Daughter to Demons

by Jeffrey M. Mahr and Levanah

Chapter Twenty-Two:
Before the Dawn

A painter should begin every canvas
with a wash of black,
because all things in nature are dark
except where exposed by the light.
― Leonardo da Vinci

 

Jackie’s cell phone rang while she was driving into town to check up on progress for the Spring and Summer Collections at her atelier, so she pressed the button on the steering wheel to pick up. “Hello, she said to the air, Jacquelyn Leigh here. How can I help you?”

A woman’s voice said, “Unh… Jackie?”

“That’s me!” she said brightly. “This is Ruth, isn’t it?”

“Unh… Yes, it is, but how did you know?”

“I wish I could say that it was magic, but I can see your caller ID name on the heads-up display. Do you need anything? How are things going with you and Tom?”

She hesitated. “You’re the one who told Tom to call me?”

“That’s me. We met in my mother’s nightclub, and he chatted me up, nothing serious, of course, but he was lonely, a bit despondent after the untimely death of his wife, I think, and was trying to reach out for any kind of anchor point. We soon sorted it out, though. I believe he wanted to see you. Did everything turn out right?”

“Oh! It did. I don’t know what you said to him but he came right over to my apartment and just spilled out all his feelings, the sadness he’d felt since Elizabeth died, and how overwhelmed he felt with a young daughter to raise, and how he thought that I might understand, because of my own… loss. And then ….” She faltered.

“It went well, then?” Jackie laughed quietly, an intimate understanding between two women. “I thought it might. Tom really admires you, you know.”

“Oh! Yes! Very much so. He made me feel like a schoolgirl again, almost, and we just fell into bed together. It was just like we’d been waiting for each other to say the first word. Well, anyway, we’re getting married, and we both wanted to invite you, because you brought us together.”

“Of course I’ll come. When’s the happy day?”

“Soon. Quite soon, actually.” She giggled. “It turns out that Tom is quite the handsome rake, and I’m pregnant now, which is a miracle in itself, because I’d been told that I could never have children… until I met Tom, so now I’ll have two, one ready-made, so to speak, his daughter Ellen, and one of our own. Ellen’s just over the moon about it, and I had an ultrasound, of course, because of my age, so we all know that it’s a girl, and perfectly healthy, and I… we… wanted to know if you’d mind terribly if we named her after you?”

“I’d be honored, Ruth, of course, and you simply must let me do something for you in return. Do you have a gown?”

“Well, no. I just thought….”

“You’ll have to come down to the shop, then, and we’ll get you fitted out in style. I promise you, you’ll love it, and I’ll run up a gown for Ellen as well. Is she a bridesmaid or a flower girl?”

“Unh… I hadn’t thought….”

“No matter. We’ll let her decide. Tom will know where it is, since it’s just next door to La Calaca, so my mother and I share the valet parking staff. Don’t be put off by the neighborhood, though; it’s what we delicately say is ‘in the process of revitalization,’ and the people in the area are simply wonderful. In fact, many of my staff are women from the neighborhood, and very talented seamstresses.”

“You’re that Jacquelyn Leigh?”

Jackie laughed. “I don’t know which one you mean. The bank-robber? The cattle baroness?”

“The one with the eight-page spread in this month’s Vanity Fair! The woman who’s designing Princess What’sername’s gown for the Cannes film festival! And last month they had a feature about you in Harper’s Bazaar. Oh, my God! Tom thought….”

“Don’t tell me. He thought he’d met the proverbial ‘hooker with a heart of gold?’ Well, you know men and their fantasies. My mother runs a saloon, among other things, and when I drop in for a visit, I sometimes wait at the bar.” She laughed in delight. “How deliciously funny. I certainly hope he thought that I’d be way more than he could afford.”

“I hope you’re not offended. Tom said….”

“I think he may have been confused. I did notice that he became visibly… excited… while he was talking to me, but I assure you that we were talking about you, and how much he admired you. But offended? Of course not. He’s a sweet man, and very sincere, as I’m sure you know, but perhaps a bit inexperienced in such matters. It’s an honest-enough trade, though, and certainly doesn’t shock me. Fashion designers in general walk a fine line somewhere between exotic and erotic, between making a woman feel confident and strong and making her feel beautiful and sexually alluring, so at least part of my business is providing the tools whereby a woman might entice a man, so it would be hypocritical to deny that my creations are designed with both feminine and masculine desire in mind. I can’t recall, for example, anyone ever telling me that any of my outfits would be perfect for weeding their garden, or for mucking out the stables, not even cleaning the refrigerator.”

