Chapter One: New York, September 1911CHAPTER ONE NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 1911 My mother once told me a girl''s success in this world was dependent on how well she could pretend. Right now, I am pretending I don''t want to scream. Mr. Hues is a difficult presence to ignore as he stalks through the shop with all the grace of a drunken lion. He arrived this morning for one of his favorite surprise inspections, but as usual, it''s less an inspection of the shop than of the seamstresses who work here. Through stolen glances, the other girls and I take stock of one another''s work. Mary ran out of bobbin thread two minutes ago. Catherine''s tracing pencil snapped just before that.
I lose the silent game of chicken. With a resigned sigh, I rise from my desk, knowing the iron needs to be lit if I have any hope of finishing this hem. It''s impossible to pretend I don''t notice the weight of Mr. Hues''s gaze as his eyes track me down the aisle. "Morning." His grin makes my skin crawl. The smile I force feels like defeat. There''s nothing he loves more than basking in our gratitude.
Never mind that it''s the thirteen of us here who do all the work and ship the profits off neatly to him at the end of every week. Mr. Hues often tells us not to do things by halves, to dedicate ourselves fully to all that we do. When it comes to contributing to my misery, he follows his own advice. An unexpected early fall frost fell last night, and the shop is cold. It''s difficult to make the delicate stitches Mr. Hues demands with numb hands, but the last time our supervisor, Mrs. Carrey, asked him to increase our coal budget, he laughed in her face.
And Mrs. Carrey does not have a face that''s easy to laugh in. I return to my sewing machine, weaving like a spider around desks of girls, all churning out dresses as quickly as we''re able in the cramped space. I do my best not to bump Jess''s elbow as she works next to me. The last time I did, I ended up with a straight pin stuck between my thumb and pointer finger. She said it was an accident but smiled when I started bleeding. Mr. Hues lumbers around the dress shop, picking at dummies, running his fingers over fabrics.
He stops at my workstation and picks up the stack of pattern pieces I''ve carefully laid out for a velvet coat for a rich widow, my best client. He rifles through them carelessly, as if he has any idea what he is looking at, then places them back on the corner of the desk haphazardly. A piece of the collar flutters to the floor. He pays it no mind. It''ll take me ages to sort out what he''s just done. His next target is Mary. He perches himself on the edge of her desk and asks her to give him a smile. His blond hair, or what is left of it, has been oiled back and combed over his head.
He''s drenched himself in cologne today; it coats the back of my throat, acrid and awful. "Well done," he finally speaks, apparently having found our partially constructed garments to his liking. "How are my girls?" The tone of his question implies he expects to find us overjoyed to be in the employment of such a fine man. "Fine, thank you, Mr. Hues," we reply, our voices all an octave too high. He turns to Mrs. Carrey to ask about the state of business. With a wave of her wrinkled hand, she dismisses us from sitting at attention.
Though our tightly packed desks don''t offer us much distance from Mr. Hues, the reprieve from having to look at the grease trap of a man with reverence is a relief. At least when I''m driven to eating nothing but a crusty heel of bread for dinner, I don''t have to pretend to be happy about it. At least when I miss William so badly I fear my chest will crack open with the pain of it, I''m not forced to wear a smile on my face. I busy myself constructing the midnight-blue velvet coat, and with the soft feel of the cloth under my hands, I remind myself, as I do ten thousand times a day, how lucky I am to have this position, Mr. Hues''s visits and all. I could be like my mother, exiled to that horrible hospital on Long Island, her mind irreparably fractured by William''s death. Or like my school friend Rosie, working in that factory by the river, inhaling sludge, on her feet for twelve hours a day, putting the same button on the same shirt ad infinitum.
And that mind-numbing exhaustion is nothing compared to some of the stories she tells me, like the one of the girl who wore her braid too long. It got snatched up by one of the machines, and she died right there on the factory floor. Rosie told me when they unraveled her braid from the gears, they found her entire scalp still attached. I had nightmares about it for weeks. Or I could be like my brother, his waterlogged bones turning to rot in a grave I still can''t bring myself to visit. He arguably got the worst deal of us all, though I''m not sure he''d agree. It is a shame he''s not here to ask. I keep waiting for the pain of his death to subside, but it hasn''t yet stopped feeling like a punch to the gut fifty times a day.
