Gloria's Secret (7 page)

Fighting back tears, I sprinted over to her. We exchanged lots of cheek-to-cheek kisses.

“It
eez
so good to see you,” she said as I plunked down in armchair next to her bed.

“I’m in New York on a business trip.” There was no way I was going to divulge the real reason behind my visit. “I’ve brought you all your favorite magazines.”

I handed her the bag full of fashion magazines. Her face lit up as she removed the contents, one by one.
“Mes favorites!”
She examined the cover of a
Vogue
featuring Jennifer Lopez. “But why do
les américains
always put those Hollywood
célébrités
on the cover?”

She made me laugh when I wanted to cry. Even our Gloria’s Secret catalogue now featured celebrities like J-Lo on the cover. The bottom line: celebrities moved merchandise.

As she flipped through some of the magazines, we spent time chitchatting, catching up. She complained about the food—way too
nouveau
for her taste. And why couldn’t she have more than one glass of wine? I, in turn, told her about how well Gloria’s Secret was doing.

“Beezness shmeezness,” she muttered. “Are you in love,
ma chérie?”

I flushed. Jaime Zander’s gorgeous face unexpectedly flashed into my head. I tried my damnedest to make it go away. No luck.

“No,” I replied.

Madame Paulette studied my face with her intense cappuccino eyes.
“Ma chérie,
you cannot fool me. Your glow
geeves
it away.” Signaling with her index finger for me to move in closer to her, she said, “You must tell me everything about
zee
new boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested as I slid my chair up to her bed railing.

“What
eez
his name?”

“Jaime.”

“How do you spell that?”

“J-A-I-M-E.”

“Ah, like
‘J’aime.’
In French, that means, ‘I love.’”

Of course. I suddenly remembered Madame Paulette telling me “
Je t’aime
beaucoup.” I love you very much
…when I thought love had abandoned me.

“So,
ma chérie,
are you in love with him?”

In love?
I blushed. “I just met him.”

“AH!
Zee
best! Love at first sight.”

I still couldn’t get Jaime Zander’s beautiful face out my head. My heart pattered. No, it was not possible.

A melancholic smile flickered on Madame Paulette’s face. “Always remember,
ma chérie,
it
eez
better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

I wondered—had Madame Paulette ever been in love? While she always referred to herself as Madame, she had never mentioned a spouse, and I’d never been comfortable asking about her love life or her past. I’d always had a hunch, however, that she had once been married and had tragically lost the great love of her life. Once a year, on the eve of the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, the Day of Remembrance, she lit a candle that burned for twenty-four hours. I had asked her about the significance of the candle, and she had told me it was to commemorate someone special. While she always had dashing suitors who brought her flowers or French bonbons, she dismissed them all with a roll of her eyes. Whoever she had once loved couldn’t be replaced.

A cheery Nurse Perez entered the room, carrying a tray. “Your lunch, Madame.”

“Merci,”
growled Madame Paulette.

Smiling, Nurse Perez placed the bed tray over her lap, setting out the cutlery and linens. “Bon appétit,” she said before parting.

“Bon appétit,” Madame Paulette mock-mimicked. She was as feisty and as brutally honest as ever. “This
eez
French TV dinner,” she grumbled, reluctantly digging a fork into the mishmash of food.
“Gar-bahge!”

Stifling a laugh, I reached into my large designer purse. “I’ve brought you something else.” I handed her a medium-sized, gold-foiled box that was sealed with a wide red ribbon. She opened it with her still long and elegant fingers. The fingers that had adjusted thousands upon thousands of bra straps to bring out the best in women.

Her face lit up. “Ah! Bonbons.
Mes favorites!”

I pecked her cheek. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“Ah,
zee
day of love. So silly! Every day should be a day of love.”

A bittersweet smile tickled my lips. I was going to miss Madame’s words of wisdom.

She popped one of the rich chocolate treats into her mouth and savored it. “
Merci beaucoup, ma chérie
. You must have one.”

