The Crasher Read online

  Virginia tried not to laugh. It was out of the question, but she wasn’t going to have another scene now. “Ginny, I hardly know the man. He’s only asked for me because most of the women coming to the show are my regular clients and if they buy anything he knows they’ll want me to fit them. I really don’t know, Ginny, but I’m certainly not going to let you anywhere near him if you don’t take that… that monstrosity off your head.”

  Ginny thought of the adhesive and lashes in the sewing kit. If the turban had to come off, the Supreme Sables had to go on. Otherwise she’d make no impression on anyone, let alone Monsieur Robespier. She’d just look like everybody else.

  “Just a fraction—less then half a millimeter—nothing less, nothing more. Yes, absolument, that will do it Parfait” The instruction was snapped out imperiously in an accent that still owed more to Paris, Texas, than Paris, France.

  Behind a screen at the back of the large mirrored fitting room, Ginny saw her mother, pins in mouth and hand, drop to her knees in her usual urgent way, to begin to make minuscule adjustments to a fishtail hem, which slithered across the pale carpet like a fat black snake.

  It wasn’t the only fat snake in the room. Mrs. Heathering Davison, of the Turtle Creek Davisons, like so many women Ginny had seen being fitted by her mother, was giving her a hard time, fidgeting, swishing her tail and letting out exasperated sighs at the waste of her valuable time. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  The hard ache of disappointment and disillusionment which lodged in her chest like a brick had to be related to heartbreak. It had begun to develop long before Mrs. Heathering Davison arrived to throw her considerable weight around and insist she had the first claim on Virginia Walker’s time.

  It began when, ordered by her mother to stand behind the back row of chairs surrounding the auditorium, and then behind one of the topiary trees, shaped in the form of a peacock (Paul Robespier’s logo), Ginny had endured—it was the only word for it—sixty minutes of watching the worst clothes she had ever seen in her life.

  Either Paul Robespier Roberts was a master fraud, pulling skeins of wool over the eyes of every fashionable woman in Texas, and the world for that matter, or she, Ginny Walker, had to accept that her mother was right. She could sew, but as far as her fashion sense was concerned, she was a freak, not an original.

  Now she was marooned, stuck, hidden behind a screen until her mother finished, and God knew how long that was going to take. To try to calm down, Ginny did what Alex told her opera stars did to relax their nerves before going on stage. She opened her mouth wide in a huge silent yawn. It didn’t help.

  She dropped her head onto her lap. There was nothing worse than knowing you yourself were to blame for being in a situation you’d give the moon to get out of.

  It was embarrassing to think she’d planned to parade before Robespier before her mother could stop her, to hear the home-grown maestro exclaim, “But she is ravissante! Who is this young girl with such style?”

  “Ginny Walker, Monsieur Robespier. I am the fitter Virginia Walker’s daughter. I was hoping… when I finish school… I would love to work for you. To become your apprentice.”

  “But bien sûr… the way you have coordinated your colors… the line of your sheath, I can see you have a natural talent. And your turban! It is superb! Here is my card. I insist, Madame Walker, your talented daughter contact me when…”

  Ginny swallowed hard. She would throw up if she continued to dwell on how far she had allowed her fantasies to carry her. Trapped, unable to move, unable to speak, let alone scream, she was an unwilling stowaway stashed behind a screen, because it was she, and nobody else, who had begged and pleaded and worn her mother down into agreeing she could attend this rare occasion and watch the great Robespier at work.

  She would never read The Dallas Morning News again as long as she lived. “Local Boy Turned Maestro,” the fashion page had headlined. “Robespier returns from Europe in time for the Crystal Ball with a special collection, dedicated to the fashionable women of Dallas—Robespier, the talented Texan who has spent the last decade learning at the feet of the great masters, Givenchy, Chanel, Patou.”

  It was really hysterically funny. To think she’d been dreaming of learning at the feet of Robespier, of impressing him so much he’d ask her parents’ permission to make her his apprentice and take her to study with him in Paris, instead of going to business school.

