Rare Objects (15 page)

“Character isn't built, it's bred.” Mr. Van der Laar leaned against the mantel, elbow dangerously close to the Greek vase. “Where were you schooled, Miss Fanning? Abroad? One of the Swiss boarding schools?”

“Ah, no. Not really.” It was dreadful to be the focus of their combined attention. “Mother always wanted to, but we never got round to going. . . . I'm afraid I'm simply something of a reader.”

“Well”—he smiled again—“you appear to have read all the right books. Perhaps we should get Diana a library card, Mother.”

“Too much reading is a bad habit. No one likes a girl who squints.” Mrs. Van der Laar turned to her son. “Light me a cigarette, will you? We must go in. You know how unbearable Charlie Thorndike gets when he's been drinking.”

He took a silver cigarette case out of his breast pocket. “He's easier to deal with when he's drunk. I've got a business proposal that will benefit if he's worse for wear.”

“Oh, but you must come to supper sometime!” Diana looked to her mother. “Don't you think?”

“Of course. Our food is much better than the Howerds'. And we rarely ask guests to butcher their own meat.” Mrs. Van der Laar took the cigarette offered her. “We don't often get to meet any of Diana's friends. Where do you live, Miss Fanning?” Before
I could answer, she rang the bell by the door. “I'll arrange for Morris to drive you home.”

Mr. Kimberly hurried to her side and held out his arm. Diana's mother looked back at her son. “Don't be long. I don't want to be left alone with Thorndike.”

“I won't leave your side,” Mr. Kimberly assured her, escorting her out.

“You don't count,” she informed him.

Mr. Van der Laar held out his hand to me. “Don't let my sister corrupt you, Miss Fanning. She's a terrible influence.” He stopped, noticing the black agate ring on my finger. “What's this?”

I hadn't realized I'd slipped it on. “Oh, just something that came in the shop recently. Nothing much.”

I tried to remove my hand, but he held it firmly in his own.

“It's yours?”

“Not exactly. But I often wear the pieces we sell, so people can see them on.” I removed it. “Have a look if you like.”

He turned it over. “So it's for sale?”

“Well, I'm afraid it hasn't been valued yet.”

“What is that?” He peered at the figure. “Some sort of angel?”

“I believe it's one of the three Fates. Clotho, perhaps.”

He looked impressed. “Well, go on—name your price. What do you want for it?”

I wasn't prepared for this at all. “I couldn't possibly—”

“My God, Jimmy! You'd pluck the ring off a girl's hand!” Diana cut in. “Leave her alone!”

“When I see something I like, I buy it.” He shrugged. “Is that so wrong?”

“Yes.” Diana draped herself across the arm of a chair. “Because you only want what you can't have.”

He laughed, looking at me with those unnerving, clear eyes. I smiled, feeling awkward and foolish and very much trapped.

Then he gave up, handed the ring back, and sauntered over to the door. “You forget, little sister—there's nothing I can't have.”

After he'd gone, Diana sighed. “Aren't they appalling? I hate them all.” She got up and took my arm, as if we were old friends. “You will come, won't you? To supper?”

I pulled away. Now that everyone was gone, my hands were trembling from nerves, my heart pounding. “What are you doing?” I struggled to keep my voice low. “Are you trying to get me fired?”

She seemed genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you think it's funny? Pretending I'm some debutante or one of your society friends? Because I don't!”

Her face went blank.

“No one knows I was in the hospital!” I hissed.

“Well, I won't tell!”

“And I'm not from Albany! I don't know any of the people you're talking about!”

“I never thought you were, darling. Though,” she added with a smile, “you did well. Albany threw the old goat. She knows everyone in Boston, but upstate New York? Nicely played!” She chuckled. “She won't know what to make of you now!”

I could've slapped her.

“You think this is a joke, don't you? But if they knew I was lying, I'd lose my job! This is nothing more than a bloody parlor game to you!”

I marched out into the entrance hall, and she trailed after me like a wounded child. The sound of distant laughter echoed down one of the adjoining hallways.