I helped myself to one of the chocolates and let it melt in my mouth. It was pure deliciousness. After swallowing the last morsel, the sweet taste of the dark chocolate dissolved into the bitter taste of dark memories. It was time.

“Madame,” I said hesitantly. “I must tell you something.”

“What
eez
it,
ma chérie?
There
eez
sadness in your eyes.”

My mind flashed back fifteen years. Kevin and I were both teenagers —sixteen-year-olds who had run away from our small rural upstate New York town. He to escape the brutal beatings of his father, a macho local sheriff, who had no tolerance for his son’s homosexuality, and I to escape the wrath I endured as the daughter of the neighborhood crack whore. “Who’s your daddy?” the kids at school would taunt when I was a skinny pig-tailed youngster. For all I knew, it could be any one of their fathers. My narcissistic mother, never there for me (I was an unwanted accident discovered too late to be aborted), slept with them all to indulge her sick addictions. Then, at fifteen, late-bloomer me sprouted five inches, and my flat-as-a-board breasts morphed into spheres. Boys would grab at me, try to pull my pants down, and call me names like slut, whore, and skank. They equated me with my mother, who I was not.

Kevin was always there to protect me. He’d learned Tai Kwan Do to protect himself from his own share of bullies and could send one of my molesters to his knees with a roundhouse kick. But this was not the life we wanted, so we decided to run away together. To find a new life in a big city like New York where we could fit in or disappear.

Kevin stole a gun from his father along with a few hundred dollars, which he kept locked in a safe. The gun and the money were all we had to start off on our new life together. We managed to hitch our way to New York City where we ended up in Brooklyn in the heart of Brighton Beach. Kevin charmed his way into securing a small one-bedroom rental apartment and used the money to buy some flea-market furnishings. We both needed to find work fast. Kevin, who had a flair for words, found a position teaching English to the children of neighborhood Russian immigrants, and I landed a sales job at a local lingerie store, Madame Paulette’s.

I’d been combing the busy streets for work for hours when I came upon the big “Sales Help Wanted” sign in the storefront window. I’ll never forget walking into her shop. With Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” playing in the background, I took in all the luxurious silk and lace lingerie that Madame Paulette imported from Paris. Tables of delicate, perfectly folded brassieres, panties, and garters mingled with carefully organized racks of beautiful slips, negligees, and robes. There was also a carousel filled with package after package of fine silk stockings. Standing erect behind the cash register, the petite but chic Madame Paulette was dressed in her signature gray A-line skirt and perfectly pressed white blouse and drinking a glass of red wine. I introduced myself and told her I was interested in the sales position. She gave me the once-over and nodded approvingly. In her deep raspy voice, she said, “
Ma chérie,
zee
shape of a women’s breasts lies in
zee
straps. Let me see if you know how to adjust one.”

Leaving her wine behind, she led me to a small dressing room in the rear of the store where a well-heeled buxom woman was trying on numerous bras. Madame Paulette beheld the half-naked woman in her ill-fitting lacy bra and shook her head. “Ah,
non,
non, non
. It
eez
all wrong for you.” Sorting through the pile of bras strewn on a petite gold-leafed chair, she found another and handed it to her. “Please put on
theese
one, and
mademoiselle
will adjust it.” With a nod of her chin, she looked my way.

The stocky woman nervously slipped on the big-cupped bra, front to back, and I hastily hooked it for her. Madame Paulette shot me a pleased smile. I surveyed the customer in the bra; the bra had potential but was not fitting her quite right. With nimble fingers, I tightened both straps, lifting up her boobs. I had learned how to put on a bra from watching my mother prepare for her “dates.” At least the crack whore had been good for something. And being a difficult fit myself with my full C-cup breasts, which I’d inherited from her, I was quite an expert on making bras fit, though mine were the cheap cotton K-Mart variety.

“Now bend over and wiggle your breasts into the cups.” I said after I finished adjusting the straps.

The woman did as asked and then stood up. She looked at herself in the floor length mirror, and her face lit up. The lacy, underwire bra fit her perfectly and did wonders for her saggy boobs. “I’ll take it and two more just like it!”

