The Ghost of Greenwich Village: A Novel (10 page)

In the hallway, Russell and Quirine leaned against the wall, deep in conversation.

“Eve, right?” asked Quirine. Her tone was neither friendly nor unfriendly. Eve nodded. “Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, we thought you should know that some people around here might address you as …” She dropped her voice. “B.B.”

Russell elbowed Quirine in a way that indicated they were good friends. “C’mon now. Don’t lay it on the girl so fast.”

Quirine shushed him. “I’m just saying. What if she hears it and she doesn’t know what they mean? Forewarned is forearmed, no?” Quirine looked up and down the passage, then leaned into Eve and said, “Cybil, one of the PAs, dubbed you the ‘Bouillabaisse Bimbo’ at the morning meeting. And some of the others are calling you the ‘Bouillabaisse Bitch’ because of Katrine. I heard that from Tanya.”

Before Eve could reply, Russell took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes roughly. “They’ll forget it in a day or two, most likely. It’s short-attention-span theater around here. And by the way, your intro was quite good. I enjoyed the ‘Summer in Marseilles’ angle. Very Eric Rohmer.”

Quirine smiled archly. “Your screenplay-writing class is making you a one-note.”

Just then a woman came around the corner. She seemed to be hiding behind a mass of copper hair and a tangle of folk-art-style accessories.

“Nice of you to join us,” said Russell. “Cassandra Martin, this is our new recruit, Eve Weldon. Cassandra covers entertainment.”

“Culture,” said Cassandra. She offered her hand to Eve but, unlike the others, did not offer even a perfunctory smile. She pushed open the door of her office and disappeared.

“Well, we’re off for coffee,” said Quirine. Eve would have liked to go with them, but they did not invite her.

Inside her office, she sank down on the chair, placing the folder on the desk. She stared at it, running her palm over the surface. What did it contain? It was like a game of roulette. It could be a scientist booked to talk about some complicated discovery. Or a financial wizard to talk about the recent stock market dive. Given her powers of personal budgeting, that would be a disaster. She crossed her fingers and opened the folder, feeling like she was pulling a trigger. She skimmed the booking sheet: “Metropolitan Museum of Art to host lifetime retrospective of legendary German designer Matthias Klieg.” Eve brought a hand to her mouth.

Matthias Klieg was renowned for his architectural clothing that doubled as installation art. For decades, society women had been convincing wealthy husbands to spring for a Klieg original on the assurance that, after wearing it to a certain charity event, it could grace their formal dining room and function as an investment. The Met had gathered dozens of his most famous
pieces from living rooms and museums all over the world for an unprecedented display.

Inside the folder, Eve found a series of articles about Klieg and photos of the pieces that would decorate the set. But she hardly glanced at them; she didn’t need to. She knew Klieg’s career almost by heart, thanks to Penelope, who had worshipped him. Klieg had not only created pieces of radical beauty, he had invented a hybrid medium all his own, which, despite the copycat nature of haute couture, no other house had even attempted to mimic.

Eve had seen a Klieg only once, when she was seven, during the family’s trip to France. She and Penelope had spent an afternoon wandering around Paris, a fairy tale of a city. They’d had a picnic by the Seine, captivated by its strange blue-green hue, a color neither could quite remember seeing before. Later, they found the gallery her mother had been looking for. It featured six “dresses,” each more audacious and intricate than the last. When the guard wasn’t looking, Eve reached out and lightly skimmed “The Ball Gown” with the tip of her finger. It was like touching a bewitched object from a children’s story. “The Ball Gown” was Klieg’s celebrated, spherical see-through evening dress that, after attending Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball on the person of Merle Oberon, had lived its second life as a terrarium in Berlin.

What a job! To think that on her very first day, she was going to talk to Matthias Klieg himself. Then she remembered. Klieg was a notoriously difficult interview. Taciturn and grim, he had long since stopped working and now lived like a recluse. Eve rubbed the spot between her eyebrows, thinking of the freelance writers who would soon finish their stints at CNN and be available again.

