The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights

by Kitty Zeldis

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

For fans of Fiona Davis, Beatriz Williams, and Joanna Goodman, a mesmerizing historical novel from Kitty Zeldis, the bestselling author of Not Our Kind, about three women in 1920s New York City and the secrets they hold

Brooklyn, 1924. As New York City enters the jazz age, the lives of three very different women are about to converge in unexpected ways. Recently arrived from New Orleans, Beatrice is working to establish a chic new dress shop with help from Alice, the orphaned teenage ward she brought north with her. Down the block, newlywed Catherine is restless in her elegant brownstone, longing for a baby she cannot conceive.

When Bea befriends Catherine and the two start to become close, Alice feels abandoned and envious, and runs away to Manhattan. Her departure sets into motion a series of events that will force each woman to confront the painful secrets of her past in order to move into the happier future she seeks.

Moving from the bustling streets of early twentieth century New York City to late nineteenth-century Russia and the lively quarters of New Orleans in the 1910s, The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights is a story of the families we are born into and the families we choose, and of the unbreakable bonds between women.

Release date: December 6, 2022

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter OneCatherine

Brooklyn, 1924

Catherine Berrill awoke to blood—again. It had happened last month too, but it hadn’t trickled down very far, and so left only a light stain on her nightdress, one that she rinsed out immediately before the maid could see it. Nettie knew that Catherine and Stephen were hoping for a child, knew that month after month, their hope was drowned by blood. Sometimes a smear, sometimes a pool. It didn’t matter. Blood was blood. Nettie herself had four children, and Catherine didn’t want her pity, however well-intentioned.

But today, the blood was far more than a smear. She’d been in a deep sleep, and when she woke, there was a large, crimson stain beneath her, bright and incriminating. Catherine stripped the bed, but she wasn’t sure what to do with the sheet—she could hear Nettie bustling around in the kitchen below, so there would be no way to conceal it. And though she could have bundled it up and thrown it away, there would still be its disappearance to account for; Nettie took pride in her meticulous housekeeping. So, leaving the sheet on the floor, she cleaned herself up, secured the necessary flannel pads in her underclothes, and went downstairs.

“There’s a soiled sheet in our room,” she said. “I left it by the bed.”

Nettie looked up; she was pouring Catherine’s coffee into a delicate, bone china cup. “Oh, that’s too bad, Mrs. Berrill,” she said. “Would you like me to bring your coffee upstairs, so you can have it in bed? Since it’s your time and all . . . It won’t take me a minute to put a fresh sheet on.”

Catherine’s face burned. Of course Nettie knew why the sheet was soiled. The maid always knew all the secrets of a house.

“No, I’ll take the coffee in the back parlor,” she said. “Just like always.”

“And a cinnamon bun? Fresh baked this morning. Mr. Berrill thought they were perfection—heaven on a plate,” he said.

Catherine had to smile—her husband was an optimist, an enthusiast, a man with a perpetually sunny disposition, inclined to see the best in everything and everyone. To Stephen, a freshly baked cinnamon bun was indeed cause for rejoicing. Even so, she was glad he’d already left for work. She didn’t think she could stand his unquenchable good cheer this morning.

Nettie brought in the coffee and Catherine sat at the small table and looked out at the backyard. It was winter and nothing was in bloom, but come spring, there would be snowdrops, forsythia, and then lilacs, and in the summer, peonies and miniature roses of the palest pink. The warm weather would bring new growth, new life, but she, Catherine Delman Berrill, would remain barren, her womb wasted and empty. Abruptly, she got up from the table, so that the cup rattled and coffee pooled in the saucer. The cinnamon bun remained untouched.

“I’m not very hungry,” she said to Nettie. “I’m going out, and I won’t be back for lunch.”

“Dinner’s baked fish tonight,” said Nettie.

“Oh, that’s right—it’s Friday.” Stephen didn’t eat meat on Fridays, a habit ingrained from childhood. Although the thought of food sickened Catherine at the moment, she said, “I’m sure it will be delicious, Nettie.”

