Rare Objects (17 page)

“Why not?”

“Well, what if you'd been caught?”

“What if I had?” She didn't seem bothered. “What were they going to do? Lock me away?”

I thought of Mute Mary working away furiously at a never-ending supply of rugs; the view of the gardens from behind the barred windows; the line of empty wooden chairs, bolted to the floor in the hallway outside the treatment room. “They do worse things than lock people up, you know.”

Her face clouded. “Yes, I know.”

I was fascinated and frightened at the same time.

“So what am I supposed to do with it?”

“My God! It's like having coffee with Eliot Ness! Nothing. Do nothing with the damn thing!”

“Well”—I put more sugar into my coffee, just because I could—“I don't want it. You can keep it.”

Sitting back, she eyed me steadily. “I see right through you, you know. You're a fraud, May. A complete and total fraud!”

“That's rich, coming from you!”

But she just shook her head. “Takes one to know one.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sure you do. There's no need to lie to me. Remember, I was locked up too.”

I wanted to laugh. “In your own private room!”

“Face it”—she nodded to the rest of the diners—“outside, we're just impostors—cardboard cutouts of the women we're meant to be. Putting on the right clothes, making all the right noises. But all the while, my head is like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.” She looked down at her neatly manicured hands, began picking at the smooth red nail varnish on her thumbnail. “But that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is, I can't tell anyone.”

“Well, what am I meant to do about it?” I snapped.

She banged her fist on the table, so loud that even the businessmen shut up. “Stop pretending it didn't happen! Stop hiding!”

“I'm not!” I hissed, suddenly embarrassed.

“Let me ask you something: How many people even know where you were?”

I glowered into my coffee cup. “That's not the point. It's private.”

“It's private because you
can'
t
say it out loud! There's a difference. No one wants to hear about your time in the cracker factory. Trust me. I know.”

She was right. The trouble was, I didn't want to hear about it either. It was hard enough just managing the cardboard version of myself without trying to be real at the same time. If anything was likely to send me round the bend again, that was it.

I focused on Dr. Joseph's stolen silver pen. “I don't know what you want,” I muttered.

“Neither do I,” she admitted dully. Then catching the waiter's eye, she waved him over and held up her coffee cup. “Honestly, isn't there anything more interesting you could put in here?”

He came back with two new cups, filled with whiskey.

It had been a long time since I'd had a drink. I'd almost forgotten the power it had to smooth over the rough edges, iron out the wrinkles in my head. From the first sip, I could tell it was top-drawer stuff, spreading through my veins like rain on scorched desert earth. I eased back, took out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you want one?”

“Sure.”

I lit them, passed one over.

She raised her cup, took a deep drag. “So, been to any good ceilidhs lately?”

“You never told me why you were locked up in the first place.”

“I tried to hang myself.” She exhaled. “It wasn't the first time. Apparently practice does not make perfect.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Why indeed?” She picked a bit more varnish from her thumbnail. “I told you: I'm not like the other girls.”

“So what happened? Rope not long enough?”

“Wrong sort of knot, would you believe? I'll never make the sailing team now. Next time I'm going to turn on the engine of one of the cars in the garage, light a cigarette, and listen to the radio until I fade away.”

“Next time?”

“A girl has to keep her options open.”

I wasn't buying her bored sophisticate act. “At least you have a car, sister!”

“My goodness! You really
do
have a chip on your shoulder! Or I could try the old head-in-the-oven.”

I rolled my eyes
. “
Don't you have staff? How are you going to get anywhere
near
an oven?”

“You're right!” She started to giggle. “I'd have to ask Cook to step around me!”

“They'd probably bring you a goddamn pillow for your head!” I laughed, choking on my own cigarette smoke.

She laughed too, so hard that she had tears in her eyes and her hat fell off onto the floor. The waiter rushed to pick it up, and she told him, “Keep the coffee coming.”