“Go back to your party,” I said.

“Don't be that way!”

Mr. Abbott emerged. “Morris is ready to drive you, Miss Fanning.” He opened the front door and handed me an envelope. “From Mrs. Van der Laar, miss.”

I was so shaken, I'd almost completely forgotten about the payment.

“Thank you, Mr. Abbott.” I jammed the envelope into my handbag and headed down the front steps.

It was dark now, colder. Morris was waiting by the car.

“Look, I wasn't trying to make fun of you!” Diana called, trying to keep up with me. “Honest. I think you're magnificent!”

“Go back inside!”

But she kept following. “You see, she's such a snob, my mother, I can't help myself! And it was so unexpected, actually, to see you again.”

“Fine.”

“No, I mean it!” She grabbed her arm. “Really.” She was shivering in her flimsy gown. “You have no idea. It's so lonely here. I'm sorry I put you on the spot. It's just, I hate the way they try to bully me into things.”

An icy gust of wind slammed up against us. Morris hurried up the steps with a car blanket and draped it over her shoulders.

“It's all right,” I said, calmer now. “But don't you see? I can't afford to make mistakes. I just want to put everything that happened behind me.”

Her face fell. “Yes, I see. I only wish I could.”

I climbed into the back seat, and Morris closed the door. As he reversed, I saw her standing alone on the front steps, wrapped in the car blanket, her face a ghostly white in the glare of
the headlamps. Behind her figures moved in silhouette against the golden glow of the drawing-room windows: men in tuxedos, women in gowns, holding champagne glasses and cigarettes.

Morris sped on down the long drive.

Even though it was late, I asked him to drop me back at the shop. I let myself in and left the envelope on Mr. Kessler's desk.

Then I took off the black agate ring.

Had it brought me luck or just trouble?

Certainly Mr. Van der Laar had found it interesting—too interesting to remain a secret, I decided. I left the ring on Mr. Kessler's desk too and turned out the light.

Then I sat awhile in Mr. Winshaw's battered chair, petting Persia and staring at the map on the wall. For some reason I felt strangely euphoric, the way one feels after a narrow escape. For a while, I couldn't work it out, and then suddenly I knew why I felt giddy and my head was buzzing.

They'd believed me.

As angry as I was at Diana for forcing me to play along, it had been surprisingly easy to be someone else. Even that snobbish old woman Mrs. Van der Laar had bought the story.

It reminded me of a bracelet someone had tried to sell Mr. Kessler a few days before—a Victorian diamond-and-sapphire cuff. The woman was distraught to let it go; it was an heirloom given to her by her late husband. But Mr. Kessler had taken me in the back and shown me that while the sapphires were real, the diamonds were only paste, though quite cleverly done. But the real stones lent authenticity to the fake.

Tonight, Diana had turned me into a diamond.

Running my fingers through Persia's thick fur, I thought about the woman with the paste diamond bracelet.

And about all the shiny things that were only as real as you thought they were.

On Saturday evening Angela and I went to a matinee show of
Grand Hotel
at the new Paramount movie house on Washington Street. It was the first time we'd been out together since I'd come home, and it felt just like old times—putting on our best hats to meet and sharing popcorn in the front row of the balcony. Afterward we strolled arm in arm to the trolley stop, pretending we were Greta Garbo.

“I just want to be alone,” Angela purred, mimicking Garbo's husky contralto.

I pressed my hand to my forehead dramatically. “I have never been so tired in all my life!”

Then I walked Angela back to her mother-in-law's house. Carlo's mother, the widow Menzi, had only two surviving children, Carlo and his younger sister Catherina, who was still in high school. She lost three children to illness and had two more stillborn before her husband died. Antonio Menzi had owned his own barbershop at the top of Hanover Street for years; the Menzis had done well for themselves and their remaining children. She was pleased when Carlo chose Angela for his bride; she considered the Russos to be one of the few families in the neighborhood on par socially with her own. They were both firmly established, and even though she'd sold her husband's shop long before, she liked to think of them both as business owners, real middle-class Americans.

