Fashionably Late. Olivia Goldsmith

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      What a comfort. Karen could’t decide if the woman was a moron or a sadist. ‘I’ll be all right,’ Karen told the girl, but she wasn’t so sure.

      The redhead had finished the base coat and Karen was painted an even orange. With her round cheeks and soft chin she looked a lot like a pumpkin. The redhead began painting brown stripes alongside her nose and under her chin, then blended them with a sponge. Karen closed her eyes. She decided she would kill Mercedes, then fire her.

      The girl pulled off the plastic smock at last and Karen looked into the big mirror. Actually, she didn’t look so bad. She looked rather technicolor, like herself only more so. ‘There you go,’ said the redhead.

      ‘Thanks,’ Karen said, and was about to compliment the job when the segment producer showed up again. He wanted her safely back in the green room. They were walking down the hall when a familiar short broad bulk approached.

      ‘Hey, Karen. Lookin’ good,’ Bobby Pillar said.

      ‘You ought to know. You own a network,’ Karen smiled. ‘But not this one. What are you doin’ here?’

      ‘A little of this, a little of that. And maybe watching you. I have a feeling you’d just be a natural on television.’

      ‘A natural disaster,’ Karen croaked. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to wet my pants.’

      ‘So what if you do? That they’ll edit out,’ he laughed. ‘Why don’t we do lunch some time?’ he asked.

      ‘Sure,’ she said, but was relieved when her minder cleared his throat and gave her a not-so-gentle little push toward the green room. A technician came to her with a tiny mike on a thin black cord. ‘Could you snake this up your sweater?’ he asked. She nodded and pulled the end out of the turtleneck. ‘Now could you take this end and clip it somewhere?’ he asked. The lower end of the cord had a black box about the size of a Walkman attached to it. Karen wondered if it would spoil the line of her sweater.

      The sound man, meanwhile, was fiddling with the mike. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘this sweater collar is really going to make a problem for us. I think it will rub against the microphone. Could you put on something else? I could call wardrobe.’

      She looked at him as if he was crazy. She had thought for weeks about what she was going to wear and had decided on this tunic and leggings as both comfortable and becoming. Now, at the last minute, he wanted her to put on something else? Something not designed by her? ‘Get Mercedes,’ she told the guy.

      She sat down on the Herculon-covered sofa that was the major piece in the green room. For some reason, green rooms, the holding pen for the talk show cattle, were never green. This one was beige, and the walls were smudged. Probably with the tears of other guests who went out there and ruined their lives, Karen thought. Then Mercedes walked in. She’d already been told the problem.

      ‘Defina’s on her way over,’ Mercedes told her in a don’t-you-dare-panic voice. ‘She’s bringing a few pieces so you can choose whatever you want.’

      It took twenty minutes, but Karen saw Defina’s face behind the rack of stuff being pushed into the room and took the first deep breath she had taken – for what seemed like hours. ‘Starting another fire?’ Defina asked. ‘Never fear.’ She plucked a taupe jacket off the wheeled rack. ‘The producer says this will only be shot from the waist up. You can leave on the leggings, so how about this? Or, if you want to go real casual, how about this boatneck sweater?’

      Karen turned to Mercedes. ‘Which would work better?’ she asked.

      ‘You won’t see the mike if you wear the jacket but I like the casualness of the sweater better.’

      ‘Me, too,’ Defina agreed.

      Karen nodded. She peeled off the turtleneck and reached out for the sweater. Defina shook her head. ‘You need another quart of makeup, pale face,’ she said, pointing to the line that ended halfway down Karen’s neck. This time the redhead came to Karen. So did the producer and the director. Apparently they were behind schedule.

      ‘Elle is waiting,’ Paul Swift whined, and the redhead slapped the makeup on faster. At last, Karen was ready for her clothes. Carefully, Defina and Mercedes lowered the sweater over her painted shoulders. Then they snaked up the mike and this time it was clipped easily. It felt pretty comfortable, but Karen felt a little bulge just below the elbow seam. She reached up and closed her hand over something. It was a sachet or something like it, pinned on with a gold safety pin.

      ‘Leave it,’ Defina told her. ‘Madame Renault sent it. It’ll help.’

      And, for once, Karen felt she needed all the help she could get. What the hell, she told herself. Was the magic of Madame Renault any more superstitious than her own magic photographs?

      ‘So what do you think clothes should do for a woman?’ Elle was asking.

      ‘They should complement her, and they should be comfortable. And they should protect her,’ Karen said. She’d gotten used to the lights and felt as if she had managed to be both entertaining and sincere. Elle Halle moved in a little closer, crouching forward on her elegant white wing chair.

      ‘Who do you feel deserves success in the fashion world?’

      ‘Well, I think it comes to those who best reconcile a woman’s external reality with her internal dream.’ Karen wondered if she sounded pretentious. It was what she believed.

      ‘So what do you think about the clothes by Christian Lacroix? Or some of the other designers of excess?’

      Lacroix was the first new French couturier to set up shop in twenty years. After a couple of seasons of huge publicity, he’d sunk in acclaim. The word was his backers had lost millions. This was one of the pitfalls that Karen had been afraid of. She knew Elle was hoping she would rip into some of the other designers. If Karen took the bait, she’d create a lot of bad feeling. If she didn’t, she’d look like a goodie-goodie, and maybe commit the greatest television sin of all: she’d bore her audience.

      Now she looked over at Elle. The woman was perfectly groomed. She was wearing an Ungaro. Her hair was a smooth helmet of dozens of blonde-colored strands. Not one was out of place, but Karen had noticed there were two people who ministered to the helmet every time there was even the slightest pause in taping. Karen also couldn’t help but notice that no one had fixed her own hair since she had sat down. She wondered if her scalp was sweating from the lights, and if her hair was lank.

      ‘I think diversity is wonderful,’ Karen said. ‘I think men and women should have all the choices they want. But for me, I don’t want to dress in a costume, no matter how lovely.’ That should take care of Lacroix et al.

      ‘So, are you calling Lacroix a costume-maker?’ Elle asked brightly. She hadn’t let Karen slip away gracefully.

      No, Karen thought. I’m calling you a bitch. But she kept her face friendly. In fact, she laughed. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who said that.’ Where had that come from? She’d turned things around neatly. Karen felt the little sachet bump against her elbow. Thank you, Madame Renault.

      ‘There’s a lot of stealing that goes on in your business, isn’t there? For instance, a lot of people say that when you look at Norris Cleveland’s designs this year, СКАЧАТЬ