Anna Godbersen - Envy

This had not, however, been the opinion of Mrs. Portia Tilt. The western lady had imagined a more modest future for Carolina, one that involved remaining in the shadows whenever handsome or rich people, or those with fine names, were about. She had imparted this opinion to her former social secretary with particular vehemence and an articulateness that she had not heretofore exhibited, late on the previous evening when Carolina had returned from an hours-long cab ride without a destination. It was lucky that the Tilt staff was an unhappy one, and the head housekeeper had seen to it that the fired employee had a bed for the night. But in the morning there was nothing more they could do for her, and so Carolina had taken up her little suitcase and gone out into the city.

The sun had still been high then, and the memory of Leland, and the kindness in his pale blue eyes, still fresh. All of Carolina’s self-regard had been renewed, and so while she might have gone back to Tristan’s she did not seriously consider it. The kisses they had shared seemed tawdry now, and the ways that he had helped her inexcusable. It had been a moment of weakness, she told herself, something she had done to survive, and then she thought of it no more. Meanwhile, she carried with her all the true ingredients of her career — her height, her carriage, and her taste, which was not innate but had been one of Longhorn’s many gifts to her. All she needed was an inconspicuous job, only for a little while, and then she would find a way to be herself again. She had managed thus far — why should this crater be any different from any of the other holes she had clawed her way out of?

There had been several places she had considered going in and asking for employment, although in each of them the idea of Carolina Broad and where she had come from stood in her way. First there had been the ladies’ tearoom, where she had imagined for herself an office in the back overseeing the décor of the place and scolding the waitresses for their slovenly appearance. But then she had seen, through the wide windows, the girls in their uniforms, like a little herd running scared, and the prospect that the owner might make her wear one of those black-and-white getups had caused her heart to sink. Later, passing a newly opened hotel, she’d wondered if perhaps she could dust the rooms of wealthy visitors when they were empty. But she knew there would be more than dusting, and that if she were lucky enough to acquire a job like that, it would come with the title of maid. Bile rose in her throat at the thought of that terrible word.

It was only now that the color had gone out of the sky and she seemed to be the only female left on the streets that she began to wonder if a tearoom or a hotel wouldn’t have been a good place for her after all. Just for a day and a night. Maybe they would have had a cot where she could have slept or a place for her to put down her small suitcase. Maybe Leland would appear there by chance, in the morning, his chin freshly shaved against his stiff, new collar, and upon seeing his love in such duress, would spring into action. Maybe he would even carry her out, like a princess in a bedtime story. Carolina pressed her teeth into her bee-stung bottom lip at the thought of it, but then she opened her eyes and saw the cobblestones and pools of water ominous in the night, and all her nice fantasies flagged and the desperate ones began to loom.

She couldn’t help but think sorrowfully of Longhorn, who had protected her so gallantly and who had made so many of her evenings comfortable and light. The world outside was a very harsh place, and her chin trembled a little to think how furious he would be to see her thrown into it. But here she was now, with nothing to do but trudge on. She did so, stepping forward along the pavement, but she came down on something soft. Squealing followed, first from the rat underfoot, and then from her own throat when she jumped back and felt the little creature crawl across her other foot and skitter off into the gutter. “Oh,” she said, feeling the shudder up to her shoulders. After that, coat or no coat, she was chilled to the bone. She hurried now, and the next time she saw light spilling from windows onto the sidewalk, she went and pressed her nose into the plate glass.

Inside, young women with clean faces were bent over tables piled with lustrous materials. They ran their fingers over seams and brought dresses and skirts and little jackets under the arms of churning sewing machines. They were all bathed in a modern electric light, and for a moment, out in the cold, Carolina thought it actually might be nice in there. Moving between the tables was a full-bodied woman with reddish hair fading to gray, arranged in a fan above her head. She bent to see what the younger women were doing, occasionally pausing to undo their stitches. Carolina craned her neck to look up at the sign above the door, which read, MADAME FITZGERALD, DRESSMAKER, and then took a deep breath and opened the door.

It was warmer inside than she had imagined, and the air was thick with floating fibers. The machines whirred and there was also the sound of fabric swooshing, although the girls themselves were very quiet. When the door swung shut behind Carolina, the older woman turned to stare. She had a face as broad and unyielding as a man’s, and though it seemed for a moment that she might say something welcoming, it soon became clear that she had no intention of speaking first.

“May I talk to Madame Fitzgerald?”

Now several of the girls did glance up to see what was happening, although their hands kept moving over their projects, and their feet never let up on the pedals.

“You’re looking at her,” replied the woman.

“Oh, I—” Carolina found herself blushing furiously. “Hello.”

The older woman sighed in exasperation and put a fist on her hip.