She laughed. “No, I don’t imagine you would. At least none of the designs they showed in Vanity Fair seemed appropriate for that sort of thing.”

Jackie laughed. “Believe me, the Vogue spread was much less subtle. Perhaps for the next Spring and Summer line; I might be able to do a Garden of Eden tie-in with a haut couture gardening outfit or two. The trade journalists always love to feature a little quirk that seems shocking or bizarre. In any case, please feel free to call at any time and we can arrange a showing of designs I think you might like, and of course have one of our fitters take your measurements.”

“Oh, can’t I just tell you what size I take?”

“I’m afraid not. Couture is custom made and fitted, so we’ll need very exacting measurements, plus one or more fittings to ensure that the gown will conform exactly to your body, not the average set of measurements of a thousand women of about your bra size and weight. In your case, of course, we’ll have to choose a style with a little… flexibility… in the waistline, perhaps an empire waist, if you think that style might suit you, but there are many options, and I’d have to take a good look at you….”

She seemed flustered. “Oh! Oh, no! It’s too much! I didn’t call to ask any favors….”

“Not at all, Ruth. You brought me luck that day, because it was that very day that I signed the lease on my boutique and workshop. I don’t think it’s any sort of coïncidence that an act of kindness led to something good, and you simply must allow me to thank you by making your special day as memorable as possible.”

“Well….” She was wavering, and tempted.

Jackie took her hesitation as whole-hearted agreement, having learned the art of the close by heart during her adventures in the business world. “Oh, good. You won’t be sorry, I promise you. Love, true love, is a miracle, you know, and it changes everything, so why not your gown?”

“I….”

“It’s settled, then,” she said brightly. “Are you busy right now? I know it’s Saturday, and you probably have shopping to do, but would you mind dropping by today? You could look over some of my designs and we could talk about how you see yourself, so I could get an idea about how best to flatter you and reflect your own attitude toward life.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Don’t bother with any makeup or special outfits, because I have plenty of stock on hand, so we can play with that as well, to get you in the proper mood. In fact, it’s early enough for lunch — have you eaten?”

“No, I….”

“That’s perfect, then. Can I count on you for twelve thirty, then? That’ll give you an hour, then we can have a little nosh and talk for a bit before we go look at gowns.”

There was a long silence before she said, “Yes! I’ll do it! Jackie, I’m not usually spontaneous at all, but you seem to bring out the daredevil in me.”

Jackie laughed. “Good! Life is too short for sitting around. Ruth, let’s go for a ride!”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” She sounded excited, almost as if she were seventeen and going to Disney World for the first time.

“I’ll call ahead and have a table waiting. When you get to La Calaca, just tell the valet that you’re with me and he’ll direct you.”

“I feel so wicked, Jackie, like I’d fallen into the set of Roman Holiday! Like I was free to be and do anything I please.”

“But you are, my dear. Didn’t anyone tell you? Something must have gone seriously amiss; they’re supposed to hand you your crown princess tiara right along with the results of the pregnancy test.”

They both laughed, as easy and familiar with each other as if they’d gone to school with each other.

They were alone in the banquet/dining room, with a table set just for the two of them, when Ruth said, “I can’t believe you grew up with all this! It must have been so exciting being around this as a young girl.”

“It would have been, but it didn’t happen that way,” she said simply. “I grew up in Saint Mary’s Home for Girls in Manhattan, run by the New York branch of the Sisters of Charity.”

“My God, Jackie! How did that happen?”

Jackie smiled. “Not through planning, I can assure you. Through a horrendous experience crossing the border, I was separated from my mother at a very early age, too young to remember her, actually. I grew up thinking that both my parents were dead, But then, around eighteen months ago, and entirely through accident, I happened to come here with some friends and my mother instantly recognised me. I didn’t believe it at first, and then I was angry, so our relationship was… difficult… for the first few months. I thought that she was a heartless monster, while she had difficulty fully realizing that I was still alive, since she’d thought that I had died. But we’ve reconciled — more or less — and usually get along quite well now.”

