All my life I’ve ended up looking after other people, fitting myself around what they need, what they wanted. I’m good at it. I do it before I even realize what I’m doing. I’d probably do it to you too. You have no idea how much right now I want to book a flight and just be with you.
But these last couple of months something has happened to me – something that stops me doing just that.
I’m opening my dress agency here. It’s going to be called the Bee’s Knees and it’s going to be based at the corner of the Vintage Clothes Emporium and clients can buy from the girls or rent from me. We’re pooling contacts, stumping up for some advertising, and I hope we’ll help each other get business. I open my doors on Friday and I’ve been writing to everyone I can think of. Already we’ve had a whole lot of interest from film-production people and fashion magazines and even women who just want to hire something for fancy dress. (You would not believe the number of Mad Men themed parties in Manhattan.)
It’s going to be hard and I’m going to be broke, and when I’m home each night I pretty much fall asleep on my feet, but for the first time in my life, Sam, I wake up excited. I love meeting the customers and working out what is going to look good on them. I love stitching these beautiful old clothes to make them as good as new. I love the fact that every day I get to reimagine who I want to be.
You once told me you’d wanted to be a paramedic from when you were a boy. Well, I’ve waited nearly thirty years to work out who I’m meant to be. This dream of mine might last a week or it might last a year, but every day I head down to the East Village with my holdalls full of clothes and my arms ache and I feel like I’ll never be ready and, well, I just feel like singing.
I think about your sister a lot. I think about Will too. When people we love die young it’s a nudge, reminding us that we shouldn’t take any of it for granted, that we have a duty to make the most of what we have. I feel like I finally get that.
So here it is: I’ve never really asked anyone for anything. But if you love me, Sam, I want you to join me – at least while I see if I can make this thing happen. I’ve done some research and there’s an exam you’d need to pass and apparently hiring in New York State is seasonal but they do need paramedics.
You could rent out your house for an income, and we could get a little apartment in Queens, or maybe the cheaper reaches of Brooklyn, and every day we would wake up together and, well, nothing would make me happier. And I would do everything I could – in the hours that I’m not covered with dust and moths and stray sequins – to make you glad you were here with me.
I guess I want it all.
You only get one life, right?
You once asked me if I wanted a grand gesture. Well, here it is: I’ll be where your sister always wanted to be, the evening of 25 July at seven p.m. You know where to find me if the answer’s yes. If not, I’ll stand there for a while, take a long view, and just be glad that, even if it was only in this way, we found each other again.
All my love always,
Louisa xxx
33
I saw Agnes once more before I finally left the Lavery. I had staggered in with two armfuls of clothing that I was bringing home for repair, the plastic covers sticking uncomfortably to my skin in the heat. As I walked past the front desk two dresses slid to the floor. Ashok leapt forward to pick them up for me and I struggled to keep hold of the rest.
‘You got your work cut out this evening.’
‘I certainly have. Getting this lot back on the subway was an absolute nightmare.’
‘I can believe it. Oh, excuse me, Mrs Gopnik. I’ll just get those out of your way.’
I looked up as Ashok swept my dresses from the carpet with a fluid movement and took a step back to allow Agnes through unimpeded.
I straightened as she passed, as far as I could with my armful of clothes. She was wearing a simple shift dress with a wide scoop neck, and flat pumps, and looked, as she always did, as if somehow the prevailing weather conditions – whether extreme heat or cold – simply didn’t apply to her. She was holding the hand of a small girl, around four or five years old, in a pinafore dress, who slowed to peer up at the brightly coloured garments I was holding in front of me. She had honey-blonde hair, which tapered to fine curls, combed back neatly into two velvet bows, and her mother’s slanting eyes, and as she looked at me she allowed herself a small, mischievous smile at my predicament.
I couldn’t help but grin back, and as I did, Agnes turned to see what the child was looking at and our eyes locked. I froze briefly, made to straighten my face, but before I could, the corners of her mouth twitched, like her daughter’s, almost as if she couldn’t help herself. She nodded at me, a gesture so small that it’s possible only I could have seen it. And then she stepped through the door that Ashok was holding back, the child already breaking into a skip, and they were gone, swallowed by the sunlight and the ever-moving human traffic of Fifth Avenue.
34
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Lou,
Well. I had to read that twice just to check I’d got it right. I looked at the girl in those newspaper pictures and I thought can this possibly be my little girl in an actual New York newspaper?
