Nancy’s Theory of Style (20 page)

“I did. The information is on your desk.
I’ll be off then. I shall see you tomorrow, Mrs. Carrington-Chambers, Miss
Eugenia.”

Nancy
didn’t want him to leave her alone with
Eugenia, but she couldn’t think of any reason to make him stay. “Okay, I’ll see
you tomorrow! Bye.”

“Bye, Derek” Eugenia said.

“Cheers then,” he said, leaving
Nancy
alone with the
strange small person.

It was just after five and the evening
stretched out before her. “Eugenia, what time do you go to bed?”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Eugenia, you need to learn to answer
the question you are asked. Does your mother make you go to bed after dinner?”

Eugenia considered the question. “Grammy
says girls shouldn’t go to grown-up night parties.”

“Your grandmother is right. What do you
do in the evenings?”

“Mama and her bedfriends go out.”

Nancy
sighed and tried again: “What do you
do?”

“I like to stay with Rochelle.”

“Who is Rochelle?”

“She brings the towels.”

“Your mother leaves you with a hotel
maid?”

“Rochelle can blow smoke in circles and
has a tattoo of a unicorn and rainbow on her tummy.”

Nancy
shuddered. “Stay here and watch
television and I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Nancy
went to the kitchen to call her Aunt
Frilly. She dialed repeatedly and her aunt picked up on the sixth call.

“Oh,
Nancy
, what a nice surprise to hear from
you.”

“Hi, Aunt Frilly, I was beginning to
think you were avoiding me.”

“I wouldn’t do such a thing. You’re my
favorite niece.”

“Your granddaughter is still here. If
someone doesn’t come get her, I might have to leave her at the animal shelter
down the street.”

“What a dreadful thing to say, Nanny!”

“It’s not as dreadful as ‘Birdie, you
can dump your daughter off at
Nancy
’s.’”

“Nanny, when you got married and Sissy
wanted that apartment, I told her not to put up a fuss because I knew you’d
have to get away from Todd now and then.”

“Would you please repeat that because my
ears couldn’t have possibly heard what I thought they heard?”

“We love Todd, but he’s a big frat boy,
and you need your girl time. Think of the fun you’ll have playing with Eugenia
until Birdie comes back!”

Nancy
closed her eyes and calmed herself. A
lady did not scream at her nicest aunt. “Do you know where Birdie is?”

“She mentioned
Corfu
,
but she was arguing with that awful bearded man, and I don’t think she’ll make
it to the airport without ending that relationship. Foreign men are much more
attractive on foreign soils than at home. I’ll call you the minute I hear from
her.”

Nancy
panicked. “I’ll bring Eugenia to you,
Aunt Frilly!”

“I’m sorry, Nanny,” Aunt Frilly said in
a more serious tone. “Your Uncle Robert gave one of his edicts about Birdie. I’ll
get him to change his mind soon, but in the meantime please watch Eugenia.”

“I have things to do. I have a business
to run.”

“Can’t you do this one thing for me? Please?
If you do,
 
I’ll take you to Fashion
Week.”

“Which one?”

“How about
New York
with Sissy! We’ll go to the
showrooms and the museums.”

Nancy
loved joining Aunt Frilly and Sissy on
their fashion pilgrimages. “If I do this, you’ve got to tell me the millisecond
you hear anything about Birdie, or if Uncle Robert changes his mind.”

“I will, darling! Birdie’s probably
somewhere close. You know how she loves the West Coast.”

So
Nancy
was stuck with babysitting Eugenia for the foreseeable future. She needed to
hand-wash her delicates so she threw Eugenia in the tub with them and used a
little bubble bath to clean everything. Eugenia seemed happy splashing in the
water and provided enough agitation to clean
Nancy
’s garments.

As she was shampooing Eugenia’s hair,
Nancy
asked, “Who cut
your hair?”

“I cutted it.”

“Never cut your own hair, even if you’ve
had a glass of wine and think it would be fun, okay?”

“Okay. Your hair is pretty, like corn. We
ate corn at the farm.”

Nancy
assumed that she meant corn silk, not
corn. “It’s not pretty by accident. It takes professional styling and constant
upkeep. However, I have suffered from heartbreaking haircuts in the past, so I
sympathize.”

After the bath,
Nancy
gave Eugenia a bowl of cereal. She
watched the child spooning Raisin Bran and decided to have a bowl herself.

Eugenia then wanted
Nancy
to read to her.
Nancy
read The Cat in the Hat to Eugenia and
said, “The Cat is quite the style icon. The extravagant hat and bow tie, the
dramatic wide stripes – not everyone could get away with that.”

“Cats don’t have unders.”

“Astute and yet inane observation,
Eugenia.”

“You’re funny!”

Nancy
smiled. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s a
secret. Let’s look at better picture books.”

She and Eugenia flipped through Marnie
Fogg’s Boutique: a ‘60s Cultural Phenomenon, because
Nancy
was still thinking about the mini-dress.
“The designers started creating clothes for real girls, like girls in shops and
girls had moved to the big city and were trapped in dreary offices and girls dreaming
about being in love when the world and their futures seemed so exciting, so
full of possibilities.”

Eugenia yawned,
Nancy
realized how late it was. She didn’t
want to leave the girl on the sofa every night.

