Gossip by Beth Gutcheon Read Free Book Online

something back. Come here.”
    He led her to a vitrine that held what looked to be Egyptian glass statuettes and ornaments, medieval icons, and some coins.
    â€œDid you know that glass is actually a liquid?” he asked. “It’s supercooled, so it seems stable at temperatures where ice would melt. But in fact glass is melting all the time, just very slowly. With pieces as old as this, many millennia, you can measure the slump.” He was smiling at his pieces as he spoke, as if they were pets.
    He tapped on the pane at a gold ring with a coat of arms worked in glass and enamels.
    â€œDo you know what that is?”
    â€œMay I see it?”
    He took his key ring from his pocket, unlocked the case, and opened the front. Then he waited to see what she would do.
    Very carefully, she removed the ring and turned it around to examine the underside of the bezel. He gave a laughing bark.
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” he said.
    Behind the crest, worn next to the skin, was an enameled green grasshopper.
    â€œHow did you know? Have you seen one before?”
    â€œA Gresham grasshopper ring? Never. I didn’t know there were any in this country.”
    â€œAha. And my point is, this isn’t your field either.”

Chapter 5
    A graduate of our boarding school was at that time the social secretary to the First Lady of the United States. My grandmother made dismissive remarks about “ladies marketing their social graces,” but I could see that rather than being a drawback in that extremely populist mood of the early 1970s, my otherwise fairly useless boarding school education was an advantage in the industry in which I found myself. I had also by chance chosen one of the few fields in which it was not a hindrance to be a woman.
    Mme. Philomena thought a good next step for me would be one of the fashion magazines, where I could be an ambassador for her collections. She offered to put in a word with Mrs. Vreeland at Vogue, or with China Machado at Harper’s Bazaar, and I was tempted; magazine jobs were glamorous. But when glamour is a perk of the job, the salary is generally reduced by whatever the employer discovers the glamour is worth, and I had my living to make.
    Mme. Olitsky thought that I might make a buyer for one of the department stores. But the buyers I had met at the atelier could be beastly; they had power, and it seemed to make them rude. Power always presents a challenge to the average mortal soul. Still, there is usually a point in any process where there’s a chance of grace. In film, the casting director owns the happiest moment, when the project has a green light, talented people are being told Yes, and everyone is full of hope. In fashion, you might think it’s the moment the designer emerges to applause after presenting a collection, but you’d be forgetting how many collections fail, not to mention the pressures of paying suppliers and banks, guessing what people will want in six months when the clothes are actually in stores, or the chances that your best ideas will be knocked off and lining someone else’s pocket before you can get them to market. No, I’d say the best moment in fashion is the point of sale. The moment an actual human wants to buy the dress and wear it out of the store.
    I realize this is a minority opinion.
    Selling is a service profession. It’s not waiting on tables, but it’s in the category. It doesn’t suit everybody, but it suits me; there are worse things in life than serving.
    I wanted to be Mme. Olitsky. Mme. Philomena already had her vendeuse; it was time for me to find someone who needed what I was good at. Mrs. Bachman at Saks, my grandmother’s saleswoman, had maintained an interest in me. She came to Mme. P’s shows, though of course she didn’t buy from us, since she got a hefty employee discount at her own store. She came to see what our customer was wearing and what she liked from