A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [12]
Mrs. Mayhew glanced over at a lighter, fluffier, extremely floral hat on a display.
Eleanor snatched it up. “Try it, Mrs. Mayhew,” Eleanor suggested almost timidly.
“Oh dear, no,” said Mrs. Mayhew. “I’d look like a landing strip for birds.” And without losing a beat, she turned back to Hilary again and continued chatting. “Not that I think he should care what color the curtains are, but when I redo the entire bedroom, at least he could notice. I bet if Henry Goggins were to materialize in the bedroom, he wouldn’t even notice that.”
Mrs. Mayhew turned to her daughter. “You couldn’t find one either, could you, Caitlin?” Mrs. Mayhew stood, obviously done with the shop and ready to move on. Eleanor panicked. They were suddenly a test of whether she could do this. She pulled a dove gray felt hat from a drawer. “No, wait,” she said, “I’ll design one for you.” And then her voice got softer. “Just for you. No one in New York will have anything like it.”
Intrigued, Mrs. Mayhew sat down again. Eleanor placed the hat on her head and tipped it at an angle. “See, it suits you. Plain, simple lines. Elegant. See, it hits your forehead, just so.” She rummaged through a drawer and found a feather and a darker beige hatband. She put the feather on the side at an angle and secured it with the hatband. Mrs. Mayhew’s short bobbed hair curled out from just under the rim.
Mrs. Mayhew stared at herself in the mirror critically. “No, I like it,” she said. She stood up, the hat still on her head like a beacon. “Why didn’t you just do that to begin with?”
Eleanor smiled politely and turned her attention to Mrs. Mayhew’s daughter. “Now, let’s see what you want.”
Caitlin Mayhew looked at her sullenly.
“Is there anything you like?” asked Eleanor.
Caitlin pulled a large, plain black hat from a display stand.
“Caitlin!” her mother admonished her. “You can’t wear a black hat to your commencement.”
Caitlin put a hand over her forehead and slumped back into her chair.
“I could design something for you, too,” said Eleanor, careful not to sound too enthusiastic.
Caitlin looked at her skeptically. Eleanor pulled a light chocolate brown wide-rimmed sun hat from a shelf and a yellow ribbon from a drawer. She looked at Caitlin and smiled, and it was clear that she would win this, too.
And, finally, Dora had to admit that Eleanor did have a knack for selling hats. She had confessed to Dora that she’d learned a bit of sewing as a child. “There wasn’t anyone else to do the mending,” she’d explained which was about all she had explained. Her hands seemed to take naturally to the finer part, delicate stitches, embroidery. She knew the right way, instinctively, to set a bead on a piece of lace, the perfect shade of ribbon for each hat, yet often such unusual choices. She had a good eye for design, subtle, nothing obvious or gauche. And, odder still, she was seemingly honest, which was strange, since she really had come in off the street although by what means, Dora still didn’t realize.
After awhile, Dora began to take more time to herself, longer lunches, naps at home when she’d had more than a glass of wine, an occasional afternoon liaison. She instructed Eleanor, “Just do the sewing in the front whenever I’m out, that way you can keep an eye on who comes in. And, if you feel like it, wear anything in the shop. As if you’re a bit of an ad.”
It was on just such an afternoon, when Dora was out on an errand or rather, lying prone at home, when Eleanor was sitting, a bit like a picture in the window, with her head bowed intently sewing a ribbon on a hat, when the bells on the shop door jingled and a man entered in uniform.
She finished her stitch and looked up at him. She recognized Philip Alsop at once. The uniform made a difference, made him look more solid somehow, not that she hadn’t thought he was attractive when she first met him but