He''d probably tell me to stop being so dramatic. Truly, I''m lucky to be employed as a dressmaker in a small shop, even luckier that Mrs. Carrey let me move in with the other girls upstairs after my mother was sent off to the asylum. Positions like this are getting rarer by the minute. Every day they build new smokestacks, and every day another shop like this one closes. I take my time on the wealthy widow''s coat, hoping the steady clicking of the sewing machine will drown out all the other noises in my head. I''m sewing on the buttons that will trail all along the front of the coat when the soft chime of the door swinging open startles me. It''s only a delivery boy dropping a package of new needles on Mrs.
Carrey''s desk, but I''m surprised to see the sky awash with the pale purple of twilight. The velvet coat''s owner is expecting a delivery tomorrow morning, and I still have ten buttons, both cuffs, and the trimming left. The shop needs at least three more seamstresses, but Mr. Hues is convinced our inability to keep up with orders is an issue of work ethic, not staffing. The Thompson sisters ordered those ugly matching sailor dresses yesterday, putting me behind, and Mr. Hues''s visit today only made things worse. Dark shadows of late evening stretch across the room, and one by one the girls filter upstairs to the apartment where most of us live, until only Mrs. Carrey and I remain.
She kindly lights three kerosene lamps and tells me not to be up too late. Being in the shop alone at night is a particular kind of misery. Under the cover of darkness, the mice skitter across the floor, and the temperature drops so low I''m soon shivering beneath my shawl. The other girls are giggling in the apartment upstairs. We don''t laugh often, so I imagine they''re sharing a joke at Mr. Hues''s expense. My needle flies across the fabric. I''m working as quickly as I can, snipping the thread of the eighth button, when a key jangling in the front lock startles me.
The bell attached to the front door chimes. Here in the dark, it sounds so different. Stomach heavy with dread, I force myself to look up from the coat, and my worst fears are confirmed. Mr. Hues. He charges into the shop like a bull, tripping over his own shoes as he crosses the threshold. His face is flushed, despite the cool evening air, and his brown tweed coat is buttoned wrong. With sweaty hands, he shuffles through the till, grabbing loose bills and shoving them into his pockets.
I freeze. Perhaps I''ll get lucky and he won''t notice I''m here. I once read that dogs can smell fear. I think men must be able to as well, because his gaze snaps up, meets mine. I can lie to myself, but deep down I know the truth is I''ve never been lucky. At the sight of me he sucks his teeth and smiles a slippery awful thing. "It''s you." "Just leaving, sir," I shove stray pattern pieces into the drawer of my sewing desk to avoid meeting his watery gaze.
A grimace cuts across his face. "No"--he chews on the word--"I don''t think you are." The turn of his mouth and slime in his gaze make it clear what he means to do. Terror shoots through me, fuzzy and nauseating. I pause, and then I calculate. To get to the front door, I''d have to walk past him, within arm''s reach, and the dark street outside is likely abandoned at this hour. The back door, the one that leads to the apartment upstairs, is closer but will be locked this late. The key is in the pocket of my apron, but I can already picture my shaking hands fumbling with it until it falls to the floor.
The kerosene lamps flicker, casting the shop in a sickly orange glow. My lungs are in a vise. Make a decision. I pick one foot off the floor, then hurl myself in the direction of the door that leads to the back staircase. I''m aware of nothing save for Mr. Hues and my own heart beating in my chest, counting down like the second hand on a poorly oiled clock. I''m almost there, fingers outstretched, reaching for the handle, when a hand grabs a fistful of my collar and yanks me back. I sputter as the fabric chokes me.
"Where are you going?" Mr. Hues slurs, words as grease coated as the rest of him. "The night is young." A cold embrace seizes my pounding heart, a.