We can’t just follow Paris for the sake of Paris!
As long as I live, I shall never forget those words. That speech was certainly more stirring to me than anything Churchill had ever said.
Celia and I were now busy unpacking a trunk filled with the most delicious items of bath and beauty—articles of toilette that made us swoon with joy. There were carnation-scented bath oils, lavender alcohol rubs, pomander balls to spice up the drawers and closets, and so many alluring glass vials of lotions with French instructions. It was positively intoxicating. I would have been embarrassed by our overenthusiasm, but Edna seemed to be genuinely enjoying our squeaks and squeals of delight. In fact, she seemed to be having just as much fun as we were. I had the craziest sensation that Edna might actually like us. This was interesting to me then, and it is still interesting now. Older women don’t always relish the company of beautiful young girls, for obvious reasons. But not Edna.
“Girls,” she said, “I could watch the two of you effervesce for hours!”
And boy, did we effervesce. I’d never seen such a wardrobe. Edna even had a valise filled with nothing but gloves—each pair wrapped lovingly in its own silk.
“Never buy inexpensive or poorly made gloves,” Edna instructed us. “That’s not the place to save your money. Whenever you are faced with the prospect of purchasing gloves, you must ask yourself if you would be bereft to lose one of them in the back of a taxicab. If not, then don’t buy them. You should only buy gloves so beautiful that to lose one of them would break your heart.”
—
At some point, Edna’s husband walked in, but he was inconsequential (handsome as he was) compared to this exotic wardrobe. She kissed his cheek and sent him on his way, saying, “There’s no room in here yet for a man, Arthur. Go have a drink somewhere and entertain yourself until these dear girls are done, and then I promise I’ll find space for you and your one sorry little duffel bag.”
He sulked a bit, but did her bidding.
After he left, Celia said, “Say, but he’s a looker, ain’t he!”
I thought Edna might be offended, but she only laughed. “He is indeed, as you say, a looker. I’ve never before seen his like, to be candid with you. We’ve been married nearly a decade, and I haven’t grown tired of looking at him yet.”
“But he’s young.”
I could’ve kicked Celia for her rudeness, but Edna, again, didn’t seem to mind. “Yes, dear Celia. He is young—far younger than me, in fact. One of my greatest achievements, I daresay.”
“You don’t get worried?” Celia pressed on. “There’s gotta be a lot of young dishes out there who want to put the moves on him.”
“I don’t worry about dishes, my dear. Dishes break.”
“Ooh!” said Celia, and her face lit up with something like awe.
“When you have found your own success as a woman,” explained Edna, “you may do such a fun thing as marry a handsome man who is very much your junior. Consider it a reward for all your hard work. When first I met Arthur, he was just a boy—a set carpenter for an Ibsen play I was doing. An Enemy of the People. I was Mrs. Stockmann, and oh, it’s a dull role. But meeting Arthur livened things up for me during the run of that play—and he has kept things lively for me since. I’m awfully fond of him, girls. He’s my third husband, of course. Nobody’s first husband looks like Arthur. My first husband was a civil servant, and I don’t mind saying that he made love like a civil servant, too. My second husband was a theater director. I won’t make that mistake again. And now there is dear Arthur, so handsome and yet so cozy. My gift, till the end of my days. I’m so fond of him that I even took his name—though my theater friends warned me not to, since my own name was already well known. I’d never taken the names of any of my other husbands before, you see. But Edna Parker Watson has a nice ring to it, don’t you agree? And what about you, Celia? Have you ever had any husbands?”
I wanted to say: She’s had many husbands, Edna—but only one of them was her own.
“Yeah,” said Celia. “I had a husband once. He played the saxophone.”
“Oh, dear. So we may assume that didn’t last?”
“Yeah, you guessed it, lady.” Celia drew a line across her own throat, to indicate, I guess, the death of love.
“And what about you, Vivian? Married? Engaged?”
“No,” I said.
“Anybody special?”
“Nobody special,” I said, and something about the way I uttered the word “special” made Edna burst out laughing.
“Ah, but you have a somebody, I can see.”
“She has a few somebodies,” Celia said, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Good work, Vivian!” Edna gave me an appraising second look. “You’re growing more interesting to me by the moment!”
—
Later on in the evening—it must have been well after midnight by then—Peg came in to check on us. She settled into a deep chair with a nightcap in her hand and watched with pleasure as Celia and I finished unpacking Edna’s trunks.
“Gadzooks, Edna,” Peg said. “You have a lot of clothes.”
“This is a mere fraction of the collection, Peg. You should see my wardrobe back home.” She paused. “Oh, dear. I’ve just now remembered again that I’ve lost everything back home. My contribution to the war effort, I suppose. Evidently Mr. Goering needed to destroy my more-than-three-decades-in-the-making costume collection as part of his plan for making the world safe for the Aryan race. I don’t quite see how it served him, but the sad deed is done.”
I marveled at how lightly she seemed to take the destruction of her home. So, apparently, did Peg, who said, “I must admit, Edna, I was expecting to find you a bit more shaken up by all this.”
“Oh, Peg, you know me better than that! Or have you forgotten how good I am at adjusting to circumstances? You can’t lead the sort of patched-together life that I’ve lived and get too sentimental about things.”
Peg grinned. “Show people,” she said to me, shaking her head with an insider’s appreciation.
Celia had just now pulled out an elegant floor-length, high-necked, black crepe gown with long sleeves, and a small pearl brooch set deliberately off center.
“Now that’s something,” said Celia.
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” said Edna, holding the dress up to herself. “But I’ve had a difficult relationship with this dress. Black can be the smartest of colors, or it can be the dowdiest, depending on the line. I wore this gown only once, and I felt like a Greek widow in it. But I’ve kept it because I like the pearl detail.”
I approached the dress, respectfully. “May I?” I asked.
Edna handed me the dress and I laid it out on the sofa, touching it here and there, and getting a better sense of it.
“The problem isn’t the color,” I diagnosed. “The problem is the sleeves. The material of the sleeves is heavier than the material of the bodice—can you see that? This dress should have chiffon sleeves—or none at all, which would be better for you, petite as you are.”
Edna studied the gown and then looked at me with surprise.
“I believe you’re on to something there, Vivian.”
“I could fix it for you, if you’ll trust me with it.”