About the Third Month
October 7
Into New York, just Pat and me, for a blowout.
We had dinner at Louis and Armand’s; then to the Ballet Russe. We stayed at the Ambassador-far too much money, of course, but it was our first big night in town in quite a spell. This morning a beautiful luscious breakfast in bed, and all wasted!
Pat went on to an important conference with the president of the advertising agency and I went on to an important conference on maternity clothes. I started out with the proceeds of the first rent check from my tenants and rushed off to pay a charge account at Saks. Little did I know that when Pat cashed the check for me he had appropriated ten dollars! I blithely paid the whole bill, thought I had ten dollars left, and wandered into the maternity section to tryon something chic.
A hot sticky day, just to make a liar out of the calendar, and the horrid sack-like wool numbers I pulled on and off made me sicker than the heat. The professional appraisals of the clerks and their sugary, “About three months, aren’t you, dear?” almost finished me-or so I thought until I saw the dresses. Then it really was touch and go. I’d as soon wear sandwich boards that proclaimed “Pregnant” in neon lights.
There seem to be four kinds of maternity advertising: (I) Bunched in front, with eleven yards of extra goods on stout elastic, for future frontage; (2) Bunched all around on a ribbon drawstringbeating the little mother to it by providing plenty of spread here and now; (3) Bunched again, and enormously bloused on top (”This gives you balance, dearie, when you pop below”); (4) Dresses and jackets, combining all the worst features of (I), (2), and (3)’
I wondered idly what the “pop” business was, but dismissed it. I wouldn’t wear such if I popped all over, and, anyway, I really don’t think I’ll get very much higher.
At that point I needed fresh air and a bowl or two of tomato soup, so I opened my purse to freshen up-and, 10, I had one nickel between me and starvation.
I rushed into a sizzling ‘phone booth and called the advertising agency. Patrick was in the president’s office and the conference couldn’t be disturbed. Tearfully I begged the operator to have him call me at the ‘phone booth. “It’s practically a matter of life and death,” I pleaded. That scared her, so she called the holy of holies and Pat called me right back. I could tell from the stilted conversation that he was talking right from the center of things, but I wept until he promised to come and rescue me.
He tried to be nice, remembering my delicate condition, but by the time he found me in the middle of the maternity section with the stares of the clerks centered on him, the strain was beginning to tell. He gave me the money he had gypped me out of and rushed off. “Good thing some of us aren’t pregnant,” I heard him mutter.
Refreshed and heartened by my beloved soup, I began a tour of every store in the city. Not anyvhere could I find a dress that wasn’t planned for the whole nine months’ spread, and that on a practically gargantuan scale. “Why?” I begged in vain, “why can’t you make some dresses that really do conceal-even if they could only be worn for the first few months? Nearly every woman buys two or three maternity dresses. She could wear one at first that’s designed to conceal and later on buy another that just plain stretches. Why start off looking like the blessed event was on the brink? The heck with a dress that will ‘give’ later on-l want to look smart now!”
I’ve never seen such awful stuff. Jackets, jabots, fluffy, ruflly collars.
Something ought to be done, too, about the calculating looks of those damn clerks and their fiendish, “About the third month, isn’t it, dearie?”
1 ended up the day with a red corduroy dress that is the only decent maternity dress in town. I don’t even mind the elastic or the extra yards in the middle of the front, for all the rest is a simple tailored shirtwaist type. I also bought a black wool that I despise, but it was the simplest black dress I could find. I cheerfully paid an extra fee for some three yards of extra material to be removed.