Olivia Goldsmith - Fashionably Late

The Nuborg turned once more to Karen. ‘Which is better: elegance without sex appeal or sex appeal without elegance?’ Karen opened her mouth, but Mercedes’s long white hand took the reporter by her bony, black-clad shoulder and firmly turned her away. Karen sighed with relief. She knew that some day she would have to sit down and pretend an interest in those clichéd questions, but at least she didn’t have to do it right now. Later, she would kill Defina – but she’d be careful not to spoil the white dress.

‘Where do they get those questions from?’ Defina asked innocently, wrinkling her brow. She looked over at Karen. Then she got serious. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was just fooling around. I didn’t know she would …’

‘That’s okay. It’s nothing,’ Karen told her.

Defina widened her eyes. ‘Smile pretty at Nuclear Wintour,’ Defina told her, and Karen flashed a grin at Anna Wintour, arguably the most powerful woman in fashion publishing. Anna was shrewd and tough and glamorous and difficult. She had a lot of nicknames, but Mercedes, the most literate among them, always called her ‘The Wintour of our Discontent.’ Needless to say, Mercedes only said it behind Anna’s bony back.

At the next table, Karen could see Doris and Donald Fisher. He had started The Gap stores, and he, along with Peter Haas Senior of the Levi Strauss family, probably pushed more denim than anyone else in the world. With them was Bill Wolper of NormCo, the fashion conglomerate that was more successful than anyone else in the market. Everyone knew that big-time fashion wealth had come from the mass market. The real money had never been on Seventh Avenue. As Jeffrey reminded her over and over, ‘Henry Ford got rich making Fords, not Lincolns.’ It was only in the last dozen or so years that top-of-the-market Seventh Avenue American designers – who made Lincolns – had built enormous empires. And they had done it by moving out and down. Lincolns had been downgraded to Fords – bridge lines – for the malls. People like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and a half-dozen others had created fashion empires larger than any that had come before. Now Karen stood on the brink of an opportunity potentially as vast. And sometimes it frightened her.

But the faces around her table were all supportive ones. Aside from Jeffrey and Defina, she could smile at Mercedes, who had brought an obviously gay male friend. Mercedes came from the generation that always had male escorts for social events. Everyone knew Bernard was a lesbian (though no one ever mentioned it). Only Defina had the nerve to once refer to the woman as a ‘Mercedes diesel.’

Casey Robinson, their vice-president of marketing, sat next to Mercedes and he was with his gay companion Ray. Karen sighed again and had a flash of gratitude that she had met and married Jeffrey early on in her career. So many women in her business bemoaned the lack of heterosexual men in the industry.

Karen smiled at Casey, Mercedes, Defina, and the others. All of the people at the table tonight had helped her get there. When she learned she’d earned the Oakley Award, Karen had decided to have these people surround her and share in her success. She had not invited her family. They hadn’t contributed in the same way, and somehow their presence always complicated things. Just this once, Karen had decided to keep the night for herself, to share the event with her mother and sister only after the fact. She felt a little guilty about it, but as her friend Carl had explained, ‘The choice is between inviting them and spoiling your evening, or not inviting them and having a great night but feeling guilty. I say go with the guilt! Guilt is like a muscle. Learn to use it.’

As if the thought of Carl had conjured him up, Karen saw her tall, fat, balding friend making his way toward her. The table wouldn’t be complete without Carl. Since the days at South Side High School, back in Rockville Center, Long Island – which both she and Carl still called ‘Lawn Guylind’ – he had been her biggest cheerleader. Actually, her only cheerleader. Certainly, neither her mother nor her younger sister were supporters of Karen’s dream to make beautiful, fabulous, comfortable clothes. Belle was too practical, too critical for dreams, and poor Lisa, younger than Karen, needed support and couldn’t give any. Only Carl, with his crazy optimism, his sense of humor, and his mother’s sewing machine, had supported Karen’s ideas. He was her earliest fabricator and ally. Now his bulk crossed the last part of the Waldorf dance floor and he enveloped her in his big embrace.

‘Brava, brava, brava!’ he boomed, and smacked kisses on both her cheeks.

‘Grazia ,’ Karen responded, exhausting all of her Italian vocabulary with that single word. It had been agony for her to learn French, which Jeffrey had insisted she do for her career. Karen was no Defina when it came to languages. She still spoke English with the heavy, adenoidal tones of Nostrand Avenue (where her family lived before her father could afford Rockville Center).

‘So how did you achieve this enormous success?’ Carl asked in a mock announcer voice, holding up a butter knife from the table setting as a faux microphone.

‘I guess I just kept my nose to the grindstone for a long time,’ she answered, too modestly and sweetly.

‘Oh, is that what made your nose like that?’ he asked. ‘Let’s get a picture of it.’ Carl popped out a tiny camera. He handed it to Jeffrey. ‘Yo, Defina. Get over here! I want a picture with the stars of the evening.’

Defina smiled and obliged, but Karen saw Jeffrey’s expression tighten. Why hadn’t Carl asked her husband too? Sometimes Carl could be incredibly undiplomatic. Karen was always aware the Jeffrey could be made to feel like an appendage, when the truth was he had made all her success possible. But to Jeffrey’s credit he obligingly held up the camera and squinted.

‘The Three Musketeers and their mid-life crisis,’ he said as he flashed the picture.

‘Isn’t that a book by Dumas?’ Carl cracked.

‘I think so,’ Defina said. ‘But I can never remember if it’s Dumas père , Dumas fils , or Dumas the Holy Ghost.’

‘Hey, guys, you’re confused,’ Karen explained. ‘Even I know that it’s Casper the Holy Ghost.’

Jeffrey shook his head at their foolishness. ‘Could you behave like celebrities instead of tourists for just one evening?’ he asked.

‘Speaking of celebrities, I saw John Kennedy Junior in the lobby,’ Carl whispered. ‘I nearly passed out. I swear, he is a real and present danger to the gay community. The boy could cause cardiac arrest.’ Carl began breathing hard with actual or feigned excitement. It was difficult to tell with Carl. ‘Oh, to be Daryl Hannah for just one night!’ he cried.

Karen rolled her eyes at him. ‘Behave,’ she warned. Carl was obsessed with the Kennedys, or pretended to be. He was probably the only person in the country who could name all the Kennedy cousins of this generation. It was a parlor trick he did, kind of like naming the wives of Henry the Eighth or the seven dwarves, except it took a lot longer.

By now most of the people in the ballroom had taken their seats, and Carl joined the Karen Kahn team at the table. He picked up a glass and when one of the waiters brought champagne, he cleared his throat and got serious. ‘Let us all toast this year’s winner of the coveted Oakley Award,’ he saluted. Karen was touched. Then, on cue, everyone at the table pulled out a slice of toast and lobbed them across the table at her – even the sedate Mercedes. Then they all collapsed in giggles. All except Jeffrey.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he said. He obviously hadn’t been privy to the gag. ‘A food fight at the Waldorf Astoria?’ He shook his head while Karen couldn’t stop laughing. Tears came to her eyes and she had to use a napkin to make sure she didn’t blot her mascara.