Fashionably Late (55 page)

Karen watched as Jeffrey picked up both of them and then shouldered his way through the crowd with the girl in tow. The two of them came through the aluminum door and moved right toward her. Karen felt air hungry, as if she really might fall down onto the hard, cold tile floor, right then and there. But she managed to stand.

“Karen, this is Cyndi.”

“Well, hi there,” Cyndi said. And somehow Karen managed to reach out and shake the warm hand she was offered.

They took her out to lunch at Tavern on the Green. Jeffrey grimaced at the choice, but Karen knew her audience and Cyndi was more than impressed, she was thrilled. She looked out through the glass of the Crystal Room to the trees of the park. Dozens of colored Venetian glass chandeliers sparkled overhead. She couldn’t get over how beautiful it was.

“Boy, it’s really neat,” she said. “I’ve never seen any place like this.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re in Kansas anymore,” Jeffrey said.

“Not Kansas,” Cyndi corrected, missing the allusion to the Wizard of Oz. “Indiana. I came from Indiana.” Jeffrey nodded his head and had the good grace not to smile.

“How was the bus ride?” Karen asked.

“Neat. This really nice lady sat next to me. She was coming in to visit her granddaughter. It was her first trip to New York, too.”

Karen asked about the pregnancy, about Cyndi’s studies, and whether she felt badly that the MacKenzies had dropped her for another mother.

“Not really. At least not now. They were real nice, though. But I never met them, and the both of you seem, well, really neat.”

The girl wasn’t stupid, though she did seem to be adjectively impaired.

They finished lunch and moved slowly to Central Park West, then they took a cab to Cyndi’s hotel. “Maybe you want to freshen up,” Karen suggested. “Or take a nap.”

“Oh no, I’m just fine.” The three of them took her bags up to the hotel room that looked west onto the reservoir and south all the way down Madison Avenue.

Cyndi stood, staring out the window. “It’s like a grown-up Disney World,” she breathed.

“Yeah, except Mickey’s got a gun,” Jeffrey told her.

Karen shot him a look. “Will you be comfortable here?” she asked.

They had gotten her a suiteţa tiny kitchenette, a small sitting room, and a big corner bedroom with four huge double-hung windows. “The neighborhood is safe. How about if we leave you here to unpack and I come back to have dinner with you later?” Karen had to get back to the showroomţbuyers were flooding in from all over the country as a natural follow-up to the New York shows.

“Sure. That would be neat.” Cyndi shook hands with Jeffrey, but when Karen hugged her she warmly returned the hug, though her stomach got in the way.

“I’m very glad you’re here,” Karen told her. “I really am.” Cyndi, Madonna-like, smiled at her.

Excited, joyful as she was over the baby-to-be, Karen felt guilty about not being there for Defina during her trouble with Tangela. The blowup in Paris with Tangela and Stephanie had been heard all the way over to the Eiffel Tower. So today, the day after Cyndi’s arrival, Karen had asked Defina to lunch, and as a surprise booked a table at Cafe des Artistes, the haute bohemian bistro right off Central Park. Karen was a little late, and Defina had already been seated at a window table.

The dark woodwork and the murals set off Defina’s skin perfectly.

“You mightfeel bad, but you look good,” Karen told Dee as she took the chair across from her.

“The last defense of a frightened woman. You know how it is: when you can’t control anything else, at least you can put on your eye makeup.”

“So, what’s up?”

“Jesus, Karen, I don’t know. I guess I did everything wrong. She was out of control, but thank God she’s willing to talk now. That man nearly killed her. I never knew a woman who couldn’t be ruined by a man. I told her that she needs treatment. I told her the drugs will kill her. I fired her, and then I offered to put her into rehab. I told her if she didn’t go, I didn’t know how long she was going to continue to get work.

Once a girl stops showing up for bookings, it doesn’t take long for her to get dropped.” Defina shook her head. Tears rose in her eyes and trembled on her bottom lid, silvery as the mercury in a thermometer.

“What else could I do?” she asked.

Karen took her friend’s hand. “You can’t blame yourself, Dee. You’ve done everything you could. You’re not in control of everything.”

