The White Rose (39 page)

Then, at the bottom of the column, she finds herself mentioned as the almost-bride of “Barton Warburg Ochstein (see profile, page 14)”—which is odd in itself, thinks Sophie, because Barton's middle name isn't Warburg but Samuel—but that's only the first of several mistakes in the text, some of them quite worrying. There's her own description as a Columbia “undergraduate,” a “reclusive heiress,” and the likely inheritor of three billion dollars (which isn't only off by roughly 50 percent but is not, in any case, a point Sophie wishes to see in print). There's the description of her impending wedding as “the event of the season in party-obsessed Millbrook” (
Really?
thinks Sophie dryly), and finally, there is the Celebrant's rather chilling sign-off, “
See you all at the wedding!
”

Oh no you won't
, thinks Sophie, enraged (and quite forgetting—for the moment—that there isn't going to be a wedding). No invitation had been sent to Valerie Annis. Hence Valerie Annis had no cause to think she was in a position to
See you all at the wedding!

There comes, from up the street, the click of a woman's heels on the pavement. Sophie, registering this, does not look up at first—a woman in heels, after all, is not the person she is waiting for—but the novelty of an actual human presence on Commerce Street eventually gets the better of her. She wrests herself from the distorted Sophie of the Celebrant's column and peers over the top of the paper. A woman is indeed coming down from Bedford Street, teetering a little on her heels, wearing a coat she holds together at the throat. She has dark hair to her shoulders and walks with her head down, as if unwilling to take her eyes off the pavement, and she moves hurriedly, nearly skipping as she reaches the center of the street. From beneath her arm, a pink newspaper peeks out. Sophie assumes she's headed for the restaurant—a manager, perhaps? or the hostess?—but then, to her great surprise, the woman slows in front of the White Rose, and stops. Sophie puts down her paper entirely. The woman climbs the steps, reaches into her coat pocket, and extracts a key. The key fits the door. The woman goes inside. A moment later, Sophie, devastated, watches the light in Oliver's apartment switch on.

I'm involved with someone
, he told her.

He told her, right away, on the floor of her apartment, with their clothes everywhere around them. And what had she said? Sophie concentrates.
What a coincidence. Me too
.

She is about to be married, for Christ's sake! And Oliver is already involved with someone. Who is up there now, Sophie thinks, biting her lip. Who has her own key, which is something Sophie herself does not.
Because if I had one
, thinks Sophie bitterly,
I wouldn't be sitting out in the cold with a cup of lousy, scalding coffee
.

He may help her. He may even want her. But he is involved with someone, which he told her, and she can't say he didn't. She can't even be angry, except at herself. Which she is. Oh, she certainly is. Her face is hot in the cool evening air, and her eyes burn with imminent tears, and she has never, never felt so lonely in her life as on this dark, forgotten little street.

But she does not indulge these thoughts for more than a moment, at least in public. And when her moment has passed, Sophie gets to her feet, empties her Styrofoam cup onto the pavement, and walks west to Hudson Street to find a taxi home.

M
arian's happy mood lasts just as long as it takes her to walk home, moving among the fur-clad and satisfied citizens of Park Avenue. Christmas is afoot now, and the city's stubborn insistence on referring to this season as the Holidays cannot negate the omnipresence of mistletoe and fir. A large electric menorah has been erected on the traffic island at Park and Sixty-first, and Marian turns to look at it as she passes before the Regency Hotel. The menorah is a good ten feet tall, and towers above the bodies crossing beneath it, but it diminishes when set in scale with the great line of Christmas trees, stretching all the way up to Spanish Harlem. The trees have always appeared at this time of year, for as long as Marian can recall. She saw them from the window of her childhood bedroom, on Eighty-first Street, little bouquets of color making their own string of lights along the center of Park Avenue. Marian remembers the great cross of lighted windows left behind each night in the Pan Am building at the avenue's southern end, and thinking of them now, she even turns to glance back in the direction she's come, as if they might still be there. But of course there has not been a cross at the southern end of Park Avenue for many years. There has not, come to think of it, been a Pan Am building for many years, either.

“Hello, Hector,” Marian says, smiling, as she reaches her lobby. She unwinds the scarf from her neck. “Getting chilly.”

“Yes. Gonna be snow,” Hector says agreeably.

They ride up in accustomed and not uncomfortable silence. Marian watches the numbers flash by and thinks ahead to the good and the bad of her anticipated afternoon: a hot bath (good) and the abbreviated pile of thirty-one shortlisted applicants for the Columbia job openings, their thinned ranks considerably offset by their bulked-up dossiers (bad). Perhaps she will have the bath first and then address the stack in a calm and focused mood. Perhaps she will do her work first and have the reward of her bath after. Or maybe she should just take the dossiers into the bath with her and be done with it.
Who's to know the difference
? Marian thinks, almost gaily.

But all gaiety dissipates when she goes to collect the files in her office and notes her answering machine light, which is fluttering with waiting messages.

