Chapter 11: The Gray Dress

The next Thursday, the buyers came to our showroom for a private look, and Odette made me wear the gray dress.

"You wear it," she said. "You made it. You stand up in it. Done."

"I'm the designer, not the mannequin."

"You're both, and it fits you better than anyone."

It was a long dress with a high neck and no sleeves, and it fell straight to my ankles.

The brace did not show under it.

I had made it for a woman who stands up straight, and it turned out she was me.

Forty buyers and press stood in the showroom with glasses in their hands.

Conal was not among them, and I told myself that was a relief.

Then the door opened at the far end, and he walked in.

He had come straight from the ranch's New York office in a dark suit with no tie.

He stopped just inside the door, and every person in the room heard him stop.

I saw him see the dress.

I saw his eyes go down it once and come up again, slowly, and his hand closed on the strap of his bag.

"Mr. Draper," said the head of a hotel group, shaking his hand. "Is it true? Your wife?"

"It's true," Conal said, and his eyes did not leave me. "She made that."

Then he looked away, and I heard my own breath start again.

For twenty minutes he behaved perfectly.

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