Searching for Grace Kelly (10 page)

“I am honored to have been chosen as the official welcoming host for the 1955 college editors of
Mademoiselle
,” he said, grabbing his wineglass and raising it. “A toast to your collective creativity and success.” He went on for several minutes about the history of Barnes & Foster, about the importance of style and grace in a world too often without it, splicing in the occasional joke about bargain sales and the particularly smelly parts of the city. Laura found herself impressed with his effortless ease at public speaking. He occasionally glanced her way but again made no sign of recognition.
Just as well
, Laura thought.

As he went to wrap up, his tone became slightly more serious, as if he were delivering a closing argument at trial. “This may come as a surprise to you,” he said, “but I actually read
Mademoiselle
. I do because I appreciate who it is written for and who it is written by, smart girls who aren't afraid to dream big and dare to try and achieve those dreams. We men are always complaining that we can't understand women. But
Mademoiselle
helps me do just that.” His eyes suddenly shifted to the left, honing in on Laura's like lasers. “In the end, I'm just like any other guy out there, trying to find a way to be a better man. One worthy of a
Mademoiselle
girl.”

She felt like her face had just burst into flames.

Had anyone noticed? She glanced around, panicked. But everyone at her table seemed thoroughly engrossed in Box, who was finishing to polite applause.

Before the luncheon ended, Mrs. Blackwell gathered all of the girls together for a group photograph with Box. Laura made certain to stay on the far right side, with six girls between her and him. The last flashbulb popped, and the editors filtered back to their respective tables to gather their things and head out to the mezzanine and then back to the office.

Laura had just grabbed her clutch from her seat when she felt a presence. “Now, you
really
didn't think you were going to leave without talking to me, did you?”

She looked into his face and saw . . . something. Not mockery this time, but the childlike grin that sweeps a boy's face when he gets his first bicycle or baseball card. She felt her own expression slowly dawn into a smile. “It was a lovely lunch.”

It was a lovely lunch?
Oh, good God
.

“Did you get my flowers?”

“I did. I apologize for not sending a note. It's been incredibly hectic.”

“A note? I only warrant a note?” She said nothing. “You can make it up to me,” he continued.

She looked around, spied two of the other girls watching this little scene over their shoulders as they slowly—very, very slowly—sashayed out toward the doors. “I really need to get back to my group. This is my first day and I don't want to get into any trouble.”

He folded his arms. “You know, this is providence, us meeting again. I mean, you have to see that.”

She shook her head nervously. “Oh, I don't know if I would call it that.”

“Well, I would. I will let you go. But before I do, I need two things. First, you need to tell me your last name. Because, appearances to the contrary,” he said, waving a hand around the room, “I do not have the liberty of sending flowers to every Laura at the Barbizon indefinitely.”

“It's Dixon. Laura Dixon.”

“Very well, Laura Dixon,” he said. “Let's try all of this again, okay? I am Benjamin Barnes, who is actually a hell of a lot nicer guy than the version you met Friday. And who would like to prove that to you. Say, Thursday night?”

Aside from the busboys clearing dishes, they were now completely alone. The other girls must all be downstairs by now. Cat Eyes would be wondering where she was. “I really have to go. I'm sorry.”

He walked out alongside her. “I'll escort you out. This way you won't be able to avoid my invitation.”

She turned to look at him as they moved out onto the mezzanine. “Are you always this persistent?”

“Only when I want something badly. And you owe me, you know.”

“I owe you?”

“You called me out for being named for a cardboard box.”

Laura laughed, bemused while also quickly becoming unhinged. She looked over the railing and saw the
Mademoiselle
group below, gathering near the main exit. Cat Eyes was milling about. It looked like she was counting heads. Laura hustled toward the staircase, Box still beside her. She went down the first few steps and then turned back to him, started to say something.

He cut her off. “Thursday,” he said. “Just say yes. One little word. Yes.”

She let out a big exhale, smiled. “I can't. I would love to, but I already have plans that I simply can't break.”

“Okay. Saturday, then.”

Her mind was whirling. Was he just going to keep throwing out dates until she relented? “I don't know . . .”