“Do you know what happened? How you were separated?”

“I don’t, but she’s not really very comfortable talking about her past. I gather that there were some very hard times in the early days, so I don’t press her for answers. You know what Friedrich Nietzsche said, ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger.’ As good advice, or perhaps consolation, that sounds appropriate for both of us. We’re both alive and well after all our troubles, both strong women, and have a lot of years ahead of us to explore our odd relationship. I’m convinced that I’m her daughter, and that’s good enough for me, although she petitioned the court to both acknowledge and claim her maternity, so I have a piece of paper to wave around if anyone ever questions it, which I doubt would ever happen. In fact, if you ever see her, you’ll see why. I’m told that we look like sisters, which I sincerely hope means that she looks very young, not the opposite. Good genes, I guess.” She mimed knocking on the table. “Knock on wood,” she said, and smiled.

“You called?” Lilith had walked up behind them.

Jackie turned to look at her. “Hi, Mom. This is Ruth, Tom’s fiancée.”

“And just in time, I see,” Lilith said, eying her very visible ‘bump,’ but then she smiled. “I’m glad to see that it all turned out well for you.”

Ruth seemed startled. “You know about Tom and I?”

“Of course, dear. He’s a valued customer of my little establishment — though he hasn’t been in lately, but I can see that he’s been… busy… in other ways.” She glanced again at Ruth’s midriff with a little smile. “I’d caught the tail end of his conversation with my daughter here when she sent him running off to you. I was very proud of how well she managed it. She’s a woman of many parts, my little girl is. If this fashionista thing ever runs its course, she’ll make a great therapist or counselor, or a bartender for that matter — I’m not sure there’s much difference some days — and perhaps a matchmaker as well. She has the gift of seeing into people’s deepest hearts.”

“Mo-o-om!” Jackie looked and sounded deeply aggrieved.

Lilith paid no mind. “Now, now, dear. Don’t be modest. It’s true.” She turned to Ruth. “I understand she’s doing your gown. You won’t be sorry. That’s part of her gift as well. She’ll make you look like your own dream of yourself, your deepest fantasy of the woman you want to be. She knows what women know, that a woman’s garments can be her holy vestments and sacred regalia — like a matador’s traje de luces, the suit of lights that symbolizes his personal devotion to an ancient code of honor and courage — that a woman’s wedding gown is the outward symbol of the inward sanctity of her essential rôle in the future of humanity, the solemn consecration of her body to the service of life itself.”

“Mother!” Her voice rose sharply. “You’ll scare her.”

Lilith gazed intently into Ruth’s eyes, who neither glanced aside nor turned away. “No, Jackie, I won’t. Ruth knows exactly what I mean. We two are older, and perhaps more wise in our age even than you. We both know well the hazards pregnancy entails for a woman past the first bloom of youth.” She reached out to take Ruth’s hand in hers. “I may not have quite my daughter’s skill at peering into hearts and souls, but I do have my own gifts; I’m something of a seer, and I promise you that all will be well with you and with your daughter. She’ll be a shining star, a bright light in a sometimes dark and dreary world. Her many accomplishments and eventual fame will make both you and Tom very proud. If you wish it, there will be a second child as well, a son, who will be both healthy and strong. Tom is a good and loyal man who will love you always and never give you cause to doubt him. Long life to you both, and always happiness. I look forward to working on your gown.” With that, she turned away, pausing only to add, “I’m Lilith del Rio. Please feel free to call upon me at need.” And then she walked straight out through a door at the back of the hall, as suddenly determined and imperious as any Queen.

She left something of a vacuum behind, an absence of her presence that was almost palpable. Jackie, who was by now somewhat inured to her ways, recovered first. “That, believe it or not, was my Mom at her most cordial and unassuming. Her last remark was one of which you should take careful note, however, because she’s given you a place among her retainers, the rough equivalent of the Order of the British Empire in the local area, and to some extent better security than a US Passport almost anywhere in the world.”

Ruth looked at her in puzzlement. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean that if you ever find yourself in any sort of serious difficulty, call here first. Someone will be along to help you as soon as possible, which can be very quick indeed.”

“But why on Earth would she do anything for me?”

