The Secret of the Nightingale Palace (6 page)

“Why not just go to the auction at Sotheby's, then, and hand it over?” Sadie said. “Or ship it?”

This question made Goldie pause, but only for a moment. “Did you listen to anything I said, Sadie?”

“There are tax incentives to being out of New York,” Anna reminded her sister. “Anyway, this is about more than the art. This is penance.”

Luckily, Goldie didn't understand the meaning of
penance.
As a consequence, rather than taking offense, she thought that Anna was offering support. “Exactly,” she said.

Sadie gave up. Anna nudged her sister's leg with her foot under the table. She appreciated her concern, but she felt inspired by the notion of chauffeuring her grandmother and a portfolio of Japanese art across the continent in a Rolls-Royce. Anna had never driven anything nicer than her mother's Volvo, had never taken a car trip of more than a few hundred miles, and had no confidence in her ability to get along with Goldie for even a day, let alone on a journey that would last several weeks. But still she felt solidly committed to the project. Compared with the worry that Anna received from the rest of her family, Goldie's indifference offered surprising relief.

Melora appeared with their dinner plates stretching ostentatiously down her arm. Sadie and Goldie's roast chicken, with its crispy skin and buttery sheen, looked like the stellar result of an exam in French cooking, its aroma forming a rich and meaty cloud above the table. Their eyes turned to Anna's duck, a set of brown slabs spread across a plate. “No one orders the duck here,” Goldie said.

 

It was in the shuffle of putting on their jackets and picking up their purses that Anna remembered Ford's ring. What had seemed an hour earlier like a brilliant burst of problem solving, now just seemed wacky. “I have to go to the bathroom one more time,” she said, already rushing down the stairs ahead of the others. What had she been thinking?

Hurrying through the dim, velvety restaurant filled with clinking glasses and muted conversation, Anna pictured the ring, dangling on the edge of the sill. A gust of wind might blow it off. Was it raining tonight? Could a buildup of moisture cause it to slide over the edge? And hadn't she considered the window of the apartment five feet across the air shaft? Any half-observant neighbor could spot Ford's ring and snag it. Anna could still appreciate the romance of having her husband's ring perched for eternity on a windowsill at JoJo, but she also knew that she'd be devastated to return here one day and find that it had disappeared.

Fortunately, the bathroom was empty. She stepped out of her shoes, dropped the toilet seat, and hoisted herself up one more time. Cautiously, she reached toward the window and slid her fingers along the edge of the sill, aware that she could dislodge the ring herself if she moved too quickly. She felt her finger go over the edge of the ring, then she tipped it up and slid it immediately back onto her thumb. Just as she was pulling her hand inside, though, she felt something tear her skin. She had scraped it along the edge of a shard of wood sticking out of the sill. Looking down at her hand, she saw blood welling up on the muscly part of her palm below Ford's ring.

Just then the door opened, and Melora the waitress stood looking up at her. “Oops, sorry,” she stammered, too momentarily taken by the sight of Anna standing on the toilet seat to close the door again behind her.

Anna stepped down. “Do you have a Band-Aid or something?” At the sink, she rinsed her hand, then patted it with a paper towel. The wound wasn't much more than a scratch, but it was messy.

Melora stooped down and rummaged in the cabinet below the sink. “We keep some first aid stuff down here.” Eventually she stood up with a box of bandages in her hand, tore one open, and carefully applied it to the cut.

“I guess you think this is kind of weird,” Anna said.

The waitress shook her head. “I've been doing this job for fifteen years. At this point, standing on a toilet seat with a bloody hand seems pretty tame.” Her weary expression offered a complete contrast to the perky enthusiasm she expressed in the dining room. She looked so human, in fact, that Anna felt a twinge of regret for having sent her duck back to the kitchen.

“I should explain—”

“Don't worry about it,” Melora said, sealing down the adhesive. She held Anna's hand for a moment longer, her attention lingering on Ford's ring, and then she said, “That's really pretty.”

2

Bridget

T
hree days later, Goldie woke Anna at just after 6
A.M.
Anna had slept at the Sherry-Netherland the night before, curled up in the twin bed across from her grandmother's, so that they could leave New York by midmorning. She had forgotten, though, that Goldie was an early riser who would wake anyone who slept later than she considered proper.

