was 8 A.M. in New York, and he was standing in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee.
“Well?” He smiled when he heard her voice.
She closed her eyes tight in the darkness of her room, held her breath for an instant, and then let it out with a whoosh. “I'm coming.”
35
The apartment that Teddy found her in New York was tiny. She had given him the limit of what she could afford, and he had come as close to it as possible without finding something absolutely god-awful. He had found her a tiny one-bedroom walk-up on East Sixty-third Street between Lexington and Third. The neighborhood was halfway decent, the Third Avenue elevated train still trundled by at frequent intervals, but Lexington Avenue was fairly pleasant, and Park Avenue, only a block west, was lovely. The apartment itself faced south and was bright and sunny, the bedroom was very small, but the living room was pleasant.
When Serena saw the apartment, she was enchanted. The furniture was simple and unpretentious, freshly painted white wicker chairs, a bright hooked rug, bright prints on the walls, and a handsome quilt on Vanessa's bed, which she later discovered was a present from Teddy. It looked like a cozy guest apartment in someone's house, instead of an entire apartment. The kitchen was barely bigger than a closet, but it was furnished with just enough pots and pans to put a meal together for herself arid Vanessa, and as she closed the last cupboard and looked around, she looked at Teddy with a delighted smile and clapped her hands like a child. Vanessa was already busy with the dollhouse from Uncle Teddy.
“Teddy, it's wonderful! I like it even better than our apartment in San Francisco.”
He smiled at her apologetically. “I wouldn't exactly compare the view.” He peered out at the other narrow buildings crowded onto Sixty-third Street, and could well imagine it all with snow and slush and soot in a few months. He turned around to face her then, with a gentle look in his eyes. “Serena, I'm glad you're here.” He knew that for her it had been an act of enormous trust. What if she didn't find work here? What if he had been wrong? There was no certain knowing.
“I'm-glad too. Frightened out of my wits,” she said, smiling, “but happy.” The very tempo of the town had filled her with excitement on the way in from the airport.
He spent the rest of the evening explaining to her how to get around the city, what was where, where not to go, and what were the safest areas. And the more she listened, the more she liked it. She had to go to the agency for her first interview the next day, and she was so excited, she could barely stand it.
When Serena appeared at the Kerr Agency the next morning, she was startled at what she found there, gone were the easygoing, relaxed people she had run into modeling in San Francisco. Here everything was business, it was quick-fire, high pressure, rushed, and hurried, and there was no fooling around. No casual air surrounded this business, it was an office filled with well-dressed, well-made-up women sitting at desks, speaking on phones with stacks of composites piled up before them, file cards referring to jobs pinned up on boards in front of them, and telephones ringing every time one turned around. Serena was ushered to one of the desks in a businesslike way, and she found herself being looked over by an attractive dark-haired woman. The woman at the desk was wearing a crisp beige wool suit, a matching silk shirt, her hair was impeccably combed in a shoulder-length pageboy, and hanging over the silk blouse was a thick rope of pearls.
“I saw your photographs a few weeks ago,” she told Serena. “You're going to need new ones, probably a whole book, and a composite.” Serena nodded dumbly, feeling terribly stupid and almost too inarticulate to speak. “Have you got anyone who can do that?” With wide eyes she shook her head. She had worn a pale blue sweater, a gray skirt, a simple navy-blue cashmere blazer she had bought at the store in San Francisco, and her long graceful legs seemed endless as she crossed them and the woman noticed the black Dior pumps. Her hair was carefully knotted, and in each ear she had worn a simple pearl. She looked more like she was going to tea with a friend in San Francisco