  In the mirror Ginny saw Mrs. Heathering Davison swivel her ample hips to see her back view. She stuffed her fingers in her mouth to stop giggling. No dress could do much for Mrs. Heathering Davison’s derrière, but this one, besides emphasizing the positive, also accentuated every inch of her body’s negatives. How could it not?

  She started to reorganize the structure of the dress, but gave up. Some things were beyond salvation. The dress belonged in a chamber of horrors—or a circus, along with Paul Robespier himself, who might have learned something at the feet of the masters, but it certainly wasn’t how to design clothes. More likely how to shine shoes. His were so shiny he could surely see his face in them.

  Ginny looked at her watch, her frustration growing. If only she hadn’t persuaded her mother to smuggle her in to see Robespier’s collection… if only she hadn’t had to hide behind this screen when her mother was summoned to carry out alterations on the four Robespier nightmares Mrs. H.D. had ordered, if… if… if!

  Alex was right. Her life was full of if only’s because, as her cousin frequently chastised her, she was not selective enough. She tried to cram everything in, when, instead, she should focus on what was really important, on things which would use and improve her natural talents.

  Like right now, when she could have been at the NorthPark Mall with Toby, waiting for Cindy Crawford to check out the local chic for MTV, a chance in a million, the promo had said, to be filmed live “Where America Shops.”

  It had been a toss-up between seeing an actual couturier in action (particularly a Texas-born, Paris-trained one) and hoping to make a major impression on him—or joining Toby and the NorthPark crowd, hoping to be plucked out by Cindy as one of Texas’s youngest most stylish, most chic.

  The wonderful realization had come that she could fit in both.

  She looked at her watch again. She could still do it if they left now. Without thinking she let out an exasperated sigh, every bit as loud as the ones uttered by Heathering Davison, following it up inexplicably with one of her allergic sneezes.

  Ginny got to her feet sheepishly, about to slink away to the exit, as Robespier marched up to the screen and screamed, “Who is this? What are you doing here?”

  To her horror, her mother began to say all the things she’d fantasized hearing.

  “I do apologize, Monsieur, but this is my young daughter, Ginny. She—she is such an admirer of yours, she begged to be allowed to see your genius at work. I am really very sorry.”

  Ginny looked at the floor to fight off another fit of giggles. Everything had happened so quickly, she’d never removed the turban.

  She was blushing. She could feel the creepy crawly blush spread from her collarbone as Robespier obviously swallowed every word, and began to smile, showing pale pink gums above a row of achingly perfect small white teeth.

  “Come out from your hiding place. Bring your chair. Ah! What an interesting… chapeau.” Now Ginny really didn’t know where to look.

  It took another agonizing thirty minutes before the fishtail was declared fit for human consumption.

  “Do you still want to go to NorthPark? I’m exhausted.”

  “Mother, you promised… you promised…”

  “Oh, God. Oh, well, I’ll drive you there, but I’m not coming in. If you find Toby, let me know, then you can go home with her.”

  “You really are the best mother in the world.” Ginny hugged her, although it was obvious her mother didn’t want to be hugged. “I hate you having to put up with people like that,” she said, in a small apologetic voice.

 
; “People like that!” Virginia mimicked. “I thought you wanted to run off with ‘people like that’—people like Paul Robespier, the genius.”

  “Genius! Ugh! I’ve never seen such hid-e-ous clothes. If it wasn’t for you Mrs. Heathering Derrière wouldn’t have been able to move a step in that joke of a dress.”

  Virginia shook her head reprovingly. “Ginny, don’t be rude.” Then, “Do you know what that dress cost?”

  “Millions.”

  “Not quite, but the alterations alone cost nearly five hundred bucks.”

  “I can’t believe it.” But Ginny was no longer interested in what Robespier was able to get away with. She caught sight of the time. “We’ve really got to get going, Ma. MTV will be there any minute.”

  “I’m not moving until you take that thing off your head.”

  “But Robespier said…” They both started to shriek with laughter.

