Elena over-dressed in Brooklyn:
Pink, yellow and green dress (Missoni via Svetlana)
Brown belt (Gap)
High green suede sandals (Gucci via
Designer Shoe Warehouse)
Purple tote (Marc Jacobs sale)
Total est. cost: $450
‘Eighteen per cent.’
The subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn was underground all the way downtown and underneath the East River but it came up out of the tunnel at Carroll Street station. From here, it moved through the streetscape of this New York neighbourhood giving Annie and Elena a view of everything that was going on.
All around Carroll Gardens, the beautiful old brownstone buildings were cleaned up, repaired and restored to their former glory. There was fresh paint, gleaming front doors, window-boxes, bright green gardens, and along the sidewalks nannies pushed babies about in designer prams. The play parks were full of small children, water fountains and yummy mummies.
But within a stop or two, the landscape began to change. Still the same brownstone, picturesque, nineteenth-century four- and five-storey houses. But here they looked shabby and run-down. Windows were broken, hung with towels or boarded up. Graffiti sprawled across abandoned play parks. On the street corners, gangs of teen boys hung about looking tough.
‘I thought Brooklyn was all fashionable and up and coming?’ Annie asked Elena.
‘Maybe only has one nice part?’ Elena suggested.
The two women looked out of place in the subway car now. For a start they were white, when every other person was black. Plus, they were just too showily dressed for a trip to this part of town. For the first time, nice shoes, nice bag, nice dress made Annie feel vulnerable instead of powerful.
It hadn’t escaped her attention how segregated parts of New York were compared with London. According to Elena, even Central Park was carved out into black, white and Hispanic areas. There were no fences, it was all voluntary, but people just kept to their respective areas and seemed to feel more comfortable that way.
As the train pulled up, Annie stood up and took a long look out of the window. It was a grey and grimy urban scene. Low brick warehouses were decorated with loops of barbed wire on their roofs and graffiti murals all over their walls.
‘And I thought working in the fashion industry in New York would be sooo glamorous,’ she told Elena as they stepped out onto the platform and took surreptitious glances at their map, so as not to look like total victims.
‘Bet there are places much tougher than this in the Ukraine?’ she asked as they walked out of the subway station and towards Discount Fabric Warehouse number one.
‘Ya, of course, and I stay away from them,’ Elena answered. But she was carrying herself tall and confidently all of a sudden, like a girl who knew just how to act when she was in a rough street.
Not that this part of Brooklyn looked terrifying. It was broad daylight, grannies were out with their small grandchildren, shopping in the tiny Korean stores. It just looked shabby and poor.
‘So where did you grow up? Did you have nice people looking after you?’ Annie asked. She’d never dared to ask Elena this before, but now that they were walking along together with their mission ahead of them, Elena seemed slightly more at ease and more approachable.
‘I grew up in the countryside,’ she replied. ‘A very kind woman, Baba Boska, look after me. The family of her sister live in the house beside us and those children feel just like my brothers and sister. I’ve not been back to them for three years and I miss them. I don’t think they really believe my life now. Ever since I go to university in Kiev is very, very different life from theirs.’
‘Difficult … very difficult for you to adjust to,’ Annie sympathized.
‘Ya,’ Elena said and gave her shrug, ‘the money. The money is unbelievable. How much money people have. How much money people need. When I was growing up, my mother sent enough money for a manicure to Baba Boska every month. This keep me and Baba fed, clothed, in our house, pay for everything we need. But we need much, much less. No car. No bus journeys, not even a bicycle.’
‘Did Svetlana pay for you to go to university?’
‘No, I get scholarship.’
‘I remember now … engineering?’
‘Yes.’
‘But then you did business studies in London?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does Svetlana still send Baba Boska money?’
‘No.’
Annie glanced over at Elena and noticed that she drew her lips angrily together.
‘But I do,’ Elena added, ‘she’s getting old. I worry about who will look after her and maybe she will have to pay for doctors soon. She can never move … this would be like uprooting a tree.’
‘You have a lot of things to worry about, darlin’ – the Perfect Dress business, Baba Boska’s health, impressing the new mother in your life … I can understand why the stress relief has got a little out of hand.’
When Elena looked at her with a puzzled expression, Annie added gently: ‘The shopping. The shopping habit has got out of your control, maybe?’
Elena’s pace slowed. ‘In Svetlana’s London everything seem to cost more than I can ever imagine,’ Elena began, ‘but she give me money. More money than I can ever imagine. Here, I find everything is so cheap compared to London. Designer clothes, 70 per cent off, designer shoes 80 per cent off. The drugstore, buy one get one free. And I still have money from Svetlana, she pay me salary for this business, even though we not make any money yet. But now … on my credit card … all these cheap things, all this money off, and I owe …’ Elena stopped walking altogether now, as if the thought of the figure had stopped her in her tracks.
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to tell me,’ Annie assured her.
‘Maybe I need to tell someone. Every time I think of it, I want to be sick.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Twenty-four thousand,’ she blurted out.
Annie covered her surprise. ‘Pounds or dollars?’
‘Dollars.’
‘What’s the interest rate?’
‘Eighteen per cent.’
It didn’t take long to make the calculation. Annie had learned a lot about credit card debt in the many lessons Ed had given her.
‘About $4,500 a year. That’s what it’s costing you just to have that debt. Before you’ve even paid a penny back,’ Annie told Svetlana.
‘I know. Of course I know. I go to business school! But I still can’t help myself …’
‘Please try not to worry too much. It can be sorted. We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it all, but right now …’ Annie came to a halt and pointed across to the other side of the road: ‘here’s the warehouse, so we better start thinking about Perfect Dresses.’
‘Here?’ Elena looked at the low, ugly building with the metal shutter doors in undisguised horror. A faded sign above the entrance read: ‘Frederico’s Fabulous Fabrics’.
‘Nothing fabulous here, I promise,’ Elena said.
‘Shhhh! Don’t be such a spoilsport,’ Annie nudged her. ‘Seek and you will find.’