A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [11]
Jane looked at her sadly. Did any of them know, really, what the next few years was going to bring. “Philip’s not like us, Rose.”
Philip Alsop’s father had died when he was fairly young and not left him and his mother well provided for. Philip had always gone to the best schools somehow, but had always been the poorest boy in them. There had always been the money owed to the butcher, the dressmaker, the tailor. It was part of his mother’s talent to get them to continue to extend credit but it took its toll on her. It had made him stronger though, more determined, more responsible. He’d started with a storefront on the docks and built his shipping business up himself. “Unlike the rest of us,” said Jane, “he’s worked for everything he has. It isn’t an indictment, Rose. It’s just a fact.”
“What does that mean?” asked Rosemary. “That he has a different sense of duty than the rest of us. I intend to volunteer.”
“Of course you do, dear,” said Jane soothingly. Better not to have a fight. Rosemary always thought her positions were correct, exemplary. Rosemary probably thought that she was “essential service” here. Poor Rose. Did she really think the war wouldn’t change anything at all?
“Two days…” said Rosemary, picking up another piece of lace. “We can’t go away. Should we check into the Plaza for a night…” She was half-joking when she added, “Or just take a ferry around Staten Island?”
Eleanor didn’t understand why Jane Howard thought she would be good at this. These women had no idea what they wanted half the time and they didn’t trust anyone else to tell them what looked good. And, to further complicate the enterprise, Eleanor had discovered that her sense of aesthetics was so strong that she couldn’t let anyone out of the shop wearing a hat that didn’t flatter them. Somehow, she justified it, that wouldn’t be good for business, anyway.
On the afternoon in question, a society woman named Emily Mayhew had wandered into the shop in search of a hat for her daughter’s commencement, with her daughter, the thirteen-year-old object of the commencement, Caitlin Mayhew, in tow. They were accompanied by a small brown terrier by the name of Tiger who went everywhere with them and a woman friend of Mrs. Mayhew’s who appeared to have more interest in gossiping than in hats, although she occasionally interrupted their discourse to make disparaging remarks about any number of them.
Eleanor first tried a navy hat on Mrs. Mayhew’s head that was oval shaped with a brim that arched slightly over her forehead.
“I don’t know…” said Mrs. Mayhew, looking in the mirror.
“It makes your nose look too long,” said her friend.
Eleanor said sweetly, “I think you have a nice nose.”
“Patrician,” said Mrs. Mayhew cutting her off. She turned back to her friend. “Anyway, they’re all smitten with her. Under her spell, I should say.” Mrs. Mayhew laughed at her own joke. “I think she has an odd name for a seer, ‘Madame Olga’!” The woman she was referring to was a psychic, a gypsy, who recently, because of a number of well-placed predictions, had become a bit of a rage about town. “Katherine swears she conjured up Henry Goggins the other night right in Mrs. Van der Owen’s living room,” said Mrs. Mayhew. “But why they would want to conjure up Henry Goggins is beyond me.”
“I sort of liked him,” said Mrs. Mayhew’s friend, Hilary.
“Hilary!” said Mrs. Mayhew as though her friend had said something untoward. The two of them giggled. Caitlin looked bored, awkward, slumped in her chair in a perfect teenage adolescent slouch.
“But I was thinking, said Mrs. Mayhew, “what if I could talk to Mama! I always wanted to know what happened to that ruby brooch. Look around, Caitlin. You have to do this, too. It is your commencement.”
Caitlin looked completely disinterested in the idea of a new hat.
“You know that Daddy wants you to look nice,” said Mrs. Mayhew and turned back to her friend. “Not that he’ll notice. Theodore