Property of a Noblewoman (16 page)

Valerie hugged her on the way out, and turned at the front door, with a wry smile. “And by the way,” she said with an ironic look at her very proper sister, “you’re not my sister anymore, you’re my aunt.” She laughed and softly closed the door. And then she went back to her own apartment in SoHo, to decide what to do next. The whole configuration of her life had shifted in the past twenty hours. The map of her world would never be the same again.

JANE HAD BEEN
thinking of moving out all week. She knew the relationship had gone from bad to worse in recent months, and appeared to be unsalvageable. John was in the Hamptons again this weekend, and she was going to tell him when he got home later that night. She had been packing all day and a truck was coming for her boxes on Monday to put into storage. She was moving in with Alex for a few weeks until she found her own place. She hadn’t told her parents yet – she was embarrassed to admit that she was breaking up with John. She had finished packing the cartons of books, papers, memorabilia, and sports equipment, and was about to start packing her clothes, when John got home.

The weather had been nice all weekend, and he’d gotten some sun, lying on the beach, even though it was cold. He looked relaxed. It still shocked her that he had left her to fend for herself every weekend, and was hanging out with his friends. Even if they were studying, they managed to have fun and had a barbecue the night before. It was a huge slap in the face. But she had finally realized that there was no point fighting the inevitable. It was over. She couldn’t hide from it anymore.

He looked startled when he saw the boxes in the front hall. “What’s all this?”

“My stuff. I’m moving out,” she said simply, avoiding his eyes.

“Just like that? We don’t discuss it?” He didn’t seem sad or upset, just annoyed.

“You didn’t discuss it with me when you rented the house in the Hamptons with your pals. You haven’t invited me out there once.” She looked hurt as she said it.

“We study all weekend. No one brings their partners out there. It’s just us guys.” He looked innocent as he explained.

“Cara and Michele are not guys,” she said coldly, to mask the hurt she felt. He had turned out to be a huge disappointment and a waste of three years of her life.

“They’re in my study group,” he said, and moved to put his arms around her. “What’s the big deal?”

“I never see you anymore. We have no life together. Our relationship is a disaster. It’s over. It’s been over for months.” Tears stung her eyes as she said it, but she refused to cry and look pathetic to him.

“You can’t sit it out till June?” He went to the fridge, helped himself to a beer, and stared at her.

“And then what? This isn’t working anymore. We used to like each other. We did things together.” She had the feeling that they weren’t talking about the real issues. “Are you sleeping with Cara?” They were back to that again, but now she wanted to know. School was no longer an adequate excuse for the disintegration of their relationship in the last six months. There was nothing left.

“Oh, for chrissake. Are you cheating on me? Is that it? Are you projecting?” He was very clever at deflecting and not responding, and she got angry as she watched him. He wasn’t even upset.

“Answer the question,” she said harshly.

“Sorry, counselor. Maybe it’s none of your business what I’m doing, if you’re moving out.” He was being an asshole again and playing with her, it was a game of cat and mouse.

“Do you care about this relationship?” she asked him bluntly.

“Of course I do. But I can’t sit here with you all day and night while I’m trying to graduate.”

“You don’t need to study in the Hamptons every weekend, or I could come with you sometimes.” It was obvious he didn’t want that, and she suspected why. Someone was texting him frantically while they were talking, and she could guess who. She grabbed his cell phone off the table, while he took a sip of beer, and her heart stopped when she read it. It was too late for him to stop her. The message read, “Is the bitch home? Can I come over?” And it was signed “C.” Jane had her answer. He looked shocked, and pulled his phone out of her hand. “What’s that about?” Jane asked in an icy tone.

“Mind your own fucking business,” he said, stormed into the bedroom, and slammed the door.

She went back to packing her clothes from the hall closet, and he came out of the bedroom a few minutes later. She was shaking, but he couldn’t see it.

“Look, we’re both under a lot of pressure. Things get crazy sometimes. Whatever happens with her doesn’t mean anything. You and I have been together for three years.”

“You seem to have forgotten that. I’m leaving. This isn’t good for either of us. It hasn’t been for months.” She turned to face him then. “I thought we were honest with each other, and faithful. Apparently I was wrong.”

“So who are you doing? The Christie’s guy? You seem to like him a lot.”

“Yes, I do. And I’m not ‘doing’ him. I told him about you. I don’t ‘do’ people. I live with you, and I thought we loved each other, whatever that means to you.”

“I’m moving back to L.A.,” he said, looking sheepish. “She’s going back too. I know you want to stay here and get a job with a fancy New York firm.” He was finally being honest with her. Way too late.

“So you just cheat on me and get your next romance going? That’s how you tell me?”

“I’ve had a great opportunity. Her father is going to give us seed money to start a business. It’s a start-up. This could be a big deal for me.”

“Great. It would have been nice if you ended it with me first. Why keep up the charade? Why bother? What’s wrong with you?” What he had done was hopelessly sloppy. She had been sitting at home, waiting for him, while he slept with Cara, and her father gave them money for a business.

“We don’t want the same things,” he said, sounding lame.

“I thought we did. My mistake. You should have explained it to me when you figured it out. And Cara does want the same things?”

“We’re both from L.A. It was her idea to go back.”

“Terrific,” Jane said, as tears stung her eyes while she packed. She didn’t want to look at him.

“You’re from Michigan. That’s different.” He thought he was cool, and instead he was just a jerk. He had completely changed, or finally exposed who he’d always been. It no longer mattered which.