   • • •

An hour and a half later, it was time to call the designer at his studio. The phone glared at her like a many-eyed monster, daring her to try. She dialed. A woman answered and put her through.

“Jah?”

“Mr. Klieg? Hello, this is Eve Weldon. From
Smell the Coffee
? We’re scheduled for a pre-interview? Is now a good time for you, sir?”

“You are an hour late.”

Her heart beat fast. “Really?” Eve fumbled with the folder. “I thought I was supposed to call at five-thirty.”

“Your booker told me
four-thirty
. Perhaps you cannot tell time?”

Eve flipped through the papers wildly. Was there a note about a change in the time? Had the booker listed on the sheet, someone named Kel Zimmerman, forgotten to tell her? Or, Eve wondered with a sinking heart, had this been some kind of payback for this Katrine person’s firing?

“I’m very sorry about the mix-up, sir. I just need a few minutes of your time.” This wasn’t true but it was the only way she could think to placate him.

“It is impossible. The photographers are here.”

“But, but …” Eve sputtered, trying to think of something to keep him on the phone. “It’s just that I’m curious about ‘Peer-Amid,’ ” she said. “Peer-Amid” was Klieg’s landmark piece from 1969, worn by a British countess to President Nixon’s inauguration. It was a pyramid-shaped gown (the head of the wearer popping out of its top) of highly burnished gold resin, sprinkled with jeweled hieroglyphics. Since the designer didn’t hang up, she continued. “The dress will be on our set tomorrow, as you know, and I’ve always wondered about your inspiration for it.”

Eve had hoped Klieg would pick up the ball and run with it, but he remained silent. She grimaced. What would her father do if this were a deposition? He certainly wouldn’t quit. He would apply kind but firm pressure till he got what he wanted, using just the right detail to tease out someone’s story. She cleared her throat. “More specifically, my mother used to get British
Vogue
and I read in there once that this dress was based on a pyramid built by Imhotep for King Zoser? But, well, that doesn’t seem to
be right. Imhotep built pyramids with steps, and yours is smooth-sided. I was thinking yours reminded me more of Cheops’s in Giza.” She hoped she was remembering correctly her notes from junior year’s Art of the Ancient World.

“This is a fair point,” he said, his words clipped and precise. “It was Cheops’s pyramid I sought to evoke. I wanted the modern woman to know that ancient splendor.”

“I see,” she said, struggling to take down the last of his response with fingers that had grown clumsy in the weeks since she’d stopped working. “And what about this one with the holes—the one everybody calls ‘The Swiss Cheese Dress’?”

“I detest that appellation,” he said.

“I understand. Actually, sir—actually, it doesn’t look like Swiss cheese to me.”

“Well, what then?”

“Maybe I’m making presumptions,” said Eve. “But to me it seems like you were thinking of Henry Moore.”

“I—well. Yes.” There was a note of surprise in his voice. “I met Henry in London. I thought his pieces were so sensual that they would feel divine on the body. So I created this dress. What?” There was some noise on Klieg’s end. “Oh for heaven’s sake. That’s very expensive! Excuse me, Miss Weldon, the photographer from
ArtForum
nearly knocked over a Lalique.”

“That’s quite all right.”

“Out.
Out
.” There was some heated discussion and a sound like a door being closed quite firmly before Klieg spoke to Eve again. “I tell you, most of these philistines don’t know me from Max Ernst.”

The interview began to flow. Though Klieg remained reserved, he showed flashes of humor and humility. He told her his most “alive” period had been as a young man in Paris in the sixties, when he ran with a diverse crowd of artists, poets, and philosophers, drinking pastis and eating ham sandwiches at the Deux Magots.

“Sounds like a dream life,” said Eve.

“It was, eventually. But when I first arrived there, I was, what do you call it? A ‘fish out of water.’ I did not have many friends and had to work as a dustman before creating my first collection. Things were difficult for a long time before I found my way.”

