Luncheon of the Boating Party (38 page)

“No. I can’t be letting the dress on again, off again. As good a dress as this is? No, it’s steady customers I need, night after night.” Mère Hortense lifted Aline’s arm, but Aline resisted until she saw a razor in her hand. Madame ripped out her stitches with one swipe of the blade.

“Let go of the dress.” Madame unhooked the back, but Aline held the bodice to her chest. “Let go.”

“What if I paid you a little more?”

“Impossible.”

Aline let the dress fall in a billow around her, flattening sadly, like a defl ating souffl é.

“Step out.” Madame Hortense flicked her hand. “Out. Out.”

“How much would the dress cost to buy?”

“A far sight more than what you’ve got in that string bag of yours.

This dress is a prime moneymaker. It wouldn’t do me any good to sell it. Out.”

She stepped out and into her own gray muslin.

“You come back if you want it on my terms.”

She nodded, picked up her drawstring bag, and left.

She couldn’t afford a ready-made from Le Bon Marché or even La

Samaritaine, the least expensive department store. It meant only one thing. She’d have to make one. Four days! She’d never made a whole dress start to finish, much less in four days. And she could only work on it in the evenings and Saturday after half-day work. Maman could do it

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with time to spare, but she would ask what it was for, and if she told her, there would be war. A fine pickle she’d gotten herself into. Géraldine would have to help.

She went to the
charcuterie
where Géraldine worked. Closed. She went to Camille’s
crémerie
. Not there. She went to Aux Tissus de la rue Blanche, the
boutique de tissu
that Madame Carnot used when a fi ne lady like Madame Galantière of the avenue Frochot ordered a dress.

Through aisles of bolts—
crêpe de Chine
,
mousselline de soie,
brocades, striped
satin du Barry
—her mind spun with fantasies of Monsieur Renoir being astonished at her beauty, but the plain dark blue he wanted was all she could afford.

The shopgirl recognized her from the times she’d been sent to pick up Madame Carnot’s orders, and inquired what Madame needed.

When she learned it was only cotton fl annel for
her,
she brought out the right nautical blue and gazed out the window in complete disinterest.

Aline stroked the cotton nap. “I have no idea how much I need.”

“What does your pattern say?”

“I don’t have one. I was hoping to use one of Madame Carnot’s.”

That would save some money. If she waited to find out for certain, she would lose a day. “Can we just make a good guess?” She described the dress with the demi-polonaise in back. “It only drapes from the sides, and the skirt is narrow.”

“To be safe, you had better buy fi ve meters.”

“How much would that be?”

“One franc sixty-five per meter. That’s eight francs twenty-fi ve.”

“That much?”

“If you want the polonaise.”

Oh, she did. A polonaise was what separated the bourgeoisie from the working girl. She counted all her coins and watched the long metal blades of the scissors follow an invisible line across the fl annel, cutting future from past. She waited until the piece was cut to say, “I’m short by two francs eighty-five. Would you trust me for that until tomorrow?

You know I work for Madame Carnot.”

“You should have counted before I cut.” She went back to confer

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with someone and returned. “We’ll save the piece if you pay what you can now.”

“I’ll come back midday tomorrow.”

“We close from noon to two.”

Now she had to fi nd Géraldine. She’d be good for two francs eighty-five until Saturday noon when Madame Carnot paid her girls for the week. On rue Saint-Georges she asked the concierge at Géraldine’s fl at to buzz her. She waited ten minutes, perspiring into her dress. Géraldine didn’t come down.

Why wasn’t anything easy? Four nights, nearly three francs short, no pattern, and no money for red braid or lace. She went home discouraged until she heard Jacques Valentin Aristide bark as she opened the door.

“Oh, you poor thing, home alone all day.” She scooped him up and cuddled him.
“Mon grand, mon grand,”
she cooed. He squirmed to lick her cheek with his small pink tongue.

“I took him out. He had already made a puddle,” her mother said.

“I’m sorry.”