It was a relief to be outside. She could walk along Vanderbilt Avenue, past the big arch at Grand Army Plaza Avenue and into Prospect Park, where she’d follow its winding paths and cross its expansive Long Meadow. If she walked as far as the pond, she’d see the ducks, and maybe even the pair of swans that swam calmly on its surface. She liked tossing them stale bread crusts; unlike the ducks, they didn’t lunge and push one another out of the way, but accepted her offering in a regal, dignified manner. But the park was apt to be bleak and deserted on this gray, chilly day, so she headed in the other direction, toward the busier Flatbush Avenue.

She only hoped that she wouldn’t run into one of her in-laws, as several of them lived nearby, on Union Street. When she and Stephen first moved into the house on St. Marks Avenue she’d been delighted to have his family so close by. She’d fallen in love with his parents, who’d welcomed her instantly, and his six siblings too—he was the eldest of a big Irish brood.

But Catherine couldn’t bear seeing any of them today, especially not Bridget, to whom she was closest, and who knew all about Catherine’s yearning to have a child. And Molly, his other sister, was pregnant with her second—no, Catherine really didn’t want to see her either. Just as she reached Flatbush, she saw the new little dress shop she’d noticed before but never gone into. Although her closets were full enough, she decided it might provide a sorely needed distraction, and she climbed the stoop leading to the glass-paned double doors. There was a small sign attached to one of them:

DRESSES BY BEATRICE AND ALICE

PLEASE RING FOR ENTRY

A girl of around fifteen or sixteen responded to the chiming sound. Was she Beatrice or Alice? “Good morning,” said the girl. “Would you like to look around?” She was pretty, but it was her dress that really stood out. It combined a persimmon-colored gathered skirt with a sage-green bodice and sleeves; the sleeves were adorned with tassels, as was the skirt. Something about it seemed of another time—skirts had not been so full for a while—but the effect was more avant-garde than retrograde. Before Catherine could comment, she was greeted by another woman, who looked to be in her forties. With her olive skin and dark hair that was elegantly twisted and gathered to show off her long neck, she was arresting. Compelling.

Like the girl who’d answered the door, the older woman wore an unusual dress, hers in blue-and-white-striped wool with knitted and fluffy sleeves. “Hello,” said the woman. “I’m Miss Bea and this is Alice. Please look around and feel free to ask us any questions.” Her voice held the faintest trace of an accent. It sounded European, but Catherine couldn’t pin it down any more than that.

“Nice to meet you,” Catherine said. Was the woman staring at her or was she imagining it? She began to look at the clothes on display, mostly dresses, no two of them alike. Here was a frock fashioned from a glorious butterfly-print silk with a black satin capelet at the shoulders; there was a simple emerald-green column made from an unfamiliar but appealing material that was both luxurious and soft. Its only adornment was the sash of aubergine velvet that extended from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

There were no labels in any of the dresses, and Catherine couldn’t begin to guess where they were from. She only knew she’d never seen anything quite like them before. Despite her gloomy mood, she was intrigued and asked if she could try on the green dress. The material felt so good when she touched it; what would it be like to have it on her body, against her skin?

Alice carried the dress over to a changing area enclosed by an ivory, watered silk curtain. “Won’t you step inside?” Her accent was clearly southern—so neither of these women was a New Yorker. Were they related, though? She wasn’t sure.

Catherine took the dress and, once inside, began to disrobe. When she had the green dress on, she stepped out again, Alice came over and began to fasten the buttons in the back. The dress felt even better than she imagined. “What’s it made of?” she asked.

“Silk knit jersey,” said Miss Bea. “It’s mostly used for undergarments but we got hold of a bolt and wanted to do something with it.”

“So you make the dresses here?”

“Yes. Though mostly Alice remakes them.”

“Remakes them? What do you mean?”

“We take existing dresses and combine various parts to come up with something new. Sleeves from one, a skirt from another—like that. Though the one you’re wearing is an original. It was my idea actually.”