Dee snatched her hand away. “If I can’t blame myself, whose fault is it? God’s? Tangela’s boyfriend? I was raised to believe I could make something of myself and that anyone who didn’t had no one to blame but themselves.

Am I supposed to stop believing that now? Am I supposed to give up responsibility now when it has gotten difficult?” She looked at Karen, her eyes narrowed.

Carefully, Karen tried to form the words that might help Defina.

“Listen,” she said. “I agree with you and I’m on your side. What you said is true: you took responsibility. So maybe now Tangela will have to learn how to do that.”

Defina bit her lip and shook her head. “I should have taught her before this. I failed. Big time.” She paused, fighting for self-control. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a daughter. From long before she was born she was a part of me.

She’s always been a part of me. You don’t know how bad it feels when there’s nothing more you can do.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“It’s too hard to raise a kid on your own,” Dee said. “I probably shouldn’t have tried. She only saw her dad a few times, and then, in the beginning there were those other men. They were all so useless to me and to her. All those pretty, tall, useless men,” Defina sighed.

“No wonder she’d found a useless one herself.”

“Come on, Dee, give yourself a break. You worked to support her. You gave her a nice home. You sent her to a private school. You spent all your free time with her. You quit the men. And now you’ve sent her to rehab. You’ve done everything you can. Let’s face it: this country isn’t set up to help working mothers. It certainly isn’t set up for single mothers. Look how much better it is in France. Beautiful state-run day care, subsidies. But here it isn’t easy being a single mother, or a working mother, or a single, working mother. And that’s not even mentioning being black.”

It slid off Dee’s back and she seemed to shrug Karen’s words away as if she had not just dismissed them but had not even heard them. “I should have never let her model,” Dee said. “You make sure you call your sister, Lisa, and tell her to keep Stephanie out of that game. You do that.”

“I will Dee,” Karen promised.

Karen left Defina before two o’clock. She felt sorry for her but she couldn’t completely quench her own high spirits. Sales were reaching record heights in the showroom, and Cyndi seemed comfortable at the hotel. Jeffrey was busy with something or other that afternoon, which was just as well, because Karen had to call Mr. Centrillo. He knew she’d been away, she had not called him from Paris. But now, alone in her apartment, she gave him a ring. This was the last piece in her puzzle.

She hoped he had some news. He answered his own phone.

“Oh. Mrs. Cohen. Back already? So how was the vacation?”

Somehow, lying to him made her feel guilty. He seemed such a nice man.

“Just fine,” she said.

“The lake wasn’t too cold?” he asked. For a minute she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she remembered that she had told him she was going to Lake George.

“It was lovely,” she told him. “So do you have any news for me?”

“Listen, Mrs. Cohen, I’m sorry. I’ve run into dead ends. We did contact the agency you went through. The records are sealed.”

Karen felt the disappointment and anger well up in her, filling her chest so she could barely breathe.

“Wait a minute. You say you’ve found the agency that has my file but we can’t see it?” What gave them the right to withhold her past from her?

“Well, we don’t know for sure that it’s your agency, but it probably is. No way to find out though. I warned you that this might happen.”

It was so unfair. Why could strangers and the courts know her secret, but not her? “Is that it then?” Karen heard her voice choke up.

Centrillo heard it, too.

“Listen, I have a suggestion. That is, if you’re still very sure you want to pursue this. The only further lead is that I’ve questioned a few people there and they did find an employment record of Mrs. Talmidge’s.

I told them she was inheriting some money. I could work on tracing her.

She’s living somewhere in Florida, long retired, if she isn’t dead.

She might help with a lead, remember something, though it’s a long shot.”

Karen thought of Cyndi, her big belly and her sweet smile. Would Cyndi want to be found thirty or forty years from now by the child she was carrying today? Thirty years from now, when she had built a whole life and all of this was just a painful smudge of memory, would Cyndi want it to be exhumed? And would her son want to find her?

“Yes,” Karen said. “I really do want to pursue this.”

“Then I have a suggestion to make. I have a contact. A guy who’s kind of unorthodox. Paige is his name. Minos Paige. Anyway, he has a few tricks up his sleeve. When it comes to helping people remember, he’s good. But like I say, he’s a little unorthodox and he’s ve expensive.”

“What does very expensive mean?” Karen asked.

