Fashionably Late by Olivia Goldsmith Page A

question was answered: why Belle had not been there.
    “Mother, I’ll call you back,” Karen promised.
    “Jeffrey looks very nice,” her mother said, and Karen almost laughed out loud. It was the same old Belle tactic: “Lisa calls me every day.
    Why can’t you?” Karen shook her head.
    “I’ll talk to you later,” Karen said, and hung up the phone. It rang again.
    “Karen?” It was the unbearably nasal whine of Lenny, their accountant.
    “Look, I’m sorry to bother you,” he began apologeticallyţLeMy always sounded apologeticţ“but XK Inc is going to be late paying its federal withholding tax. After last time, you made me promise to tell you if it happened again. So now you know. Don’t tell Jeffrey I told you.”
    “How much do we owe?”
    “Not a lot. About twenty-four thousand.”
    “So why don’t we pay it?”
    “Jeffrey says he needs to pay the factor.”
    “Goddamnit, LeMy ! We owe it to our staff to make their tax contribution first. Plus, now we’ll have to pay penalties.” She heard her voice rise.
    Well, it was no use blaming Lenny. He just did what he was told and at least he called her and warned her this time. “Thanks, Lenny,” she sighed. “I’ll take care of t.
    Finally left alone, Karen closed her eyes and tried to regroup. She looked up to the framed Chanel quote she had over her office door.
    “Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportion.” She usually spent the two quiet hours of her morning here, in her corner office, working on sketches. Without this time, how and what would she do with the fit models this afternoon?
    She picked up the pencil. What was wrong with her? Why was she so blocked? She thought of poor Halston again: once he sold out, his first season’s line had succeeded, but after that all the rest had flopped.
    Was that what was bothenng her? Well, she wouldn’t let it. Quickly, deftly, she threw a halfdozen lines on the page. A sleeve, a shoulder, and then the flowing line of a smock. No, she would make it a dress.
    She moved to the next pad and repeated the sleeve, narrowing it a bit, then sketched the shoulder and now a longer smock-like line. Not right. It looked like Kamali on a bad day. Karen swiveled her chair just a little bit to the left, starting this time with a simple rounded neckline, then the shoulders, and then the smock-like swirl. She put the pencil down and looked at the three pads. Jesus Christ. She’d just done her first maternity collection! Karen looked at the three attempted sketches, the obvious belly bulge below the breast line. She bit her lip. Was Jeffrey right? was she obsessed? She would have sworn that she was not thinking, at least not consciously, about the visit to Dr. Goldman. But her left brain clearly knew what her right brain was doing. Well, she wouldn’t need any clothes like these. She picked up the number six pencil and scribbled across all three pads.
    Goddamnit! The pencil point broke, and the pencil folded under the pressure of her hand and cracked in half.
    Karen stood up and threw the broken pencil into the trash. She went to her purse and took out the two photos that she’d secreted in the side pocket. She stared at the sober little girl in the pictures. Then she put them away. Perhaps Jeffrey was right. Maybe searching for the mother of this little girl would open a can of worms.
    Well, she would never get anything done this morning. Now it was not a question of discipline. From long experience Karen had developed her creativity muscle and had learned how to force herself to keep her ass in the chair until something developed. But she also had learned from long experience when nothing was going to happen. This, she could tell, was one of those times. Her confidence was shaken. Let’s face it, she told herself. You need to do some really good work and you’re not in any shape to do it.
    “Aunt Karen?” Karen looked up, glad of an interruption now. Her niece, Lisa’s oldest daughter, stuck her