“It’s difficult to explain to anyone not steeped in Old World traditions, but she’s the major landowner and employer in this part of town, La Patrona, in the local parlance, and as such the residents both expect and receive special attention and regard for their welfare.”

“What? Like Marlon Brando in The Godfather?”

“Nothing quite so grand or dangerous, and certainly no signet ring to kneel before and kiss, as if she were the Pope or something, but the criminals depicted in the movies were more or less modeled after the same old-fashioned notions of mutual obligation and respect she follows in her daily life. For you, it’s more like having been a member of one of the larger sororities, like Alpha Delta Pi, the Adelphians. If you want someone ‘taken for a ride,’ you’ll have to arrange that on your own, but if you ever get really ill, or find yourself in any situation in which you don’t know which way to turn, she, or more likely one of her lawyers, will find a way to help you if you ask for her assistance. A doctor specializing in the disease will be found, influential people will be contacted, and the path before you made easier, because a ‘sorority sister’ will know someone, a favor will be called in, or something you never thought of will be possible, and there will be someone available who can stand by you.”

She blinked. “But why would she do that? I’ve never done anything for her.”

Jackie shrugged. “Lots of reasons. Probably the most important is that I took an interest in you and Tom, so she may well regard you as a ‘friend of the family,’ or something like it. Possibly because she took a liking to you as well; she doesn’t read people’s futures as a rule — not for fun anyway — so it’s clear that she took an interest in you too.” Jackie smiled at her. “Maybe she just felt like it. You’re having lunch in her restaurant, and perhaps she just thought that you looked interesting.” She shrugged, content to let it remain a mystery. “It’s been known to happen. She’s an extremely well-connected woman, and doesn’t hesitate to help her friends, those she’s taken a liking to, if she becomes aware of any difficulty in their lives. If she can smooth the way, or knows someone who can — and she almost always does — she’ll do it without a moment’s hesitation.”

Ruth still seemed puzzled, but said, “Okay. I feel a bit like I’ve crossed the border into Old Mexico or something, but I guess I’m actually in a sort of transplanted Mexico, in some ways at least. I’ve never been in this part of town before, except to drive through on the main street, so I shouldn’t be surprised to find out that things are different here.”

“Not quite Mexico,” Jackie said, “but perhaps a peculiarly American combination of two cultures, one from Meso-America, and a US culture that blends many cultures into one. Most large cities in the USA have a ‘Chinatown,’ for example; many have an Italian or Irish quarter as well, and New York City has areas in which you’d swear that you were somewhere in an Eastern European Jewish Schtetl from a hundred years ago, but it’s all part of the American melting pot.”

“True. I was in California years ago, traveling up the coast from LA, and we ran into a sort of Danish town named Solvang. Then, when we got to San Francisco, we wound up in what looked almost like Russia, with Russian-language signs on the shops and Orthodox churches with those onion-shaped domes, like you see in tourist pictures of Moscow.”

“Cool!” Jackie had always wanted to visit California, ever since seeing lots of Perry Mason and The Streets of San Francisco reruns on TV in the orphanage. Jackie had wanted to watch Beverly Hills, 90210, and Baywatch, but the Sisters hadn’t approved of either show, so it was rare when the girls had managed to catch many modern shows at all. The Sisters had never had cable either, so the TV in the social hall was dependent on an ordinary set of ‘rabbit ears’ on top of the TV, which they never managed to get aimed well enough to get more than a slightly snowy picture. Jackie hadn’t cared, since that was all she knew, and the difficulty seeing just made California seem more mysterious, like the cloudy future seen in a crystal ball. “What was California like? Do people really run around nude on all the beaches, like they say?”

Ruth laughed. “Not that we saw, but the beaches were spectacular in other ways. The waves seemed so much bigger than they on our coast. We went to one beach that I had to leave within a few minutes, because you could feel the surf crashing on the sand so powerfully that it made the sand shake, and it was so noisy that it scared me.”

Jackie could hardly imagine what it must have been like, but set the thought aside. “Enough worrying about the larger world, what would you like to eat?”

“Just a salad, I think, if you’ll be taking measurements, and maybe a glass of tea?”

“Sounds good to me. Wait here for a bit, and I’ll go get the two of us spinach salads and a nice glass tea.”

After lunch, they both walked back to the empty kitchen to bus their own dishes, and then Jackie gave Ruth the nickel tour, starting with the ladies room. Ruth was suitably impressed. What really impressed her, though, was how big the place was.