  “Okay, Mother, you win.” She pulled the turban off so violently, half the swim cap ripped as it came off, too. With her mother still howling with laughter, Ginny opened her sewing kit purse to flourish the box of Supreme Sable Lashes. “These cost a fortune, too, five dollars and seventy-five cents. Mrs. Heathering D. will never be chic, however many millions she spends, but I bet these will get me on MTV!”

  Virginia found a parking spot at the huge NorthPark Mall and Ginny leaned over to get the camel hair coat from the back seat.

  “Who told you you could borrow my coat?”

  “I thought you did.”

  When Ginny got out of the car and nervously put the coat on, Virginia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Don’t you agree… it’s… better this way?” Ginny looked in anguish, waiting for her mother’s reaction.

  Her mother shook her head resignedly. “Yes, baby, it looks great. You can have it”—she started to laugh again—“for your birthday. Now don’t be long. It’s been quite a day and we’ve got to get home to get your father’s supper. You’ve got forty-five minutes max to be one of MTV’s chic.”

  Ginny’s face lit up, a mixture of relief and excitement. She blew an airy kiss to her mother. “Wish me luck,” she yelled, striding off, as if she’d just been given the world.

  Virginia watched Ginny cross the parking lot in her renovated coat. She bit her lip. The feeling of defeat was back. Like father, like daughter. However hard she tried to explain things to Ginny, there were too many indications she had inherited or absorbed Graham’s tenacious (or pigheaded, depending on how you looked at it) determination to be noticed and make a mark on the world, no matter what it cost.

  Once Virginia had thought she could make a mark, too, growing up in Hollywood, designing for the movie stars. It had taken a while to accept she couldn’t design dresses, but she could make the cheapest piece of junk off the rack fit and flatter even the worst figure faults. She’d encountered them all.

  Ginny had more imagination than she’d ever had—too much, if it was possible. Virginia sighed. Ginny had done wonders to her old camel hair coat. She’d cleverly used a zipper as ornamentation on the blue sheath, too, à la Moschino—but that didn’t mean she could be a successful designer. She didn’t want Ginny to experience the hurt and humiliation she’d gone through, waiting for customers who never turned up.

  It was ironic, for while she’d managed to drown her dreams, Graham’s had grown larger with every passing year, but not their bank account.

  How enthralled she’d been in the beginning when he’d talked about his ambition to leave his job, teaching English lit at an undistinguished West Coast school, to become a modern day Socrates, “earning fame and fortune, teaching my unique brand of wisdom by mail.”

  How she’d hung on every word as he’d talked and talked and talked. “I can teach, but I also know how to learn,” he’d said. “Not such a common gift as you might suppose. I can find something of value in practically everything.” And, indeed, he’d confessed that while he studied the leading political and foreign pundits of the day, especially his number one, Quentin Peet, also included in his scrutiny were columns by “Dear Abby” (“already a multimillionairess”), the writings of Dr. Seuss, and the original texts of Dale Carnegie.

  How impressed she’d been with his studious appearance, not knowing then, of course, the amount of time he devoted to choosing the kind of eyeglasses that strengthened his air of scholarship, the fastidious attention he paid to the size of knot in his tie, the amount of trouser leg he allowed to cover his shoes. No wonder Ginny was so clothes-mad.

  She was sick of hearing Graham say “Clothes maketh the man,” contemptuously dismissing those in academia whom he accused of deliberately setting out to look as rumpled and disheveled as possible “to be more in touch with the unkempt youth they attempt to teach.”

  No wonder Quentin Peet was his role model, appearing on television, immaculately dressed, even when just back from a war somewhere, epitomizing, said Graham, “the way a leader should look.”

  Well, Graham Walker was no leader. It had taken five states and five “partners” in as many years to learn that Graham had proposed and married her just at the time his sister Lillian told him, for her son Alex’s sake, she could no longer help support him in his dreams.

  She’d found Lil’s old letter jammed in the back of Graham’s desk. “It’s God’s will that you’ve met Virginia, for much as I love the idea of living as you describe it, a ‘Walt Whitman life of freedom, traveling on unknown roads to unknown adventures,’ now I have this new job with the art gallery, as a widow bringing up a son, I know I must stay put for his sake.”