Oliver
, is her first thought, but Oliver, in all these months, has never broken his word—when he needed to speak with her, he phoned the office. Moreover, he has not contacted her since their disastrous return to the city. The message counter reads fourteen. With a groan, Marian takes off her heavy coat and drapes it on the chair. Then she finds a piece of paper and sits down at her desk.

Number one. “Hi. Um, Marian? This is Soriah.” Then nothing. And more nothing. Then, “Well, all right. I guess I'll call again.”

Soriah
, writes Marian on her pad. No phone number.

Number two. The silence of someone listening.

Number three. More silence.

Number four. “Oh, Dr. Kahn? It's Betty Evans with the Rhinebeck Historical Society. Just wanted to touch base with you about Thursday? We'd like to invite you to stay the night at the Beekman Arms as our guest. A few of us would be very glad to take you to dinner. It's a nice inn, if you don't know it, and good food. Anyway, if you'd call me to confirm the lecture at two, I'll give you directions, my number is…”

Marian writes down the number. The Rhinebeck Historical Society has been asking her to come for nearly a year. Though she's glad to use the excuse of Bart's wedding to cross at least one outstanding obligation off her list, Marian has no intention of spending an evening trapped with historical society ladies at the Beekman Arms, no matter how good the food is. She had planned on driving back to the city after the lecture, but now it occurs to her that she might just remain in the area, book a hotel and stay on for the rehearsal dinner the following night. Then she can get a good night's sleep and rest up a bit before Marshall arrives and the dreaded ordeal of her cousin's wedding festivities begins.
Book room–Millbrook
, she writes on her pad, thinking how stupid she's been to leave this so late. With the many wedding guests, surely everything will be booked. Only…didn't Valerie say that she had canceled a room? Marian concentrates, her pen tapping the page, but she can't remember the name of the inn.

Number five. “Um, Marian?” Silence. “Okay.”

Number six, and number seven, again and again, Soriah. As Marian listens she becomes not frustrated, but very, very worried.

Number twelve. “This is Soriah. I don't know the number here. I'll call you again.”

The number here
? thinks Marian. She reaches across the desk to her Rolodex and flips to the card bearing Soriah's name, then dials her telephone number. There is no answer.

A homebound invalid and a paid attendant in two small rooms, and no one answers the phone? Marian draws a box around the name
Soriah
.

Number thirteen. “Ah, hello Mrs. Kahn. My name is Frieda Schaube,” says a voice, clipped and formal and strongly accented. “I am calling on behalf of Mr. Mortimer Klein and Miss Sophie Klein. I am telephoning everyone invited to the rehearsal dinner on Friday night to inform them that the location of the dinner has been changed. The dinner will now be held at The Retreat, and not at the Black Horse Inn, as originally planned.”

Aha
! thinks Marian.
The Black Horse Inn
! She writes it on her pad.

“Time remains seven
P.M
. Dress code will remain black tie. Should you need directions, you may telephone me here in the city, or in Millbrook from Thursday,” Frieda Schaube says, helpfully giving the numbers.

Number fourteen. “Oh…it's Soriah. Okay.”

Marian snatches up the phone and calls the apartment on Hughes Avenue again, though she knows it's pointless. Scenarios race through her brain, less and less likely, more and more ominous: they are visiting a neighbor, they are at a doctor's appointment, they are sitting outside (to take in the pleasant December afternoon?).

Something's happened, thinks Marian, hanging up. She stares at the phone.

To distract herself, and to delay her next attempt to phone the apartment, Marian calls information for the number of the Black Horse Inn in Millbrook and dials the number. “I'm driving up for a wedding this weekend,” she tells the man who answers. “The Ochstein, um…” She frowns, momentarily losing the name of Barton's fiancée. “Klein?”

“Oh sure,” he says amiably. “We've got a load of people coming in for that on Friday. We were going to do the rehearsal dinner, too, but that's been moved.”

“So I understand. That's too bad,” she says politely. “I understand you have wonderful food.”

“Oh we do!” he confirms with pleasure.

“Well anyway, I'm coming up a bit early. On Thursday night?” Marian says. “I was hoping I could get a room for the whole weekend. I really shouldn't have left it this late. You must be full.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “Have been for weeks, but the gods must like you because someone canceled this morning. I can give you her room. It's a suite on the second floor. Very pretty.”

“Perfect,” Marian says.

“And Thursday's no problem. Wide open, just you and one other guest. Hang on, let me get my book,” he says. Marian waits, drawing another box around the word
Soriah
on her pad.

“Here it is,” the man says. “Now, let's start with your name.”

She tells him her name. She tells him her address and her phone number and her platinum card number, then she jots down the directions from Rhinebeck, which seem very involved. After hanging up, she immediately calls Soriah again.

Five rings, six rings. Marian starts to hang up.

“ 'ello?” says a curious voice.

“Oh!” Marian almost shouts. “Mrs. Nelson?”

“Mrs. Nelson not here.”

“Oh. Well, who is this please? I'm looking for Soriah.”

“Soriah not here. It's Marisol. I'm the—”

“Yes!” Marian cries in relief. “Hello, Marisol. It's Marian Kahn. We met last month? I came to take Soriah to see her mother?”

