“Who broke it off?”
“He did.”
“Clover,” the woman said, “are you trying to tell me you don’t have a lover at the moment?”
Clover laughed lightly and said, “Afraid so.”
“But, my dear, that’s all wrong. I’m seventy-five and I have two.”
Lover. That word was in the air, here in the Village, this summer.
Valentine was leafing through an old Mademoiselle magazine from July 1948 and lazily reading aloud from the captions on the photo shoots: “The Ultra Violets,” “British Imports,” “Uncommon Cottons…”
Clover said to us, “Girls, this is Joan. Joan, this is Franny and Valentine. They’re visiting from San Francisco.”
“San Francisco!” said Joan. “I used to work at City Lights. I mean, way back when it started.”
Dad was always trying to educate us about local history, and so we did know a little bit about City Lights Bookstore and the Beats. We made conversation about that, and then Joan picked out some clothing for us.
Here is what she chose.
For Valentine: a Mexican circle skirt from the 1950s, heavy green cotton scattered with faint gold gems that jangled a bit whenever she moved.
“See, you can just throw that on with a camisole, and it will look a little more modern.” said Clover. “And please don’t ever say tank top. Say camisole: camisole is a lovely word. I despair of the word tank top.”
Valentine did a twirl so we could hear the gems stir again.
“She’s a beauty,” said Joan to Clover approvingly, and I tried my best not to be jealous. But then Valentine tugged at the waistband of the skirt as though she was just itching to get out of it and said, “No thanks. It’s just not for me. It’s so heavy … and long.”
She had a point: girls our age almost never wore long skirts anymore. The shorter the better was all the rage, and Val was always disappointed that Mom never let us go out of the house in really short ones.
“Well, of course the cotton is heavy,” said Joan, bristling. “It’s beautiful quality. Young people these days are just used to everything being thin and cheap, you wear it one season and throw it away. Why, that skirt is over fifty years old!”
“Exactly,” said Valentine, before slipping back into the dressing room to take it off. I knew that if Mom had been with us, she would have said Valentine in that tone of voice to let her know she was being rude. Clover had just met us, so she couldn’t get away with scolding her.
I turned out to be a better customer than Valentine. Here is what Joan chose for me: a navy-blue 1960s shift dress with a white Peter Pan collar. I thought at first it looked too babyish, but then Clover said, “Not at all! On the contrary, it’s very sophisticated. And très fran?aise. Did you ever see The Umbrellas of Cherbourg?”
Did we ever see The Umrellas of Cherbourg?
“Oh God,” said Valentine, “have we ever! Mom used to make us sing from it all the time!”
“They’re singers,” Clover explained to Joan. “Classically trained.”
“I’ll call it my Catherine Deneuve dress,” I said, picturing myself wearing a big white bow in my hair like she does in the movie, but more than that, much more than that, picturing myself wearing my new dress and being in love. Then my imagination ran off with me. It rains a lot in San Francisco too, you know, just like in the movie. Say I got a trench coat. Say I had a boyfriend. We could wander the hilly streets arm in arm, the rain coming down. We could sing:
If it takes forever I will wait for you
For a thousand summers I will wait for you …
And so on and so on, till we got to the end of the song.
Valentine and I decided to get both outfits. Even Val was finally convinced, though at first she’d said the skirt was too old-fashioned. Mom and Dad had given us a certain amount of money to spend on shopping in New York, and we thought that these seemed original and worthwhile. Then after Joan had rung up our purchases Clover stopped to look at a soft, woven honey-colored purse with tortoiseshell handles. The woven fabric was something that Clover called “raffia.” Joan said it was from the fifties. I didn’t quite “get” it, but Clover assured us it was very chic and “ready for Italy” and bought it immediately.