Lacroix was the first new French couturier to set up shop in twenty years. After a couple of seasons of huge publicity, he’d sunk in acclaim. The word was his backers had lost millions. This was one of the pitfalls that Karen had been afraid of. She knew Elle was hoping she would rip into some of the other designers. If Karen took the bait, she’d create a lot of bad feeling. If she didn’t, she’d look like a goodie-goodie, and maybe commit the greatest television sin of all: she’d bore her audience.
Now she looked over at Elle. The woman was perfectly groomed. She was wearing an Ungaro. Her hair was a smooth helmet of dozens of blonde-colored strands. Not one was out of place, but Karen had noticed there were two people who ministered to the helmet every time there was even the slightest pause in taping. Karen also couldn’t help but notice that no one had fixed her own hair since she had sat down. She wondered if her scalp was sweating from the lights, and if her hair was lank.
‘I think diversity is wonderful,’ Karen said. ‘I think men and women should have all the choices they want. But for me, I don’t want to dress in a costume, no matter how lovely.’ That should take care of Lacroix et al.
‘So, are you calling Lacroix a costume-maker?’ Elle asked brightly. She hadn’t let Karen slip away gracefully.
No, Karen thought. I’m calling you a bitch. But she kept her face friendly. In fact, she laughed. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who said that.’ Where had that come from? She’d turned things around neatly. Karen felt the little sachet bump against her elbow. Thank you, Madame Renault.
‘There’s a lot of stealing that goes on in your business, isn’t there? For instance, a lot of people say that when you look at Norris Cleveland’s designs this year, you’re looking at Karen Kahn’s from last year. How do you feel about that?’
Karen laughed uncomfortably. ‘You know what people also say? That there’s nothing new under the sun. We all get our inspiration from all over. If I’ve inspired anything I feel flattered if it’s well done and depressed if it isn’t. Norrell was a great designer, and he said he just reinterpreted Chanel for his whole career.’
Elle dropped the line of questioning, but immediately screwed that look of concern onto her face that the audience knew meant a real killer was coming. Karen braced herself.
‘Women like you because you represent success in business. You have done so well in a man’s world. So how do you think your husband feels, being second-in-command?’ Elle asked. ‘Has it made problems in your marriage? It isn’t easy for any man to take a back seat to his wife, and your husband is, if I may say, a very dynamic guy.’
Jesus Christ! What had Jeffrey said in his interview?
‘Jeffrey doesn’t take a back seat to me,’ Karen said. ‘He’s in charge of all the business decisions. He’s always been the driving force behind me.’
‘So, you agree that he’s behind, rather than leading the way. That you’re the creative one.’
‘No. That’s not what I said.’ Exasperated, Karen looked away from the camera, away from Elle. ‘We don’t have a competitive relationship,’ she said. ‘We complement each other. I structure the clothes. He structures our company. We both create.’
‘But you got the Oakley Award,’ Elle said sweetly.
‘Yes, and Jeffrey was very proud.’
‘That’s very modern,’ Elle said. ‘Does he mind that you have controlling interest in the company? You do own the vast majority of the stock?’
Holy shit! Where did that come from? Surely Jeffrey hadn’t mentioned that. And the company was privately held, so how had Elle’s researchers dug that up? If Karen denied it, she’d be lying, and if she confirmed it, wouldn’t she be humiliating Jeffrey? Karen felt the seconds stretch out. She had to say something. ‘I don’t have a vast majority,’ she said. ‘Both of us are happy with the way our business has developed,’ she added. ‘Don’t you think we ought to be?’
Elle didn’t answer. ‘Would you ever sell it?’ she asked.
Karen took a deep breath. ‘I can’t see it happening,’ she said. ‘But I suppose that anything is possible.’
Karen felt sweat beading on her upper lip. She wished they could take a break, that she could get a glass of water and ask Defina how she was doing. She wondered if Jeffrey was there, behind the lights or in the green room. Was he groaning over her responses? Was she allowed to interrupt so she could regroup?
It wasn’t necessary. Because just then Elle reached over and touched Karen’s hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming here today,’ Elle said. As Karen opened her mouth to say, ‘You’re welcome,’ Elle had already tossed her perfect head and turned to look past the lights to the director. ‘Do we need any reaction shots?’ she asked the darkness, and Karen sat and waited for the answer.
It was over at last, and Karen expected to feel a swell of relief. She’d gotten through it, come off pretty well, and hadn’t been confronted with anything scandalous or shameful. Elle hadn’t paraded her real mother in front of her.
It was strange, then, that she felt disappointed.
Karen didn’t like the country.
When she was going on seven years old her mother and father thought it best to get her out of Brooklyn for the summer. They rented a bungalow in Freehold, New Jersey. Belle was heavily pregnant with Lisa and the city heat was too much for her. But so was the Jersey heat, and because of it Belle spent her days enervated, lying on a webbed plastic and aluminum folding chaise. Karen had spent their first few hot summer days alone, wandering the country lanes. When she found a bank along the roadside where wild strawberries grew, she had picked and eaten dozens of them without noticing they grew amidst poison ivy. Who knew from poison ivy in Brooklyn? She’d come down with a terrible case – all over her hands, her face, and the inside of her mouth. It had been torture.
She spent two weeks in bed while Belle slapped calamine lotion on her and yelled every time Karen scratched herself. ‘You’ll get scars!’ Belle warned. As it happened, Karen’s only scars from the experience were emotional: she still saw the country as truly dangerous. City danger was visible and largely avoidable – cross the street to prevent problems with an approaching gang of pubescent boys, avoid both cats and men nicknamed ‘Slasher,’ and don’t get into taxis driven by Asians. But in the country, danger lurked in even the most innocent-looking flowers. The woods were filled with men with guns, rabid animals, dangerous ankle-breaking sinkholes, and worse. People could disappear into the woods and never be heard from again.
That was one of the reasons why Karen was unenthusiastic when Jeffrey had proposed building the house in the country. Of course, Westport, Connecticut, was hardly the country – it was more like an extension of New York’s Upper East Side with lawns. Karen didn’t need it. With all the trouble she had with her work schedule and in keeping their New York household organized, she felt that another domestic responsibility was not at the top of her hit parade. But when Jeffrey had been insistent, she’d agreed to make a Real Deal: they kept the New York apartment instead of upgrading to a better address, but they built the house in Westport.
She had to admit that it was actually a beautiful house. And Jeffrey had done it all. Valentino had his interiors done by Peter Marino. Versace used the Italian Mongiardino. Yves Saint Laurent had Jacques Grange and Oscar de la Renta used three: Fourcade, Despont, and that American doyenne Sister Parrish. So you had to give Jeffrey credit. Artificially weathered to a dove-soft gray, it was one of those modern shingled jobs that had all the charm of an old house with all the conveniences of a new one. It was Jeffrey’s masterpiece. It sat well back from the road, shaded