Keene,” Miss Raines said formally, her cold eyes unblinking behind her stylish glasses, “why were these designs placed on my desk?” She waved the portfolio at Ivory.
Ivory paused with the scarves held before her like a shield. She hesitated, and then rushed ahead before her courage gave out. “I’d hoped you might like one of them,” she began.
Miss Raines put the portfolio on Ivory’s desk with the air of someone disposing of nasty garbage. “Hardly,” she said. “As I’ve told you already, the other two senior designers and I make up our new lines each season. Junior designers may contribute, but not someone on your level. Perhaps when you’ve been here a few years, we might consider something of yours. However, you will have to prove yourself first.”
Ivory wondered how she was going to prove anything by matching scarves and suits. She studied the older woman from her short hair and simply cut but very expensive mauve dress to her polished calf pumps. Miss Raines had never married, and the business was her life. Perhaps it was all she had, Ivory thought, trying to be kind.
“Kindly keep your...drawings...out of the way,” Miss Raines added as she left, and Ivory’s impulse to be kind vanished at once. “And do clean this place up,” she added as an afterthought. “Mr. Kells is in the building.”
The door closed firmly behind her. Ivory stared at it with resignation. She’d been here six months, and it felt like six years. Mr. Kells might be in the building, but she was hardly likely to get to see him. She’d had no contact with anyone except Miss Raines, Dee Grier, who was the head seamstress, the seamstresses who made reality of the mental creations of the designers and the various salesmen who frequented the office. Mr. Kells had no reason to come here. There was no suggestion box. Wages were paid, frugally, every other week. Insurance was bare bones. Holidays were, apparently, few and far between. Hard work was the order of the day.
Ivory toyed with the label of the silk scarf in one hand. Gucci. She wondered how it would feel to be able to walk into an exclusive department store and buy several of these. Even one was far beyond her means, and the outfits that carried the Kells-Meredith label, even in the casual line, were so expensive that the price of one leisure dress would pay Ivory’s rent for a month.
She put the scarf down and opened the portfolio. She’d designed a collection based on sixteenth-century Tudor costumes, having become intrigued with them when she’d first seen them in her local library back home. Her adaptations had a definition that was like a signature, and everyone she’d shown them to had exclaimed over them. Everyone, that is, except Miss Raines, who had the power to bring them to the attention of those in charge of the company’s lines. She released a long sigh over her favorite, a heavily embroidered gown with mutton-leg sleeves and a square neckline. Ideally, it would be done in silk for summer and a heavier fabric, perhaps satin, for winter evening wear. The long sleeves might be too hot for summer. But, then, nearly every building was air-conditioned now and silk was so summery.
She closed the portfolio reluctantly and picked up the scarf again, only to be interrupted by Miss Raines, who asked her to take three sample gowns to the showroom where models were doing a special showing for some society matrons. Ivory did as she was told, and in her absence Mr. Kells walked through the sample room. He stayed only briefly and left before Ivory returned.
“I told you to clean this mess up,” Miss Raines said impatiently when Ivory entered the room. “Let me tell you, Mr. Kells wasn’t impressed. He said that even a sketcher-assistant should have more to do than pile accessories on desks. I agreed with him that you have too much free time, even with my work, so I’m going to let you do alterations, as well. You sew of course?”
It was like a sudden demotion. Ivory felt sick to her stomach. “Well, yes, but...”
“Then we’ll get you started first thing tomorrow,” she said. “The regular girls have too much contract work to stop for repairs. This will work out nicely. Mr. Kells thought it would.”
“Miss Raines, I came here to do design work,” Ivory began.
“Yes, yes, and you will, one day,” she promised indulgently. “But we must crawl before we can walk, Miss Keene.”
Ivory sat down at her desk with an expression of pure anguish. If she had to do repairs as well as accessories and illustrations, she was never going to have time to work on her own designs. But what was the use, anyway? Miss Raines was doing everything in her power, apparently, to make sure that Ivory didn’t have any successes. And so was the elusive Mr. Kells.
Miss Raines had admitted to Ivory early on that she had disagreed with Mr. Kells’s decision to offer a job as a first prize in a nationwide design contest. It had all been a stunt, a promotion, to bring a fading design house back into the limelight. Ivory felt cheated. She’d expected more, somehow, from the description of the prize when it was given to her at graduation.
“You’ll have a dream job in New York at Kells-Meredith,” Mr. Wallace, the president of the school, had assured her after the award was presented at the school’s graduation exercises. “And a nice apartment, rent-free for the first month until you start drawing your salary!”
“I’m very honored that I won,” Ivory had told him.
“And so are we, young lady. It’s a feather in our cap to have one of our graduating seniors do so well.” He’d looked around curiously, because Ivory had come to the awards ceremony alone. “Didn’t your, uh, family care to come tonight, to see you get your design diploma?”
She hadn’t blinked an eye. “My mother is ill and couldn’t make the trip,” she had lied. “My father died years ago.”
“You’re an only child, then?”
She’d studied her feet. “Yes.”
“Sad for you, especially at holidays, I guess.”
She’d composed her face and looked up. “The job...how soon will I start?”
“As soon as you like,” he’d said, beaming. “Next week?”
“That would be fine,” she had assured him.
The dream job was less than dreamy, and the promised apartment too expensive for her to keep on her salary. Her present apartment, while clean and comfortable, was hardly a penthouse. It was in a nice part of Queens, though, and not too long a bus ride from work. There was a kitchenette, a living room and a small bedroom with a double bed. It was a furnished apartment, but Ivory didn’t really like the faded yellow-flowered sofa. With one of her first purchases, a sewing machine, she’d made slipcovers for the sofa and chair and a tablecloth for the small round table.
Ivory had scraped together enough moderately priced dinnerware and silverware to use, and she now had a small, refinished coffee table. It was the best accommodation she’d had in her twenty-two years. Someday, she’d promised herself as she looked around her living room, she would have new wall-to-wall carpeting.
Even if the apartment was less than elegant, the neighbors were something special. Mrs. Horst was an elderly German widow who had immigrated to the United States just before World War II. She made wonderful breads and cakes and liked making them for Ivory, whom she considered delightful company. Two doors down from Mrs. Horst lived Mr. Konieczny from Wisconsin, who worked as a bank clerk and had a small poodle for company. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson occupied a third apartment. He was a World War II veteran who had to get around in a wheelchair. He had lost his legs at Guadalcanal, but he was cheerful and liked to make wooden toys for the three small children who lived
