I pinned the badge to my jacket dubiously. “But I don’t know a thing about Newark.”
“Then you will have to pretend you have just been transferred, will you not?”
3
« ^ » “
The Global Home Furnishings Market was a block off Main Street and seemed to have started life as a collection of adjacent buildings of different heights and architectural styles. Now they were painted a uniform navy blue and were interconnected by futuristic tubular glass walkways high above the street
In my beige slacks and black jacket, I wasn’t exactly dressed for a formal cocktail party, but neither were most of the other people crowding into the elevators that whisked us up to the ninth floor of the huge Global Home Furnishings building. Some of the older women looked as if they’d gone back to their hotel rooms and changed into softer clothes and prettier earrings, but the majority were still in daytime business attire. Male uniformity dictated dark suits and white shirts but an occasional seersucker blazer or outrageously colorful tie broke that lockstep monotony and the aroma of fresh cologne mingled with spritzes of perfume.
Anticipation bubbled like champagne as friends and associates greeted each other each time the doors opened.
Eventually, the elevator deposited us in a wide hallway tiled in polished pearl gray marble and lined with such lavish furniture showrooms that I thought for a moment I was in an upscale mall. Brand names only subliminally known from magazine ads flowed in gold script across gleaming glass windows or were chiseled over pink marble archways. Behind the windows and archways were mahogany chests and beds heaped high with colorful designer linens. Across the hall was a collection of painted furniture with a breezy California look. Next door, a classical Roman atrium contained modern dining furniture wrought from ebony and attenuated iron, with touches of blue- green verdigris.
I was on sensory overload. The shiny surfaces, the heady smell of new leather and plastic and textiles that was like opening the door on your first new car, the excited voices—I wanted to stop and take it all in like a kid in a video store, but Mrs. Jernigan, who was several inches shorter, darted and danced straight ahead and I was forced to keep up or lose her in the crowds.
We entered a glass-enclosed tube and passed high above a clump of dogwoods below into an adjacent building, then onto another elevator for two floors.
Old Home Week parties seemed to be going on everywhere—in the showrooms or in small nondescript rooms down side halls. People wandered past with printed guide maps and blank looks.
“Did they say third turn to the left?”
“This
“Hey, what happened to Stan?”
On my own, I, too, would have been confused, but Mrs. Jernigan seemed to know every turn and twist through this maze of showrooms and branching hallways.
We passed through an austerely formal marble vestibule where chrome and glass elevators were disgorging more people. Just beyond, a weighted brass stanchion held a placard which pointed the way to the Fitch and Patterson reception.
Even though I’ve never paid much attention to furniture makers, Fitch and Patterson is a household name in certain households. For years, the company used to give a miniature cedar chest to every girl who graduated from high school in North Carolina. They stopped the practice when I was in second grade, but I’ve kept the one that my mother used as a jewelry box. Even though the concept of hope chests seems like a hopeless anachronism to me, a lot of aspiring debutantes across this state still own full-sized, cedar-lined Fitch and Patterson chests to which their female relatives will donate lace tablecloths and pieces of heirloom silver every Christmas until the day they marry.
(You don’t think someone with pretensions of blue blood ever
Two perky young women with big hair and even bigger smiles were working the Fitch and Patterson reception table, trying to match badge names to their guest lists; but with such a crush of people streaming past them toward the open bar inside, they hindered us no more than had the guard on the street doors downstairs.
“As long as we wear badges and act as if we have been invited to these parties, no one will stop us,” said Matilda McNeill Jernigan.
We accepted complimentary tote bags and a handful of advertising flyers from more young women and sailed on into the reception amid a group of jovial bald men who seemed to be at least three drinks ahead of us.
The tote was rather attractive: sturdy black canvas with a discreet Fitch and Patterson logo in gold and white on the front. I slipped my purse inside and jammed the flyers in on top as Mrs. Jernigan redistributed some items in her own bags.
My whimsical guide had the build of a ten-year-old child or aging elf, and beneath the soft glow of the crystal chandeliers, her—dress? costume? assemblage?—of pink, green and lavender chiffon lost some of its eccentricity and took on a festive playfulness. Like a small rainbow-colored cloud, she drifted through the crowd toward the buffet where smoked salmon, boiled shrimp, fresh fruits, cheeses and crisp crackers tempted those who had evidently skipped dinner. After my turkey croissant, I was no longer hungry, but I snagged a glass of white Zinfandel and drifted after her.