Catherine walked over to the mirror. The woman who looked back at her was unfamiliar. She was glamorous, yes, but even more, she was composed, she was in complete control of her life. Her future. The day’s dark mood seemed to lift, banished by this altogether unusual dress. Maybe the dress was a sign of something—something good. Maybe she’d wear it and soon enough, she’d be with child and would need to have it let out.

“. . . the sleeves are just the slightest bit too long, but Alice could easily fix them.” Miss Bea was looking at Catherine’s reflection in the mirror yet it seemed to Catherine that she was not focused on the sleeves at all, but on her face. It was unnerving.

“What?”

“The sleeves—I was saying that—”

“I’ll take it,” Catherine blurted out.

“It’s very becoming,” said Miss Bea. “Alice, can you pin the sleeves?”

Alice came over with a pincushion and tape measure. When she was done, Catherine stepped back in the dressing area to change, then handed the dress to Alice, who disappeared behind another, much wider ivory silk curtain in the back.

“That’s our work area,” Miss Bea explained. “I can have the dress for you tomorrow. Will that be all right?”

“Tomorrow is fine.”

“If you give me your name and address, I’ll have it sent round when it’s done.”

“How much do I owe you?” She hadn’t even asked what the dress cost.

“Eight dollars.”

Catherine would have happily paid more for it. “And the alteration?”

“No charge. Now if I could just get your name.” Miss Bea’s pen was poised above a small pad.

“Catherine Berrill, 127 St. Marks Avenue.”

The pen dropped and ink splattered, black drops sprinkling the pale cream-colored rug and the bit of stocking revealed by the strap of Miss Bea’s shoe. “Excuse me,” the older woman murmured as she knelt to retrieve it. She didn’t seem to care about the ink—or maybe she didn’t even notice. When she looked up again, her face had paled, and this time there was no mistaking it—she was staring at Catherine, seemingly transfixed.

“Well, thank you very much.” Catherine held out the bills but Miss Bea, still staring, ignored them. “The payment,” she prompted. This was all so strange. Strange and uncomfortable.

“You’re welcome.” Miss Bea took the bills and hastily stuffed them into the pocket of her dress.

Catherine fastened her coat and drew on her gloves. She loved the dress, she truly did, and she was sure that if she continued to look around, she would find others that were equally appealing. These women were clearly gifted. But Miss Bea’s manner was so unsettling, so peculiar, that Catherine didn’t care to shop any further. She hurried out and down the stoop, walking swiftly away, quite certain she would never set foot in that shop again.

Chapter TwoBea

Bea had seen her. At last, she had seen her in the flesh. Face-to-face. After the searching, the hoping, the waiting, the scheming. The young woman she’d been seeking, Catherine Delman, now Berrill, had walked up those steps and right through the doors. She clearly resembled the photograph the detective had provided, though in the sepia-tinted image, the dazzling blue of Catherine Berrill’s eyes were not visible. But today Bea had recognized them—they were unmistakable, even though she had spent years trying to stamp out the memory of their unusual shade, and of the only other person she’d known who possessed them. For years, she’d succeeded. If she didn’t allow the memories to bubble to the surface, she could live as if they weren’t there. Until she couldn’t.

Bea’s growing disquiet had begun with something that had nothing to do with her: the Great War that was raging in Europe. President Wilson had kept America out of it for the first three years before deciding to send troops. That was when the department of the Navy had pressured the city to end legalized prostitution. She had been forced to close her business in the notorious New Orleans neighborhood known as the District and say goodbye to her life as a madam, a life that had sustained and occupied her for more than twenty years. She’d been in her forties, still relatively young, and still healthy, her spine straight, her waist narrow. Only a few strands of silver glinted in her dark hair, and her face was mostly unlined. She didn’t want to operate her house—one of the finest and most well-known in those circles—undercover, living as an outlaw. So she was faced with the task of figuring out what, exactly, to do with the rest of her life. Unmoored in those first strange days, she took to rising early and embarking on long, solitary walks. Some mornings she headed toward Tchoupitoulas, where a ripe, primal smell wafted up from the nearby river. Other days she’d go deep into the Quarter, peering into courtyards, tossing the occasional coin—without wishing—into a fountain, wending her way down alleys whose bricks were slick with moss. In Jackson Square, she spent too much time watching a disheveled and practically toothless old woman as she scattered birdseed to an adoring flock. Bea had the uneasy feeling that she was seeing her own future.