There is a pause. How many people come to visit, anyway? Marian thinks.

“I remember, yes. Soriah not here.”

“Do you know when she'll be back?” says Marian.

“Uh-uh. The caseworker come and take her. Mrs. Nelson had to go in the hospital. She have a stroke.”

So, thinks Marian.

“That's terrible. How is she?”

“I don't know. I just here to get my things.”

I'll bet
, Marian thinks. All those afternoons watching TV on the couch. I don't suppose you've even been to visit.

“But… what hospital is she at? And how do I get in touch with Soriah?”

She can almost see the home health aide roll her eyes. “I don't know. I guess the caseworker.”

“But who is the caseworker?” Marian says, courtesy failing her at last. “Do you have a number? Do you have a
name
?”

“I don't know. She the usual one who comes. Wait a minute.”

Then there is a little clatter as the phone lands on a surface, and Marian can make out the faint sounds of rummaging. At last, Marisol returns and says, “I find the card. It's Hilda. Last name is Rodriguez. Okay? And the number?”

She recites it. Marian writes it down.

“Marisol? When did this happen? When did Mrs. Nelson have her stroke?”

“Uh…” She stops to think. “I guess last Wednesday. She took a sleep but she don't wake up. I call the ambulance.”

Bully for you, thinks Marian.

“Thank you, Marisol.”

“Okay,” she says, and hangs up the phone.

And just help yourself to anything you want in the apartment
, Marian thinks, still holding the receiver.

She puts down the phone, and picks it up again immediately to dial Hilda Rodriguez, but the extension is outdated and the system hangs up on her after a maddening sequence of clicks and rings and silences. Marian opens her desk drawer and takes out her phone book, but the directory gives only the number for Children's Services in Manhattan, and Hilda Rodriguez's number has a 718 prefix. She phones the Manhattan office anyway and asks for the office overseeing cases in the Bronx, and so begins another odyssey through the city bureaucracy and its fiendish phone system. When at last she is rewarded with the voicemail of a person who says her name is Hilda Rodriguez, Marian—relieved to have reached her goal but dubious about the efficacy of the voicemail system—leaves a polite but insistent request to be called. Then, without further apparent options, she hangs up again and sits staring at the phone.

Soriah. No.

The grandmother. No.

The home health care aide. No.

The caseworker. Not yet.

Who else is there? A teacher she could call? Marian doesn't even know the name of Soriah's school. A neighbor who might know where she's been taken? Not a clue. Would it be worth trying to make contact with Denise at Bedford Hills?

Then Marian remembers the professor from Fordham, who takes Soriah to the library—the woman who gave her the Lady Charlotte book and encouraged her to write to Marian. Named…Marian concentrates, and finally it comes to her: Reynolds. Professor Reynolds. At Fordham. She clutches the phone, gets the general number for the university, calls it, and asks for Professor Reynolds. There are three of them. A female professor Reynolds, she tells the man she is speaking to. There are two of them: English and Slavic Languages. “English,” says Marian, guessing.

She is transferred to the English department.

“May I speak to Professor Reynolds, please?”

“One moment.”

No, thinks Marian, breathing rapidly. It can't be this simple. She's teaching, she's with a student and not picking up the phone, she can't just be there.

“Carol Reynolds,” a woman says.

“Oh! Hello, this is Marian Kahn. Professor Reynolds?”

“Well, this is an honor.”

“Thanks…ah…I'm phoning you about Soriah Neal.”

The woman pauses. Marian can hear her sigh. “Yes, of course. It's awful, isn't it? Not a huge surprise, but still.”

“But what exactly happened? Do you know?”

“I don't know anything more current than Thursday. I usually pick Soriah up at school on Wednesdays and we go to the library, but she wasn't in school when I got there last week. I called the caseworker's number, and she told me about Mrs. Nelson. I don't think she's regained consciousness, so no one is very optimistic.”

“But where is Soriah?” asks Marian. “Is she staying with friends?”

She asks this, but she knows the answer. What friends, after all?

“No. She's been placed in foster care. The caseworker wouldn't tell me where, because I'm not a family member. I mean, the whole system is completely inhumane.”

“But have they been bringing her to see her grandmother in the hospital?” Marian asks urgently.

“I really have no idea. You should call and ask.”

“I have,” Marian says. “I'm waiting for a call back.”

There is a pause as both women have the same thought:
Right
.

“What's going to happen to her?” Marian asks. “Who will take care of her?”

“It might work out all right,” the woman says. “It might be a great placement. She might even end up in a better school.”

“Unlikely,” Marian says caustically. “What a waste.”

“Yes,” Professor Reynolds says. “I've been tearing my hair out since Thursday. That poor kid. She can't catch a break, you know? And so much promise.”

“Look,” says Marian with sudden desperate inspiration, “couldn't you…I don't know, let her stay with you for a while? Until this is over?” Until
what
is over? she thinks, even as she says it. “Couldn't you…Do you have room to keep her?”