The Last Dress from Paris(40)
“What is it?” Leon is wondering why I’ve stopped.
“I’ve seen this.” I point at the carousel. “I just can’t work out where . . .” I can feel the deep frown creasing across my forehead.
“It’s pretty famous. Most people have come across a snap of it online or in a travel guide. Maybe through your work?”
It’s a good suggestion, but no, that’s not it. Think, Lucille, think. It’s a memory from long back that won’t fully present itself, buried deep where it hasn’t been thought about or needed for decades.
Could my grandfather have mentioned it? From their time in Paris, before London? Could this have something to do with them? Did they spend time in this park? Did the carousel star in one of his trips down memory lane that punctuated my childhood?
I have to get on it, and when I do, slightly worried that the old and brittle body of the horse will shatter beneath me, I close my eyes as it gathers speed. As the wind lifts my hair off my shoulders, I’m desperately trying to open my mind to the story I know lies within it. But it won’t come, and when I get off, I can’t hide my disappointment. I’m sulking, embarrassingly close to tears, from pure frustration more than anything else.
“You said you’re staying at the H?tel Athénée, yes?” Leon is trying to cheer me up.
I manage a nod.
“I bet you haven’t tried the almond and hazelnut financiers yet, have you?”
“Nope, but if you’re offering me cake, the answer will always be yes.”
* * *
? ? ?
We decide on the taxi ride back to the hotel that Leon should definitely see the rest of the dresses, and I call Veronique to see if she’d like to join us too. There must be more that she knows that I never thought to ask over dinner at her apartment. By the time we pull up outside on the avenue Montaigne, it’s getting dark and all of the tiny fairy lights that dot the perimeter hedges are glowing like trapped fireflies. I decide not to bother with the formality of sitting in the hotel’s lobby restaurant, and we shoot straight up to my suite on the second floor together.
By the time Veronique arrives an hour later, we’ve eaten three of the heavenly financiers each and ordered a round of burgers and fries from room service. We’re also halfway through a second bottle of Petit Chablis that I deliberately didn’t check the cost of before I brazenly ordered it like I’m made of money.
Veronique is wearing the sort of leopard-print coat that would look cheap on anyone else, but the way she has styled it with cropped black cigarette pants and a high roll-neck navy sweater effortlessly elevates it to superchic. She and Leon fall into an easy chat about each other’s jobs, and I am slightly shamed to realize she is asking him all the polite questions that I haven’t bothered to in nearly two full days in his company. They seem to know a lot of the same people from the Paris art scene, and Leon fills her in on the Maxim’s and how his grandfather preserved it for all these years.
“This is turning into quite the treasure hunt, isn’t it?” She smiles. “You must give me a job, Lucille! Perhaps the task of trying to trace the other missing dress? The one we have a card for but no gown?”
“Fantastic idea!” Especially as I have precisely no idea where to start with that one. “But you know it’s going to be the most challenging one, Veronique? We might have the card, but no location. And the message, ‘I continue to hope,’?” I remind her.
“I’ve done some initial research on the fabric, the toile de Jouy. It’s a term that originated in France in the late eighteenth century, far predating the time we are talking about here. It refers to the repeat pattern of a fabric, I believe. The literal translation is ‘cloth from Jouy-en-Josas,’ which is a town in the southwest suburbs of the city. Fashion is not my area of expertise at all, but we have staged many visiting designer exhibitions at the museum. Someone will know something that can help us. I’m sure of it.” She’s on the scent, and I can see from the determination in her eyes that she won’t let this go until she has exhausted all our options. “Of all the dresses, it sounds like this one was intended to be the most special and possibly the most expensive. So what could it have been ordered for?”
Our eyes shift back and forth across the room between each other, hoping to see a flicker of understanding, but there is none.
“Let me take the card and I will do my best,” she says. I have every confidence in her.
“So, what is the plan for tomorrow?” asks Leon. “Which dress is next, and where was it worn?”
“It’s dress number five, the Esther, worn to somewhere called Les Halles. What is that?” I look to Veronique.
“So, Esther. That’s the deep red velvet one. It’s covered in thousands of silver beads.”
“Yes, here she is!” I pull the dress from the rail in the vast walk-in wardrobe that is way too large for the half a dozen items of my own hanging in there. Items that I am having to repeatedly wash through the hotel’s horrifically expensive laundry service until I can find a moment to buy some more.
“You can’t mean Forum des Halles, as in the Westfield shopping center?” adds Leon, obviously confused.
“Yes, I think so,” confirms Veronique, “but remember, it would have looked very different back in the fifties. Today it’s a monument to modern-day capitalism with its fast fashion and food chains. But back then it was a huge fresh food market—the filthy, chaotic, beating heart of the city. I remember my maman going there for fresh pears, insisting on the best ones from the South of France for her tarte tatin. She wouldn’t make it otherwise. Certainly not the sort of place that required you to wear a couture Dior gown, that’s for sure.”