Fashionably Late (26 page)

Lisa waited. The pause lengthened.

“I’m right here,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Well, a little of this and a little of that. Part of it is business, but part is family stuff. I tell you, I’m kind of worried about your sister.”

“Really?” Shit, he must be very worried to be calling me, Lisa thought.

It wasn’t that they didn’t get along. It was more like she had always felt dismissed by Jeffrey, and his whole family. Even though the Kahns were actually from Westchester, it was typical Lawrence behavior.

“What is it?” she asked now.

“Well, it’s a lot to go into over the phone. I wondered … ” he paused again and Lisa waited for him to speak. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you possibly get free for lunch? I’d really like to talk to you.”

Surprised and complimented, Lisa smiled and her voice reflected it.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll just have to make a few calls.” Ha! Like there was a long list of people waiting to lunch with her.

“Great,” Jeffrey said. “Meet me at the St. Regis at one. Can you make it in by then? You know where it is? Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Fifth.”

“Ah, sure,” she said brightly and thought that she’d have to reject the Perry Ellis slacks and upgrade to something a lot more St. Regis-ish.

Too bad she still hadn’t found the wine-colored shoes to go with the Donna Karan pantsuit. It would have been perfect. “I’ll be there,” she purred.

“Oh, and Lisa, could I ask another favor?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t mention this to Karen. Okay? It’s in her own best interest, I promise you.”

“Sure,” Lisa repeated easily, and then set the receiver gently on its hook. She felt a flutter of excitement in her chest. At last, she thought, she had someplace worthwhile to dress up for.

While her mother was preparing for lunch with her uncle, Tiff Saperstein had skipped her afternoon classes and was spending time at the Roosevelt Field Mall. It wasn’t one of the best malls, but it was big and far enough away from home so Tiff felt safe.

Trolling the mall was one of the few times that she felt it an advantage to be big and fat. She would be thirteen in just a few weeks, but because of her height and size she knew she looked a lot older. Not older and pretty, or older and sophisticated, the way Stephanie looked, but at least old enough so that no one would stop her and ask her why she was cutting school, or why she was there without parental supervision. Kids alone weren’t allowed in the mall. But she didn’t look like an average kid. She wasn’t cute, or skinny, or dressed in bicycle shorts and a cut-off tee. She wore an oversized men’s plaid shirt with a white T-shirt under it, baggy pants, and Converse sneakers.

She knew she was invisible, and although she resented it a lot of the time, in places like this she had to admit it was very convenient.

She still had twenty-seven dollars left from her saved allowance plus the extra ten-dollar bill she had taken from her father’s wallet this morning. If he ever noticed any money missing, Tiff knew he would blame her mother, not her. He’d never think of her. Nobody did.

Tiff put her hand up to her neck and, through the flannel, fingered the pearl necklace that her aunt had given her. Well, Tiff had to admit, Aunt Karen did think of her, but now Aunt Karen had given Stephie-the-bitch a job. It wasn’t so much that her sister had a job while she didn’t. Steph was really stupidţthe work study program was one step away from Vo Tech. What bothered Tiff was the fact that Stephie would get to spend time with Aunt Karen every day. Tiff dropped her hand away from the necklace and strode across the tile floor of the mall to the Mrs. Field’s Cookie store. The first thing she’d do was spend five dollars on macadamia white chocolate chip cookies. Then she’d go into the stores.

Tiff despised the casual specialty stores. The Limited. Bennetton.

Ann Taylor. None of their stuff was any good. She also hated the middle-market department stores. As far as Tiff was concerned, all that crap was for the birds. She knew what she liked and it wasn’t any cheesy Macy’s Own label. So, with a warm cookie stuffed in her mouth and the others melting in the bag Tiff headed for Saks and the designer floor.

She knew just what she liked and just where to find it. Because, when it came to shoplifting, why settle for anything less than the best?

About the time that Tiff was gobbling down the Mrs. Field’s cookies, Stephanie sat in the small white room reserved for coffee drinking and VIKInc employee lunches, gazing across the wide expanse of two white Formica tables at Tangela. Tangela was talking to her mother, or rather Defina was talking at her. Defina was keeping her voice low but Stephanie knew that angrymother noise and could recognize it anywhere.