I'd never been to the Menzi house before. Located on a quiet back street, it sat well away from the tenements and was one of the nicest in the neighborhood, with a narrow front porch and a heavy oak door with leaded-glass windows on either side.

“Come in and have a cup of tea,” Angela offered. “Carlo's studying all night for an exam, and otherwise I'll have no one to talk to—except for my mother-in-law,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

“I don't want to disturb everyone.”

“No one's here but Catherina and the old owl, watching me!”

I knew she wanted to show the house off, even though she tried to pretend otherwise. Neither of us had ever lived in a house before. Even though the Russos were successful, they still lived above the bakery.

“Come on!” Angela unlocked the door.

“Okay. Just for a minute.”

It was far more spacious than it looked outside. There was a front hall and a stairwell going up to the second and third floors with a carved wooden banister and a pretty stained-glass window on the landing, showing two brightly colored peacocks in a garden. On one side of the hall was a living room; on the other, a formal dining room with a dark mahogany dining set and a real crystal chandelier. From the dining room window there was a view of a small back garden, surrounded by a wooden fence, with a stone bird feeder and two plum trees. It was a long way from the damp, crowded apartments we'd grown up in—that I still lived in. Angela wasn't just married, she was advancing.

I nodded at the stained-glass window. “That's nice.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.” She barely glanced at it, trying to make out as if she'd never really noticed it before.

Catherina was lounging on the sofa in the living room, listening to a radio play on a large freestanding Zenith radio. It was the latest model; the voices sounded so crisp and clear, it was as if the actors were in the same room. When she saw us, though, she turned it off and followed us into the kitchen. It was one
of those newer-design kitchens with a linoleum floor and all the latest appliances.

“Catty, this is my friend Mae.” Angela introduced us, putting fresh water in the kettle and lighting the stove.

Catherina was a small, delicate girl with large black eyes. She smiled at me, twisting a few strands of hair round her fingers nervously. “Hello.”

“Very nice to meet you. What's this?” I pointed to a bright green machine with the word
Maytag
on the front. It had a squat, round tank. “Is that some sort of icebox?”

“Oh no! That's the washing machine,” Catty said.

“Really?” I opened up the lid and looked inside. “Where's the mangle?”

“It doesn't have a mangle. It spins the clothes instead,” Angela explained.

“Spins them! How's that?”

Catty giggled. “It makes an awful noise!”

“But you don't have to worry about getting your fingers caught,” Angela said. “You just put the clothing in with the soap and leave it. When you come back, it's all done.”

“You're having me on!” I sat down at the table while Angela took out a tin of biscotti. “Does it come with a magic wand too?”

“May I ask you a question?” Catherina blushed.

“Of course.” I helped myself to a biscuit.

“Is your hair real?”

“Catty!” Angela fixed her with a stern look.

“It's okay.” I smiled. “No, it's red really. But I dyed it for a job.”

Catherina's eyes widened. “What kind of job?”

“A salesgirl. In a shop on Charles Street.”

Catty slid into a free chair. “Did you do it by yourself, or
did you go to a shop? It looks real.” She touched the top of it lightly.

“Actually, my mother helped me. She works in Stearns, and one of the hairdressers in the beauty shop gave us a bottle of bleach and told us what to do. It was easier than I thought.”

Angela took a teapot down from the cupboard and three cups. “It's not polite to ask personal questions,” she reprimanded her young sister-in-law. “You know better than that.”

“I don't mean anything by it. I think it looks grand! Like a film star.”

Opening a jar of tea, Angela spooned a few teaspoons into the pot. “That's not the point.”

Catherina blushed again. “You're quite famous, aren't you?”

“
Me
?” I laughed. “Hardly! Who says that?”

“Carlo. He says you have quite a reputation. That you'd been engaged once and then ran off to New York instead.”

I stopped laughing. “Carlo told you that?”

“What were you doing in New York? Were you in a show?” she persisted.

“Honestly, that's enough! Where are your manners tonight?” Angela snapped, her face suddenly red and flushed.