Flight Patterns (2 page)

“The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them.”

St. Francis de Sales

—NED BLOODWORTH'S BEEKEEPER'S JOURNAL

Georgia

APRIL 2015

NEW ORLEANS

M
emories are thieves. They slip up behind you when you least expect it, their cold hands pressed against your face, suffocating. They blow icy-cold air even on the hottest days, and pinch you awake in the middle of the night. My grandfather had once told me that memories were like a faucet you could turn on or off at will, and that after I got to be as old as he was, I'd have figured out how it works. Maybe I just wasn't old enough, because my memories always had a way of getting stuck in the “on
”
position, flooding my mind with images and snatches of conversations I'd rather not relive.

Perhaps that explained my obsession with old things, with antique clocks, armoires, and shoes. My fascination with ancient books filled with brittle paper, with mismatched china pieces, and with old-fashioned keys
and their corresponding locks. It was as if these relics had been left for me to claim as my own, to make up a past devoid of my own memories.

Old china was my favorite. It allowed me to live vicariously through somebody else's imagined life, to participate in family meals and celebrations, to pretend to be a part of a bride's place-setting selection. Experiences from somebody else's life, but definitely not my own. Despite, or probably because of, my family's well-grounded belief that I was born to founder, I'd discovered a vocation I not only loved but was actually good at. I was an expert in most things antique, a sought-after consultant, and proof that it's possible to become someone different from the person you once were. The person everybody expected you to still be. If only I could have figured out how to turn off the memories, I might have been able to sink comfortably into the new life I'd created from old china and discarded furniture.

I dipped a cotton swab into the cleaning solution and dabbed at the intricate scrollwork of the padlock on my desk. The silver shield-shaped lock with grained bar-and-diamond-embellished trim had been found in a box of old horse tackle in a barn in New Hampshire at an estate sale. Mr. Mandeville, my boss, and owner of the Big Easy Auction Gallery, had grudgingly let me go. I had a good eye and an even better instinct about these things, and after eight years of my working for Mr. Mandeville, he'd finally started to agree. I would study the history of a property and its owner when an estate sale was announced so that I could look at pictures of boxes stacked in an old barn or pushed against the walls of a humid attic and know what treasures I'd find.

I wouldn't say that I was particularly happy, or as successful as I'd have liked to be, but there was nobody in my life to ask me whether I was. Nobody to hold up a mirror to make me see whom I had become, or to see the person I'd been who had never really believed she could be anything more than ordinary. My mother had once told me that she didn't know that particular sorrow, the sorrow of being ordinary. But I did. And I relished it, if only because it made me not her.

I opened the large bottom drawer of my desk, listening to the clink and slide of dozens of mismatched keys and padlocks I'd collected over
the years, my hope of finding a matching key and lock one of the stupid little games I played with myself. I'd just grabbed a fistful of keys when I heard the front door of the building open, the bell clanging ominously in the empty space. It was Sunday, the offices and gallery below were closed, and nobody was supposed to be there. Which was precisely why I was there, unconcerned about the vintage jeans with frayed bell-bottoms that sat a little too low on my hips, flip-flops, a 1960s tie-dyed T-shirt, and hair pulled back in a ponytail that made me look about ten years old.

“Georgia?” Mr. Mandeville called up the stairs. The gallery was an old cotton warehouse on Tchoupitoulas, and every word bounced and ricocheted off the brick walls and wood floors unencumbered by rugs or wall coverings of any sort.

I stood to let him know where I was, then froze as I heard another male voice and two sets of footsteps climbing the stairs.

“Georgia?” he called again.

Knowing he'd probably seen my car in the small parking lot behind the building, I sat down behind my desk, hoping to at least hide my flip-flops.

“I'm in my office,” I shouted unnecessarily, their footsteps coming to a stop outside my door. “Come in.”

Mr. Mandeville opened the door and stepped through, then ushered his companion inside. The tall ceilings and windows dwarfed most people, including my boss, but not the visitor. He was very tall, maybe six feet, four inches, with thick and wavy strawberry-blond hair. As a person who studied objects of beauty for a living, I decided that's what he was and didn't bother to hide my scrutiny.

He was lean but broad shouldered, the bones in his face strong and well placed, his eyes the color of cobalt Wedgwood Jasperware. As they approached, I stood, forgetting what I must look like, and allowed my gaze to rove over the full length of him like I would a Victorian armoire or Hepplewhite chair. I'd started to grin to myself as I realized I must be one of a very small number of women who'd compare a handsome man to a piece of furniture.

He must have caught my grin, because the man stopped about five
feet from me, a pensive look on his face. It took me a moment to realize that he was studying me with the same examination I'd just given him.

I sat down quickly, chagrined to know that I wasn't as immune as I believed myself to be.

Mr. Mandeville frowned slightly at me seated behind my desk. I knew he had issues with my insistence on solitude and working long hours. He was a family man who thrived on noise and bustle and the adoration of his employees and extended family. But he'd never had concern over my manners. Until now, apparently.

“Georgia Chambers, please meet a prospective client, James Graf. He's come all the way from New York City to see you. He was so excited to meet you that he made me bring him straight here from the airport.” He sent me an accusatory glare as we both understood my lack of a cell phone meant he hadn't been able to give me advance warning.

James tucked a parcel under his left arm to free up his right as he extended his hand toward me. I half stood, painfully aware of my low-slung jeans. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”

His hand was large and swallowed mine in a firm handshake. I slid my fingers from his and sat back in my chair. Turning toward Mr. Mandeville, I asked, “What's this about?”