“I was just passing by and your shop seemed so nice and I thought — I wondered if — I hoped that—”

“You hoped what?” the woman prodded. Her voice came down hard through her sinuses.

“That you might have a job for me.”

The woman’s painted red brows soared at that. “Oh-ho? And why would I give you that?”

The muscles of Carolina’s face loosened in surprise. She had imagined that the difficult part would be bringing herself to ask for the job — that actually acquiring it should demand more from her was quite a shock. “This is a business, isn’t it?” Carolina asked lamely.

“Yes, it is,” Madame Fitzgerald snapped back. She let her eyes go all the way up and down Carolina’s fine fur coat. “Not a shelter for high-and-mighty types who’ve bit off more than they can chew. What would you do anyway? Sit in the window?”

“No, I…I…can sew.” She took a faltering step forward. She clutched at her coat, but suddenly wanted to show her old self, too. “This coat was a gift from a friend of mine, but it doesn’t mean anything. I was for many years a lady’s maid for the”—here Carolina’s throat dried up, but she forced herself to say the name—“Holland family.”

“Were you, now?” Madame Fitzgerald’s earlier irritation subsided as she savored this amusing revelation.

“Yes.” Carolina marched on through her humiliation. “Until this last fall.”

“Well”—the woman shrugged, coming around a table and toward the door—“show me how you work, then.”

“All right.” Carolina tried to put on an eager smile, and placed her suitcase on the floor. She stepped forward, but was stopped by the expression on Madame Fitzgerald’s face.

“Take that coat off.”

Carolina involuntarily brought her hands up to her chest. She thought first of turning on her heel, and second of the rat that had run across her foot. Slowly, reluctantly, still protesting in her heart, Carolina removed the coat and hung it on the stand by the door. Then she brushed her hands across her lap and tried to steel herself for what was coming next. Madame Fitzgerald gestured through the rows of girls at worktables. There was both envy and animosity in the way they observed the former maid with the coat that would have cost any one of them a year’s wages. Now that she was on the other side of the window, Carolina saw the shade under their eyes and the roughness of their fingertips, but still she wanted to be one of them. Just for a night.

She sat where Madame Fitzgerald pointed, and took a breath of hot, dry air. The proprietress brought a skirt made out of ivory material and dropped it in Carolina’s lap. There was something terrible about the fabric, far worse than anything she would have imagined herself wearing, or even touching, again — it seemed to be sloughing off in rough bits all over her.

“Hem that.”

“What?” Carolina’s thoughts had been diverted for a moment to a very different dress of pale gold with a scalloped and embroidered hem that Longhorn had had made especially for her. She’d worn it that night at Sherry’s, when being the inferior of a Portia Tilt had been so impossible to her….

“Hem it.” Madame Fitzgerald leaned back and somehow managed to smile by turning down the corners of her mouth. “It’s a test, sugarplum.”

Carolina nodded. She removed her gloves, pushed back her sleeves, cleared her throat, and reached for the skirt. She brought it close up and ran her fingers across the rough, unfinished bottom. The skirt had been let out, just like her sister Claire’s hand-me-downs used to be let out for her. She was too tall and grew out of things too quickly, always needing more length, more fabric, more everything. Carolina looked up briefly at the proprietress, as though to make sure that she was supposed to do what she thought she was supposed to do, and that using one of the machines would not be good enough, and then she took up a needle from the pincushion on the table and threaded it.

After a few careful stitches, Madame Fitzgerald moved away. She peered over the shoulders of the other girls, but kept an eye on Carolina, too, who was trying to keep her head down as she tentatively pressed the needle through the fabric. This kind of work made her chest feel tight, and her shoulders grew tense with the idea of doing so much for so little.

She thought for some reason of Will — poor Will, who had suffered so, and who never even got to go to Sherry’s, or the opera, or to wear clothing that had been made especially to fit his body. She thought about him and all the injustices of his life and of her own, all the foolish events that had brought her here, and she went on making stitches, although with less care each time.

A little bell rang and Carolina glanced up from her work to see the door open again. A man had come inside, the high lapels of his coat obscuring his face but not his light brown hair, which he had grown overlong. She felt her lungs swell with air and her hands flutter with the thought that it might be Leland. That it was him. He had come back for her — he had found her against improbable odds. She smiled and her freckled skin stretched taut over the cheekbones. Then Madame Fitzgerald made a happy, guttural sound and went over to take his coat. She removed it, and then the young man turned his face to survey the room. Though he was tall and handsome and wore his hair in the same way, he was not Leland.

The proprietress kissed the man on the cheek, and it was clear that they were from the same stock — he had her face, the way a son or nephew might. Before Carolina’s disappointment occurred to her, she began to feel the pain.