chef’s hat with a giant fake ruby brooch pinned to it. Underneath all that, her school uniform. She looked patently ridiculous, as always, but Marjorie Lowtsky was not one to be taken lightly. Mr. and Mrs. Lowtsky didn’t speak the best English, so Marjorie had been doing the talking for them since toddlerhood. At her young age, she already knew the rag trade as well as anyone, and could take orders and deliver threats in four languages—Russian, French, Yiddish, and English. She was an odd kid, but I had come to find Marjorie’s help essential.
“We need dresses from the 1920s, Marjorie,” I said. “Really good ones. Rich lady dresses.”
“You wanna start by looking upstairs? In the Collection?”
The archly named “Collection” was a small area on the third floor where the Lowtskys sold their rarest and most precious finds.
“We don’t have the budget just now to even be glancing at the Collection.”
“So you want rich lady dresses but at poor lady prices?”
Edna laughed: “You’ve identified our needs perfectly, my dear.”
“That’s right, Marjorie,” I said. “We’re here to dig, not to spend.”
“Start over there,” Marjorie said, pointing to the back of the building. “The stuff by the loading dock just came in over the last few days. Mama hasn’t even had a chance to look through it yet. You could get lucky.”
The bins at Lowtsky’s were not for the faint of heart. These were large industrial laundry bins, crammed with textiles that the Lowtskys bought and sold by the pound—everything from workers’ battered old overalls to tragically stained undergarments, to upholstery remnants, to parachute material, to faded blouses of pongee silk, to French lace serviettes, to heavy old drapes, to your great-grandfather’s precious satin christening gown. Digging through the bins was hard and sweaty work, an act of faith. You had to believe that there was treasure to be found in all this garbage, and you had to hunt for it with conviction.
Edna, much to my admiration, dove right in. I got the sense she’d done this sort of thing before. Side by side, bin by bin, the two of us dug in silence, searching for what we did not know.
About an hour in, I suddenly heard Edna shout “a-ha!” and looked over to see her waving something triumphantly above her head. And triumphant she should have been, for her find turned out to be a 1920s crimson silk-chiffon and velvet-trimmed robe de style evening dress, embellished with glass beading and gold thread.
“Oh, my!” I exclaimed. “It’s perfect for Mrs. Alabaster!”
“Indeed,” said Edna. “And feast your eyes upon this.” She turned over the back collar of the garment to reveal the original label: Lanvin, Paris. “Somebody très riche bought this dress in France twenty years ago, I’ll wager, and barely wore it, by the looks of it. Delicious. How it will glint on stage!”
In a flash, Marjorie Lowtsky was at our side.
“Say, what’d you kids find in there?” asked the only actual kid in the room.
“Don’t you start with me, Marjorie,” I warned. I was only half teasing—suddenly afraid she was going to snatch the dress away from us to sell in the Collection upstairs. “Play by the rules. Edna found this dress in the bins, fair and square.”
Marjorie shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war,” she said. “But it’s a good one. Just make sure you bury it under a heap of trash when mama rings it up. She’d murder me if she knew I let that one get away from us. Lemme get you a sack and some rags, to hide it.”
“Aw, Marjorie, thanks,” I said. “You’re my top-notch girl.”
“You and me, we’re always in cahoots,” she said, rewarding me with a crooked grin. “Just keep your mouth shut. You wouldn’t want me getting fired.”
As Marjorie wandered off, Edna stared at her in wonder. “Did that child just say, ‘All’s fair in love and war’?”
“I told you that you’d like Lowtsky’s,” I said.
“Well, I do like Lowtsky’s! And I adore this dress. And what have you found, my dear?”
I handed her a flimsy negligee, in a vivid, eye-injuring shade of fuchsia. She took it, held it up against her body, and winced.
“Oh, no, darling. You cannot put me in that. The audience will suffer from it even more than I will.”
“No, Edna, it’s not for you. It’s for Celia,” I said. “For the seduction scene.”
“Dear me. Oh, yes. That makes more sense.” Edna took a more careful look at the negligee and shook her head. “Goodness, Vivian, if you parade