"If you Can Make It There"

They were so angry with me, I knew no one would agree to take me to the MacDonald’s where the Greyhound bus stopped, and I had too much with me for that long walk. So, I waited until everyone was asleep, stole out of the house to the barn, where I’d stashed my suitcases and large garment bag the night before.

Getting them down from the loft was harder than getting them up there, but I finally did it. After catching my breath, I wrestled them into the old cart we used to take the kids to the pumpkin field at Halloween and harnessed the donkey up to pull me out and to town. 

I’d leave him at the stop with a good-bye note. As we rolled along, I kept humming the song that set me off on this journey years ago. I’d just walked away from yet another argument about my deciding I would not take over the farm with my brother. I had stormed into my room, put on my headphones, and the song made up my mind for me.

There was Frank Sinatra’s voice telling me about New York.

Home of the Parsons School of Design, the school I wanted so badly to attend. Not Northwest Kansas Technical College, the wonder my parents were willing to pay for, a college I could get to in a half hour. They’d even offered me a thousand bucks to buy an old clunker to use to go back and forth.

The more I sat there sulking and replaying “New York, New York,” the more determined I became. I went to the Tech College with my mom and enrolled. Two days later I went back and withdrew, stuffing the five-hundred-dollar deposit she’d made into my pocketbook. Then I sold the car for the same nine hundred they’d paid for it to a friend who’d agreed to the deal beforehand.

Next, I went to the bank and closed my account, an amalgam of birthday, holiday, babysitting money, and payment for clothes I’d made for fellow students—well, for the members of the notorious wild gang. Now in possession of a bit more than two thousand dollars, I told my family I was leaving.

The silence was overwhelming. My father bellowed, “Go to your room and stay there." When I'd opened my mouth to reply, he'd shouted, "Not another word from you until you regain whatever senses you were born with.”

I'd kept quiet, but I did leave Goodland, Kansas, population some 4,000. A town I was trapped in, and one we never left—too many animals to take care of, too many crops, and so on, always an excuse. And we were raised as Seventh Day Adventists, a faith I ended up hating, but every Saturday was our Sabbath and to church we went, dressed plainly and properly, and wearing ugly head coverings.

I just didn’t fit in. In fact, right after my twelfth birthday I'd started spending hours on the computer at the library, supposedly studying, and instead discovering the world of fashion and falling in love with clothes you rarely, if ever, saw in Goodland. Looking at the coverage of award shows and the glorious clothes worn by the celebrities, I began to play around with the sewing machine I’d just been given for my birthday. 

I felt comfortable with that machine, soon making simple things—a nice apron for Mom, a skirt for me, a dress for Grandma who lived with us and had a trunk full of fabric I could dip into. 

After a few years, I got good enough that the family would give me money for zippers, thread, buttons, and such from the dozen or so fabric stores in Goodland. I got those things from clothes I bought from the Goodwill, using that money for fabric. Unfortunately, a lot of our local stores focused on stuff for quilting, but there were a few small ones that would order the kind of strange stuff I wanted, out of curiosity I guess. 

Then in the high school, I'd met a girl who kept complaining about shopping in Goodland. “Nothing different, nothing fun,” she complained to her tablemates at the table behind mine in the lunchroom.

I reached out to her, the girl with the plum streaks in her hair, and said, “Maybe I can help. I’m pretty good at designing and making clothes.” 

She raised an eyebrow and said, “And you dress like that?”

“Let me measure you and make you something. No charge if you hate it. Please. I hate what I wear, but have little choice given my family.”

She looked over what I was wearing more carefully, then asked, “You made that yourself?”

"Of course,” I said annoyed.

“Well, you sure can sew. Okay. Where do we go for measuring?”

As we continued chatting, I said, “I’m Mary Margaret, by the way. You?”

She giggled and said, “Zandra. I can’t call you Mary Margaret. How about, oh I know, Marigold.”

“I like it. Okay Zandra. To the gym bathroom. It should be empty.”

My very first client. I made Zandra an asymmetrical skirt with a wide belt that tied low with a buckle, it was in a great plum color matching the streaks in her hair. I found the fabric in grandma’s trunk marked upholstery for footstool.

Thus, my career as Marigold began. The oddball group that Zandra ran with knew me only as Marigold, and I ended up making the outrageous prom dresses that made the local paper, The Goodland Star-News, our semi-weekly paper. I said Goodland was a small town.

The paper covered the prom because rumors had reached the ears of one of their reporters about some sort of rebellion that was going to take place there. The dresses I’d made passed inspection. Well, they were made not to look strapless, no obvious slits in the skirts. Once inside, well strapless wasn’t strapless if it had straps that could be unsnapped, nor a slit that was zipped up when you entered but zipped down after you’d passed inspection.

The chaperones were upset, but didn’t know who to blame, and the reporter and cameraman left quickly with fun photos and a story. 

More, no one who tried to find the guilty party could discover who Marigold was.

 Over the years, I made lots of clothes for those girls for decent money, making things for my family as well to explain all the time on the sewing machine, and making some things to hide away because they were special. Special enough for me to believe I could show them as samples to get into Parsons.

Remembering all that helped me endure the long and boring bus ride, but finally I arrived in New York City. As I descended from the bus, the driver pulled out my bags and asked if I wanted a taxi. Of course I did. I gave the driver the address of the girl Zandra knew in New York who was eager for another roommate. It was cheap enough and near enough Parsons.

Used to Midwest homes, the apartment was a shock. It was tiny, messy, and crowded. One bathroom for four girls and a tiny sort of kitchen, really a small closet-sized passageway to the bathroom, containing a half fridge with a strange two burner stove atop it, a cabinet topped by a microwave, and a sink with a bit of storage underneath.

