One dreary March day, when the heavens couldn’t decide whether to rain or snow and instead dropped down a mucky combination of both, Mr. Lorette called Clara into his office.
“How are you doing, Miss Darden?” He spoke like a doctor with a dying patient, all concern and gravitas. He had never broached the subject of Oliver and Violet’s marriage, and she prayed he wouldn’t now.
“I’m doing quite well, thank you.” Her illustration class, which began the term with a full herd of thirty, had dwindled down to five, like her first term in reverse. But this time the troubles were financial—fewer students could afford the tuition—and had nothing to do with her gender. “The students who’ve remained are quite enthusiastic and talented, I’m happy to report.”
By the summer, she hoped, the city would be recovered and hum again like it had in the fall. In the meantime, her contract with Vogue hadn’t been renewed. Which was to be expected, even without the stock market crash. Most illustrators went in and out of fashion, the editors rotating the cover artists so that their readers didn’t get bored with one particular look. While all agreed her designs were smashing, one didn’t need to see the signature at the bottom of the page to know that it was a Clara Darden. Her distinctive style meant that her tenure was shorter than most.
On to bigger and better things.
Mr. Lorette fiddled with the papers on his desk before holding up some forms. “Three more students dropped out of the illustration course today. I’m sorry, but we’ll lose money if we keep you on. It’s only for this semester, until the economy rights itself. I hope you understand.”
“Of course.” Only one semester. She’d have more time to branch out, pursue alternate avenues of income. But she’d miss mingling with the other teachers and students. Only then did she grasp how much she counted on the place to alleviate her loneliness. “Will you be all right? The school, I mean.”
He chewed on his bottom lip. “I can’t say. Let’s hope we pull out of this quickly. There’s a chance we’d have to shut down for the coming term, then reinstate the program next fall. That would be the worst-case scenario.”
“You’d shut down the entire school?” She hadn’t expected anything that drastic. Her heart drummed with anxiety.
Mr. Lorette leaned back in his chair. “Art means nothing when someone is out of work. We’re a luxury.”
“Maybe it’s times like these when art is most crucial.”
He smiled. “That’s exactly what Levon said. Let’s hope you’re both right, in any event.”
“What will you and Mrs. Lorette do?”
“We’ll head to Europe, escape from the dreariness of all this. Don’t you worry about us.” Another teacher appeared at the door, looking pale. The next victim.
That evening, she met Mr. Bianchi over dinner to discuss the new line for Studebaker. She’d drawn a dozen sketches on a pad and brought it with her, determined to excite him with the possibilities and prove her value.
Inside Barbetta, on Forty-Sixth Street, the ceiling dripped with crystal chandeliers. The cool salmon-colored walls offered a protective cocoon for the diners who could still afford it. Somewhere to forget the dreary outside world and indulge.
“The best-paid woman artist.” Mr. Bianchi gave a tight-lipped smile as they sat down.
“Well, now, I doubt it’s actually true. I’m not exactly sure how they did their research. It’s not like there’s a list of women artists and their earnings published anywhere. You know newspapers, all that hyperbole.”
“Of course. You’re right about that.”
During the first course, she waited for him to bring up the new line, but he danced around the subject, speaking of their competitors, the need to address the current mood of the country in their advertising. She offered up several ideas, but none seemed to take.
By the time they were drinking coffee—he’d waved away the dessert menu—a hard stone had lodged in her stomach.
He sighed. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
Not twice in one day. She braced herself.
“We can’t afford to keep you on, Miss Darden. You can imagine, the kind of pressure we’re under.”
If she lost this job, she’d have nothing. No covers, no classes, no cars. Her voice shook. “I understand that things have changed. But you’ve seen, I can adapt.”
“I’m sure you can. But it’s all about public perception. We featured you in the ads: Interiors designed by Clara Darden. Who’s now the highest-paid woman artist. It’s not good for business. We can’t afford to seem wasteful, not when four million people are out of work. We’ll alienate whatever customers are left.”
“You don’t have to pay me as much. I can do more for you. I have additional time now, you see.”
“We’ve decided to keep everything in-house.”
“May I ask who’ll be taking over?”
“Benjamin Mortimer—you remember him?”
She nodded. He was an engineer by trade, with no creative abilities whatsoever.
Mr. Bianchi called for the check. “In any event, he has a family to feed. It’s either let you go or fire him, and I can’t do that to a man with responsibilities.” He put a meaty hand over hers. “You don’t want me to put a man out of work, now, do you?”
She pulled her hand away and resisted the impulse to wipe it on her napkin. “I don’t mean to be rude or contradict what you’re saying, but the company’s obviously still doing well, right?” She gestured around the room. “If you can afford a fancy dinner at Barbetta, things can’t be so bad, can they?”
“You may know about art and design, but you don’t know about running a company. It’s all about appearances. We need to appear both successful and frugal. Not an easy task.” He pulled out some bills and left them on the table. He rose. “But it’s just for the time being. By the fall, all the worry will be over and we won’t be able to keep up with the demand. I assure you. Trust me, will you, Miss Darden?”
As if she had a choice.
By October 1930, Clara had stopped going by the magazine editors’ offices with mock illustrations in hand, keeping her tone as light as possible to prevent her desperation from seeping through. There was no point. They weren’t going to hire her, and the walk to and from the offices only made her hungry.
She was one of the lucky ones, able to scrape by on her savings, as long as she was thrifty. When she remembered the silly trinkets she and Oliver had bought on a whim, spending hundreds of dollars at a time, she felt sick. They’d enjoyed an expensive lifestyle, and very little of that remained.
Her apartment, now empty besides a few boxes and her two suitcases, was no longer possible on her tight budget. In the living room, her maid, Angela, folded up the curtains.
“Miss Darden, what would you like done with these?”
“Please take them. You can make clothes out of them, if you like.”
The curtains had a metallic sheen that at the time epitomized all things art deco. Now they seemed outlandish, useless. What was she thinking?
“Never mind, I have no idea what I’m saying.” Clara couldn’t help but laugh, and Angela joined in.
“I’m sure I’ll find a use for them, Miss Darden. Unless you’d like to take them with you? To decorate your new place?”
Clara shoved at one of the boxes with her foot. “No, it’ll be fine.” She wandered through the rooms for the last time. Without Oliver to insist Clara go out of her studio, she’d succumbed to a hermit-like existence. Which was fine when she had hours of work on her plate, but not so much now that her days were empty.
The letter she’d sent to her parents in Arizona had been returned, marked NO FORWARDING ADDRESS. Clara hadn’t kept up contact, and she added that to her many regrets. Not that she’d go running to them for comfort; that wasn’t her aim. But she’d wanted to know that they were all right, to confirm they all retained a connection, however tenuous.