“It's gray outside, and it might rain,” she said to Anna, who was still asleep under the covers. “I don't want to be chilly, so I changed my mind about my suit. I'm wearing the heavier linen instead. And I'll bring my wool scarf just in case.” Her voice carried the hoarseness of sleep, but it filled the room.

Anna turned over, pretending to still be sleeping. Sometime later, she heard Goldie say, “I've had my bath and I've washed my teeth.”

The word
wash
—which came out as
warsh
—echoed in Anna's ears. It was one of the lingering remnants of Goldie's childhood in Memphis. Anna burrowed deeper.

“I'll wait for you for breakfast. Anyway, I only eat a couple of tablespoons of Raisin Bran.” When Anna remained silent, Goldie said, “People who sleep all day never accomplish anything.”

Anna sat up, knocking her pillows to the floor. Her grandmother was walking around in her knee-high stockings, but other than her lack of shoes, she was already completely dressed. Today she had chosen a dark brown suit, a brown and white striped blouse, three strands of walnut-sized tiger's eye beads, and a jaunty cream-colored handkerchief that was peeking like a little flag out of her left breast pocket. Anna took in all of this during the time it took to stomp over to the bathroom, shut the door, and lock herself inside. She sat on the toilet for several long minutes, her face in her hands, considering the fact that she had agreed to drive Goldie all the way across the continent.
Was she out of her mind?

Anna was still feeling irritated with her grandmother at ten thirty, when they finally left the city. They had waited until after rush hour, then headed out through the Lincoln Tunnel. To Anna's surprise, she found driving in Manhattan less terrifying than she had expected. Once they were safely in New Jersey, Goldie said, “You're really smart, aren't you?” She seemed impressed by Anna's skill. A few minutes later, though, passing through Paterson, Anna veered too quickly between lanes and her grandmother announced, “I'm not going to tell you how to drive this car,” as if she would have liked to do just that.

Normally Anna was an inattentive driver, but today she focused completely. Yesterday's tune-up had revealed that the forty-year-old Rolls-Royce remained in excellent condition. According to the records, it had added exactly 2.8 miles to its odometer since Anna's father, Marvie, drove it from Palm Beach to New York City three years before. In total, the car had 27,437 miles on it, or just under 700 miles a year. This information seemed to prove that other than forays to nearby restaurants and occasional cruises along South Ocean Boulevard, Goldie and Saul Rosenthal had rarely driven it in Florida. Pete, the New York mechanic, specialized in various models of Bentley and Rolls, and because he deeply admired the '62 Silver Cloud, he volunteered to ride with Anna on a practice loop up Park Avenue and down Lexington. “She'll be a doll,” he told Anna. “Treat her nice and she'll drive like a dream.” Anna felt concerned that the car would break down on I–80, maybe somewhere in Indiana, but Pete gave her his cell phone number and told her to call if she had any problems.

Anna already liked this car. The carpet, a rich gray that turned shiny silver in the sun, felt luscious to her touch. “Can I drive barefoot?” she had asked Pete.

He shook his head. “Your feet sweat, and they'll slide right off the brake.”

The air inside the car still smelled like new leather, and the upholstery felt as soft as an Italian glove. Shiny steel framed the windows, and the dashboard and rear of the seats had silver fixtures and rosewood molding. The backseats even had fold-down tray tables, with lace doilies on them. Best of all, though, for her purposes, the car really did drive like a dream. From the outside, it looked enormous, but you barely had to press your finger to the wheel to feel it respond to your touch. The gas pedal and brakes were equally sensitive—so sensitive that she lurched at the corner of Sixty-eighth and Park. “Hey!” Pete said. “We're not driving a Chevette here.”

“I think it needs a name,” Anna had told Pete as she closed the door of the car to leave it with him for its last night in New York City. Even the sound of the door shutting was substantial, more of a firm click than a loud bang.

Pete was probably in his sixties, and he had become invested in the plan of a young woman about to drive her eighty-something grandmother all the way to San Francisco. “Can't hurt,” he said. “What you got in mind?”