She avoided her mother’s glance, ate a slice of
terrine de campagne
and some fried potatoes, and slipped a morsel to Jacques Valentin.

“Where have you been?” her mother asked.

“With Géraldine. She’s going to make a dress, and I went with her to choose the fabric.” The wings of a trapped bird beat in her chest. “I might help her sew it too.”

Maman’s left eyebrow wormed up into an arch.

She didn’t want to say more. She took Jacques to bed with her, feeling terrible for having lied when Maman had done nothing to deserve it. She fell asleep worrying where the lie would lead.

Wednesday already. At the
crémerie
in the morning she explained it all to Géraldine, who dumped out on the tin tabletop all she had and drew back enough to feed her for the day. Two francs thirty were left.

“What will you say when you bring the dress home and wear it on Sunday?” Géraldine asked.

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“I didn’t think of that.”

“You’d better have your story rock solid,” Camille said, “or your mother will call you a trollop traipsing after artists, and take after you with a broomstick.” Camille snapped one franc onto the table and pushed the thirty centimes back toward Géraldine.

Aline flung her arms around her. “Oh, thank you for eavesdropping again. I’ll pay you both back as soon as I can.”

She arrived out of breath at Madame Carnot’s atelier. It was an old-fashioned workshop with only one Hurtu-l’Abeille sewing machine, which only Madame’s protégée, Clarisse, was permitted to use while she and Estelle worked by hand. Her mother worked in a better atelier that had three machines.

Madame took one look at her. “Early? That’s not like you.”

“I need to make a dress in four days.”

“You know I don’t allow my girls to take on private clients.”

“It’s for me. A boating dress. I’ll have the fabric today, just cotton flannel, but I don’t have a pattern. Is it possible . . . would you let me look through your pattern file? I want a square neck and a small drape in back. After work, would you let me use the cutting table? I’ll pay for the thread.”

“Slow down, Aline. I’ve never heard you talk so fast. What’s this for?”

“You have to promise not to tell my mother. It’s so that I can pose in a painting. She doesn’t want me running with artists. I need it on Sunday.”

“We have orders backed up, you know.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of putting mine fi rst. I just need the cutting table today after the atelier is closed. Please, madame.”

“You’ve never done a set-in sleeve. Or buttonholes.”

“I know. But leastways I can try.”

“Can’t it be next Sunday?”

“No, I have to fill a hole in a painting this Sunday. Oh, I so want to help this man. I’ve been watching him at the
crémerie
where I take my meals. A nice, funny man. A good man, I think. This is my chance, madame.”

“My chance to lose you, you mean.” Madame smiled in a motherly

way. “You’re not usually so jittery. Take a look in the pattern fi le and

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show me what you choose. Only the commercial patterns, not my own designs, mind you.”

“Yes, yes.
Merci,
madame.”

The drawings on each envelope showed copies of dresses from chic shops on the boulevards. She found one with a square neck, but it didn’t have a polonaise, and one with a polonaise, but it didn’t have a square neck. She had her heart set on the square neckline. It was more nautical. She brought the two patterns to Madame. “Is it possible to use this bodice with that skirt?”

“Yes.”

“How much fabric will I need?”

Madame read the two envelopes. “Five and a half meters.”

“Oh, no!” Heat went to her throat. “I only have fi ve.”

“You should have asked me fi rst.
Au travail!
Do Madame Galantière’s hems now. Remember, she inspects them for any stitch showing through.”

“One other thing. May I take my lunch early to get to the boutique before they close for midday?”

“You are a tumble of requests today, aren’t you?”

“You won’t get a stitch less out of me for your clients, I promise you.”

The hours ticked by at a snail’s pace, but she got the fabric, and hugged it to her chest while hurrying back to Montmartre
d’en bas,
giddy all the way despite the heavy humidity. She tried to be more agreeable than usual, more careful with her stitches, and six o’clock fi nally came. Estelle and Clarisse left, Madame cleared off the long cutting table, and Aline unfolded her fabric and began to place the tissue shapes.

