not for you,” she instructed me brusquely, sorting through the stack of clothes that had fit me and culling it down to the narrowest skirts, the tightest sweaters, the slimmest trousers. “You dress like Dior, but you were made for Chanel. I know her—she’s little and dark and plain too.”
“Well, thank you.” I looked around the dim shop, nettled. “And I doubt you know Chanel.”
“I worked at her atelier before the war! If she comes back to Paris, I will work for her again, but until then, I get by. We all get by, but not in horrible clothes.” The saleswoman glared, leveling a varnished fingernail at me. “No more ruffles! When you shop, you must think tailored, stripes, flats. Quit torturing that hair into waves, chop it off at the chin—”
I looked at myself in the mirror. The trousers and jersey might be secondhand, but I looked rather smart. A bit boyish. And comfortable, no waist cinchers or crinolines. The saleswoman perched a little straw hat over my eye at a rakish angle, and I grinned. I’d never chosen my own clothes before; Maman always dictated what I wore. But I was a madame now, a grown woman, not a helpless girl, and it was time I looked like it. “How much?”
We haggled. I had limited francs to spare, but I’d seen how covetously the saleswoman eyed my traveling suit even as she turned up her nose at the New Look. “Modeled right off the Dior collection, and I’ve got another at my hotel. I’ll drop it by tomorrow if you give me the trousers, the two skirts, the jerseys, and that black dress.”
“You may only have the black dress if you promise to wear it with pearls and very red lipstick.”
“I haven’t got the pearls right now, but I can do the lipstick.”
“Done.”
I headed back to the hotel with my parcel of clothes and a swing in my hips, and I had the pleasure of seeing Finn’s eyebrows go up as I joined him and Eve where they were having drinks at the hotel café. “Happy to meet you,” I said, and presented my hand with its new wedding ring. “I’m Mrs. Donald McGowan.”
“Bloody hell,” Eve said, and took a gulp of martini that looked like straight gin.
I patted the Little Problem. “A cover identity seemed practical.”
“Donald McGowan?” Finn asked. “Who is he?”
“Dark haired, lantern jawed, Yale law school, served in the tank corps.” I dabbed my eyes with an imaginary black-bordered handkerchief. “The love of my life.”
“Not bad to start,” Eve critiqued. “Did he like his socks folded or r-rolled?”
“Um. Folded.”
“No um. Black coffee or cream? Did he have brothers and sisters? Did he play football at university? Details, Yank.” Eve pointed a stern finger. “It’s the little details that sell a cover story. Make up a biography for your Donald and study it till you can reel it off with no flubs. And wear that ring all the time, till you get that little groove in your finger that long-married w-women have. People look for that groove when they see young girls wheeling baby prams and calling themselves Mrs.”
I grinned. “Yes, ma’am. Shall we go get supper?”
“Yes, and I’ll c-cover this one. You’ve been buying till now.”
A small acknowledgment that she wasn’t here anymore for my money—that touched me, though I knew better than to say so. “As long as you let me check the bill,” I answered instead. “You’d sign your name to any set of numbers they wrote down.”
“Whatever you say.” She took the bill the waiter had just put down for drinks, and pushed it over to me. “You’re the banker.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Somehow, over the course of this week, money matters had matter-of-factly become my domain, even if I was the youngest one here. Finn and Eve automatically looked to me to haggle with hotel clerks over room rates; receipts were passed promptly to my hands for proper calculation; spare coins and cash came to me to be organized since my traveling companions would otherwise let everything float loose in a mess of pocket change and pencil stubs. “Honestly, you two,” I scolded as I scribbled on the bill for the drinks. “Eve up to her neck in espionage skills and you able to keep that car running on spit and baling wire, Finn, and neither of you can calculate a tip without ten minutes’ figuring and a scratch pad.”
“Easier if we just let you do it,” Finn said. “Wee little