“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?” Anna suggested.

“You need something classy.”

Anna felt stumped.

“You want a friend,” said Pete. “So give her a friendly name.”

“I'll name him Pete,” she decided. “It's the least I can do. You gave me your cell number.”

He shook his head. “She's a she. Like a boat.”

“You decide.”

Pete took a long, fond look at the car. “She's a beauty.”

“If she does break down, can I even find someone to fix her?”

Pete gave the car a friendly little tap on the hood. “Any mechanic can fix her, especially if you give me a call. This is not the space shuttle.”

Anna put her hand on the edge of the hood where it arced gently toward the driver's window. She could love this car, she thought. “Give me a name.”

Pete said, “Bridget.”

The next morning, although the traffic demanded attention, Anna felt calm. She could keep her eye on the road while following the driving instructions on the Post-it she'd stuck to the dashboard. She welcomed the need to concentrate, too, because it meant that she and Goldie didn't have to talk to each other. The silence gave them an opportunity to adjust to the fact that they were stuck together now.

It wasn't until Bridget reached I–80, about twenty miles out of Manhattan, that Anna felt ready to engage in conversation. She had good news for Goldie, too. Even if they couldn't see California from this distance, they could not get lost. “This road is called Interstate 80,” she announced. She pointed her finger toward a blue and red sign that said
80 WEST
, then explained, “This takes us all the way to California. Nearly to San Francisco.”

Goldie looked at her. “You've got to be kidding,” she said. “Isn't that marvelous?”

“We can thank President Eisenhower for the interstate system,” said Anna. “Didn't they build it during his era?”

“That's not my area of expertise.”

Pete had told Anna to keep to a maximum of seventy miles an hour. That would be tricky, because Bridget had no cruise control. She was beautiful and she had a Princess Grace glamour, but she was also old and lacked basic features you would find in a cheap rental.

Those thoughts made Anna feel disloyal, though. “You know,” she said, “the mechanic told me about a famous Rolls-Royce ad that claimed that when you get up to sixty, the loudest sound is the tick-tock of the clock.”

“Are we going sixty now?” Goldie asked. She had her purse in her lap and her hands clasped on top of it. She looked exactly the way she looked when she perched on the bench in her elevator at the Sherry during the seconds it took to travel to the lobby. Did she have any idea, Anna wondered, how far they had to go before they reached the West Coast?

“We're going sixty now,” Anna said. “Sixty-five. Seventy.” The engine hummed and, yes, just the slightest bit louder, like the clicky purr of a cat, they heard the clock. “It's kind of exhilarating,” Anna admitted. For an instant, the joy of being on the road drew them together.

“Your sister was wrong,” Goldie said. “We are flying to California.”

 

Late that first afternoon, Anna pulled into a Hampton Inn in DuBois, Pennsylvania. They had been driving for five hours, plus stops for lunch and the bathroom, and though their progress was microscopic compared with the distance they had to travel, Anna felt slightly euphoric. She really could tell the difference between driving Bridget and driving her Honda back home, though she didn't think that difference was worth the cost of a Silver Cloud. More importantly, she and Goldie had been civil to each other, even kind. Maybe they'd get along just fine.

It wasn't until Anna had pushed the luggage trolley back to the car, with Goldie trailing right behind, that she considered the problem of their luggage for the first time. Anna's legs felt sore from the drive, and her back ached, too, but she could have pulled from the trunk the small items—her own little weekender, their carry-ons, the velvet drawstring bag containing the treasured artwork. She had forgotten that Goldie's method of travel harkened back to the days of wardrobes and steamer trunks, however. For this trip, she had brought two very large black Louis Vuitton suitcases, neither of which had wheels.

“I need a pulley,” Anna said, gazing at the bags in the trunk. The latch was almost vertical, like the back of an SUV, and lifted to reveal a shelf on which the Sherry-Netherland bellman, Will, had managed to fit the luggage snugly.

“It's rude that they don't have a bellman here,” Goldie said.

