung over her back, and the newly-hemmed Margaret dress hooked on her other hand, it was gone.

When she got home, she stuffed the laundry bag in the closet and tried to call Jeremy to tell him the TOP was still missing. Just as he answered, Ruby gave the door a courtesy knock and burst in like she was on fire.

Laura hung up the phone, then immediately regretted it.

“Ruby! You’re supposed to wait until I say to come in.”

Ruby just turned on the TV, flipping to the local news. “Damn, we missed it.”

“Missed what?”

Ruby flipped around to Channel 1 and found what she was looking for. Sheldon, flanked by police, jacket over his clasped hands, looking at the pavement as he was escorted out of the Gramercy Park townhouse. Laura found it surreal to see someone she knew in such a clichéd scene.

“He did it,” Ruby said, “and the cops caught him because of us. Isn’t that cool?”

“Sure.”

“Now.” Ruby sat across from Laura. “Let’s talk about Pierre Sevion.”

“The offer’s fake,” Laura said. “It has to be. Why would I catch anyone’s notice? As a designer, especially.”

“Isabel Toledo was a patternmaker for a long time before she got backing.”

“One, I haven’t been a patternmaker for a
long time
. Two, I’m not Isabel Toledo at all. Even a little bit. I live in a one-bedroom apartment a half a mile walk from the train. I don’t have a cool accent, I don’t know any of the right people, and I don’t know how to do the double-kiss thing.”

Ruby put her feet on the coffee table and stretched her arms out over the chair. “Give me a break! I know the right people. I’m a designer. I work a room. This is all stuff I do. You’re the one who knows how to make the clothes, and I can’t do it without you.” It was as if Ruby knew that Mom had told Laura about Ruby’s insecurities, and Ruby had decided to use them to her advantage.

“It’s a bullshit offer,” Laura said. “Sheldon or someone put him up to it to keep me quiet.”

“So what? You’ve got something better going on?”

“Jeremy’s back.”

Ruby looked as if she had a lot to say, so much, in fact, that her face looked just about ready to explode. She leaned forward in the chair, and her mouth opened to speak, but instead she stormed out and slammed the door behind her.

CHAPTER 28.

Laura got into the design room about nine o’clock the next morning. Carmella’s desk was empty, but Tiffany stood by the foamcore boards, pinning furiously. Chilly leaned so far into his screen he threatened to fall in.

By Laura’s desk, where no one should have been, Jeremy stood, walking a sleeve head curve against an armhole. She watched him as he screeched a piece of tape from the dispenser, snapped it off, and taped one piece to the next. He glanced up and saw her, then looked back down and smiled.

“Carnegie, get over here and help me pin this. We have a show on Friday.”

She dropped her bag and coat and headed for her table. “Where’s Carmella?”

“You’re too busy to worry about it.” He indicated the rack behind him, which was crowded with samples and patterns. “If you finish it in time, we go to dinner Friday.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You still get dinner, but I’ll be terrible company.”

Laura didn’t know how to answer. She felt her face break out in prickly heat, and a smile forced its way onto her cheeks. She stared at the pattern, unable to look into his face at the moment. She noticed he’d moved a sleeve notch, and she didn’t care.

“I hope you’re taking me somewhere nice,” she said, trying to keep her voice down. “I make a ton of money now, and I won’t accept anything less than four-star.”

“Naturally. Fitting is in one hour.”

His fingertips grazed the top of her hand before he walked over to Tiffany to check on the boards. It was like warm electricity. She watched him walk with a different kind of longing than ever before. He was hers, at least for this week, at least until dinner, when she’d splash something on her shirt or spit while she talked. This week, she was dating Jeremy St. James.

That felt great until, as she was shortening the Devon Pant, Mom’s voice came into her head. Jeremy used Gracie for her money for nine years. Was it possible, knowing that she could walk out any time, that he was using her to work until after the show? Or was it worse? Was the date a fact-finding mission to find out what she knew? What questions she had asked? Was the promise of a date there to cement her loyalty so she would stop asking questions? The doubts gnawed at her, and every time she tried to shut them out by looking over at him, they got worse.