Those are wonderful pictures of you with all your dresses, and you look so gorgeous dressed up with your friends. Did I tell you how proud Daddy and I are? We’ve cut out the ones from the free-sheet and Daddy has screen-shotted all the ones we could find on the internet (did I tell you he’s started a computer course at the adult education centre? He’ll be Stortfold’s Bill Gates next). We’re sending you all our love and I know you’ll make a success of it, Lou. You sounded so upbeat and bold on the telephone – when you rang off I sat there staring at the phone and I couldn’t believe this was my little girl, full of plans, calling from her own business across the Atlantic. (It is the Atlantic, isn’t it? I always get it mixed up with the Pacific.)
So here’s OUR big news. We’re going to come and see you later in the summer! We’ll come when it cools down a bit – didn’t much like the sound of that heat-wave of yours: you know your daddy chafes in unfortunate places. Deirdre from the travel agents is letting us use her staff discount and we’re booking the flights at the end of this week. Could we stay with you in the old lady’s flat? If not, could you tell us where to go? NOWHERE WITH BEDBUGS.
Let me know what dates suit you. I’m so excited!!
Ever so much love,
Mum xxx
PS Did I tell you Treena got a promotion? She always was such a smart girl. You know, I can see why Eddie is so keen on her.
25 July
‘Wisdom and Knowledge Shall Be the Stability of Thy Times.’
I stood in the epicentre of Manhattan in front of the towering building, letting my breathing slow, and stared at the gilded sign above the vast entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Around me New York teemed in the evening heat, the sidewalks solid with meandering tourists, the air thick with blaring horns and the ever-present scent of exhaust and overheated rubber. Behind me a woman with a 30 Rock golf shirt, her voice struggling to be heard over the racket, was giving a well-rehearsed tour speech to a group of Japanese sightseers. The building project was completed in 1933 by noted architect Raymond Hood in the art deco style – Sir, please stay together, sir. Ma’am? Ma’am? – and was originally named the RCA building before becoming the GE building in – ma’am? Over here please … I gazed up at its sixty-seven floors and took a deep breath.
It was a quarter to seven.
I had wanted to look perfect for this moment, had planned to head back to the Lavery at five to give myself time to shower and pick an appropriate outfit (I was thinking Deborah Kerr in An Affair To Remember). But Fate had intervened in the form of a stylist from an Italian fashion magazine, who had arrived at the Vintage Clothing Emporium at four thirty and wanted to look at all the two-piece suits for a feature she was planning, then needed her colleague to try some on so she could take pictures and come back to me. Before I knew what was happening it was twenty to six and I barely had time to run Dean Martin home and feed him before heading down here. So here I was, sweaty and a little frazzled, still in my work clothes, about to find out which way my life was about to go next.
But these last couple of months something has happened to me – something that stops me doing just that.
I’m opening my dress agency here. It’s going to be called the Bee’s Knees and it’s going to be based at the corner of the Vintage Clothes Emporium and clients can buy from the girls or rent from me. We’re pooling contacts, stumping up for some advertising, and I hope we’ll help each other get business. I open my doors on Friday and I’ve been writing to everyone I can think of. Already we’ve had a whole lot of interest from film-production people and fashion magazines and even women who just want to hire something for fancy dress. (You would not believe the number of Mad Men themed parties in Manhattan.)
It’s going to be hard and I’m going to be broke, and when I’m home each night I pretty much fall asleep on my feet, but for the first time in my life, Sam, I wake up excited. I love meeting the customers and working out what is going to look good on them. I love stitching these beautiful old clothes to make them as good as new. I love the fact that every day I get to reimagine who I want to be.
You once told me you’d wanted to be a paramedic from when you were a boy. Well, I’ve waited nearly thirty years to work out who I’m meant to be. This dream of mine might last a week or it might last a year, but every day I head down to the East Village with my holdalls full of clothes and my arms ache and I feel like I’ll never be ready and, well, I just feel like singing.
I think about your sister a lot. I think about Will too. When people we love die young it’s a nudge, reminding us that we shouldn’t take any of it for granted, that we have a duty to make the most of what we have. I feel like I finally get that.
So here it is: I’ve never really asked anyone for anything. But if you love me, Sam, I want you to join me – at least while I see if I can make this thing happen. I’ve done some research and there’s an exam you’d need to pass and apparently hiring in New York State is seasonal but they do need paramedics.
You could rent out your house for an income, and we could get a little apartment in Queens, or maybe the cheaper reaches of Brooklyn, and every day we would wake up together and, well, nothing would make me happier. And I would do everything I could – in the hours that I’m not covered with dust and moths and stray sequins – to make you glad you were here with me.
I guess I want it all.
You only get one life, right?
You once asked me if I wanted a grand gesture. Well, here it is: I’ll be where your sister always wanted to be, the evening of 25 July at seven p.m. You know where to find me if the answer’s yes. If not, I’ll stand there for a while, take a long view, and just be glad that, even if it was only in this way, we found each other again.
