“I picked up the straitjacket last night. Approve of me.”
That caught Judith’s attention. “I thought you’d have to pry it out of Amanda’s cold, dead hands.”
“Nope. I only had to go on a blind date with her boyfriend’s cousin.”
“Smashing job, darling,” Judith said, the words still faux-English but the sentiment genuine this time. “That’s going to look fantastic in the exhibit. It’s such an unusual piece, no one will know what to think about it. A hand-knit straitjacket as protest object—the domestic meets the political. It’ll blow their minds.”
“Just don’t let it go to Amanda’s head. It’s big enough already.”
“You could learn a thing or two from her about showmanship,” Judith remarked. “I’d hate to have to spend time with the woman, but she knows how to get the attention of the press.”
Cath inspected the repaired hem of the Bohus cardigan, thinking the exchange was typical of her relationship with her boss, which had been odd from the first. They’d met at a gallery opening, where they’d started talking about the recent craze for “tagging” urban objects by encasing them in knitted outfits. When Cath had found out that Judith, a Californian, was in London to act as guest curator for the V&A’s hand-knitting exhibit, she’d invited her out for a pint. By the end of the evening, she’d somehow wheedled her way into a job writing the contemporary portion of the exhibit catalog.
It was only supposed to be a temp position, but when the funds ran out, Cath kept turning up at the V&A every day anyway, and eventually Judith took pity on her and hired her as her assistant. Now Cath did research, wrote catalog copy, organized Judith’s life, and helped select and acquire pieces for the show.
It was the best job in the universe. Too bad it would end as soon as the exhibit went up.
With the silent coordination of long practice, she and Judith began refolding the sweaters for storage. “Speaking of withholding approval,” Judith said, “you’re going to have to rewrite that interwar section again. Christopher wants it sexier.”
“There’s nothing sexy about knitting in 1930s Britain. It was the Depression. All the books are full of advice about how to darn socks and rip out old sweaters to reuse the same yarn over and over again.”
“You’ll find something. Think knitted underclothes. Fair Isle stockings.”
“Cervical-cap cozies?”
“Now you’re talking.”
Cath sighed. “I thought curators would be above the pressure to sex everything up.”
“Nope. If you want to be one, you’ll have to get creative.”
“Creative is my middle name.”
“Your middle name is Catherine,” Judith said, packing the sweaters back into the box.
Cath smiled, surprised Judith knew even that much about her. They were friends, but only within the confines of the office. In the seven months since they’d met, Cath had practically lived at the museum, working for pennies and burning through the small inheritance her mother had left her. Her only goal was to transform her passion for art and history into employment as a curator. She had the knowledge, but she lacked the credentials to get hired by traditional means. She needed to get in through the back door. Judith, a prominent expert on early-modern and modern European textiles, was her back door.
“I do deliver your paychecks,” Judith reminded her. “And anyway, I’ve been working to get that name of yours out there. When I meet with Christopher tomorrow, I’m going to ask him whether we can add you to the catalog as co-author. Consider it your reward for the straitjacket. You’ve done nearly half the writing anyway. You should get credit for it.”
“Seriously?” Cath stopped packing, her palms suddenly clammy inside her thin cotton gloves. Getting her name on the catalog would be a dream come true. In combination with a recommendation from Judith, it might even be enough to get her a decent job. It was exactly the break she’d been waiting for. She tried to seem nonchalant, but it was hard, because she was so excited she thought
she might black out. “That would be great.”
“Don’t count your chickens yet,” Judith warned. “I still have to get it by Christopher.”
When it came to the exhibit, Christopher followed Judith’s lead. Cath was in.
Judith put the lid on the box and escaped, purportedly to return the sweaters to storage, but more likely fleeing the possibility Cath would try to hug her or display more emotion than Judith could handle, which was to say any emotion not tinged with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
Cath sat down in her wheelie office chair and tried to remember how to do the yoga breathing she’d learned on that retreat in New Mexico with John—or was it Jake?—years ago. Breathe with your belly, they’d said. Or, no, breathe into your belly with your diaphragm? Only she wasn’t sure where her diaphragm was or how to move it.
Too restless and energized to think clearly, she gave up and gave in, pushing her feet hard against the floor to send the chair into a wild spin while a six-year-old girl with pigtails jumped up and down in her head and shouted, Co-author! My name on a catalog published by the V&A! Whee!
She wished she could tell her mom. Would she have been proud? It was hard to envision pride on Mom’s face. In its place, there had always been worry. Judgment. Exasperation.
And Cath had deserved that. She’d been a rotten daughter, at least from the time she was fourteen or so. After Daddy died, she’d gone bad, and she’d stayed that way right up to the end of Mom’s life.
But it was nice to picture Mom proud of her, to pretend she’d have said, You’ve done well, love, in her clipped, working-class English accent.