“Yeah. Say, where you from?”
“New York, now. New Orleans was where I was born.”
“Oh—I thought you talked like you was from the South. Well, up here being coloured don’t count as much as it does down your way—”
Mimi hastened to disclaim the imputation in Sylvia’s voice.
“That’s all right, dearie. I wasn’t accusing you of prejudice.”
“No—no, I’m not prejudiced,” was Mimi’s reply. She felt a sense of guilt at her duplicity, but at the same time Sylvia’s words gave her assurance that the task of passing would not be as difficult as she had feared.
“Race prejudice is a lot of bunk,” Sylvia was philosophizing. “Take me, for instance. I went to Manhattan Trade, too. My real name’s Bernstein—but you can’t get by in some of these places if they think you’re a Jew. So my name here is ‘Smith.’ I’m starting at the bottom just like you, to learn the tricks of the trade, but some day I’m going to have my own business. You see, my mother’s French and I took after her, so I can pass for French even if I don’t speak any of that lingo. So I know what prejudice means, dearie. Some of the girls tried to get nasty when they put Miss Lawrence over us—Miss Lawrence was the coloured woman—but I liked her and she soon had ’em under her thumb, believe me.”
As Sylvia chattered on, Mimi felt an urge to tell her new friend that she too was sailing under false colours, but she feared to reveal this fact so early in their acquaintance. Caution urged her to remain silent though she felt she could trust Sylvia implicitly despite the fact she had seen her for the first time a few hours before. She liked Sylvia. She was slangy. She was coarse, after a fashion. But it took no very keen eye to see that beneath these externals she was made of fine stuff. Ambitious, too. Just like a Jew, Mimi thought, and though she meant nothing derogatory, she was ashamed she had used a phrase so often spoken in dispraise of Sylvia’s race. Yes, she was going to like Sylvia.
“Say, Mimi—you’re French, too, aren’t you?—let’s have lunch together every day. I don’t have anything to do with the rest of the girls—all they think about is clothes and lovers—but I like you.”
“And I like you, too, Sylvia,” Mimi shyly answered, stirred by the prompt offer of friendship.
“That’s OK, then. We’ll be real pals. And any time you want to know anything, just call on me.”
“Tell me, Sylvia, what became of Miss Lawrence—the coloured woman who was a fitter? Is she still working for Francine?”
“Nope—some of the girls objected to her and raised such a row she left. She’s got a place of her own in Harlem—she’s married now and Francine don’t know it but a lot of these swells go all the way up there to get Miss Lawrence to do their clothes. Francine would throw a fit or two if she found it out.” …
Mimi liked her work. She started at fifteen dollars a week but before many months had passed her pay was increased. The hours were not as long as they seemed and she learned to like Sylvia more and more as each day brought forth some new sign of the determination and keen intelligence that lay back of Sylvia’s rather slangy and disrespectful manner. With Mimi there was none of the subtle antagonisms Sylvia felt towards the other girls. This hostility was born of Sylvia’s contempt for their greater polish and worldly cleverness, their air of distinction with which they aped the manners of the patrons of Francine’s whom they watched when the girls walked on the Avenue during the lunch hour. Sylvia would never have admitted it, but there was, too, envy in her heart of these among whom she felt like the proverbial ugly duckling. Mimi saw without difficulty the motives which inspired Sylvia’s distrust and dislike, but she never hinted even that she understood. Sylvia would have been hurt, pained terribly, had she felt Mimi ascribed her emotions to such sources. But whatever their source, they served as a driving power of tremendous strength in Sylvia’s life. She often told Mimi her plans and dreams, at first shyly, then freely.
“I was born way down on the East Side—father and mother came here from France when they had only one child. I was the third and there were four after me—no chance down there at all. So I made up my mind I was going to get somewhere and I pulled out of that hole and here I am. I had to sew on men’s clothes that mother brought home from the factory—started sewing when I was eight years old. I didn’t get much education, and living down there, I soon lost what little I had, got to talking rough and using slang—oh, you needn’t try to save my feelings—I know I’m rough as a dockhand. But I’m going to night school—and some day I’m going to be somebody.”
Sylvia’s face, dark and in moments of intense feeling strong with the mark of Israel upon it, lighted up as she looked down the years and saw herself sitting as Francine now did in a delicately beautiful “studio” of her own, while all around her bustled employees of Madame Sylvia.
“Take Francine, for instance. She says she is French, but you and I are lots more French than she is—every time she opens her mouth and spills some French words, you can hear Killarney all through it. And if she can get away with it, well, I can put it over, too.”
Under Sylvia’s direction Mimi began to see new worlds in New York she had never thought of penetrating. At first to occupy her mind, later because the pursuit of knowledge was an intriguing and comforting thing, she began to spend her evenings at night school. She finished her course in designing, she studied French, soon
