Moderate-priced, but a little higher-quality than most. It wasn’t Seventh Avenue, but it would have her name on it. Karen Lipsky for Blithe Spirits. Jeffrey’s advice had been right, and she’d gotten the chance because she’d listened to him. It was an unbelievable opportunity for a girl only two years out of school, but before she had a chance to jump at it, she’d gotten more good advice from Jeffrey. ‘Turn them down,’ he said. ‘Tell them that you’ve gotten an offer for twice as much money.’
‘But I haven’t,’ she cried.
Jeffrey had laughed. ‘So?’
‘I should lie?’ she asked. Neither Belle nor Arnold had taught her that. But Jeffrey had nodded. ‘What if they find out I’m lying? What if they tell me to take the other job?’
‘They won’t,’ Jeffrey laughed. And he ruffled her hair as if she were a puppy. ‘Try it tomorrow. You’ll see I’m right.’
And he was. She’d been petrified, as frightened then as she was of Elle Halle now. But she’d bluffed, hands wet with sweat. And, at last, she’d gotten the job at quadruple the pay she’d been making with Liz. She had, for the first time, more money than she had time to spend. Not that the money was so great, but she had no free time at all – she’d had an unbelievably hectic schedule putting a line together alone.
Just when it was about to be shown, she’d called Jeffrey. They’d been seeing a lot less of each other because of her crazy work schedule. ‘Can I come over?’ she had asked, the way she always did. ‘I’m scared that the whole thing is a mistake. Can I stay overnight?’ The silence at the other end of the phone had been ominous. What was wrong? Something had changed. She’d been too busy with the work to have noticed anything before.
‘Karen,’ Jeffrey had told her gently. ‘You know how much I like you. But you have to know this: I’m engaged to be married.’
Devastated, she’d gone to Carl, of course. ‘I should have told him I loved him,’ she wept. ‘I should have kept calling.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have. He’d have dropped you quicker. At least now you have your pride.’
‘I don’t want my pride. I want Jeffrey!’ she’d wailed like a child. And so then Carl had explained everything about men, just the way Jeffrey had explained everything about work. ‘He likes you, Karen. Of course he likes you. You’re fun, you’re funny, you’re smart. And you’re sexy. I can tell, even though I’m gay. But the Jeffreys of the world are always going to pick beauty and class and clout over funny and smart. He comes from money. She comes from more money. You’re better, but June Jarrick is the niece of a senator. It isn’t fair, but that’s the way it is.’
She saw the announcement of their engagement in the Times. Even today, ready to go downstairs to get the limo to Elle’s studio, Karen could still remember the pain of that moment and the emptiness that followed.
Her new line had been a huge success and had flown out of the stores. She’d gotten the first personal publicity she’d ever had in magazines and the fashion press. But she’d been miserable. This time work wasn’t enough. And other men were like ghosts compared to Jeffrey’s warm flesh. She got a calendar and obsessively crossed off each empty day until the black date of Jeffrey’s wedding. And then, out of nowhere, she’d gotten the call from Liz Rubin.
‘I want to see you, Karen,’ Liz had said. ‘Can you come over now?’
As always, Karen had. And she’d been shocked by Liz’s appearance. If she’d been thin before, she was skeletal now. Karen’s eyes had grown big, but she hadn’t said anything. Neither did Liz. She didn’t have to. ‘I saw your Blithe Spirits line. It was very good,’ she told Karen. It was the first and last praise Liz ever gave her. ‘Come back. Work here. I’ll need someone to take over. The doctors give me six months. I want you to do the spring collection.’
Other girls might have said no, but Karen had come back, and Liz had died on Mother’s Day that year. At twenty-five, Karen was the heiress to the throne. The press, always suckers for sentimental stories, had gone nuts over both the Liz Rubin Spring collection and Karen’s rags-to-riches story. She was called the ‘Crown Princess of Fashion.’ Carrie Donovan did a profile of her for the Times Magazine Section and she was on the cover of ‘W’. And even though her name wasn’t on the label, Karen didn’t mind because it was her homage to Liz. A memorial.
Plus, the work had also saved her from thinking about Jeffrey. She had, instead, a couple of brief affairs but always knew how many months, weeks, and days until the big social wedding. She kept the clipping announcing the engagement. She often stared at the picture of June Jarrick. Perfect June, in her simple linen dress and her double strand of real pearls. From time to time, because she couldn’t resist, Karen had drinks with Perry, ostensibly for fun but really to pump him for news. ‘Leave it, Karen,’ Carl warned her, but she picked at the wound despite the pain. Jeffrey was set to marry in another six weeks when he had sent her a note and asked to meet.
She knew she should say no, but she hadn’t, and they’d gone out for drinks. Drinks led to dinner, which led to more drinks, which led – inevitably – to bed. They’d always been good in bed.
Karen hadn’t asked any questions. They’d spent the first night making love for hours. Jeffrey had clung to her like a drowning man and she had accepted his desperation as a tribute, of sorts. The next morning she’d left early, going to work without waking him or leaving a note. He’d called her at the office an hour later. It was the first time he’d called her.
Karen wouldn’t let herself think about the fact that he was cheating on his fiancée with her, or that Jeffrey had earlier ‘cheated’ on her with his fiancée. She couldn’t think at all. She only felt that she couldn’t live without the comfort of his body and she knew without asking that he felt the same way. He came to her apartment every evening, sometimes as late as midnight, and she never questioned where he’d come from. She always let him in. She didn’t even tell Carl, because she knew he would go batshit on her. Twenty-one days before his wedding to June, Jeffrey asked Karen to marry him. ‘You’re going to be rich and famous,’ he said. ‘Karen Kahn sounds a lot better than Karen Lipsky.’ If it was an unromantic proposal, and if it came a little bit late, she comforted herself by thinking of it as fashionably late. Any guilt that she felt was smothered in the overwhelming tide of gladness. She had nothing to do with his predicament, she told herself, or the pain he was about to cause June. After all, she had known him and loved him long before.
Karen had never asked Jeffrey what he had said to June or his family, but months later, when she was at last introduced to the Kahns, she felt the blame there. It didn’t go away when June married Perry on the rebound. If anything, it intensified. Still, she was so wrapped up in her joy of conquest, of her possession of him, that it didn’t matter. Jeffrey was and would always be her dream prince, her first love. When he told her that he was going to help her with her career, she was thrilled. When he created a business plan for her own company, she was touched. As a thirtieth birthday present he created her
She had never taken him for granted, just as she had never taken anything she had worked for and won for granted. This was her strength and her weakness. She always lived with the fear that she could lose it – the business, the money, the man. Now, at a moment when she could be consolidating everything, she felt more