“Of course you do. Saturday. Don't worry. You've played hard to get enough. You've turned down the first offer. But you really must take the second. It would be uncivilized not to.”

“I . . .” She shrugged. “Okay. Saturday.”

“Perfect. Saturday was my first choice anyway. I'll pick you up at nine.”

“Nine? Where are we going at nine?” she said.

“To dinner at El Morocco.”

El Morocco. The most fashionable nightclub in Manhattan, tucked away on East Fifty-Fourth Street. “I don't have anything to wear to the El Morocco,” she said feebly.

“You're in luck,” he said, backing away on the landing, his face exploding into a cocky grin. He spread his arms wide. “I know the guy who owns this place.”

Dolly nodded as Oscar the doorman opened the door to the Barbizon and wondered, as she did almost every time she saw him, how he kept cool wearing that ornate formal uniform in the middle of summer. She thought maybe that was part of the interview process: They forced you to put on this ridiculous outfit that made you look like you were a Napoleonic general, then asked you to stand in a ninety-five-degree room to see if you didn't sweat. She loved Oscar—all the girls did—because he was always jovial and kind, because he knew the art of a well-placed compliment when you needed it most, and because he was almost leonine in his protection of the young women whose residence he stood sentry for. He was constantly being offered bribes—for introductions or to assist slipping some cad upstairs when the desk matrons were occupied. But he never relented. Girls besieged by overly amorous suitors knew they could count on Oscar's protection.

If only I were one of them
.

The late-day lobby was quiet, just a few girls taking refuge from the stuffy city streets. The lobby itself was a huge rectangle framed by a vast Oriental rug, on which was placed an imposing pocked leather couch and various tasteful upholstered side chairs, with a long mahogany coffee table in the middle. The lobby's focal point was the curving staircase that led to the mezzanine, which for some reason always made Dolly think of the one that Clark Gable carried Vivien Leigh up in
Gone with the Wind
, though the Barbizon's was neither as wide nor as grand. But Dolly often mused that perhaps that was what the Barbizon did best—provide a tableau where girls got to indulge their romantic fantasies, to play Scarlett O'Hara, looking down amused at all of the boys of the county who had come courting.

She spied Laura, in a pale pink linen suit, sitting in the far side of the room, lazily flipping through a copy of
Vogue
. She'd taken off her fitted jacket and tossed it on the arm of the adjacent sofa, and her legs were crossed, as if she were waiting to be called into a doctor's office.

“Hey there,” Laura said as Dolly approached. “Out early today?”

“Only a half-hour,” Dolly said, plopping down onto the sofa. “What are you doing? Shouldn't you still be at
Mademoiselle
? Don't tell me they're tired of you after only three days.”

“I had to return a bunch of dresses they used in a shoot all over town, and they told me I didn't have to come back after I was done. So I had a little snack at Isle of Capri and then came home. But it's too stuffy to sit in the room.” She closed the magazine. “I was going to treat myself to a milk shake in the coffee shop. Wanna come?”

Dolly took in Laura's figure, the way her bosom tapered to her narrow waist. She would love a milk shake. “No, I ate late.”

“You seem distracted. What's going on?”

Plenty
, Dolly wanted to say. This morning Bertrand Shaw had walked up to her desk as she was typing, perched himself on the edge, looked down at her, and said, “Well, I took your advice.”

She'd almost lost her breath. “What . . . Really? How so?”

“Well,” he said, smiling sheepishly, “let's just say someone is going to be getting a very nice bouquet of white gardenias very soon.”

Dolly had silently thanked God she was sitting. She might have fainted right there on the spot if she'd been caught in the hallway having this conversation. “Well, I'm sure she'll be thrilled.”

“I'm hopeful,” he said, sliding off and heading to his office.

Laura was looking at her expectantly, but Dolly couldn't risk jinxing it. No, better to wait. “Nothing much,” she replied. “Any news from Box? Are you guys still going to El Morocco Saturday night?”

