eleven

In the middle of the next week, Sadie did something she had never done, either for school or work – she called in sick. And armed with Mr Roskoff's letter and her notebook of designs (both proposed and actually executed), she took the subway to Flatbush, in Brooklyn, to meet Mr Roskoff's cousin the seamstress.

The cousin's name was Irene Speigel. She was a middle-aged woman with a salt-and-pepper middle-aged woman's bob, and she wore a smock over her dress while she worked. She had a small shop that nevertheless managed to fit three assistants and several dressmaker's dummies, and she took Sadie into her tiny cramped office to offer tea and talk.

( Izzy told me about you, Irene said. )

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