As she walked, stray memories from childhood flitted through her mind: the slight furrow of her father’s brow, even when he napped, the raucous sound of her brothers’ laughter as they chased each other through the big stone house. What her room in that house had looked like, the heavy curtains that surrounded the bed and that, when pulled closed, created a cozy alcove for sleep, a meal during which she dripped borscht onto her starched, white pinafore and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide the evidence from her mother. But Mama hadn’t been cross, not at all, and it was she, not the maid, who had accompanied Bea upstairs to find a fresh one.

The empty hours allowed Bea to dwell on these memories. Some were sweet. Others were bitter, even gruesome. What had happened to her father, for instance. Yet terrible as that had been, his story had an ending she knew, and there was harsh comfort in that. What about the story whose outcome was unknown to her? It had no conclusion. She had just willed it away from her awareness, buried it deep inside of her. Now it was coming back, asserting itself loudly, stridently. It haunted her, taunted her even. And eventually it drove her to Chartres Street, and the shabby, second-floor office of a detective named Isadore Vernou.

Vernou was a small, pallid man with a center part and a droopy mustache. Sitting across from him, the scuffed and stained oak desk between them, Bea told him who it was she wanted to find. He’d nodded, taken down the information she was able to provide—all of it more than a quarter century old—and said he’d see what he could do.

For a long while, she heard nothing and feared her search would be in vain. It was almost a year later when he contacted her; he’d found a promising lead, but in the end it had led nowhere. Or at least not to the place she was desperate to go. Her house, where she’d allowed the girls to stay until they’d found other lodgings, emptied out. The rooms, which had been filled every day and every night, were now silent. Only Alice and a couple of servants remained.

Then influenza swept the country, and New Orleans became a plague city. People Bea knew, young people, healthy people, died in droves. The newspapers reported on the deaths, the grim numbers mounting; funeral followed funeral. Everyone stayed in, and if they had to go out, they hurried about their business, their faces covered by masks. It was in the middle of this epidemic that Bea heard from Vernou again, and this time, he was certain he had the information she was looking for. So excited was Bea to get this news that she donned a mask and hurried to his office, where he presented her with a name, an address, and miraculously, even a photograph over whose sepia-toned surface she ran her fingertips gently, as if she could absorb the image into her skin. “You’re sure?” she had asked.

“Quite sure.”

“So what do I do now?”

“That’s up to you.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then I’ll refund half your money. I’ve got to be paid something for my time. But I won’t be. You’ll see.”

“It means I’ll have to go to New York. To find her.” Bea stared at the photograph, hoping to find an answer, a clue, lodged somewhere in it. “What will I say?” She spoke softly, as if to herself.

“That’s up to you,” Vernou said again. “I provide my clients with information. I don’t tell them what to do with it.”

It took Bea some time to act on what she’d learned—she didn’t want to travel while the disease still raged, and there was the matter of selling her house and almost everything in it. But finally, the epidemic subsided, the house and its contents were sold, the journey made. Vernou had not disappointed her. Catherine Berrill was the woman she’d been seeking—her eyes alone would have convinced Bea. She had to see those eyes again. To see Catherine again. Having come to the shop once, she might return, though Bea was well aware that she had behaved oddly and might have put her off.

Alice walked back into the front parlor. “There’s something on the carpet,” she said. “Look, it’s on your stocking too.”

“It’s ink,” said Bea. “I dropped a pen.”