  She had never confronted Graham with the letter. What was the point? And, in any case, at that time she’d been so full of optimism. “It takes time for pioneers to be recognized,” he would say, “to get the big break that brings all the rewards.”

  Virginia jumped as she leaned forward and accidentally blew the car horn. It sounded like a bugle call, an alert to rescue her only child from the world she’d become so used to, a world of rented homes, leased cars and a nervous stomach at the end of every month as their bank balance went down and their bills went up.

  Her mouth tightened. Already she could recognize the signs. Graham was restless; she’d caught him poring over the map again; seen him hang up the phone hurriedly when she came into his study. Responses to his ads hadn’t been good, she knew that, but this time she’d demanded and he’d promised her in writing he’d give Dallas at least three years before moving on. This time she’d written down something, too.

  No matter what “extraordinary opportunity” beckoned in some other “prime location,” she wasn’t going with him. Not this time. Not if he broke his word before at least three years were up. She was earning more at Neiman Marcus than she’d ever earned.

  She tried to stop herself thinking it, but she couldn’t. If Graham left them, financially Ginny and she would actually be better off. If she didn’t have to pay for Graham’s small ads and endless printing and mail expenses, she could easily pay the rent on the horrible little hovel they were in and everything else that she and Ginny needed.

  If Graham had the gall to bring the subject up, she’d let him know at once—one, two, three—that she and Ginny were staying put in Dallas. At least she prayed that if and when the moment came, she would have the guts to say and do it.

  The problem was, despite everything, sometimes he could still convince her all was not lost, that one day he would be recognized as the visionary she’d once been so certain he was.

  If she only had herself to consider, she knew she’d be a camp follower forever, but it wasn’t just herself. It was only recently she’d begun to realize there wasn’t a moment to lose to begin planning a future for Ginny.

  Her eyes misted over as in the distance she saw Ginny march around the corner of the huge store. Her nearly-sixteen-year-old-going-on-thirty-year-old daughter did look like a million dollars in her hardly recognizable camel hair coat, but there again Ginny had taken someth
ing that didn’t belong to her. Her values were all mixed up. Where on earth was it going to lead her? One day into real trouble.

  She must have dozed off, because to Virginia’s surprise she saw Ginny reappear around the corner. She looked at her watch. She hadn’t been gone for more than twenty minutes. She must have arrived too late for Cindy Crawford and MTV.

  Poor Ginny. She’d take the disappointment very badly. Virginia could only hope, without much confidence, that at least it would be a lesson to her not to try to cram all her dreams into one day.

  As her daughter walked slowly toward the car, her demeanor expressing total defeat, Virginia was struck by how tall she was. Wait a minute. Virginia had a wonderful idea. If Ginny only grew a couple more inches, there was a job that could offer her the opportunity her brains and looks entitled her to, a job that could move her into the kind of circles where she might meet someone… someone who could give her the million-dollar life that Virginia knew, from a lifetime of listening to her clients, existed outside the fitting room.

  Ginny could become the perfect runway model. She had always been skinny—essential to show off a designer’s clothes. She had good posture, lovely skin, her own mother’s deep dark eyes, a wonderful smile, and Graham’s thick chestnut hair. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she was—or could look—cute, impish.

  As Ginny approached, desolate and downcast, she was amazed—and furious—to see her mother looking so cheerful. How could she, on the worst day of her whole life?

  “They wouldn’t even let me in the door, Mother. There were thousands there. They—”

  “Oh, never mind, Ginny. There’ll be lots of other things…”

  This was impossible. Her mother didn’t understand what she was talking about and obviously didn’t care either, probably concentrating on what she was going to cook for supper.

  They drove home without exchanging a word, although Virginia didn’t realize it. She was too busy thinking about the future she had just dreamed up for Ginny. From now on she would pay much more attention to what Ginny ate, her nutrition in general, exercise, poise and, yes, despite the opposition she knew she would encounter, Ginny’s often crazy dress sense, too, all to help groom her for her future life on a famous designer’s runway.