JoAnn Ross - Legacy of Lies

“Actually, I didn’t. I felt the curriculum put too much emphasis on merchandising and too little on technique.” It was the truth, so far as it went. “Besides, I was impatient, so I quit to go to work in New York.”

She felt no need to volunteer that a more urgent reason for leaving school had been her mother’s diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

As soon as Irene Lyons had called her with the dark news, Alex had gone to the registrar, dropped out of school and, with a recommendation from one of her professors, landed a job with a Seventh Avenue firm that made dresses for discount stores.

“New York?” Marie Hélène’s brow climbed her smooth forehead. “Which designer? Beene? Blass? Surely not Klein?”

“Actually, I worked for a company that made clothing for department stores.”

She lifted her chin, as if daring Marie Hélène to say a single derogatory word. While not couture, she’d worked damned hard. And although her suggestions to bring a little pizzazz to the discount clothing were more often than not rejected, she was proud of whatever contribution she’d been allowed to make. After her mother’s death, no longer having any reason to remain in New York, she’d followed her lifelong dream, making this pilgrimage to the birthplace—and high altar—of couture.

“But I continued to design on my own,” she said, holding out the portfolio again.

When the directress continued to ignore the proffered sketches, Alex steeled herself to be rejected once more.

Instead, Marie Hélène rose from her chair with a lithe grace any runway model would have envied and said, “Come with me.”

Unwilling to question what had changed the director’s mind, Alex rushed after her through the labyrinth of gray walls and silver carpeting. They entered a small Spartan room that could have doubled as an interrogation room in a police station. Or an operating room.

Though the steel shelves on the walls were filled with bolts of fabric, there was not a speck of lint or dust to be seen. Open-heart surgery could have been done on the gray Formica laminated plastic table in the center of the room.

Beside the table was a faceless mannequin. Marie Hélène took a bolt of white toile from one of the shelves, plucked a sketch from a black binder, lay both on the table along with a pair of shears and said, “Let us see if you can drape.”

“Drape? But I came here to—”

“I had to dismiss one of our drapers today,” the directress said, cutting Alex off with a curt wave of her hand.

Her fingernails were lacquered a frosty white that echoed her glacial attitude. A diamond sparkled on her right hand, catching the light from the fixture above and splitting it into rainbows on the white walls. Those dancing bits of light, were, along with Alex’s crimson cape, the only color in the room.

“I discovered she was sleeping with a press attaché for Saint Laurent.” Marie Hélène’s mouth tightened. “Which of course we cannot allow.”

Uncomfortable with the idea of an employer interfering in the personal life of an employee, Alex nevertheless understood the paranoia that was part and parcel of a business where the new season’s skirt lengths were guarded with the same ferocity military commanders employed when planning an invasion.

“With the couture shows next month, we must hire a replacement right away,” the directress continued. “If you are able to drape properly, I might consider you for the position.”

Draping was definitely a long way from designing. But Alex wasn’t exactly in a position to be choosy.

She glanced down at the black-and-white pencil sketch, surprised by its rigid shape. Debord had always favored geometric lines, but this evening gown was more severe than most.

“Is there a problem?” Marie Hélène asked frostily.

“Not at all.” Alex flashed her a self-assured smile, took off her cape, tossed it casually onto the table, pulled off her red kid gloves and began to work. Less than five minutes later, she stood back and folded her arms over her plaid tunic.

“Done,” she announced as calmly as she could.

Marie Hélène’s response was to pull a pair of silver-rimmed glasses from the pocket of her black skirt, put them on and begin going over the draped mannequin inch by inch.

Time slowed. The silence was deafening. Alex could hear the steady tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall.

“Well?” she asked when she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. “Do I get the job?”

The directress didn’t answer. Instead, she turned and submitted Alex to a long judicious study that was even more nerve-racking than her examination of Alex’s draping skills.

“Where did you get that outré outfit?” Marie Hélène’s nose was pinched, as if she’d gotten a whiff of Brie that had turned.

Imbued with a steely self-assurance that was partly inborn and partly a legacy from her mother and twin brother, who’d thought the sun rose and set on her, Alex refused to flinch under the unwavering stare. “I designed it myself.”

“I thought that might be the case.” The woman’s tone was not at all flattering. “My brother prefers his employees to wear black. He finds bright colors distracting to the muse.”

“I’ve read Armani feels the same way about maintaining a sensory-still environment,” Alex said cheerfully.

The directress visibly recoiled. “Are you comparing the genius of Debord to that Italian son of a transport manager?”

Realizing that insulting the designer—even unintentionally—was no way to gain employment, Alex quickly backtracked.

“Never,” she insisted with fervor. “The genius of Debord has no equal.”

Marie Hélène studied her over the silver rim of her glasses for another long silent time. Finally the directress made her decision. “I will expect you here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. If you do not have appropriate attire, you may purchase one of the dresses we keep for just such an occasion. As for your salary...”

The figure was less than what she’d been making at the nightclub. “That’s very generous, madame,” she murmured, lying through her teeth.

“You will earn every franc.”

Undeterred by the veiled threat, Alex thanked the directress for the opportunity, promised to be on time, picked up her portfolio and wound her way back through the maze of hallways.

As she retraced her steps down the Avenue Montaigne, Alex’s cowboy boots barely touched the snowy pavement. Having finally breached the directress’s seemingly insurmountable parapets, Alexandra Lyons was walking on air.

“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” she sang as she clattered down the steps to the metro station. Her robust contralto drew smiles from passing commuters. “I love Paris in the winter, when it drizzles.... Or snows,” she improvised. “Boy, oh boy, do I love Paris!”

She was still smiling thirty minutes later as she climbed the stairs to her apartment.

The first thing she did when she walked in the door was to go over to a table draped in a ruffled, red satin skirt that could have belonged to a cancan dancer at the Folies Bergère, and pick up a photo in an antique silver frame.

“Well, guys,” she murmured, running her finger over the smiling features of her mother and brother, whose life had been tragically cut short when his car hit a patch of ice and spun out of control on the New Jersey turnpike six years ago. “I got the job. I hope you’re proud.”

Alex missed them terribly. She decided she probably always would. They’d both had such unwavering confidence in her talent. Such high hopes. Alex had every intention of living up to those lofty expectations.

When she’d left New York, two days after her mother’s funeral, she’d been excited. And nervous. But mostly, she’d been devastated.