Chapter Four
Thursday
Maggie pushes open the door to the shop, relieved to see Elaine already behind the front counter. She’s eager for the company.
It’s hard to be patient waiting for Piper to wake up and let her know how she’s doing.
“You look terrible,” Elaine says, adjusting her glasses as if her eyes might be failing her.
“Sugarcoat it, why don’t you,” Maggie says, walking around to the back of the counter to make sure that’s where she left her
knitting bag. “I didn’t get much sleep.”
“I understand that. I just thought you’d dress up a little for tonight.”
Tonight? What’s tonight? Oh no. She forgot: Elaine set her up on a date. This had been in the works for a few weeks, before
Maggie knew Piper would be returning home. She didn’t have any interest in going in the first place, but Elaine wouldn’t take
no for an answer. The way she saw it, Maggie was single, an empty-nester, and still arguably young. Too young to give up on
men.
“I can’t go,” Maggie says. “You know what happened last night.” Elaine, watching the show’s livestream as promised, texted her when Piper fell.
“You told me she’s fine,” Elaine counters.
“Physically, yes. But I’m sure she’s upset and needs moral support.” Seeing Elaine’s skeptical expression, she adds, “Come on. My daughter’s
very public humiliation merits a rain check.”
“Canceling a date won’t cheer her up.”
“Well, it will cheer me up,” she grumbles.
“Did you ever register for that knitting retreat?”
“No!” In all the excitement, she’d forgotten to ask Piper about this weekend. Elaine was the one who’d told her about it in
the first place. She discovered it online, following her hometown’s Instagram account. Elaine, though the epitome of a Manhattanite,
isn’t actually a native New Yorker. She’s from a small Pennsylvania town called New Hope where, apparently, a quaint riverside
inn hosts knitting retreats. Elaine had grown up going to the inn for Sunday tea, and described the place as timeless. “I’m
going to register today. Thanks for the reminder.”
“I wish I could go with you. I miss New Hope,” Elaine says.
The front door opens with a screech of the metal hinges, heralding the arrival of one of their regulars, a personal shopper.
Maggie likes the woman, who, like herself, is a single mother. They got to talking one day when Maggie was knitting, and the
shopper shared her own knitting addiction. “It’s expensive, but so is a bottle of wine a night. And this is healthier.”
Today, the woman has a cobalt-blue sweater draped over her arm.
“This isn’t a shopping visit,” the woman says. “It’s a knitting emergency; I made this for one of my clients’ birthdays, I’m
giving it to her tonight and . . . look. I just noticed this now that I’m finished.”
Maggie leans closer and sees a slight change of color where two separate balls of yarn, both technically the same shade of
blue, are joined together.
“They’re the same brand, the same shade—I bought them together on the same day.”
“Well, they’re probably from two different dye lots. Or one of the yarns could have faded. I don’t know. But to avoid this
in the future, before you start a project, take the end of one ball of yarn and twist it with the beginning of the other ball.
If you have a striping effect, you know the yarns don’t match.”
The woman looks crestfallen.
“So there’s nothing I can do about it now? I know that sounds ridiculous. The colors are the colors.”
Maggie thinks. She remembers—
“There is a way to camouflage the color discrepancy. You do a duplicate stitch.” She takes the piece in her hands and moves
her forefinger to trace the demarcation spot. “Work across this row using yarn from the other dye lot to cover over other
stitch. Do this on both sides.”
“You think that will work?”
Maggie nods, and the shopper hugs her. “You’re a lifesaver.”
After she’s gone, Maggie turns to Elaine and jokes, “You heard it: I just saved her life. I should be allowed to cancel my
date.”
Elaine folds her arms across her chest. “Maggie, I say this from a place of caring: Maybe you should stop being a lifesaver
for everyone else, and start paying attention to your own.”
Piper wakes up to a phone full of voicemail, the most humiliating of which is from Betsy Toledo’s people asking where a messenger
can retrieve “their property.” The way they emphasized the word, it’s as if to remind her that they’d be more than happy to take legal action should she
fail to return the thousands of dollars of clothing she was wearing when she was carted away by ambulance.
The second message is from her manager, Gretchen Lundgren. She wants Piper to meet her at the management company office—a bad sign. Typically, they go out for coffee or drinks. She hasn’t been to the actual office since the day she signed her contract.
Piper takes the subway to Midtown, trying not to look at her phone. The video of her fainting—teetering for a moment on her
high heels like a skyscraper in an earthquake—has gone viral. There are versions set to music, versions with people talking
over it, versions edited with footage of other runway mishaps.
People just have a lot of time on their hands, she tells herself, walking through the revolving door to the office building. An elevator whisks her to the twenty-fifth
floor, where it would be clear to even the most casual observer that this is a company built around fashion and style. Every
aesthetic detail is optimized, from the lighting to the chic employees to the sleek modern furniture to the framed photos
of clients featured in editorial layouts and runway shows.
An assistant who towers over Piper shows her to Gretchen’s office. Everyone is tall, with the exception of Gretchen herself,
who is maybe five foot two. When Piper walks in, she stands and comes around the desk to give her a hug.
“Oh, you poor little doll. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Piper says, feeling a fresh wave of humiliation.
Gretchen returns to the seat behind her desk. She’s wearing a plaid ankle-length wrap skirt, Prada combat boots and a cropped
denim jacket. Her black hair is, always, parted in the center and stick-straight to her shoulders. Piper’s not sure how old
she is. Maybe early forties.
“I’m really sorry,” Piper says, sitting in the leather chair closest to Gretchen’s desk. “I’m still not entirely sure what
happened. I’ve never fainted before in my life.”
“It’s fine,” Gretchen says.
That’s a relief. If Gretchen says it’s okay, then it’s okay.
Gretchen Lundgren discovered Piper when she was a sophomore in college. At the time, Piper was working at an animal shelter
in Union Square. She always took her break at Joe Coffee, right across from the park. She was waiting in line when a woman
walked up to her and said, “I’m sure you get this all the time, but you could model. If you’re interested, I have my own management
company.” She gave Piper her card. Piper didn’t take it seriously. But when she mentioned it offhandedly to her mother, Maggie
immediately checked out the manager’s social media.
“Piper, this woman is the real deal,” she said.
Piper didn’t have time or the interest. She had school, she had the animal shelter and she’d recently started dating Ethan.
“You should give this serious consideration,” Maggie had said.
Piper knew that she should. Models can make a lot of money. Since finances were always an issue—maybe not an issue, but certainly
a concern—she couldn’t dismiss the opportunity without at least a conversation. It would be disrespectful to her mother, who
had raised her as a single parent in New York City on a retail sales salary. Her mother comes from a very wealthy family,
but since they shamed her so much over her single motherhood, Maggie always refused to accept financial help from them.
And so Piper took a leave of absence from school to pursue it. The plan was to save up for her tuition and expenses and then
finish her degree debt-free. It was a solid idea. It was just taking a little longer than expected to bank serious cash.
She looks closely at Gretchen. If everything is “fine,” then why is she sitting there in the office?
“I sense a ‘but,’ ” Piper says nervously.
Gretchen sighs. “Unfortunately, yes. Now, this has nothing to do with last night, but since your contract is almost up for renewal, I feel it’s time to have an honest conversation.
” She clasps her hands in front of her and leans back in her chair.
“I simply don’t have a vision for how to get your career to the next level. ”
Piper takes a sharp intake of breath. “You’re dropping me as a client?” Her first thought, her primary concern, is My mother is going to be so disappointed.
And then she realizes that’s a strange reaction.