Pandora blamed herself for her mother’s departure. She knew from the limited conversations she had with her father on the matter that Laura had thought Willie was going to be a famous tennis star. She thought all the things she craved—social standing, a beautiful home, enough money to give parties and travel to Europe—would be hers after they were married. When Willie was injured and stopped competing, Laura lost interest in Pandora and her father.
Surely that wouldn’t have been the case if Pandora had been worth staying for—if Pandora was a beautiful singer or was a talented dancer. But Pandora wasn’t either of those things. It must have been something lacking in Pandora herself that made her mother leave.
After Laura left, Pandora made up scenes in her head. Pandora and her mother going to the movies, spending rainy afternoons creating new recipes. Visiting fashion boutiques together and trying on pretty dresses. She berated herself for not paying more attention to her mother. She could have tried to engage her in conversation. She could have complimented her hairstyle or her choice in lipstick and asked about her customers.
Pandora would never have another mother. She wanted to talk to her father about it, but she could tell it was difficult for him to discuss, and Pandora couldn’t bring herself to cause him more pain. So for the first five years after Laura left, Pandora had kept her questions and doubts to herself and tried not to think about her. But the day she stood in front of the rack of her mother’s dresses, she had found a reminder of her, and she couldn’t resist trying the dresses on. Most of them were a little wide in the waist and not the right length. But the fabrics were lovely, and there were some nice designs. She was twirling in front of the mirror when her father appeared at the door.
“What are you doing?” he asked sharply.
Willie had sandy-colored hair and leathery skin from years spent on the tennis court. He was very tall, almost six foot three. But he was so gentle, it was unusual for him to raise his voice.
“I found some of Mother’s clothes.” Pandora turned around. “We’re almost the same size.”
Willie sat on the bed and studied Pandora.
“Laura wore that dress to my first national competition at the US National Championships in 1903. Back then it was held at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. The Astors and the Goelets owned mansions in Newport and attended the tournament. Your mother loved it; we were treated like celebrities. Caroline Astor even invited us to a cocktail party.”
“I’m sure she looked beautiful,” Pandora said, imagining her mother holding a martini glass and floating from room to room.
Her father nodded. “She was the prettiest woman there. All the men wanted to dance with her.”
He waved at the dresses heaped on the bed.
“Those dresses are gathering dust; you should take them to a thrift shop. You can keep whatever you get for them.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep them.”
“Keep them?”
Pandora noticed her father’s pained expression. She couldn’t walk around in her mother’s dresses; it would bring back too many memories.
“To use the fabric to sew my own clothes,” she said hastily. “Esther said I could use her sewing machine. It would save money, and I’ve always been interested in fashion.”
Willie stood up and kissed her on the cheek.
“I’ll leave that between you and Esther. I don’t know a thing about clothes, except that I’m thankful you offered to do the ironing.”
Pandora started making her own dresses the same afternoon. At first it was so she could imagine herself like her mother when she was young. Attending dances and dinner parties, instead of serving the bowls of Jell-O to the Van Luyens’ guests between courses. But gradually, Pandora’s desire for a more glamorous life merged with a love of fashion itself. She pored over Maude Van Luyen’s copies of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
Pandora often asked herself why she wanted to be a fashion designer. Was it because it made her feel closer to her mother and the pretty dresses she’d discovered in her father’s closet? Or was it because she wanted something of her own, so people didn’t look at her and say, “That’s Willie Carmichael’s daughter, he played at Wimbledon.”
Or was it because she hoped that someday wearing a beautiful gown would allow her proper entry into the world she loved: the drawing rooms of families like the Winthrops and Vanderbilts.
It was all of those things, but it was also more than that. When Pandora sat at the sewing machine, her sketches propped on the windowsill and yards of fabric fanned out on the table, her whole being came alive. She longed to see her gowns in the pages of fashion magazines, to have them worn by wives of senators and congressmen. She had a talent that would benefit other women, if only she had the time and resources to work on her designs.
Pandora’s inspiration came from the female designers taking the fashion world by storm: Coco Chanel, who opened her first boutique in Deauville in 1912 and a second boutique on the most elegant street in Paris, rue Cambon, six years later; the Italian designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, who like Pandora had no formal training but was making a name for herself in Paris; and Madeleine Vionnet whose quote “When a woman smiles, her dress must smile with her” Pandora kept taped to the wall in front of her sewing machine. And male designers too: Paul Poiret for his brilliantly colored turbans and harem pants. Jean Patou for his bold, geometric designs.
When Virginia was home from boarding school, she was happy to be Pandora’s model. Pandora never felt more confident than when she was kneeling in front of Virginia with her mouth full of pins. She loved transforming an idea in her head into a finished dress, embellished with appliqués and buttons and perhaps a matching cape.
A puff of wind blew in from the river and brought Pandora back to the present. She tightened her wrap around herself. She couldn’t let Lillian spoil her evening. Tonight, Pandora was an invited guest, just like the Van Luyens and the Clarksons.
The band was playing a Cole Porter song as she walked back toward the house. She admired the scene. This was a world Pandora was familiar with: the delicious smell of baked ham, well-dressed men and women talking about their boats and horses, young people laughing, and the air thick with perfume and cigar smoke. Although usually at parties she was helping in the kitchen or serving in the dining room at the Van Luyens’。
She couldn’t help but wonder if the cooks and maids who worked at Rosecliff felt the same as she did. Perhaps the dark-haired girl in the black uniform serving hors d’oeuvres on the balcony dreamed of being invited to house parties. And perhaps the redheaded maid who turned down Pandora’s bed in the guest bedroom imagined filling the closet with her own dresses. Like Pandora, perhaps they longed for the heady buzz of slipping on an evening gown and a pair of satin heels for a party.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Archie waving to her from across the lawn.
“Pandora, come join us.” Archie stood up and pointed to the chair opposite him.
Dinner was being served on the terrace in front of a stage with gleaming instruments. Guests sat at round tables covered with white tablecloths set with silver candelabras and china with a gold-and-blue flower motif.