All my love always,
Louisa xxx
33
I saw Agnes once more before I finally left the Lavery. I had staggered in with two armfuls of clothing that I was bringing home for repair, the plastic covers sticking uncomfortably to my skin in the heat. As I walked past the front desk two dresses slid to the floor. Ashok leapt forward to pick them up for me and I struggled to keep hold of the rest.
‘You got your work cut out this evening.’
‘I certainly have. Getting this lot back on the subway was an absolute nightmare.’
‘I can believe it. Oh, excuse me, Mrs Gopnik. I’ll just get those out of your way.’
I looked up as Ashok swept my dresses from the carpet with a fluid movement and took a step back to allow Agnes through unimpeded.
I straightened as she passed, as far as I could with my armful of clothes. She was wearing a simple shift dress with a wide scoop neck, and flat pumps, and looked, as she always did, as if somehow the prevailing weather conditions – whether extreme heat or cold – simply didn’t apply to her. She was holding the hand of a small girl, around four or five years old, in a pinafore dress, who slowed to peer up at the brightly coloured garments I was holding in front of me. She had honey-blonde hair, which tapered to fine curls, combed back neatly into two velvet bows, and her mother’s slanting eyes, and as she looked at me she allowed herself a small, mischievous smile at my predicament.
I couldn’t help but grin back, and as I did, Agnes turned to see what the child was looking at and our eyes locked. I froze briefly, made to straighten my face, but before I could, the corners of her mouth twitched, like her daughter’s, almost as if she couldn’t help herself. She nodded at me, a gesture so small that it’s possible only I could have seen it. And then she stepped through the door that Ashok was holding back, the child already breaking into a skip, and they were gone, swallowed by the sunlight and the ever-moving human traffic of Fifth Avenue.
34
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Lou,
Well. I had to read that twice just to check I’d got it right. I looked at the girl in those newspaper pictures and I thought can this possibly be my little girl in an actual New York newspaper?
Those are wonderful pictures of you with all your dresses, and you look so gorgeous dressed up with your friends. Did I tell you how proud Daddy and I are? We’ve cut out the ones from the free-sheet and Daddy has screen-shotted all the ones we could find on the internet (did I tell you he’s started a computer course at the adult education centre? He’ll be Stortfold’s Bill Gates next). We’re sending you all our love and I know you’ll make a success of it, Lou. You sounded so upbeat and bold on the telephone – when you rang off I sat there staring at the phone and I couldn’t believe this was my little girl, full of plans, calling from her own business across the Atlantic. (It is the Atlantic, isn’t it? I always get it mixed up with the Pacific.)
So here’s OUR big news. We’re going to come and see you later in the summer! We’ll come when it cools down a bit – didn’t much like the sound of that heat-wave of yours: you know your daddy chafes in unfortunate places. Deirdre from the travel agents is letting us use her staff discount and we’re booking the flights at the end of this week. Could we stay with you in the old lady’s flat? If not, could you tell us where to go? NOWHERE WITH BEDBUGS.
Let me know what dates suit you. I’m so excited!!
Ever so much love,
Mum xxx
PS Did I tell you Treena got a promotion? She always was such a smart girl. You know, I can see why Eddie is so keen on her.
25 July
‘Wisdom and Knowledge Shall Be the Stability of Thy Times.’
I stood in the epicentre of Manhattan in front of the towering building, letting my breathing slow, and stared at the gilded sign above the vast entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Around me New York teemed in the evening heat, the sidewalks solid with meandering tourists, the air thick with blaring horns and the ever-present scent of exhaust and overheated rubber. Behind me a woman with a 30 Rock golf shirt, her voice struggling to be heard over the racket, was giving a well-rehearsed tour speech to a group of Japanese sightseers. The building project was completed in 1933 by noted architect Raymond Hood in the art deco style – Sir, please stay together, sir. Ma’am? Ma’am? – and was originally named the RCA building before becoming the GE building in – ma’am? Over here please … I gazed up at its sixty-seven floors and took a deep breath.
It was a quarter to seven.
I had wanted to look perfect for this moment, had planned to head back to the Lavery at five to give myself time to shower and pick an appropriate outfit (I was thinking Deborah Kerr in An Affair To Remember). But Fate had intervened in the form of a stylist from an Italian fashion magazine, who had arrived at the Vintage Clothing Emporium at four thirty and wanted to look at all the two-piece suits for a feature she was planning, then needed her colleague to try some on so she could take pictures and come back to me. Before I knew what was happening it was twenty to six and I barely had time to run Dean Martin home and feed him before heading down here. So here I was, sweaty and a little frazzled, still in my work clothes, about to find out which way my life was about to go next.