“From the outside,” she enthused, “this place looks barely big enough to be a hole-in-the-wall bar, but once you walk in it’s ritzy enough to be one of those trendy nightclubs in Greenwich Village. I’m surprised they don’t have buses bringing tourists in just for the décor.”

“Yeah, what you see from the front façade is mostly the entry and the first bit of the bar, and the barfront is deliberately ‘staged’ architecturally to give the impression that it’s the front of a separate building, but the place actually extends partially across the back of what looks like the two separate buildings on either side. My mother explained it to me once as a form of marketing; it invites people in because it looks quiet and unassuming. If it were too imposing, a lot of the local people might feel as if they wouldn’t be welcome, but if it were too small, it wouldn’t attract enough of a crowd to make it profitable. The whole place is carefully-designed to look just a little shabby and unkempt as well, just to make sure that everyone feels welcome to walk in just as they are, without having to ‘dress up’ or put on any sort of false front. We do have valet off-street parking, so people feel safe leaving their cars, but there’s no one at the door making sure that you’re pretty enough, or rich enough, to be allowed past a ‘velvet rope’ nor is there a team of bouncers waiting before you get in.”

As they walked past the stage, Ruth asked, “What sort of shows do they put on here? The stage is large enough for a rock band, or a modest dance recital.”

Jackie smiled at Ruth’s choice of words. “Well, my mother’s an amazing dancer; you ought to see her show some weekend evening. She’ll make you feel powerful and proud to be a woman; I’ll guarantee it, but I can also guarantee that many of the men in the audience will have a slightly different reaction.” She winked and smiled knowingly. “There’s something sensual and primal about her dances, as if they could have been performed in ancient Egypt, or Babylon.” She gestured toward the sliding wall that currently separated the stage floor from the dance hall. “The room next door has a dance floor, and the wall between them can be opened up to make one huge space, so it’s a nice dance club as well, for either a live band or a deejay. It’s very popular with the college crowd, at least the trendy set, but manages to attract the locals as well.”

“I can well understand that at least. When you look at the astounding realism of the decorations, it’s just astounding. It looks almost like a museum display.”

“They are nice, aren’t they? They required quite a bit of time spent researching in Mexico, deep in the Inca and Aztec homelands, to fully capture their otherworldly spirit.” She pointed to one of the many representations of La Calalca, the skeletal spirit of rebirth and joy, at least one of which appeared on the wall of every room. “That’s ‘La Catrina,’ the Aztec Goddess Mictecacihuatl, Mistress of the Afterlife, but you’ll notice that she’s happy, because all the dead are happy in the ancient belief, since death is just a way station on the soul’s spiritual journey toward rebirth. The Greeks knew her as Persephone, the consort of Hades, the Goddess of Spring and Making All Things New Again, a central figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries, along with her mother Demeter, Goddess of the Earth, Agriculture, Harvest, and Forests, everything living, in fact, that draws life from the Sun, the in-dwelling Spirit of the Divine, in Jewish terms the Shekhinah, the Presence of God in Creation, the Sabbath Queen and Bride, Shabbat Hamalka.”

“Really? But….”

“Sometimes, Ruth, when looking at spiritual reality, you have to squinch up your eyes a bit and look askance, like trying to see the faintest stars in a dark sky. God has never abandoned any of Her children, and is manifest to all, or as much of Her as we can understand, each in our own manner. ‘In the very beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the dark waters, fluttering Her wings like a mother bird protects her chicks from the fiery heat of the desert with a cooling breeze.’ How much more have we fragile creatures needed protection from the deadly atomic fires of our Sun, whose fierce radiation would destroy all life, even at this distance, would strip away from Earth the very air we breathe, were it not safely tamed by the invisible wings of the electromagnetic field that cradles us secure, the gift of Promethea, first Titan, first Goddess among the Gods, who gave us fire, but safely controlled — the Sun’s fire transformed by photosynthesis into leaves and food and twigs and wood, eventually into coal, into oil and natural gas — by secreting a molten core of iron beneath us that generates a gentle magnetic field, our true compass pointing toward the origin of life, the miraculous little island worlds of calm shelter drifting safe within the deadly maelstroms of poisonous gas and radiation that comprise the Universe at large.”