“Have you punched more holes in your earlobes?” Defina was asking.

Tangela said something Steph couldn’t hear, and then asked for a loan.

“What do you need to borrow money for?” Defina asked.

“A Hermes bag,” her daughter said in a bored voice.

“Tangela,” her mother said with a sigh, “the H’ in Hermes’ is silent.

It’s pronounced errnez.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s French.”

“We ain’t French.”

“No, but that’s the classy way to say it.”

Tangela shrugged. “White people.”

Just then Karen walked in, overheard Tangela and laughed. “It’s actually worse than that,” Karen said. “The dropped h’ in French is classy, but if the English drop an h’ it’s trashy. Go figure.” Karen left with a cup of coffee, and though Steph couldn’t overhear exactly what Defina was finishing up with, after an elegant shrug from Tangela, Defina raised her voice. “You may think you’re too good to be a fitting model. If that’s so, then don’t take the booking. If you show up here, I want you ready to work, just like the other girls.” Tangela shrugged again, and Defina just shook her head and strode out of the room.

Stephie had thought she herself was pretty, and she had also thought she was thin, but that was before she’d met Tangela. Tangela had given Stephie a whole new definition of both pretty and thin. Tangela’s skin was the light brown color of some really creamy ice cream flavor and her nose was more refined than Stephanie’s own. Now, looking covertly at her, Stephanie watched as Tangela read something in a fashion magazine and flared her beautiful nostrils in contempt or disgust.

Tangela hadn’t really spoken to her here at the office or at her aunt’s brunch, nor did she seem to want to become more friendly.

Tangela wouldn’t ignore her if she was thinner and prettier. The older girl must just figure I’m a school kid, a stupid baby, Stephie thought, a nerd whose aunt was only doing her a favor by letting her model.

Tangela didn’t notice when Stephie walked into a room, and she didn’t seem to have anything to say to her when they worked together. But Stephanie was fascinated by the older girl. Now, screwing up all her courage, Stephanie picked up her egg salad sandwich and her diet Pepsi and walked over to the table where Tangela sat alone.

“Want half my sandwich?” Stephie offered, as boldly as she dared.

Tangela flared her nostrils again and looked across at her as if she were some kind of insect.

“Why don’t you ask if I want flabby thighs?” Tangela sneered.

“It’s diet bread,” Stephanie hastened to explain. After all, she’d been watching her weight and dieting since she was nine. “The mayonnaise is fatfree,” she added.

“Then it’s about the only fatfree thing you got,” Tangela said. She waited while the words sank in. “Listen up. Just because you’re Karen’s niece don’t mean I got to crib with you,” Tangela told her.

“You’re no model. You’re just a rich kid from the suburbs, playin’ at this job.

Play by yourself.” Tangela stood, picked up her enormous black shoulder bag, and walked from the room.

Stephanie sat there for a moment, stunned. She hadn’t been put down like that since lennifer Barton had been mean to her back in the third grade at Inwood Elementary. She blinked back tears and looked around to make sure nobody else had witnessed her humiliation. But the other women, mostly finishers from the sample room, were busy talking to one another. Stephanie hung her head. The egg salad sandwich sat there like a judgment. The smell of it suddenly made her feel sick. In a single motion, she stood and crumpled the sandwich into the napkin that had been under it. Then she threw it into the garbage. She would skip lunch. And maybe she would skip dinner. In fact, she felt like she might never eat again.

Like her daughter, Lisa had barely eaten any lunch. It was that thrilling being in Manhattan, dressed up, lunching with a fabulous-looking man at one of the best places.

One of Lisa’s preoccupations was what she thought of as The Game.

Always attractive and, under Belle’s tutelage, always carefully dressed, she had become more and more interested in the impact she made on other people. Back in high school and in her one year at college she had focused on the impression she made on young men. But in the last decade and a half, that interest faded. Like the majority of women, Lisa dressed to impress other women.

Of course, it wasn’t just any other women. Lisa didn’t care what her cleaning lady thought of her wardrobe. In fact, she didn’t care about what anyone in all of Inwood thought. Lisa played for bigger stakes than that. She dressed to impress the most fashionable and chic women she could find.