“Look at us!” She sighed, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “We can't even kill ourselves!”

“There must be a correspondence course we can take.”

She raised her teacup. “Welcome to the first official meeting of the No Way Out Club. Very exclusive membership—failed corpses only.”

I felt better now, like I could breathe for the first time in weeks. “A girl just needs to let off steam every once in a while, that's all.
A little of what you fancy does you good.” It was something my mother would say when she bought extra butter or real cream. Her vices were so innocent.

I gave the pen a sharp flick so that it spun round wildly on the table. “What are we going to do with this damn thing?”

“I know what to do.” She picked up her cocktail napkin and gave it a big kiss in one corner, leaving a bright red lipstick mark. Then she wrote across it, “Thanks for the good time! By the way, you left this in the hotel room, sweetie! Xxxx, Poopsie.”

“I'm going to mail that pen back to Mrs. Verdent with this.” She grinned.

I was starting to like this girl.

“You know, I think I am hungry,” I confessed.

“So am I.” She signaled to the waiter. “What do you want? Steak? Lobster? Both?”

“Steak.” I took another drag and gave her a look. “I swore off lobster after Nicky Howerd's yacht party.”

Afterward, stuffed with steak and a little worse for wear, Diana hailed a cab. “Come on,” she insisted, climbing in. “I'll drop you. It's too cold to take a trolley.”

“It's out of your way. On the other side of town.”

“Get in before I have him run you over,” she threatened.

The cab driver wasn't thrilled about going into the North End. As we wound our way farther from Beacon Hill, the neighborhoods changed dramatically. Old houses were hacked up into tenements, spidery black fire escapes winding up the sides. The buildings were closer together, sagging and worn down from the weight of many lives piled on top of one another. The streets
became crowded with people and noise, and the taxi had to swerve round several horse-drawn carts. Uncollected garbage gathered in abandoned lots. Soon makeshift fruit and vegetable stalls blocked every corner, and laundry blew in the wind between buildings like flags on a massive black ship, sailing nowhere. Children huddled together on the front stoops, playing marbles, or ran across the busy roads in packs, many without coats or hats, dragging their brothers and sisters, barely old enough to walk, behind them. Every once in a while a window would open on one of the upper floors, and a woman's dark head would pop out. She'd shout something in Italian, throw down a few coins tied in a cloth square, and one of the children would grab it before anyone else could and scurry off to perform an errand. It was all so familiar to me, I hardly noticed. But Diana stared out of the window like a tourist in a foreign land, transfixed.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Still in Boston, would you believe?” I tried to play it off. But watching the expression on her face, I saw the place differently too. It seemed filthy and crowded, the way I imagined the streets of Tangiers or Morocco—not like an American city at all. “You're in the North End.”

We passed the cigar maker, rolling thin cigars by the window of his tiny shop. Next door was the pawnshop, overflowing with secondhand radios, men's suits, musical instruments, lamps. On the corner was Contadino's grocery with its magnificently displayed fruit and vegetables, stacked in pyramids. As always men were crowded round the chestnut oven, smoking penny cigars and debating politics, while the children, inching between their legs, tried to squeeze closer to the warmth.

“What are all these people doing?” she wondered.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, why are they all outside?”

“The only place they can go is out. There's not enough room inside.”

A sagging old Model T braked in front of us, blocking the road while a heavily pregnant woman and three small children climbed out of the back seat. Several bystanders came up to talk in Italian to the driver, who, deep in conversation, gave no sign of moving.

The taxi driver leaned on his horn and rolled down his window, shouting. Nobody paid any attention.

“I like it here,” Diana said, settling back in her seat, pulling her fox stole tighter round her shoulders. “Everything's happening. Do you like it?”

“I'm used to it. But it's like living in a fishbowl—everyone knows everybody's business. What I wouldn't give someday to have a place of my own!” I tapped the driver on the shoulder. “I'll get out here,” I told him.