Nearly two hours after they’d begun speaking, Eve came to the end of her questions.

“Goodness,” Klieg said. “The booker said we would speak for no more than forty-five minutes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It is all right. This was less painful than usual.”

“It was an honor for me,” said Eve, feeling suddenly compelled to reveal something about herself. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell you this, but you’re my first interview. Ever. I’m a fish out of water, too.”

“This I would not have guessed,” conceded the designer.

After they hung up, Eve rubbed her ear and scrolled through her notes on the computer. Every one of her questions had produced an interesting answer, but she’d have to cull a handful of the best to fit the four minutes allotted. Luckily, her paralegal experience again came in handy. She’d long since mastered the art of boiling down complicated documents and producing pithy summaries. And she was excellent at explaining the ins and outs of difficult cases to laypeople, so much so that her father had put her in charge of the entire firm’s client correspondence. In less than an hour, she’d shaped what she hoped was a comprehensive yet streamlined interview.

Then she turned to the intro. How to interest a Phoenix soccer mom in dresses that resembled trapezoids or Calder mobiles? She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to clear the decks. She pictured her mind draining like a swimming pool, becoming a clean, light blue space—one of her tricks for dealing with Donald when he got nosy. Dancing into the space came iconic images of Klieg’s dresses on Jacqueline Kennedy, Princess Grace, Catherine Deneuve. Maybe that was a way to go, Eve
thought. Maybe she should focus on the wearers to spark interest in the clothes. She spent the next hour fashioning and refashioning her copy till she couldn’t look at it another second.

She had to wait a good hour before Mark could see her; other writers had finished first. Eve used the time to read the papers and leave a message with Vadis, telling her that she had been hired after all and would do everything she could to make sure Spoilt Picnic would get a spot on the show. Not that she had the slightest idea how to do that.

   • • •

Eve swung her crossed leg while Mark read her script, making the odd mark with his red pen as he went. When he was done, he looked up with what seemed like a hint of respect in his deep brown eyes. “Well. The booker said Klieg was a tough interview, but I guess not. This is good. The questions are fantastic. Quite scholarly, for a segment about dresses. Make these few changes and you’re all set.” He handed back her work.

“Thanks,” she said. “So do I get to come back tomorrow?”

“You get to come back tomorrow. And if you do well again, the day after that. But like I said on the phone, you’re freelance, which means no benefits, no contract, no nothing. After you’ve worked a certain number of days, I think it’s thirty, you’ll be eligible for the Writers Guild, which will give you some protection, but you still always want to be on your toes,” he said, leaning forward.

“Got it,” said Eve. All she had to do was do what she did today—thirty more times.

“Now get out of here,” he said, with a small but genuine smile. She turned to walk out, sensing his eyes on her. It was not a bad feeling.

It was nearly 10 p.m., but Eve felt so energized she walked home. Thirty blocks, in kitten heels.

   • • •

The next morning, at exactly two minutes before seven, Eve sat up in bed as if pulled by a string. She padded into the living room and switched on the old black and white she’d found on the curb outside the tenement next door. For all its expense and toughness, New York could be extraordinarily generous. It coughed up regular goodies on stoops and sidewalks, ranging from books to blenders to dining room sets. She’d come across her love seat on Bank Street and a street person had even helped her carry it home. Some items came with droll signs attached. The television bore a Post-it reading, “A good slap turns me on.”

She watched the segments executed by the other writers, impressed by the evocative prose of their intros and how much information they worked into the three or four minutes of the interview. She made coffee but couldn’t drink it. She drummed her fingers on the bar, then did some stretches and jumping jacks as she waited for 7:48. Finally, the moment arrived. The commercial faded away and Hap McCutcheon appeared.

“Shall we begin ‘The Numbered Story’?” boomed Donald, with his impeccable timing.

“Shhhh,” said Eve, rotating her shoulders to burn off nervous energy. “My work is about to be televised to the nation.”

“What, my dear? Have you—”

“Shhhhh.”