“I’ll get some bleach,” Alice said.

The bleach lightened but didn’t eliminate the spots on the rug. Bea didn’t care, she just moved one of the tufted seats to cover it. The stocking she would keep, a reminder of the day, the precise moment her search had ended.

“Are you all right?” Alice asked. “You seem upset. Did she say something? I thought she seemed pleasant enough.”

“Yes, I mean no, no, it wasn’t anything she said, it wasn’t anything at all. I’m not upset.” She looked at Alice, who clearly didn’t believe her. “Please don’t worry. I’m fine.” She hadn’t told Alice that she had been looking for Catherine, that this woman had been her whole reason for coming to New York.

They’d arrived a few months earlier, in December. Bea’s initial impression of New York was not rosy; in fact, she thought it was an awful city—gray, dreary, filthy. On her very first day in the fabled metropolis, she had been forced to pick her way through the revolting mess left behind by both horses and dogs, piles of mold-spotted potato skins, rotted lettuce leaves, empty liquor bottles, and the bones of God only knew how many chickens, picked clean. The throngs of people who hurried along the wide avenues appeared dour, and in some cases malevolent; the tall, soot-stained buildings seemed to glare down at them. And perhaps worst of all was that New York was so very cold. Bea had spent the first years of her life in Russia, where it certainly had been colder, but the next three decades in New Orleans had blunted both her memories of and tolerance for the chill. The biting wind made her eyes tear, her nose run, and sliced through her new coat—it had seemed so fashionable, so chic, back when she’d bought it on Magazine Street, and it offered no better protection than a dressing gown. How had she not anticipated this?

Alice seemed to share her revulsion, and though she didn’t complain, she acted as if she had been bludgeoned into silence. Bea had spent much of their trip north on the New York & New Orleans Limited prattling on about landmarks she’d read about but never seen: Central Park, the Plaza Hotel, the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Opera House. And the train itself bolstered this glamorous if imaginary picture gallery—the observation car with its enlarged windows and sweeping, panoramic views, the cunningly designed compartments, the single red rose placed in the bud vase that sat on each table in the dining car.

But when they found themselves thrust unceremoniously into the pure bedlam of Pennsylvania Station, Bea felt she’d deceived Alice and her own words mocked her. There were so many people, all rushing, shoving, muttering, scowling. Getting out of the terminal was a challenge, and being outside was even worse, what with the teeming sidewalks and streets choked by automobiles, horse-drawn wagons, and bloated, monstrous buses. After twenty fruitless—and freezing—minutes trying to hail a taxi, Bea finally succeeded; she had practically stepped into its path to flag it down. Sitting inside, Alice was clearly terrified. It was the first time she had ridden in a such a vehicle, and she clutched the front seat, alarmed by the speed and the blaring horns of other motorists around them.

When they finally arrived at the hotel on Upper Broadway, they went upstairs, undressed, and went straight to bed. Bea slid down the well of sleep as if drugged. But the next morning, she had to face the city again—pulsating, chaotic, more foreign than she could have imagined. Maybe it had all been a mistake—the visit to the detective, the knowledge he had given her, the plan to come north. Her decision was hardly irreversible, though. She and Alice could just turn around and go back, of course they could—but back to what? Bea knew her life in New Orleans was over. And since she’d adopted Alice in all but a legal way, the girl’s life there was over too.

Breakfast the next morning was a subdued meal, with Alice answering only in monosyllables. Bea sipped her coffee, an ersatz, bitter brew, and began to devise something like a plan. The hotel was a temporary oasis. Thanks to Vernou, she had trained her sights on Brooklyn, and a neighborhood called Prospect Heights where he said Catherine Berrill was living. But even though Bea had the address, she couldn’t just show up at the house and announce herself; she had to bide her time and find the right moment. Right moment, and the right words too. She rehearsed them endlessly in her head, but everything she came up with sounded false, hollow, and thoroughly wrong.