“Where will you sleep?” she said to
herself.

“I like the liddle room.”

“Little. What little room?”

“The one with the preddy clothes.”

“Pretty. You must learn to enunciate. My
closet? You want to sleep in my closet?”

Eugenia yawned again.

“Please cover your mouth when you yawn. You
can’t touch anything. My closet is precisely ordered and I want it to stay that
way.”

Nancy
folded a comforter and placed it and a
pillow under the rack with her blouses and sweaters. “Do you want me to leave
the light on?”

Eugenia nodded and crawled onto her
make-shift bed.

Nancy
covered her with a quilt and said,
“Good night, Eugenia.”

“Night, Auntie Nanny.”

Nancy
had a glass of Sancerre and cleaned the
apartment. Then she applied online for insurance for the fundraiser. She knew
the standard conditions and exclusions – of course, no one at her party would
intentionally cause bodily harm or damage – so she felt comfortable submitting
the policy application.

Froth business concluded,
Nancy
needed to attend to
personal matters. She didn’t want Bailey to lose interest, but knew she had to
play her hand carefully with him. She called him, and left a message saying,
“Hello, Bailey.
Nancy
here. My schedule should be clear for Saturday. Looking forward to seeing you
then.”

Nancy
peered into her closet to check on
Eugenia. She noticed that the girl had the same heart-shaped face that made her
mother look as if she’d stepped out of a Fitzgerald story. And, like
Fitzgerald’s women, Birdie was careless with others.

Nancy
left the closet door open and went to
bed. Another day without Todd was over and
Nancy
had been all right. More than all
right, when she thought about being in the park today.

Nancy
had heard so many people complaining
about raising children that she’d expected the worst. However, Eugenia asked
for little besides cereal and could be occupied by drawing pictures and
watching cartoons. She also liked to hear
Nancy
’s
fascinating lectures on style.

Todd used to just say, “Huh, huh, huh,”
as if he was listening when
Nancy
had some dazzling point to make about upholstery or wall treatments. He’d never
even asked her why she liked planning parties.

As the days passed, Derek relaxed in
Eugenia’s company. He showed her how to draw simple shapes and seemed to enjoy
their daily outings to lunch and to the park.

He carried a sketch pad in his black
leather satchel and sometimes he’d pull it out and draw. One day he surprised
Eugenia with a child-size soccer ball, which he called a football, and showed
the girl and her aunt how to dribble it on the empty tennis court.

Nancy
stopped waiting at the Chateau for her
cousin, and they ventured out more often. She bought Eugenia two t-shirts with
a pirate motif and had her hair trimmed at a salon that specialized in kids
cuts.

Derek and Nancy congratulated themselves
on their skill in caring for a child.

“What is the big deal?”
Nancy
said to Derek as they looked through
photo books at a boutique on Fillmore.

Eugenia had found a pair of men’s boots
and was on the floor trying to put them on over her own shoes while pale,
androgynous clerks walked over and around her.

Nancy
opened another book and said, “People
act as if caring for children is difficult, when it’s not much more trouble
than watering a plant.” She didn’t have any plants in her apartment, but if she
did, she was sure they’d be glorious.

“People make things more complicated
than they are,” Derek said. “Perhaps it makes them feel as if they are
accomplishing something difficult.”

“As usual, you are right,”
Nancy
said as they moved
to the sales counter. “Which of these sunglasses do you like best?”
Nancy
was pulling
sunglasses off a display case.

“Try on this pair. I think the shape
complements your face.”

Nancy
tried them on, sucked in her cheeks,
and posed for Derek. “I like them. Well, you know, I always say, dress plainly
and accessorize wildly. Write that down.”

Derek pulled out his notepad and jotted
it down.

Nancy
bought the sunglasses and a deliciously
hefty photography book by Patrick McMullan. While the sales clerk brushed the
lint off her velvet sunglasses case, she handed the book to Derek.

“This is a present for you!”

“Oh, Mrs. Carrington-Chambers, you
shouldn’t.”

“It’s nothing – and he’s a marvelous
photographer. His talent is in capturing the dream of an era, how people want
to be perceived.”

He opened the book and flipped through
it. “This year’s model, and there will always be a new model.”

She leaned into him to look at the
photographs. “It’s all so fleeting. That’s why quality is important. Quality
endures.”

As they went out of the store,
Nancy
had a feeling that
she was missing something. But she remembered the clerk handing her the receipt
and her credit card. She and Derek were about to cross the street, when they
both said, “Eugenia!”

They hurried back into the store,
splitting up to circle the aisles.
Nancy
’s
heart raced and she called, “Eugenia! Eugenia!”

The girl was sitting under a rack of
flirty spring dresses. “Hi, Auntie Nanny!”

“Eugenia! What are you doing there? It’s
very, very naughty of you to wander away from us.”

“It’s my house,” said the child. “See, with
clothes and shoes like the liddle room where I sleep.”

Derek had come to her side. “The little
room?”

“She’s been sleeping in my closet,”
Nancy
explained.

A prissy young mother pushing a huge
pram overheard. She gave
Nancy
a look that would sour the milk that she’d be breast-feeding her slobbery baby
soon.