“You look delightful,” Mary sighed as she parked the battered old blue Ford Galaxy outside the neat offices of Clayborn Manufacturing Company. Clayborn was the south Texas division of a national manufacturing company with headquarters in New York City.
Kate sighed as they got out of the car. She slammed the door twice to get the lock to catch. “Stupid car,” she muttered. “I hate it.”
“It gets us around,” Mary replied. “And it’s a long walk from the house to here.”
“Walking is healthy,” came the short reply. Kate gnawed her lower lip as Mary opened the door marked “employees only,” and was met immediately by the sound of sewing machines running and steam surging through pipes into the pressing department. The colors of the current cut were echoed down the rows of seamstresses in the pants department. Kate waved to two of the girls she sat near and followed Mary down the aisle toward the front office.
The plant was large. It had a shirts line and a pants line, a training room, a huge cutting room and warehouse, a pressing department and quality control department and mechanics who were kept busy making the old machines produce. It smelled of fabric and machine oil and thread, pleasant smells that Kate had grown accustomed to since graduation from high school. She’d worked in the plant that long.
The canteen was empty as they passed it, the long tables spotless, the machines standing waiting for break time. The lady who worked seconds was busy packing them up in brown cartons, and the floor lady over the pressing department threw up a hand as Mary and Kate went by.
The main offices had a payroll department, personnel office, a receptionist and the plant manager’s office. The assistant plant manager shared space next door. The cutting room had its own office, far down the hall, where the cuts were processed and records were kept of the coming and going of cloth. There was a quality control supervisor, who shared space with the pressing room supervisor, a storeroom where sewing supplies were kept, and a huge warehouse from which finished goods were shipped. The plant engineer had his own office, too, where he did time and motion studies and helped oversee the seamstresses on the shirt line.
Bundle boys and girls wandered around the floor, carrying stacks of cut garment pieces called bundles to the various seamstresses as each section of garment was quickly and efficiently finished and passed along to the next person and the next step to its completion.
Keith Rogers, the plant manager, was the person Kate wanted to see this morning.
“Hello, Kate,” he greeted her in the doorway, adding a cheerful hello to Mary, who paused just long enough to kiss Kate’s cheek before vanishing into the pants line where she worked.
“Good morning, Mr. Rogers,” Kate said, sounding and feeling breathless. She twisted her bag nervously in her slender hands. “Mama said you had some news for me.”
“Indeed I do. Jessie, bring that letter in, will you?” he called to the slender blonde who handled the telephones. She smiled back and went to the filing cabinet beside her desk.
Kate stood in front of the desk. Jessie brought the letter, winked at Kate with twinkling green eyes, and went back out, closing the door behind her.
Mr. Rogers was tall and balding and wore glasses. He had a wife and three small children, and pictures of them adorned his desk. A diploma in textile engineering held pride of place on one wall, and an award for superior production caught the attention on another.
Mr. Rogers leaned back in his chair behind the desk with the letter in his hand. “I showed your designs to our regional vice president,” he explained to Kate, looking smug. “He felt just as I do about their potential. He went to the big boss, who also agreed. We want to contract with you to do a new line of women’s sportswear for our spring season.”
Kate was barely breathing. “Me?” she squeaked.
“You. These Indian designs are new and exciting, and our forecasters and buyers seem to share your feeling for blue and cream colors in the next year’s fashions. They also like this silhouette,” he added, picking up one of Kate’s sketches from the portfolio she’d left with him. It showed an outfit much like the one Kate had on, with a long full skirt and blouson top. “And denim looks strong for next year, too.”
He smiled at her fascination. She tried to speak, caught her breath, and tried again.
“Mr. Rogers, I’m just speechless,” she said finally.
“I’m glad you’re pleased. You’ve designed these with an eye to cost control, which pleases the money men, too. They’ll be easy to mass produce, they’ll be moderately priced, and we’ll show a good profit margin if they go well. Which,” he added, “we expect them to. Now. Sit down, Kate, and we’ll go over the details.”
She did sit. She needed to. He outlined the designs that Clayborn wanted to purchase, mentioning a price that to Kate sounded like a small fortune. And her first thought was that she and her mother would be able to afford a better car—maybe even one that was only eight years old or so, and that would seem new after driving the twenty-year-old Ford around for so long.
“Does that amount sound reasonable to you, Kate?” Mr. Rogers prodded.
“Yes, sir,” she agreed promptly. “Very reasonable.”
His smile broadened. “Okay. I’ll have the contracts drawn up. Can you finalize this new line by September, so that we can get it to our sales staff before fall market week in New York?”
“I’m sure I can,” she agreed, visualizing nights of sketching and sacrificed weekends. But this was building toward something. This time would be invested in her own future.
Kate gave him a list of the fabrics, accessories, and trim she wanted. He sent her down to the design room and settled her with the head designer. Sandy Mays, fortyish, seemed to be a capable and confident woman, generous with her praise of Kate’s new drawings. There was an assistant named Betsy Gaines and another named Pamela Barker, both of whom Kate knew from school. The head seamstress was Dessie Cagle, a middle-aged lady with silver hair and deft hands who could make anything she saw in the finer shops without a pattern. She could copy couture with incredible ease, and had been responsible, along with Sandy, for many of the company’s newer casual clothes. It was Betsy’s job to coordinate the trims—the buttons and laces, ribbons and belts and buckles that complemented the designed outfits. These were as important in their way as the actual silhouettes, and Kate paid deliberate attention to their use when she put together a new outfit.
The first day was spent getting used to the new location. Kate had a lot to learn about the routine of the sample room and the way things were done. This, Dessie and Sandy were happy to show her. They discussed the fashion business, contacts, buyers, fashion merchandising, and learned a lot about each other. By the time Kate went home, she felt as if she’d become another person. She had a new and vibrant attitude toward designing, replacing the vague anticipation of the years before.
“I’m going to be famous,” she told Mary over the supper table. “I can feel it. I’m going to design new lines for each season, and people are going to know my name by my label, you wait and see. I’ll make the company rich. I’ll make them proud of me.”
“I already am,” Mary said, her eyes sparkling. “Kate, you have to go and tell Jason.”
There was a thought. She turned away, so that her mother wouldn’t see the radiance of her face. “Can I borrow the car?”
“Sure. There’s enough gas to get you there and back, and then some,” her mother said dryly.
“Our very first luxury,” Kate called from the front hall, “is going to be our very own telephone!”
“I hear you!”
She