Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Los Angeles, California—1950
Polly’s on Olive was an old nightclub and its glory days were behind it, but the tips Elsie earned as a cocktail waitress paid the rent at an all-women’s boardinghouse and the tuition at Chouinard, and that was all Elsie cared about. She treated the shin-length slit skirt, heels, striped shirt, and jaunty scarf of her uniform as a costume, and when she wore it, she focused on her role as a vivacious cocktail waitress. When she finished her shift, she was once again Elsie Gruner, fashion design student, intoxicated by Chouinard. In every spare moment she drew and practiced; she filled sketchbooks with drawings and notebooks with notes, went to breakfast with other students and wished fervently that she could do just this, only this. That she couldn’t, she knew full well. Work paid the bills. Work paid for tuition and books, drawing materials, everything. She was a dedicated student, as dedicated as she could be. She declined when the other staff at Polly’s invited her for drinks. She tried to avoid the constant conversations about what the US should do now that the Soviets had the bomb too. She had no time for existential dread, and she didn’t want to discuss the bestseller everyone but she had read, How to Survive an Atomic Bomb . She had homework. She had design on her mind. She owed it to Harvey and Charlie, who believed in her and who she tried, unsuccessfully, to find. She owed it to herself.
She was one of the top of her class. Not the top, that honor belonged to Jasper Rutledge. Everyone liked him. Well, everyone but Elsie, who found him to be what her father would have called a brownnoser and her mother an apple-polisher. That he was talented was unarguable. He was also a full-time student who didn’t have to work.
“Bound for a top fashion house,” Mr. Matthews, their professor in Fashion Illustration, said once, grinning as proudly as a father, and Jasper strutted around annoyingly for a while after that.
“It’s too bad,” Jasper told Elsie. “But it’s not your fault, really.”
“What’s not my fault?”
“That you’re a woman. Everyone knows women designers are second best,” he said.
“Why should that be?”
“They’ve got husbands and children, that’s why. They can’t focus their whole attention on a career.”
“Can anyone these days?” asked another student. “There may not even be a future. This may all be a waste of time.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “I’ll worry about the bomb when I’m dead.”
Elsie said, “There are plenty of women designers. Claire McArdle, Schiaparelli, Lanvin.”
Jasper made a face. “Will they be around in a decade? Probably not. But you do have some talent, Gruner. For the few years before you start having kids, you’ll do all right. I’ll tell you what, look me up when you’ve graduated, and I’ll find you a job in my atelier.”
The others laughed. Elsie didn’t tell him that kids were unlikely since she’d left her husband and had no idea where he was and no desire to find him. She clenched her charcoal so hard it crumbled.
Then she saw the announcement on the bulletin board in the hallway, the offer of a six-month internship at the American Art Academy in Rome. She nearly passed it by, but then the words scholarships available caught her eye. She couldn’t afford it. She couldn’t afford to give up her job for six months. It was crazy. She shouldn’t even think about it.
But it wouldn’t leave her mind. There was something about it—fate perhaps? Something else?—that nagged at her, that told her it was what she needed. The best fashion houses were in Europe. What edge could such an internship give her?
Elsie filled out the application. She filled out the request for the scholarship. She got a teacher’s recommendation from Mr. Matthews, and another from Mr. Teske. She put together her portfolio with care and took the entire package to the administrator’s office to send to the academy. The secretary had stepped out for a moment, so Elsie sat down to wait.
The open window beside the secretary’s desk let in a spring breeze. The papers on the desk ruffled; one threatened to fly onto the floor, and without thinking Elsie grabbed it to anchor it. That was when she saw a manila envelope similar to the one she held, addressed also to the American Art Academy in Rome. Written below the address, just as it was written on hers, was Internship Application.
The return address was Jasper Rutledge’s.
Elsie’s heart sank. She hadn’t known he planned to apply. He was graduating in June; there was no possible way he wouldn’t win the internship. She might as well not even try. He was talented, he was a man, and he was ready to embark upon his career. He would probably brownnose his way into a European atelier, which he hardly needed. The teachers’ recommendations could get him on at any house as an intern, or even as an assistant. He had money. He had everything she didn’t have. It was unfair. He didn’t need the internship, and she did. She had nothing except her own will and her talent.
This chance in Rome was everything to her. She did not know if she could win it, but she knew she would not if she was in competition with Jasper. It was that simple.
She thought about stealing his application, throwing it away. The urge was nearly overwhelming. The secretary was gone. It would be easy. But then ... she would always wonder if she could have got the scholarship on her own. She would never trust her talent. Anita’s voice whispered, “ Confidence ,” and Elsie couldn’t ignore it. How else did she get confidence except by believing in herself the way Harvey and Charlie had?
She left Jasper’s application on the desk. When the secretary came back, Elsie handed the woman her application with a smile, said “Thank you” when the woman wished her good luck, and left.
A month later, the administrator called her into the office to tell her she’d got the internship at the American Art Academy in Rome, along with a scholarship.
Jasper Rutledge went around telling everyone he hadn’t really wanted it anyway. He was going to Milan when he graduated. It was the center for Italian fashion anyway. After that, he was bound for Paris.
Elsie only smiled.