On the first morning, she had a more immediate concern: how to deal with the cold. She thought of the broad avenues of her home city, its denizens draped in fur and leather—elemental materials with which to face the most brutal elements—and an idea came to her. The hotel concierge seemed a little puzzled by her request, but he consulted a directory and was able to provide the address of a furrier who specialized in secondhand and refurbished garments and whose downtown shop could be reached via the subway at Eighty-Sixth Street. Alice was horrified by the idea of descending underground; she was sure they would be suffocated or crushed. Bea didn’t like the idea either. But millions of people in New York City traveled by subway, and if she and Alice were to become New Yorkers, they at least ought to try it. “Everyone else is doing it. They don’t seem afraid.”

“Maybe they’re all insane,” Alice said as they stood outside the station. “Or idiots.”

Bea took her arm and they went carefully down the stairs, avoiding the other people rushing by them. The subway train hurtled into the station almost as soon as they reached the platform and Alice clapped her hands to her ears. The lurching ride caused her to collide into the woman standing next to her. “So sorry,” Bea said to the woman, who glared at Alice with such hostility that Bea put her arm around the girl’s shoulders, an instinctive gesture of protection. When the woman exited the train at the next stop, Bea felt something inside her unclench, just a little. She’d get used to it. They both would.

The address she sought was only a couple of short blocks from the subway station. After climbing a narrow and splintered flight of stairs, Bea tapped on the frosted glass door whose block lettering read NED RAPPAPORT, FURRIER. A man she assumed to be Rappaport opened it almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting for them. “Come in, come in,” he said genially. His Russian accent was as thick as her own had once been.

Bea looked around the showroom, where animal pelts were tacked to the walls, stuffed onto shelves, and piled on every available surface, including the floor. There were also a pair of sewing machines, a battered mannequin, and a metal rack crammed with coats, mostly made of fur but several of cloth as well.

“You’d like to see a fox, maybe?” Rappaport asked. “Or a sable? It belonged to a fancy lady and she only wore it a few times before she dropped dead, may she rest in peace.”

“No fox,” Bea said. “No sable. And I want your best price, since I’m going to be buying two furs—one for each of us.” She gestured toward Alice, now stroking the arm of a leopard jacket. Then she began to look through his merchandise methodically until she found two suitable coats that she tried to wrestle from the tightly packed rack.

“Let me.” Rappaport struggled a moment before he finally freed them both. “Mink. A good choice. Warm, but light. Won’t weigh you down. Do you and the young lady want to try them on?”

Alice slipped hers on and stood before the dust-streaked mirror. The fur was worn away at the cuffs and the pockets. “It’s very soft,” she said uncertainly. “But it’s not in such good condition . . .”

Bea nodded. The one she’d selected for herself was even more flawed—there were several slashes between the pelts, as if someone had gone at them with a knife.

“I’ll let you have them cheap,” Rappaport said eagerly. “For the price of cloth practically—”

“I’m not done yet.” Bea answered him in Yiddish, a language she knew just well enough to construct the simple sentence.

Rappaport looked surprised. So did Alice. “Du bis ein Yid?” the furrier asked.

You’re a Jew? In Russia, the answer to that question would have been fraught, but in the United States it was less so—a cause for derision at times, but not a blow to the face, a kick in the groin. Bea nodded and returned to the rack, where she pulled out two more coats, one of black wool and the other camel, both quite large. When Bea asked her to take off the fur and try the camel, Alice seemed disappointed. “The fur would be warmer,” she said.

“Of course it would. That’s why I’m going to ask Mr. Rappaport to use it as a lining.” Bea turned to him. “Could you do that?”

“You want to buy fur only to hide it?”

“Not hide it. Use it in a different way.” In this new life, she would need practicality, not opulence. She handed him Alice’s mink so Alice could try on the black coat. Immediately she was enveloped by the volume of fabric—perfect. “You can do the same with this one—use the other mink to line it, take it in where you need to. The condition of the pelts won’t matter, though you’ll have to stitch mine back together. ...