It had been two days since the luncheon at Barnes & Foster, and Laura hadn't heard a word. She'd succumbed to love-story hysteria and come back and told Dolly and Vivian everything that had happened the first day at
Mademoiselle
, breezing past the intimidating welcome from Cat Eyes before settling into a blow-by-blow recitation of the next chapter in the Box Barnes saga, right up to its cinematic staircase crescendo. Their disparate reactions had been predictable: Vivian warned her that he was a cad who would never follow through and who was probably at that very moment in bed with a Broadway dancer; Dolly already had Laura shopping for a trousseau at B. Altman. Laura hated being thrown off balance like this, of having her level of happiness so quickly altered by the affections of a man with whom she was barely acquainted and who she strongly suspected had the propensity to behave badly.

“I don't know,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I mean, he hasn't officially canceled. But he hasn't confirmed, either. And it doesn't matter anyway. I still have nothing to wear.”

A clipped British voice behind her interrupted. “I suspect, in fact, you do.”

Vivian circled around and took a seat in the chair next to Laura's, setting down a huge cardboard box onto the floor. A huge black
B&F
stared up at them in script, partially obscured by a wide green satin ribbon tied in a bow across the lid. “This was at the front desk. Special delivery,” Vivian said.

Laura slid the card out from under the ribbon.
FOR THE PRETTIEST GIRL AT THE BALL. I HAD TO GUESS THE SIZE, BUT THINK I GOT IT RIGHT. UNTIL SATURDAY—B
.

Dolly practically ripped the card from her hands. “I think it's safe to say your date is still on.”

A few of the other girls walking by had slowed down to glance over, and Laura suddenly felt self-conscious. “Let's go upstairs. I feel like a mannequin in the Saks window.”

“Oh, bosh,” Vivian interjected. “They're all going to see you in it soon enough, Cinderella. Might as well whet the appetite.” She pointed to the box. “Let's have at it, then.”

Dolly nodded eagerly in agreement, frantically clapping her hands and barely suppressing a squeal. Laura quickly untied the ribbon, lifted the lid, and delicately peeled back the reams of scented mint tissue paper. “Oh my,” she whispered.

The dress was not a dress, but rather a work of art. A strapless tulle gown in a deep shade of jeweled purple, with a subtly patterned bodice flecked with silver and trimmed with silk cabbage roses, leading down to a flaring ball skirt. Underneath was a filmy stole in a pale shade of lavender and a pair of gray opera gloves. Laura stood, pressing the gown to her body. Never in her life had she seen anything so breathtaking.

Vivian checked out the label. “Philip Hulitar,” she mused. “Well, I've got to say, lout or no, he's got excellent taste. Or a secretary with excellent taste.” She took an appraising step back. “My, my,” she said, “something tells me you're going to be a popular lunch date at the office on Monday.”

Laura was elated. And frightened. And confused. She turned to Dolly, the dress still pressed against her bosom. “What do you think, Dolly?”

Dolly was looking back toward the desk. “Agnes Ford,” she said.

Laura and Vivian followed her gaze. “What?” Laura said. “Who's Agnes Ford?”

Across the lobby by the entrance, they could see a wispy young woman in a simple shift standing at the reception desk. Her hair was honey blond, her skin as white and flawless as fresh snow. She appeared to be fumbling with some sort of chunky charm bracelet, though it was hard to tell from this distance whether she was attempting to get it on or off.

“That's Agnes Ford,” Dolly said, in almost the identical conspiratorial whisper she'd announced the appearance of Box Barnes in the Barbizon coffee shop. “She's a really famous model. The Ford agency stashes all of its top models here.”

Vivian knitted her eyebrows. “She runs a modeling agency? She looks barely twenty.”

“No, no, no,” Dolly said. “Her last name is Ford and the agency's name is also Ford. It's just a coincidence. But she's really famous. And very dramatic. She had a pale blue Thunderbird delivered to the door here. Oscar signed for it.”

“How do you know that?” Laura asked, still clutching the dress.

Dolly sighed, exasperated. “How do I—Where do you two live, on some Indian reservation? It was all over the gossip columns! Sheesh!” She turned back to Laura. “She's been on the cover of
Mademoiselle
.”