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to try it on—her first “fitting.” Mr. John pinched and tweaked, tilted one way then the other, consulted again with his customer, took it off gingerly, and instructed her to return in two weeks when the confection would be ready. To me, all her Mr. John hats were nearly identical, a small pancake of buckram with some decorative item sewn onto it, a flower or ribbon with a veil like a black spiderweb to be drawn down over the chin, where it fit snugly against the nose. Mr. John’s hats were wildly expensive.

    A.B. ( right ) and Mary Myers, Brearley graduation day, 1948.
    My mother asked him to design and make my wedding veil, and dutifully, I went for at least two fittings before he was satisfied. It was a lace mantilla with delicate lace leaves sewn into it. I heard later from a mutual friend that Mr. John was terribly hurt at not being invited to the wedding. This would have distressed but surprised my mother. Because Mr. John had sold her something, she viewed him as “in trade,” and no matter how much you liked them or how gratifying they were to be with, you did not invite such people to weddings or to any other social occasion. The postwar period was fluid enough for old ways—my mother’s—to persist even as new ones—Mr. John’s—were standing in line to displace them. The resulting collision produced plenty of hurt feelings. No change without conflict.
    While my sister and I were away at Camp Kuwiyan by the shore of a crystal lake in New Hampshire’s White Mountains—this was early in the war; I was about eleven years old—my father bought a double house on Sixty-third Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. He had all our stuff moved from our apartment on Fifth Avenue to the house without telling us. I never had a chance to say good-bye to my room or the doorman.
    The house at 163–165 was faux Gothic, with lots of gray stone and ancient wood panels imported from England on the dining room walls. The downstairs hall—which had six doors, not including the front door, giving onto six different spaces—was large enough to hold a chamber music ensemble and a small audience. The house had three storeys and, up a short flight of stairs, a row of maids’ rooms and storage closets. Over one end of the thirty-foot living room hung a balcony you reached via a narrow staircase. One wall of this room was made up of mullioned windows. In the downstairs library was a soft couch where I and my boyfriends repaired to kiss, hug, and, occasionally, pet. No one ever bothered us there.
    Five houses closer to Lexington lived Gypsy Rose Lee, the world’s classiest stripper, along with her third husband, a theatrical-looking, mustachioed Mexican painter not much over five feet tall. Across the street was the house of Chester Bowles, a former advertising power and diplomat who had worked for President Roosevelt. At the corner was the Barbizon, a hotel for women with swimming pool, library, and daily maid service. A girl could book a room there—for as long as she wanted and/or could afford—only by presenting references that attested to the fact that she was unlikely to pull anything that would embarrass the management. Men were not allowed above the first floor and had to meet their girls in designated “beau rooms.” There must have been plenty of sneaking around the rules. Because of its reputation, this was one of the few places in the city that mothers and fathers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, felt safe about parking their virgin daughters while they waited for eligible young men to come along and marry them. The rooms were only slightly more deluxe than a convent cell.
    Before Bloomingdale’s underwent a major face-lift and subsequent personality change in the middle 1950s, it was the somewhat fusty department store you patronized not for dresses, coats or shoes, and assorted items esteemed for their style but for