The Pink Suit: A Novel by Nicole Kelby Page A

old-fashioned boy, always courtly, even in the Gents’.
    â€œPatrick,” she said. The rest of the sentence was more difficult to say; there were so many choices for how it could end: “I don’t want to lose you” or “I don’t want to lose myself” or “I don’t know if I have time to love anyone properly” or “I’m not the sort of person people love.” But the way Kate said his name seemed to tell Patrick everything he needed to know. She could see it in his face—a trace of disappointment, and then that smile.
    â€œWe’re fine now, Kate?” he said. “Sorry I overstepped.”
    Friends again, she thought. But wasn’t sure that was what she wanted at all.
    â€œWell, then,” he said. “Nice suit. How have you been?”
    He was trying to make her smile, but she couldn’t. He put his arm around her. “Let me walk you home. Where’s your hat and gloves?”
    The last Kate remembered, they were on the rosewood table in front of the fireplace at The Carlyle, looking as if they belonged. But they didn’t belong, and neither did she. And now her very best hat and her beautiful, soft kidskin gloves were gone. She took the package from Patrick. “I’ll be fine. Go back and have fun.”
    Kate gently pushed her way past him, into the crowd and then into the night, alone.

Chapter Eight
    â€œYou gotta have style. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it you’re nobody.”
    â€”Diana Vreeland
    A hot bath was what Kate needed, a good, long soak, but it was little comfort. Steam filled the small, white room: a poor heaven. Windows kept the stars at bay. She couldn’t imagine what Mrs. Brown thought of her going into the Gents’. Patrick’s peace offering made her feel even worse. It had been slid under her door. Inside the large manila envelope there was a poem by Yeats that Patrick had copied out carefully, calligraphy style, on cream parchment paper with deep, black ink. No one had ever done such a lovely thing for Kate before.
    Had I had the Heaven’s embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light
    Kate hadn’t thought of Yeats since her days at National School, when she’d had to memorize one of his poems. She’d chosen this very one because it was short, although at the time she’d thought it was overly grand. Enwrought was just a fancy word for embroidered, after all. As soon as she’d passed her exams, she’d forgotten it.
    I would spred the clothes under your feet.
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams:
    Now she couldn’t get it out of her head. Outside Kate’s window, the pub crowd was stumbling home. William Butler Yeats as a way of apology. Only Patrick Harris would do such a thing.
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
    Kate’s heaven was poor indeed. There was no fabric embroidered with golden or silver light. Water pipes ran from floor to ceiling, exposed and rusting. The painted cast-iron bathtub was peeling. And yet, there was Yeats and his exquisite vision of the world; there was some comfort in that.
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    Kate meant to close her eyes for just a moment but slipped into sleep. Then slipped further, nearly under the water. It was a laugh that woke her—slurred and squealing outside her window. Maggie, very late and quite drunk, was coming home with Big Mike in tow. Kate jumped out of the cold tub. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her thin terry-cloth robe smelled of bluing and was stiff. It felt harsh against her skin. She put it on, tied it tightly, and sat on the chipped bathroom floor.
    The bare lightbulb, the stained walls, and the rusting pipes that moaned nearly continuously— This is my life, she thought. Life under the clouds. It suddenly did not feel beautiful and broken, but merely broken. That was when Kate decided that she would copy Chanel’s toile even before