Ruth was looking a little overwhelmed. “Uhmmm….”

Jackie laughed. “Did I ever tell you that I have a PhD in Comparative Religions and Mythologies? Sometime I slip into my lecture hall mode.”

“Well, it seems to have escaped Tom’s notice,” she glanced at Jackie’s figure with shrewd appraisal, “but I can easily understand why. Men are easily stunned by a lady with a ‘classy chassis.’ I can see how you could keep a seminar focused, though, even without ‘visual aids.’ Just listening to you it all seemed so real, and fascinating, almost as if you’d seen it all in person. Of course, I’ve seen some of the Hubble images, so those pictures came readily to mind when you talked about the violence of the Universe out there.” She waved one hand vaguely toward the sky above them, or where the sky would be if they were outside.

Jackie smiled. “ ‘The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself,’ all the stuff that dreams are made of, as Sam Spade once said in The Maltese Falcon.”

Ruth laughed. “Did he really say all that?”

“Well, the last part, anyway. The introduction undoubtedly slipped his mind. He was a man of few words.”

Ruth raised one eyebrow. “So the hard-boiled private dick was a philosopher. Who knew?”

Jackie grinned, caught out in her joke, but willing to go one more round as they walked out the door of the bar, across the drive, and then turned right toward the entry to her boutique. “I think anyone who truly faces death becomes a philosopher eventually, because life is a game played in deadly earnest, and you have to keep your hole card in mind.”

Showing off her boutique and the designs took a while, of course, since Ruth wanted to see everything, not just the gowns, so it was dark by the time they were finishing up. Ruth had phoned Tom so he wouldn’t worry, and they’d had a light supper delivered from the restaurant, which was fully-staffed in the late afternoon and evenings.

Jackie brought out her pièce de résistance — among her wedding gowns at least — the one she’d been saving for last. “I think you’ll especially like this one, Ruth. It’s my personal ace in the hole for pregnant brides.” Jackie was holding up a delicately creamy white silk gown with empire waist, the skirts silk tulle net over satin, with an embroidered satin sleeveless bodice featuring tiny crystal beading highlighting the pattern of the embroidery. “There are optional sleeves available in any length,” she said, “if you prefer a more demure look, a detachable chapel train if you want one, and the skirts themselves can be adjusted to any length desired. I think you’d look fabulous in it just as it is.” They were both standing in front of a large floor-to-ceiling mirror in the fitting room, and Jackie had the gown draped in front of Ruth, who was in a slip and her underwear. Jackie was right, of course, the subtle gradations of very slightly creamy white were perfect against Ruth’s light olive skin, green eyes, and jet-black hair with soft curls. As she moved slightly, the glint of the lights on the crystals sparkled randomly, which seemed to amplify and define the curves of her bosom and waist with an almost hypnotic allure.

Ruth was captivated by her own reflection. “I can hardly believe it’s me,” she said. “I’m so beautiful.”

“No more beautiful, I think, than Tom already knows.” Jackie adjusted the drape of the skirt slightly on one side. “I think I’d like to flare the skirt a few inches more at the bottom, but that’s the only change I’d make, unless you’d like a bit more coverage over your décolletage, of course.”

“No, you’re right. A little more flare would help to minimize my hips a bit, but the rest is perfect.” She spun slightly to see more of the sides.

“Would you like to fold out the three-way mirrors and take a better look?” Jackie asked. “In fact, why don’t we put you into the dress and take a proper look?”

She was hesitant. “I…. It looks so expensive….”

Jackie shook her head and laid a hand on her arm. “Ruth, it’s my treat, and I can well afford it, since I made it, so all it really costs is the price of the fabric and findings. This isn’t like me going out and buying you a dress off the rack from Saks Fifth Avenue. You’re getting the work of my own two hands, not the money from my pocketbook. If one of your woman friends wanted to make your wedding cake, would you refuse because a similar cake might be quite expensive if you went out and purchased it from a caterer?”

She looked doubtful. “Well, no, I suppose not….”

Jackie grinned and said, “It’s settled then. You do your job, which is to be as happy as possible on your special day, and I’ll do mine, making the gown as lovely as possible, something you can pass down to your daughter, perhaps, and treasure as a keepsake and memory.”

“Okay,” she said. “You’ve talked me into it.”