“He’d probably want a ten-thousand-dollar retainer, and more if he gets results, but he’s been working in Florida off and on for some time, and he might be our best bet for finding this Mrs. Talmidge. There are still no guarantees, but it’s about all I can offer at this point.

Because Paige might also be able to make a breakthrough at the agency or, once he gets the info from Talmidge, he could find a wedge in the court records. Sometimes he can manage things that Iţwell, that we don’t do.”

Karen wondered whether Centrillo was talking about bribes or breakins or something worse.

“Is he usually pretty effective?” she asked.

“Oh yes. He’s effective all right.”

“I’ll FedEr a money order to you today,” Karen told him. “I’ll be gone for ten days on business, but I’ll call you as soon as I get back.”

“You do travel a lot,” Mr. Centrillo told her. Karen nodded silently.

And he didn’t know the half of it. “I’m not sure what Minos can get together in ten days, if anything, but I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Karen wanted to make sure that Cyndi wouldn’t be lonely during her last month. She spent all the free time she could manage with the girl but had to prepare her for the ten days that she would be gone, touring the Orient and looking at the NormCo plants. Jeffrey was immersed in Milano.

She couldn’t ask Defina for help: Defina had her hands full with work and Tangela. And Karen couldn’t call her sister. Lisa was enraged with Karen and with Stephanieţas if it was Karen’s fault that scene in Paris had taken place. Karen had ended the internship program. Lisa was furious about that, too. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Belle, of course, was blaming everyone, including recuperating Arnold.

So, in desperation, Karen brought Carl over to the hotel and introduced him to Cyndi. Carl was the best babysitter she could think of, especially since the baby was still in Cyndi’s womb. All Carl had to do was think of little treats for Cyndi, keeping her entertained and fed while Karen was gone.

The first thing he did was cut her hair, which was a big hit. “I’d like to color it too,” Carl said. “A lot of people say that coloring and perms are a bad idea during pregnancies, but that’s ridiculous.

They’re no problem at all.” Karen gave him a look. She didn’t need those chemicals to be slapped on Cyndi’s scalp right now. He got the message and shrugged. “Well, maybe af tPr ._….

None of them liked to allude to after the baby. It seemed that they were all locked in a very present tense. Still, Cyndi thought that Carl was “neat” and Carl was maternal enough to take the girl under his wing.

He insisted that she spend the weekend Karen would be away at his own apartment. Karen had cleared it with Sally, who had reluctantly approved.

So, Karen was left with a free conscience as she packed for her trip to Thailand and other NormCo offshore locations. As a distraction, she asked Defina to help her pull together a comfortable, light, traveling wardrobe. In the heat and humidity of Thailand, Karen knew she would need the thiMest silks and linens.

Wolper had booked them into the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. When Defina heard that, she grinned for the first time since Paris. “Only the best ho tel on the face of the earth,” she told Karen. “I was there once on a photo shoot. Well, don’t worry about wrinkling this stuff. You’ll have a private valet who’ll press everything the minute he unpacks it for you. And anything that gets washedţeven your underpantsţcomes back gift wrapped in a box with an orchid on top of it. It’s the most romantic place in the world.” Karen smiled. It did sound great, but it was strictly business. She wanted to see if Wolper really wasn’t lyingţif his production facilities were decent and humane. Ironic that she should be checking out the factory conditions for the lowestlevel workers while she stayed at the most luxurious hotel in the world.

Meanwhile, orders kept pouring in for the black and white collection.

They could hardly keep up with them. And Jeffrey was completely immersed in fights with Munchin, the final fine-tuning of the NormCo contract, and the Milano plans. He promised to have it delivered to her wherever she was when it was completed. He also promised to visit Cyndi at least twice in the week after he came back from Milano and to telephone her daily.

“Carl will do most of the work,” Karen assured Jeffrey just before he left. “But you’ll be back before me. Have dinner with Cyndi once or twice. It won’t be so bad.”

“I’m sure it will be neat,” Jeffrey told her dryly.

Karen left time to stop off in Rockville Centre to visit Arnold before going to the airport. When she arrived, Belle was out and Arnold opened the door wearing his old gray bathrobe. She hugged him and was pleased to feel his flesh. He seemed sturdy, though he still didn’t look great.