Here is what Clover picked out for me at Bergdorf’s: a classic tan trench coat, like the one Catherine Deneuve wears when it’s raining out in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg; three French sailor shirts, one black stripes, one navy, one pale pink; two pairs of ballerina flats, one black, one gold; one pair of black “cigarette pants” (“But, Clover, I don’t smoke!” “It’s just the name, silly”); one navy pleated skirt; and two dresses. The first dress was a cool black linen A-line. The second one was cream-colored in a material Clover called “sharkskin” with a Peter Pan collar and big white buttons up the back. The black dress was very comfortable, but the cream one, not so much. It was very straight and slim.
“It’s a sheath dress,” said Clover, “and you are lucky to be able to pull it off.”
I said the word sheath over and over again in my head. Sheath. It was so silky and lovely, that word. There was something private about it, a secret, almost. My first sheath dress …
We were all set, but then Clover said, “Oh! One more thing. For your hair.” I said I thought my hair was all set.
“But surely sometimes you’ll want a bow.”
“A bow?”
“Black velvet, I think.”
“Black velvet? For summer? Are you sure?”
“Absolument. It’s very French.”
And so we located a black velvet hair ribbon, nestling it in tissue paper in one of my many palest purple Bergdorf Goodman bags. Wait till Val saw me! Oh, she would just perish of jealousy!
Then before we left Clover said, “You know, Franny, I think I need to buy a little something too. Would you mind helping me pick something out?”
“Of course not,” I said, thinking: She is going to go meet him after all! This man—this Digby—whoever he was …
Wasn’t it exciting—Clover and I both having meetings with men who were coming to town? She had Digby, and I was getting curious about meeting this old beau of Theo’s, this Leander. I would wear my new sheath dress: yes, that was the one.
“Perfume, I think,” I heard Clover murmur.
“Perfume?”
“Yes, Franny, I thought I might mix up my scent. It’s a good thing to do … every once in a while,” she added without her usual confidence, and I knew that she was thinking about something. And then she sighed and said, “Oh, no, never mind. I’ll save it for later.”
“Why, though? We’re here.”
“Because,” explained Clover, “sometimes it’s nice to have something to look forward to, you know.”
All of a sudden, I saw what Val meant about twenty-eight being, in a way, old. Because for Val and me there seemed to be so much to look forward to. I couldn’t imagine getting to the age where having something to look forward to could be considered a treat.
Then Clover suggested we take a walk through Central Park and head up toward the Whitney. It was a hot, sticky day, but being in the shade of the trees was nice.
“What’s your favorite place in Central Park?” asked Clover.
“The zoo,” I said right away. Val and I had gone with Mom and Dad when we were little, and it was one of the first things we checked out again when we got here this summer. “A day like today, I’d like to go see the polar bears. They always look so sleepy and cool.”
“Oh, I don’t much like large animals,” said Clover, and I couldn’t help but think of Carlo the turtle. “I like birds, especially when they have beautiful blue feathers. There is this one kind of bird from India…”
But then Clover lost her train of thought when we walked past a little girl having a tantrum in front of the boathouse.
“I want to go to Central Park,” she wailed. “Mommy, Mommy, I want to go to Central Park.”
The child was speaking in a British accent and was all dolled up in a fluffy white party dress and black patent leather Mary Janes. I guessed her to be about five years old. Her mother was tall and wore her blond hair back in this low bun, and she was pushing her younger daughter in a big fancy stroller, like the Rolls Royce of baby vehicles. It looked to me like a scene out of Mary Poppins.
The mother said, “I told you already, this is Central Park.”
The child put her hands and her hips and announced: “This is not Central Park.”
Clover and I burst out laughing, and then so did the mother. We walked on, and Clover remarked: “That poor little girl, what a life of disappointment is in store for her! What do you think she imagined Central Park to be like? is the interesting question. Do you think she thought the trees were made out of emeralds or something?”
“The water made out of sapphires,” I added.
“One wonders what fabulous visions were dancing in her little blond head.”
The piece that Clover wanted to show me at the Whitney was called Calder’s Circus by the American artist Alexander Calder. Clover says it’s better to leave a museum really connecting with one piece than trying to see everything and connecting with nothing.