“Good! Let’s get you suited up, then. Just let me get my tape, chalk, and pincushion.” She went to the desk at the far end of the fitting room and picked up a little bucket of the tools of her trade, then walked back and helped Ruth into the gown. “Two people would be easier, but we’ll have to make do with just me, I’m afraid.” As she’d expected, the gown was a little loose, so she quickly pinched the fabric to the proper fit and made her marks, then pinned it for the tryout.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, “I’ll have you step up on the dais so I can judge the hem properly.” Jackie helped her to gather up the skirts of the dress to make it easier to climb the broad steps to the dais, which was fairly large in diameter and had two sturdy handrails at both sides of the stair and across the rear of the platform, the better to accomodate gowns with full skirts and crinolines, and simultaneously to ensure the safety of brides who weren’t used to not being able to see their own feet. “Watch your step up there, Ruth.”

“I’m fine, Jackie. I still ski sometimes, during the season, so I have a pretty good sense of balance and a head for heights.”

“I thought you looked fit,” Jackie said. “That’s good. Clothes always hang better on a good frame.” She quickly pinned up the hem slightly at the rear, since Ruth didn’t need much extra cloth for her derrière.

Ruth said, from above her head, “Jackie, this dress is just too wonderful for words.”

“Thank you, Ruth. I aim to please, as Terra Naomi once said.”

“Well, you haven’t missed the mark yet that I can see.”

“So, Ruth, are you committed to the dress? Would you like to see more?”

“Oh no,” she said laughing. “This one is completely amazing enough for me. I just love it. My only problem is poor Tom. After seeing your clothes, I may become addicted to them. We’ll have to get a bigger apartment, with more closets.”

“A girl can never have too many closets,” Jackie said. “I have to have a warehouse to hold all mine.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, I’m afraid so. The ones here in the shop are just the current models. I have archives of all my past work as well. There’s a warehouse right behind the shop where I have my atelier and climate-controlled storage for all my fashions from past seasons.”

Ruth laughed with delight. “I’m so glad to hear that you have a ‘back of the closet’ too. Tom teases me about the things I have in mine.”

“Don’t tell me, you still have your outfit for almost every special occasion, indeed, almost everything that holds a memory, because you can’t bear to see it gone.”

“That’s me,” she said. “Those outfits mark every important occasion in my life; the thought of tossing them into a donation bag makes me ill.”

“I understand completely, Ruth, and envy you. Growing up, I never really had anything to call my own, because the Sisters would ‘encourage’ us to give the clothes and toys we’d ‘outgrown,’ to the younger children. I always felt like I was just renting stuff that I’d have to give back when the rental period was over. I’ve talked to hundreds of women who have favorite childhood dolls proudly displayed on a shelf somewhere, or the baby clothes their mothers had saved for them, or some sweet souvenir of a precious moment in their lives. Whatever it is, I ain’t got it, because all my ‘stuff’ went to someone else as soon as I’d turned my back for a moment. The only things I had for my very own were a cheap plastic rosary and a small collection of holy cards which I threw away the minute they tossed me out on the street at age eighteen, the very day I magically became an adult.”

“I’m so sorry, Jackie.”

Jackie could feel the waves of sympathy and dismay emanating from Ruth and shook them off, suddenly feeling like she’d become her own mother. “It’s okay, Ruth. You know what they say, the best way to ensure that your children turn into either drunken bums or wildly successful adults is to give them a miserable childhood. I was lucky, because sometimes the kids do both.”

“They may say that, Jackie, but it’s not a good recommendation for essential poverty and neglect. Children need love and security, and it’s obvious that the place you were incarcerated in wasn’t the sort of situation you’d wish on an enemy, much less a friend.”

“Well, to be perfectly fair, as a ‘foundling,’ I was a ‘difficult placement,’ or they would have tried to adopt me out almost immediately, but their hands were tied, I think, because of uncertainty about who I was and where my parents were, if any. By the time they’d gone through all the legal steps necessary to have a court order me released for adoption, I’d missed the ‘magic window’ of cuteness that most prospective adoptive parents are looking for, and was by then a sullen young girl of seven. But I had three square meals a day, a good education, and caregivers who were at least not directly abusive, just dispassionate, for the most part, and trying to take the ‘wider view of things,’ making up in piety what they lacked in the impulse toward motherhood. It could easily have been much worse. Many young girls in my position are targets of abuse by predators, so I count myself fairly lucky, taking all in all.”