The problem was they were a bit thin on the ground in her neck of the woods. So Lisa spent a lot of time getting herself dressed and accessorized and then going to places where what passed for the fashion cognoscenti of Long Island congregated. There were a couple of department stores and the restaurants that catered to women shoppers.

Lisa also frequented one of the tonier malls. But the problem with all of those was that women actually involved in shopping rarely noticed other women, and women eating lunch might admire the clothing of a stranger, but would always feel superior to see that stranger dining alone. Because what Lisa actually sought was not just the admiration but the envy of those women. She knew the appraising look they gave, often hidden behind oversized sunglasses or an averted face because, if you were dressed really well, another well-dressed woman couldn’t resist at least one appraising look. For Lisa, The Game was to elicit that look and also to catch the woman in the act of awarding it. When she did that, Lisa’s own reward was to flash the loser a quick but superior smile. Because, over lunch in Lisa’s world, you were not what you ate, you were what you wore.

She’d become expert in The Game. She could dress not just in the latest style but always with a new twist. She’d add an accessory, or an unusual leather, or an antique scarf or pin that could not be duplicated. Once, in the Tea Room on the third floor of Manhattan’s Bendel’s, a woman had stared at her purse throughout all of lunch. At the end of the meal, the stranger couldn’t stop herself from approaching Lisa and asking where she had gotten it.

“I had it made for me in Italy,” Lisa had lied coldly. It actually hadn’t counted as a point in The Game, because by breaking that invisible boundary and speaking to her, the woman had revealed herself as unworthy. She lacked control and class, so besting her gave Lisa no satisfaction.

Manhattan was the place to play The Game. It was a tough crowd. Today she had finally gotten it right. She had strolled through the lobby of the St. Regis and easily gotten two businessmen to turn their heads.

A good sign, but one that didn’t really matter. She had arrived at the restaurant and the maitre d’ had given her that approving look that gave her the tiny extra bit of confidence one needed. Then she got to walk across the floor of the beautifully appointed room to the corner table where Jeffrey had stood up to greet her. He was the perfect accessory, the last touch she needed to appear as if she had a charmed life. Two women, lunching together, had tried hard to keep their eyes averted.

They had failed. Lisa had preened herself, like a raptor after a kill.

She and Jeffrey had greeted each other, ordered a drink, and then Lisa didn’t know what to say. But she knew she wanted this moment to last.

What was going on in Karen’s life right now? “Have you met Elle Halle yet?” she asked. She raised her voice a bit, hoping the other women would overhear.

“Met her? I feel as if she moved in! I had to spend hours with her,” Jeffrey complained.

Lisa was too excited to eat or even to think too much about the conversation. Jeffrey talked for a little while about Stephanie and the internship and went on for a long time about business affairs.

Lisa never understood why men did this. Leonard was never more boring than when he talked about the practice, but for Jeffrey, Lisa smiled and nodded and tried to respond vivaciously so that everyone could see what a good time she was having. So when Jeffrey leaned over and took her hand, she was surprisedţalmost shocked. She, like her mother, wasn’t a physical person. For a moment, she wondered if he might not attempt a pass at her. It was a horrible thought, but she was relieved to see not a lustful but a worried look on his face. Still, he seemed to want something from her. She focused again on the conversation.

“You can see why I’m concerned,” he was saying. “I just don’t feel as if I can keep the ball in play much longer.”

Lisa blinked. When had he moved from business and begun talking about sports?

“And she doesn’t know how stressed out she is. Sometimes I’m afraid she’ll work herself to death.”

Lisa knew then who they were talking about. She nodded, putting an understanding look on her face.

“You know, a while ago she said the strangest thing. She said she wanted to find her real mother. That isn’t normal, is it? Out of the blue like that, I mean, it has to come from stress.”

Jeffrey had gotten her attention. “Karen wanted to do what?” she asked.

In all the years of growing up, in all the time they’d spent together, neither of the sisters had ever mentioned that Karen was adopted. No one in the family did. Somehow, it didn’t seem nice.

“That’s what I said. But that’s not the worst. She also has started this thing about adopting a baby. Can you imagine?”