The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [117]
She sighed, staring dreamily into her soup. “I just couldn’t believe it when I saw myself. I looked like another person.” Her face grew thoughtful. “A new person,” she added. “Verity Byron.”
“Is that your mannequin name, then?” Rosa asked, propping her chin on her hand and looking admiringly at Missie.
She nodded. “Only for work though. Here I’m still just Missie.”
Viktor cocked his head as the hall door slammed and footsteps sounded on the stairs. Rosa glanced at the old bracket clock and sighed. “I expect that’s Meyer,” she said, hurrying to the stove and stirring the stew, picking out the lumps of meat and filling his plate. “He likes his meal ready on the table as soon as he walks in.”
“We’ll be off, then,” Missie said, gathering her things together hastily and grabbing Azaylee’s hand. She hesitated. “Rosa, would you still be able to look after Azaylee for me? I don’t know what the hours are yet, but Madame said they would be ‘unorthodox,’ whatever that means.”
“It means ‘long, ’” Rosa said with a laugh. “Naturally I’ll take her, don’t worry. And, Missie”—she kissed her warmly on the cheek—“I’m pleased for you. It sounds real wonderful, like a dream come true.”
Missie drew in a deep, satisfied breath. “Not quite,” she said, “but it’s a beginning.”
She couldn’t wait to get to Elise’s each morning for the fitters to begin reshaping the glamorous dresses, but she was very aware of the jealous glances of the other models. There were three of them. Miranda, a blonde, Minette, a redhead, and Minerve, a raven-haired beauty, and Missie thought they were all far more glamorous than she and very confident. But Elise kept them away from her, guarding her as if she were a secret weapon.
She made her walk endlessly up and down the lilac salon, wearing a silk wrapper and high-heeled shoes, draped with pearls and soft fur boas, practicing her walk and poses, sighing when Missie did not get it right.
And on Saturday Elise herself pressed a little lilac envelope into her hand. “Your first week’s wages, Verity,” she said, patting her on the shoulder. “You are not as good as Barbara yet but you learn quickly and you are more beautiful than her.”
Missie glanced at her reflection in the banks of mirrors along the wall, wondering if she really looked beautiful, barely recognizing herself. Surely this tall, languorous young woman with her rouged cheeks, her enormous shadowed eyes and pouting red mouth must be someone else? The long dark-green silk-velvet coat clung to her narrow hips and the amber-colored fox collar framed her face becomingly. “I look like a debutante,” she told herself, surprised. And then she added slowly, “I look just the way Anouska used to look.”
When she opened the lilac envelope later that night, she found four crisp ten-dollar bills. She knew Elise’s dresses cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, but forty dollars for only four days’ work! She could pay Rosa back her five dollars, pay her rent, pay off her new coat, buy Azaylee the new boots she needed, and there would still be enough left over for food. She could even pay Zev Abramski back ten dollars. Missie laughed; she just couldn’t wait to see his face when she gave him the money and told him her story tomorrow at the Ukrainian café. Why, she could even take him to supper this time.
Zev stared at the ten-dollar