The roommates, Holly, Deb, and Janine, were the opposite of the apartment--wonderful. When I showed them what was in the garment bag, Holly, Zandra’s friend, asked the others if they were willing to let me use the living room for my work. They agreed if in return I could help them fix up some of their clothes. I said, of course, explaining I had to get a sewing machine as soon as possible in order to do that. Holly laughed and said there was one in the apartment, left by a former roommate. 

I felt like a winner. That is until I spent the next day at Parsons discovering all the requirements for admission and the lack of financial aid available. When we gathered that evening, they saw my red-rimmed eyes and asked what had happened.  

Deb, who worked at a corporate library, instantly said, “Hold on. I found some stuff about a TV show about fashion for one of the lawyers on a copyright infringement case. I’ll check it out in the morning. It should be in my project list.”

Ten the next morning, Deb called, excited. The show I was thinking of was “Making the Cut,” but when I started looking around, I found the one that started it, “Project Runway.”

“Oh Deb, that one with Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum was wonderful, but it went off the air a while back, besides, I’m not likely…”

“Marigold, shut up a minute. Don’t disparage yourself. I went further, you know, research is my love like fashion is yours. But I digress. The show is back, with someone named Christian Siriano. They’re doing talent selection right now.”

“Deb, you are wonderful, but…”

“Stop. I told Janine about it and she’s on her way to pick you up. She’s Ubering today. Grab that garment bag and go downstairs.”

I was a bit shell shocked, but then I remembered a verse from “New York”: These little-town blues/Are melting away/I'll make a brand-new start of it/In old New York.”

I grabbed the garment bag and ran downstairs. Janine who was waiting for me, started laughing when she saw me.

I was a bit offended and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“You Marigold. What the hell are you wearing?”

I looked down at myself and realized I was in my bathrobe. 

Janine said, “Can you add something weird to make it look…”

“Yup,” I said, my brain working faster than it ever had, “big leather belt and a shawl.” I got in, rooted around in the garment bag and found a leather belt I’d made, in a sort of gold—and a green shawl in a sort of green lace meant for a strapless jump suit I’d made—and added them to my flowing, zipped on the side soft pink robe, which was much longer in the back than the front.

When I got out of the car, Janine said, “I don’t believe it—an unusual dress, but didn’t the robe have a collar?”

“Indeed, it did, but I snipped it off and whip stitched the place I removed it from closed. making the neckline lower in the process.” As I was about to continue, she grabbed her phone, listened intently, then hung up.

“She barked at me, it's Deb, she says go to the fifth floor. Just say Marigold. You're on sometime between 10 to 2. You get to show four items. Good luck. Sorry, I gotta go, just got a call from a repeat customer, good tipper.”

And off she went. My head was spinning. I loved the speed, the crazy energy the very air seemed to hold. I was so entranced, I didn’t realize I was blocking the door to the building, till someone said, “Move over” in an angry voice. I looked down and saw a garment bag like mine, but navy, not red.

“Sorry. You going to the fifth floor?”

“Yeah, and it’s almost ten. I’m Carl, let’s get going.”

Walking with him, I said, “Marigold.”

We arrived and checked in. Hung our four items on our display racks and sat down.

I looked at him and wondered about his somewhat orange colored hair and the jewelry on his wrist and neck. I was fascinated and asked him, “When did you know you wanted to be a designer?”

“Hold on. Where are you from? You’re not from here are you?” he asked.

“No. Kansas.”

“Marigold from Kansas. Did you make the dress you’re wearing?”

“Of course. But does it look homemade?”

“No, it’s unusual—and I like it.”

“Thanks, I like that blue suit with the woven sleeves. A little like apple pie topping. Oh, they just called me,” I said and grabbed my rack and went to the door people were going in and out of, a very few coming out happy, most dejected.”

I entered and found myself facing a table with four, what I assumed were judges. They were staring at me, then one said, “Turn around.”

I did and the one who told me to turn around stood up, came over to me, examined the belt, then walked around me twice, fingering my dress, then the scarf, and asked if I’d made the belt. I nodded in response.

He said musing, “Midwest personified. Pretty farm girl. Let’s see what you brought, besides this.”

I went over to the rack and showed him the red jumpsuit first. 

“You really are a good tailor. Next?”

I showed the others I'd selected to show. Then he looked at the other three still at the table, and asked, “What do you think?” Two of the others shook their heads, the third said I’m halfway.”

The man who’d come over to me said, “We all agree I’m afraid. You’re not ready to present, but you could be with some more experience. No, no tears. Want to join my crew, sewing, doing patterns, making belts, necklaces? 

"I nodded, somewhat in a daze, and taking my arm he led me into another room and explained, “Look, you need more experience. You don’t have a strong signature look, but if you join a mid-sized company like mine, it’ll be like going to Parson’s. It’ll take some time, but it pays, gives you a lot of industry contacts. And if you can make it through, you’ll make it…”

“Anywhere,” I smiled as I finished his sentence.

 Then said, “I’m in. Oh, I’m Marigold.”

He said, “You look more like, oh a Mary or Maggie.” Then, he wrote something on his card, and said, “Go to this address and Joanie will sign you on as a junior staff member and explain all the particulars, you know salary, health insurance, that kind of stuff.”

When I was back in the waiting room, getting ready to leave, I saw Carl. He was standing next to his rack, beaming. “I’m in Marigold. I’m in. Wait, you’re smiling too. I wondered where you disappeared to. You made it?”

“Not the show, but I’ve been hired to work with Pedro something.”

“Wow, he’s good. I saw one of his shows. Let’s go to a Starbucks, Marigold, and celebrate.

And arm in arm we walked down the street, tugging our garment bags singing, “We’re a part of it, New York, New York.”