“James is in the process of settling his grandmother's estate and came across a set of china that he believes might be valuable. He Googled china experts and found your name.”

The visitor continued. “But I couldn't find a phone number for you, so I reached Mr. Mandeville instead. I offered to e-mail a photo, or speak with you directly, but he explained that you prefer to look at pieces in person, to hold them to get a real ‘feel' for them. And that an e-mailed photo is something you've never considered working with.”

He said it without the usual derision I was accustomed to hearing when people learned I had yet to move into the twenty-first century.

“She also declines to use a cell phone,” Mr. Mandeville added.

The man looked at me with assessing eyes, and just for a brief moment I thought that he might understand why a person would choose to live surrounded by other people's things.

Then he said, “I couldn't imagine.”

He was right, I knew. But I could almost believe that I'd seen something in his eyes that seemed a lot like longing for a world he hadn't even known existed.

“Do you know anything about antique china, Mr. Graf?”

“Not a thing, I'm afraid. And please call me James.”

I nodded, taking in his well-tailored suit and Hermès tie—possibly vintage. He wasn't a Jim or Jimmy, had never been one. He was mid-thirties, but had a youthful air about him that didn't seem like a Mr. Graf at all. He looked like a James who sailed a lot and was probably on the rowing team at Dartmouth or Yale or wherever up north he'd gone for undergrad. His hair was a little too long for the Wall Street stereotype, but I would've bet my collection of Swiss watch parts that he belonged to the fast-paced financial world of constant texts and two cell phones to manage the craziness.

He narrowed his eyes and I realized that I'd been too busy cataloging him to be aware that I had been staring again. Flustered, I slid the items on my desk to the side, then reached for the brown corrugated box. “May I see?”

“Of course.” He handed the small square box to me, and I placed it in the center of my desk.

I picked up ivory-handled scissors—from an auction in Louisville, Kentucky—and slit the single layer of packing tape that held the top flaps in place. He'd carried it on the plane, then, not entrusting its safety to anyone else. I imagined it must mean something important to him. He'd said it had belonged to his grandmother.

I began sifting Styrofoam peanuts from the box. “Did you eat from this china when visiting your grandmother?” I wasn't sure why I asked, why I wanted to know more about the life of the inanimate object I was unwrapping.

“No,” he said, almost apologetically. “We never used it. It was kept in a place of honor in her china cabinet ever since I can remember from when I was a little boy. She'd dust all of the pieces and carefully return them to their spots on the shelves, but we never used it.” There
was a note of wistfulness in his voice, a hint of loss and longing I wasn't wholly convinced was about his grandmother or her china.

“It's Limoges,” said Mr. Mandeville, as if to validate his presence. He was a great businessman, and had a fond appreciation for beautiful and expensive antiques, but what he knew about fine porcelain and china could fit onto the head of a straight pin.

My eyes met Mr. Graf's—James's—and we shared a moment at Mr. Mandeville's expense, distracting me enough that I almost missed the white handle of a teacup emerging from the sea of Styrofoam.

Using my thumb and forefinger, I gingerly lifted it from the box, then sifted through the remaining peanuts and found the saucer. “It's Haviland Limoges. Haviland and Co., to be exact—not to be confused with Charles Field, Theodore, or Johann Haviland Limoges.”

I felt Mr. Mandeville beaming at me. “I told you she was good.”

James leaned in closer. “You can tell that without looking at the bottom?”

I nodded. “You can tell by the blank.” I ran my finger along the scalloped edge of the saucer. “That's another name for the shape of various pieces in the pattern. I can tell by the edges of this saucer that it's probably blank eleven, which is a Haviland and Co. shape. It's evident by the scalloped border with embossed dots along the edge. It's very similar to blank six thirty-eight, but because I have the teacup, which is completely different in both blanks, I know for sure it's number eleven.”

The visitor smiled. “I had no idea it would be this easy.”

I tried not to sound smug. “That's actually the
only
easy part in identifying Limoges china. David Haviland, who founded Limoges in 1849, never saw the need to put his pattern names on the pieces he manufactured—that's why there isn't one on the bottom of your teacup.” I held it up to prove my point. “Which becomes problematic . . .” My words trailed away as I studied the brilliant colors of the pattern, noticing for the first time the bee motif in bright gold and purple, with fine green lines and loops showing the trajectory of the bees in flight as they danced along the scalloped edges of the saucer. It was extraordinary and unique.
So memorable
.

I looked up to find both men watching me, waiting for me to continue. I cleared my throat. “Which becomes problematic when you learn that since the company was founded it has produced almost thirty thousand patterns under five different Haviland companies on several continents.”

“Do you know this pattern?” James asked, and I got a brief whiff of his cologne. Something masculine. Sandalwood, I thought.

I shook my head. “I don't think so.” I flipped over the teacup, seeing the familiar Haviland & Co. marking. I swiveled my chair and reached for the bookcase behind me and pulled out a thin book with a spiral binding, one of a six-volume set. “But if it's been identified, it will have been given a Schleiger number and will be cataloged in one of these books.”

“And if it's not in there?” Mr. Mandeville asked.

“Well, it could have been a privately commissioned pattern, or such a rare one that it never made it into the catalog. Mrs. Schleiger was a Nebraskan trying to fill holes in her mother's set of china and was appalled at the lack of pattern names on most of the Haviland china, and did her best to identify as many as she could—hence the name ‘Schleiger number.' But the scope was too great to include every pattern ever created.”