Anna put her hands against the small of her back and stretched up onto her toes, which gave her muscles a satisfying tug. “There's probably not a bellman between here and Manhattan,” she said. She wanted the sound of her voice to make clear that her grandmother had brought a ridiculous amount of luggage. Theoretically speaking, you could slide each bag right out, maneuvering it slightly over the edge. Practically, though, Anna wasn't certain that she'd be able to transfer it to the luggage cart without either dropping the suitcase to the ground or causing the cart to lurch away. She considered the situation, looking at her grandmother, at the cart, then back at the luggage still sitting in the car.

“What can I do to help?” Goldie asked.

Anna rolled the luggage cart so that its upper bar was right in front of her grandmother. “Grip it,” she instructed. “Don't let it roll away.”

“Got it,” Goldie said. She fixed the strap of her purse onto her shoulder, then grabbed the luggage cart, holding it tightly with both hands. “I've got it,” she said, thrusting one of her legs backward for traction. In her designer suit and silk blouse, she looked like a very old and well-dressed athlete easing into a runner's stretch.

Anna began to jiggle the suitcase inch by inch out of the trunk until it was suspended, half inside, half outside, over the luggage cart. “Hold tight,” she said. “Almost there.” Suddenly the suitcase began to wobble, then it finally tipped out of the trunk and fell with a crash onto the luggage cart. As it was falling, Anna grabbed the other side of the cart, and together she and Goldie kept it from jerking away.

“We've got it!” Goldie screamed. “We got it!”

“Hallelujah,” said Anna. With a few more moves, she had all the baggage piled on and was pushing the trolley toward the front door. “I need a glass of wine,” she said.

Goldie was breathing heavily behind her. “Make that two. And two for me also.”

In the end, though, they ate at a restaurant that lacked a liquor license. They had asked for a recommendation from the clerk at the front desk. “We want something
good,
” Goldie had said, as if to set herself apart from other guests in the hotel. “What's the nicest place in town?”

The clerk was a curly-haired, dazed-looking high school boy. It didn't seem to matter if he was staring at his computer screen, running a credit card through the scanner, or making suggestions for dinner, his mouth lolled open in the same vacant way. “You could try Applebee's,” he offered.

Anna asked, “Is there any place that's not a chain?”

“I don't care,” Goldie said, “as long as it's clean.”

The clerk didn't answer quickly. Anna wondered if he had taken a sedative. “You could try the diner,” he said.

Anna looked at her grandmother. “That could be kind of fun. Old-fashioned.”

Goldie put a hand to her cheek. “Could I get a milk shake?” she asked, like a flirt.

“I guess,” the clerk mumbled.

The word
diner
made Anna think of sock hops and poodle skirts, and she expected that here in small-town Pennsylvania they might find some authentic relic of the past. Instead, Kirsten's Diner was a fifties-style retro establishment, probably built in the nineties, decorated with familiar mass-market photos of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis, but appealing to a contemporary clientele by including on its menu veggie burgers and chicken nuggets. Their waitress, a Goth girl, had a Sanskrit tattoo on her neck and two lip piercings. Goldie ordered a strawberry milk shake and liver and onions. Anna chose the meatloaf and a chocolate shake.

“Your grandfather used to live on liver and onions,” Goldie said. “Remember Hamburger Heaven?”

“They had liver and onions there?” Anna had been in college when Saul Rosenthal died. She remembered him as kind and stodgy, a man of routine. He always ate at the same restaurants, and at each restaurant he ordered the same dish.

“They did a very good liver and onions. It was greasy, but he liked it.”

“At the Colony, he ordered the chops.”

Goldie nodded. “At Lutèce, he ordered a steak. That was a waste of money. You go to the most famous French restaurant in New York and order a steak? But that's what he wanted.”

Before they left Manhattan, Anna had worried over how she and Goldie would interact on this trip. Her concern had centered less on the hours in the car—wouldn't an eighty-five-year-old nap?—and more on the time they would spend facing each other in restaurants. And she'd been right. In the car, their conversation had been light, almost breezy. Now it felt strained, as if they had both remembered the unsettled history between them. The real discussion, about
that,
was taking place entirely through gaze and gesture—a refusal to make eye contact here, a shift of glance there—while they both pretended that things were fine.