“
Superbe!”
Madame Paulette beamed. “I will have my
new
assistant wrap
zeem
up.”

My heart broke into a happy dance. I had landed the job as Madame Paulette’s sales assistant. Always good with my hands, I wrapped up the bras in beautiful layers of delicate, scented tissue paper. The ecstatic customer couldn’t wait to hand over a crisp hundred-dollar bill for the three bras.

From that day on, I worked from ten to six every day except Saturdays when Madame Paulette, who I learned was Jewish and from Paris, took a day off to observe Shabbat. Despite her diminutive size, she was an incredible, bigger than life woman who understood people, understood life, and understood the basic need women had to look and feel beautiful under their clothes. She taught me about how to examine the quality of lace, how to tell the difference between nylon and silk stockings, how to take a woman’s measurements, how to make an alluring window display, how to charm customers, and even how to handle gentlemen who were shopping for something sexy for their secret mistresses. “Life
eez
no fun without sex or wine,” she would preach. Twice a year, she would go to Paris and handpick items for the boutique. Every day, she gave me a French lesson so that one day I would be prepared to go to Paris. “
Zee
French are so
difficiles
,” she’d always complain in her charming accent.

The one thing I’d noticed while working at her store was the number of young women who stopped in on their lunch breaks or way home from work, allured by the beautiful display windows. Inside the shop, they lusted for the exquisite but exorbitant French lingerie that they, like me, couldn’t afford. I was convinced there was a market for gorgeous, sexy underwear at a reasonable price. When I shared this thought with Madame Paulette, she shooed me away with a dismissive wave of her hand. “
Mon dieu!
I can sell nothing but
zee
best!”

I’d been working for her for a little over two years and had just turned eighteen when over a bottle of Bordeaux, which we shared every Friday evening to welcome Shabbat, Madame Paulette broke the news that she wanted to retire and was going to sell the business. My heart sank. There was no guarantee that the store would remain a lingerie shop or if I was promised a job. “Would you like to buy it,
ma chérie?”
she asked. After the shock died down, I told her I would love to, but there was no way I could come up with the twenty-five thousand dollar down payment. Madame Paulette was as disappointed as I was but needed the money for her retirement.

A potential buyer was in the picture—Boris Borofsky. He was a tough Russian gangster—a freakish pink-eyed albino—who wanted to buy the business for his idle, bottle-blond trophy wife, Ina. The latter took a strong disliking to me, and I knew if the deal went through, I’d be out of a job. I wanted the business so badly. I had visions for it and dreams! But with my meager wages and the cost of living in Brooklyn, I hadn’t managed to save a penny.

Kevin, with his boyish good looks and winning personality, had gotten a job as the host of an underground “men’s club” that happened to be owned by the obnoxious Russian pursuing Madame Paulette’s business. He’d been able to save five thousand dollars and offered the cash to me.

“Kev, I can’t take your money,” I sobbed, touched by his offer. “Plus, I would need to come up with twenty thousand dollars more.”

“I have an idea,” he said.

I listened without interruption as he explained his plan… to rob the club. He hated the abusive Russian more than I did. He was a cheap, foul-mouthed womanizer without an ounce of humanity. Moreover, he was a gay-basher who had threatened Kevin with both his job and life. Because many of his business deals involved drugs and human trafficking, he kept hoards of loose cash in a safe in the basement. A single security guard made regular deposits after hours.

A deep shudder ran through me as I flashed back to that terrible night. A night I wish I could forget but couldn’t. The night of terror that scarred me forever, emotionally and physically. The vault... the alarm… the assault…the gun shots…the screaming…the pain… the blackness…the blood. My eyes grew watery.

“Madame, I did something terrible.” A tear trickled down my cheek. “I hope you can forgive me.” I recounted my crime with no detail spared. By the time I was done telling her the secret I’d hidden all these years, I was a blubbering mess.

She took my icy cold hands in her warm ones. “
Ma pauvre petite
, you are lucky to be alive.”

Her reaction stunned me. I thought for sure she would condemn me. She tenderly brushed away my tears and continued.