The fitting started, and the giraffes gaggled around him, asking questions about his time in jail. They were so much more beautiful, and now they all knew he was straight and available. Why was he looking over toward her and rolling his eyes? Why did he even recognize her existence around those women? As she pinned, tucked, and made notes, she grew more convinced it was all a lie, and Jeremy had ulterior motives. He had to keep his hands off Thomasina Wente for a week, long enough to keep Laura hooked and see what she’d been asking about the murder, and then Laura would find herself with no job and no Jeremy, reading about his engagement to the German supermodel heiress in
US
magazine.

“Hey,” Noë said, as Laura pulled the waist of a corset too hard. “If it’s too tight for me, it’s too tight.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Noë replied. “You’re losing and gaining bosses all over, huh? Crazy time.” Laura had one eye on Jeremy as he fit a skirt with Thomasina. Was he touching her warmly? Was he enjoying himself? She suddenly wished he was gay again.

“Carmella’s gone, too.” Feeling generally catty, Laura added, “Bet you’re not weeping over that one.”

“I weep for no one.” She shook her head and raised her arm to let Laura work on the armhole. “Except now… Gracie. To be killed by a man who is supposed to love you.” Laura immediately thought of Jeremy before she realized Noë was talking about Sheldon.

By the time the fitting was over, darkness bit the sky at the edges. The giraffes dressed and gaggled. Laura and Tiffany hung up the cut and pinned garments, trying to keep them in order of priority. There wasn’t nearly enough. Jeremy was going to have to pick up the slack by reinstating the matte jersey group, or the show was going to be short. Newsworthy short. Gossip short. Bad review short.

Nonetheless, the fact that they were a week behind and short-staffed meant that what they had might be just enough to for them to finish by Friday night. Laura made a list of corrections and planned out how to get it done on time.

Renee buzzed her to the front. Someone wanted to see her.

Stu was there, without a package, just a slip of paper in his gloved hand. He wore a ridiculous outfit—red biker pants and a tight orange shirt that said “Ketchum” in the biggest, splashiest letters possible. He motioned for her to sit down on one of the brown leather couches. Stu never sat. He never had time.

“You okay?” she asked, not mentioning the blinding shirt.

“I could get fired for this, not that I care.” He showed her the slip of paper. She scanned the receipt. It was for the delivery of the Mardi dress from the 40th Street factory to 1410 Broadway, signed by Gracie Pomerantz. Not just that, there was a rack of twenty-five garments that had a style number she didn’t recognize.

“Do you know what this means?” she asked. “Gracie and Jeremy saw the dress, together, here, that night.”

“Yeah, the dress was sent here. But if you look here, Gracie called in and had the twenty-five garments rerouted. This is the original destination in Brooklyn, and she had them sent to her place in Gramercy Park.”

Stu let her keep the receipt, such was his disdain for his employer, and left to run some more of the corporate machine’s errands.

With a French curve in one hand, a pencil in the other, and the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder, she called Detective Cangemi.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Work.”

“I thought they canned you.”

She sighed. “Jeremy’s back, so I’m here, which will make you think we were in on it together or something, right?”

“Since your boss isn’t a suspect, I really don’t care what you do with him.”

“I got the delivery receipt for the TOP.”

“How does the hem look?”

“You know, you should do standup on weekends.”

“How do you know I don’t?”

“It was delivered with a rack of twenty-five garments that I don’t even know what they are.”

“Really?” She felt like she had his interest, not just his wit. “And are they in the office?”

“No, there’s not twenty-five of anything here. I promise you, with the show going on, every corner’s occupied. There’s nowhere to hide them.”

“Twenty-five, you say?”

She looked at the receipt. “Five small, twelve mediums, eight large. Which is weird because our customers are weight-conscious, so we don’t need that many larges.”

She’d never gotten so many words in edgewise with Detective Cangemi. And even when she stopped, there was silence on the other end. “Hello?” She braced herself for another accusation or another request to come in and look at video tapes.