TEN

      On Monday Claire took the morning off work, went straight up to the passport expeditor, dropped off her documents and took the subway back downtown for shopping with Tina. The store was as jammed as it always was at lunch hour and just walking in made Claire feel dizzy. But she had forgotten that she was with a pro. Before Claire even had a chance to register the racks and racks of men’s sports jackets, the display of dozens of scarves, bins with hundreds of sweaters – all at sixty per cent off – Tina had put a clamp on her shoulder and directed Claire ‘to the back, up the stairs, and to the right on the mezzanine’.

      Claire pushed her way up the steps through the crowd of women with bags, umbrellas, purses, and other armor.

      They were in a section with two rows – at least a hundred feet long – all lined with coats. ‘What size are you?’ Tina asked. ‘A ten? A twelve? Or bigger?’ Claire thought she heard contempt in Tina’s size-eight voice. ‘Will you wear a sweater under it?’

      Before Claire could answer, Tina had turned away and, with an expression of intense concentration, began to click through the rack in front of her, the extra inch or two between garments used to push the rejected coats further away and give the next candidate a moment of breath. Tina surveyed each, then, heartlessly, clicked it beside the previous reject before Claire could even get a look. Soon, Tina had gone through ten feet of coats and had pulled three out. ‘Here. Want a slicka?’

      It was a yellow plastic, exactly the color police wore when they directed traffic. Claire didn’t even respond. ‘I didn’t think so,’ Tina laughed. ‘How about this?’

      It was black, with more straps, buckles, epaulettes, and pockets than any uniform the French Legionnaires had ever imagined. ‘No, I want …’

      ‘… beige,’ they said simultaneously and to Claire’s complete amazement Tina flourished a decent-looking light tan raincoat.

      ‘Ta-da!’ Tina said. ‘Looks like your style. Really boring.’

      But when Claire began to unbutton it she saw the label and the lining. It was Aquascutum. And though Claire didn’t know anything about fashion she knew it was a label on the coats that the people with the windowed offices wore.

      She slipped into it. The lining was soft and the color was more a light gray than a tan. ‘Hey. That looks good,’ Tina said as if truly surprised. She pushed Claire in front of a mirror and Claire had to agree. It did look good. The shoulders were slightly built up to enhance Claire’s narrow ones. But it flared enough to camouflage her hips. It hung from a raglan sleeve in a simple drape without a belt or extra gimmicks. ‘It’s a little plain,’ Tina pointed out. She held up the black one. ‘You get more for your money with this.’

      But Claire continued to survey herself in the mirror. She thought of Katherine Rensselaer on the rainy night. She was wearing a raincoat similar to this one. ‘I want it,’ Claire said and only then looked at the price-tag. Reduced. But it was still three hundred dollars!

      ‘Get outta here!’ Tina said when Claire showed her the tag. She turned and checked the rack, checked the signs above and gave Claire the moderately good news, ‘Twenty per cent extra off any coat bought today.’

      ‘But it’s already reduced,’ Claire said. It was true. The original price was just a little under a thousand dollars.

      ‘So? It’s twenty per cent more off the three hundred. At least you save sixty dollars.’ She looked back at the black coat. ‘This one’s only a hundred and forty,’ she said.

      But Claire had made up her mind. She looked at herself in the mirror. Somehow, in this coat, she could imagine herself on a London street looking up at Big Ben.

      On Tuesday night Tina came over to ‘help with the packing’ though Claire suspected she actually wanted to snoop and report back to the lunch table, if not all of Tottenville. Claire knew that even if she asked Tina not to tell anyone, it would be far beyond her capabilities. Let’s hope, Claire thought, she doesn’t say anything to my mother.

      ‘Hello, Mrs Bilsop,’ Tina said, her voice sing-song with secret.

      ‘Hi, Christine,’ Claire’s mother responded, luckily – as usual – not interested. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Nothin’ much.’ Then Tina silently mouthed, ‘Did you tell her yet?’ in an exaggerated, cartoon way. Claire shook her head. Luckily, her mom’s back was turned.

      ‘We’re going upstairs,’ Claire said and, as she led Tina up the steps, she rolled her eyes. ‘Shut up.’ Subtlety was not Tina’s stock-in-trade.

      In her own room, the door closed, Claire felt comfortable enough to take out her passport and her suitcase. She had decided not to embarrass herself with Abigail Samuels by borrowing her luggage. The passport was an adorable little booklet. What thrilled Claire the most about it was that behind the picture page there were another dozen pages of Entries/Entrees and Departures/Sorties. Her pages, of course, were blank but soon there would be a departure and an arrival. And a book to fill.

      She wondered for another moment how many entries Michael Wainwright or Katherine Rensselaer had in their passports. She shook her head. She was twenty-four and she had never even managed to get this far.

      Meanwhile Tina looked over at the bag. ‘Is that all ya bringin’?’ she asked before the suitcase was even open.

      ‘Well, I’m not quite packed,’ Claire admitted. ‘Oh, there’s my new sweater.’ She took it from the top of the packed pile of clothes and unwrapped the tissue paper. She slipped out of her T-shirt and pulled the sweater over her head.

      ‘Wow!’ Tina said. ‘Nice.’ She came over and fingered the delicate cables. ‘Feels good. Angora?’

      Claire felt a moment of contempt. Angora was as much like cashmere as burlap was to silk but ‘Cashmere,’ was all she said.

      Tina looked into the suitcase. ‘You’re the queen of beige. You sure you don’t want to jazz