“All the same direction,” Madame warned. “See the arrows? Flan-

nel has a nap. Double lines mean to place it on the fold.”

She placed them the same way and had one tissue shape left over.

Madame was getting ready to leave.

“Wait!” Aline held up the piece.

Madame looked at her as though the answer was obvious to anyone with half a brain. “You’ll have to buy more.” She pressed a key in her

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palm. “Don’t stay past seven-thirty. It will be too dark to work past then anyway. Be sure you clear off the table when you’re fi nished.”

She felt like a marionette whose legs were collapsing.

“You’ll do fine. Just read the instructions before you do anything.

Bon courage!
”

The door closed. Buy some more. Read the instructions. She might as well have said,
Climb to the moon.
When had there been time to learn to read more than simple words in short strings? Fourteen she was when Maman had brought her here to launder and press. Three years of that before Madame ever put a needle in her hand. One year spent in doing only hems, another to learn seams, and now,
bon courage!
She needed more than good wishes to put this dress together. She needed an act of God!

Her hand trembled when she made the first cut. She made the second. The third. She stacked the cut shapes until there was only the left-over pattern piece without fabric. She took it with her and locked the door behind her.

The
boutique de tissu
was closed. That meant another night of worry.

What would be missing from her dress if they’d sold the rest of the bolt?

The next day, Thursday, she asked Madame for two more favors—

to adjust her lunchtime again so she could go to the
boutique de tissu,
and to be paid her two francs twenty-five each day this week instead of the total on Saturday noon. “I borrowed to buy the fabric and now I need to buy more and pay back my friends.”

Madame agreed, and Aline took the pattern piece to the boutique at lunchtime. All afternoon, doing the hems on a three-tiered visiting dress for Madame Galantière who had never sewn a stitch, she thought only of the puzzle of the cut shapes.

At six o’clock Madame said, “Do a running stitch around the arm scyes and corners of the neckline first,” and shut the door.

How did a person spell
scyes?
She laid out the shapes. Which pieces were they? She would die of humiliation if Madame found out that she couldn’t read the instructions. She held up the pieces against her body to see where they fit. With no one in the atelier, she examined dresses par-

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tially assembled and guessed the order of things. She did the running stitch, the darts, basted the bodice seams, and stopped. What next?

On Friday, she skipped lunch to work on her dress, worked after everyone left, and at half after seven took the pieces to Géraldine’s fl at to work some more.

On Saturday morning, she arrived at work early and showed Ma-

dame what she’d done.

Madame shook her head. “I hope you’re not dreaming of ever be-

coming a first hand in a good fashion house on the place Vendôme. It’s as unrealistic for you as becoming a prima ballerina at the Opéra.”

“I’m not hoping for anything like that. I’m just hoping to fi nish this dress.”

“This must be very important for you. This posing, this man.”

“Yes, madame.”

“Just don’t get it into your head to become a model. I don’t want to have to go looking for a replacement.”

“No, madame.”

“You’ve sewn the side seams on the skirt before sewing the polonaise into them. You’ll have to rip them out.”

She felt like screaming. Silently she cursed her ignorance, and bent her head to hide her tears.

“Take today for your dress. You can make up the half-day next Saturday.”

“Merci, madame.” She choked on the words and started ripping. By eleven she’d reassembled the side seams. Madame gave her a bodice fi tting before she shut down the shop for half-day. “Leave by six,” Madame said.

She nodded and blubbered through her thanks.

If she had no blue dress, she couldn’t model. Auguste was depending on her. If she failed, how could she ever face him in the
crémerie?

She eyed the sewing machine. With a machine, she could do the bodice seams and sleeve seams and maybe even attach bodice to skirt before six o’clock. It could save her. She studied the way the thread went through

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the loops. She could do it. She’d watched Clarisse. But then Madame would see machine stitching and chastise her. She might even lose her job. A worse disaster.