The Dress Read Online Free PDF

about people not paying their rents and the hard time he was having himself, Frank knew his big moment had come. He invested in a cheap suit, went to the bank and persuaded the manager to give him a small mortgage. The times were changing; there was hope on the horizon. Frank got the landlord drunk and persuaded him to sell him the Bronx brownstone for a song, using his cushion-savings cash as a down payment.
    With that single building, Frank’s property empire began. Ten years later, the boy from Bangor had a portfolio of rental properties on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and stakes in a Boston hotel and a steel-mining business. He had an office block in town, with a secretary and an accounts department. He lived in an apartment on Fifth Avenue. When he wanted female company, it was easily found in the bars and clubs of Manhattan. The journey from gutter to Fifth had taught Frank how to charm, as well as work, so that the angry Irish schoolboy had become a successful, urbane New York businessman: Frank Fitzpatrick. Frank had created the perfect life for himself. People didn’t pity him anymore, they envied him. Although there was still one thing missing...’
    â€˜You need to get yourself a wife...’ Victor Truman had said to him one night. Victor was his main investor, an old-monied hog from the Upper West Side. They were sitting in a booth at the Stork Club, surrounded by the trappings of rich men: a lobster dinner, whisky sours and compliant showgirls.
    â€˜No man should be without a wife,’ Victor said, quickly shoving his cigar into his mouth and catching it between his teeth, as he reached for the bottom of a passing waitress and gave it a pinch, hard enough to tame a dog. ‘Ain’t that right, honey?’
    â€˜It surely is, Mr Truman,’ the girl laughed. Victor, sensing Frank’s disapproval, said, ‘The problem with all these cheap floozies,’ and he swept his hand around to indicate another passing waitress, ‘is that they’ll bleed you dry and you get nothing in return, except maybe a piece of action, and you’ve got to ask yourself, Frank: what’s a piece of action worth to you?’
    Frank nodded, although he was insulted by the implication. He found it impossible to think of women in those crass terms. Many of the women he had been with could arguably have been described as floozies, but he respected them, even though he had not felt inclined to marry any of them. Frank had broken a few hearts, but nobody had ever broken his.
    â€˜A good wife can be an asset,’ Victor continued. ‘She will entertain for you, keep the house nice and believe me, if you’re firm from the start, she’ll work to a budget. A wife will make you look good, Frank. You should get one. Come to our New Year’s Eve bash. Norah knows all the ladies, she’ll fix you up.’
    And so it was that Frank found himself in a large suite at the Plaza, on New Year’s Eve, 1950.
    Frank had not been expecting to fall in love that night, even though he had noticed her as soon as he walked into the party. The long white neck seemed too delicate to hold the collar of fat pearls at its base, her hair was caught up in a tightly-wrapped bun, and she was casually waving a lit cigarette. Even from behind she cut a compelling figure. The mere fall of her slim shoulders, the curve of her tiny waist, conveyed a grace and presence that had him walking across the room towards her, until she turned. Then he was stopped in his tracks.
    The young woman had an almost frightening beauty. Her high cheek-bones seemed carved from some exquisite alabaster and her painted red lips were shaped in a perfect, symmetrical pout. However, it was her eyes – two dark pools of immeasurable depth – that held him. She had a look of knowing that transcended her sultry beauty. Although she was a complete stranger, her fathomless gaze seemed to say that she recognized him, recognized