“Well, it makes me feel like I’m the lucky one just hearing about it. I had two parents who loved me dearly, a husband who loved me without measure, and now another man who’s given me the child I’d been denied, twice now, and another to come if your mother’s prediction is accurate. I feel like that old song by Sylvia Sammons, the blind singer, ‘What more can life bring?’ It’s strange, because I didn’t feel that way for a while, but then it all changed again, and everything was all right.”

Jackie gave her a smile and a wink. “I’d never bet against my mother, although she did imply that you had a choice about the boy. I know what you mean, though. Frank told me, not so very long ago, that before we two met, we’d both lived pretty solitary lives. I think he said ‘miserable,’ actually. But our falling in love was all tied up with meeting my mother, as if there were loose threads in both our lives, and then they started weaving themselves together into something much more wonderful than I’d ever imagined was possible. Without my strange history, Frank and I would never have met, and I’d be a different woman. My mother even remarked on it one day, ‘We’re each of us a product of our lives,’ she said, when I expressed regret about our complicated past, and I had eventually to agree. Wishing to change one’s past is something like a suicidal ideation, because our pasts are an integral part of who we really are, the collection of experiences and skills and decisions that describe our real selves. As my mother wisely observed, without my experiences, I wouldn’t be me.”

Ruth thought about that for a while before she nodded and agreed. “I suppose you’re right. Years ago, I talked to a Zen monk about the notion of reïncarnation, and he told me that it really doesn’t matter; it’s just as way of looking at things as part of a continuous process. In the final analysis, he said, there’s no difference between saying that when you die, your ‘soul’ will be reborn in another body, but you’ll have no memory of any former life, and saying that when you die, another baby will be born, and life itself goes on. There’s a midrash that says that every Jew who ever lived, and every Jew who will will live in the future, stood at Mount Sinai and received the Covenant from God, even converts to Judaism, and many Jews believe that this may refer to reïncarnation, or at least the existence of an eternal soul. Others, of course, believe that it’s a metaphor for something else entirely. Judaism has never much gone in for dogma, and actually encourages us to argue even with God, or at least what we conceive of as God, because we each have a different experience of the Divine, and who’s to say which merely human perception of the Infinite is the real version, since we can only see a tiny part, and even that imperfectly. There’s a saying about that, ‘Two Jews, three opinions,’ although of course sometimes it’s four.” Her eyes sparkled with good humor as she smiled. “On the other hand,” she began to say, before they both burst into spontaneous laughter.

Since Jackie had already given Ruth a tour of the bar and restaurant, she was easily persuaded to show her the atelier as well, starting with the massive iron fire door she’d had constructed to join the warehouse building to the building of which the boutique formed a largish portion. It gave the impression of local antiquity, at least a hundred years or more, although in fact it had been created to order by an artisanal foundry in the neighborhood. Both buildings were old, so Jackie didn’t want a jarring contrast between them at their interface, and the door itself was a focal point of the back showroom and cutting studio, a beautiful work of the ironsmith’s art, with a welded and hammered stylized cherry tree surrounded by an ornate frame with exquisite detail and leafy flourishes, surmounted by the original name, The Kirschbaum Building, from when buildings had names instead of postal numbers, inset into its own subframe, and with the date of the building’s erection proudly displayed beneath the roots of the tree, as well as the name of the architect on the lefthand side, and the name of the ironsmith on the right, as well as the actual date of the door’s creation in smaller lettering. It had been a slight extravagance, but had been written up in one of the regional architectural journals as a model of sensitive restoral of an historic building, so it all worked out in terms of publicity. Besides that, it was pretty, with the ironwork acid-stained to an almost jet black and polished to a fine shine.

They were out on the shop floor and Jackie was explaining how the cutting table worked when there was a noise of breaking glass from the back of the atelier, from a corner that the lights didn’t touch, and the figure of a man emerged from the darkness. He was carrying a bloody machete, clothed in bloody overalls, and wearing a white hockey mask, like a macabre goalie. Suddenly, he lunged towards them.

Ruth screamed.

 

Copyright © 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

Copyright © 2011, 2012 by Levanah