As she opened the door, Diana grabbed my hand. “Same time tomorrow?”

I hesitated only a moment before nodding. “Sure.”

We began to meet nearly every day after work. Going to the same restaurant, sitting in the same booth. Sometimes we only stayed for a coffee; other nights Diana treated us to a meal.

Soon Ma became suspicious. “Do you have an admirer, Maeve? You're not seeing Mickey Finn again, are you?”

“No, Ma. Anyway, Mickey's a decent man.”

“I don't care if he's the pope, he's not good enough for you. You used to come back at all hours, smelling of liquor and beer!”

“I'm not seeing Mickey!”

“Then where do you go every night?”

“I have a friend, that's all. A girl I met in the shop.”

Ma liked to be kept informed. “What type of person is she? Where is she from?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Who you spend time with makes a difference. You don't want to fall into a bad crowd.”

She didn't realize
I
was the bad crowd.

Two days later Diana had a taxi waiting. “I've got something to show you,” she said.

We drove through the downtown and across to Beacon Street, almost to Kenmore Square. We got out in front of a large new apartment building, Waverly Mansions.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“You'll see.” She grinned.

A doorman in a smart red uniform held open the door. “Good afternoon, Miss Hanover.”

“Good afternoon, Charles.” She sashayed past him into a foyer with marble floors and shining brass elevators.

“Why is he calling you Hanover?” I whispered.

But she just winked. “Patience, my dear.”

We went up to the fourth floor, where she took a key from her handbag and unlocked an apartment. The nameplate on the door read “Hanover” too.

Inside was a neat little one-bedroom flat with a small kitchen, a bay window, and a separate bathroom. Tastefully furnished with new furniture in bottle-green fabric, it was warm and snug, and both the kitchen and bathroom had modern plumbing, with pink tile walls and floors.

“Well? What do you think? Isn't it heaven?” Diana sighed.

I looked round. “You mean this is
yours
?”

“All mine! I got the idea from you, when you talked about a place of your own. I decided that I wanted one too. A hideaway that no one knows about. That is”—she smiled—“nobody but you!”

“You mean you just bought it? Out of the blue?”

“No, I'm renting. But isn't it wonderful? And the best part is—no one knows it exists, just you and me. We're completely free to do as we please!”

I felt the sharp, unpleasant sting of envy. Everything was so easy for her; no sooner did she have an idea than it effortlessly materialized. I tried to ignore it. “So, who's Hanover?”

“Oh!” She shrugged off her fur coat, tossing it onto the sofa. “That's me, of course! Miss Julie Hanover, secretary! That's what I told them. What do you think of my new identity?”

Was she making fun of me?

“You mean, a secretary like me?”

“That's where I got the idea! Isn't it a hoot? Can you imagine me typing letters and taking dictation? Hanover was the name of my first nanny. May I get you something to drink?” She was enjoying playing hostess.

“What do you have?”

“Well . . .” She opened the kitchen cupboard. It was empty. “Nothing!” She laughed. “Water?”

“Then I'll have water.”

We sat down, and Diana opened her handbag again, taking out another key. “Here. All the members of the No Way Out Club get one.” She pointed to a private telephone extension on a side table. “I'll give you the number. Just ring before you come, that's all I ask.”

I stared at her. “Are you serious? My own key?”

I wasn't so jealous now.

“Why not?” She kicked her shoes off, propping her feet up on the coffee table. “I think it's an excellent idea. We'll have no one to answer to, no unwanted guests, and no house rules. We'll do anything we please!”

I dangled the key from my fingertips; like everything else in Waverly Mansions, it was freshly cut, shiny and new. Apparently there were no limits to what Diana could do or have. And now she was offering me the same immunity; the chance to do whatever I pleased, without limits or explanations.

“You know this is insane,” I told her, slipping my shoes off too and curling my feet underneath me. “Your house is so enormous, you could have your own wing!”