“Yeah, we’re stupid, boring people, who tell the truth. That must have sucked for you.”

“You’re too wholesome for me,” he said honestly. “Cara is a ‘dirty girl.’ That’s who I am right now.” He sounded proud of it, and he had gone from denying that he was sleeping with her to tacitly admitting it and bragging about it.

“Whoever you are, or think you’ve become, why don’t you just let me pack in peace. I’ll stay somewhere else tonight, and you can tell her ‘the bitch is gone.’”

“Come on, babe, don’t be like that. Let’s not end it like this after three years.”

“You already did,” she said quietly, went into the bedroom, took out her suitcases, and dumped whatever was left into them. All she wanted to do now was get out. She felt ridiculous being there while he told her she was too wholesome and made fun of her. She felt as though he had ripped her heart out through her throat. And he had obviously been cheating on her for months, and laughing at her. She had been a total fool. It was hard to remember what she’d ever loved about him while she listened to him now.

He sat on the couch, drinking beer and watching TV while she packed the rest of her things. Half an hour later, there were four suitcases in the hall full of her clothes; the rest was in the boxes she had packed that afternoon that she was going to send to storage until she got her own place. She was leaving him everything she’d bought for the kitchen and didn’t care. Cara could use it if she cooked for him. Her skills seemed more appropriate to the bedroom than the kitchen.

Jane put her coat on and picked up one of her bags. The apartment already looked barren. She could see that he was half drunk, and he looked stunned.

“That’s it? You’re really leaving?”

“Yes, I am.”

“What happened to talking about it and working it out?”

“You can work it out with Cara. I heard enough.” And what was the point, if he was moving back to L.A. with her? Jane pulled open the door to the apartment then, and carried her bags into the hall. He got up to help, and she put up a hand. “Don’t. I can do it myself.”

“Like everything else you do so perfectly. Not everyone is as smart as you are, with your perfect grades and scores. Life hands everything to you. Some of us have to hustle for it. You never do.” She realized then that he was jealous of her and maybe always had been. There was no love in his eyes when he looked at her, and hadn’t been in months. She understood it now. And Cara was part of the hustle for him. She would help him set up a business, and her father would pay for it. Jane had nothing like that to offer him. So they were through.

“Good luck in L.A.” The bags were heavy for her, but she didn’t want his help. It disgusted her to look at him. She got all four bags into the hall and from there into the elevator, and then went back into the apartment. “I’m having someone pick my boxes up tomorrow, and then I’ll send you the keys. You can tell her the coast is clear.”

“This isn’t about her,” he said, slightly disoriented from the beer. She wondered if he’d been drinking all day.

“No, it isn’t,” Jane agreed, “it’s about us. You and me. I should have left months ago. Or maybe we should never have started.” She was still convinced he had changed, but it didn’t matter now. “Goodbye,” she said quietly, looking at him for a last time.

“I love you, babe,” he said, trying to put his arms around her, and she pushed him away. He didn’t know the meaning of the word. “Maybe we should try and work this out.” As far as Jane was concerned, it was way, way, way too late for that, and she was sure that Cara would be in their bed that night. It was what she had always wanted, and apparently so did he. They were kindred spirits. They were two users, who were using each other and had lied to her.

Jane didn’t say another word – she just walked out and closed the door to the apartment, got in the elevator with her suitcases, and went downstairs. She dragged them through the lobby and across the sidewalk and hailed a cab. The driver put her bags in the trunk and on the front seat, and she gave him Alex’s address. Jane had told her she’d be there that night.

And as the cab sped downtown on the West Side Highway, she got a text from John. He was just drunk enough to have sent it to the wrong person. She was sure the message was meant for Cara, but he had sent it to her instead. All it said was, “She’s gone. Come on over. J.” He was pathetic and she was tempted to send him a reply that said “Fuck you.” But she didn’t. She erased his message, and stared out the window as they drove downtown. She felt empty and numb, stupid and used. Three years of her life had just gone up in smoke.

Phillip and Valerie were having dinner that night at a Thai restaurant she liked, and he found her strangely subdued.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked, concerned.

“Of course. I’m fine.” She smiled at him, but there was something melancholy in her eyes that he had never seen before.

“You’re very quiet,” he said, worried about her.

“I’m just tired. I drove to New Hampshire and back yesterday.”

“You did? Why?” It made no sense to him.

“I went to see my old nanny, Fiona McCarthy. Do you remember her? You met her when you were about fifteen.”

“Yes, I do. She was funny. She’s still alive?”

“Very much so, at ninety-four. But I thought I should visit her before too long, at her age.”

“Why didn’t you spend the night?”

“I wanted to come home.”

“You’re crazy, Mom. I didn’t even know you were gone.”

“I was fine,” she said, smiling at him, and seemed more like herself again.

“Have you looked at those photographs, by the way?” He was referring to the ones Jane had emailed him, of Marguerite.

“Yes, I have,” she said quietly.

“Recognize anyone you know? Or some family traits?” He was teasing her, and she didn’t comment. She was definitely more serious than usual.

“Not really,” she said, and changed the subject. “She was such a pretty woman. I can’t wait to see the jewels at the exhibition for the show.”

“You can come in and look at them anytime you want. I have them in the safe. We’re trying to work out the estimates now. I think the prices are going to go through the roof.” She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

They talked about his upcoming trip to Paris then, for a big Christie’s sale. And he told her he was planning to go to Cartier and Van Cleef, to get more information about the pieces, when they’d been purchased, and for what occasions. It had taken three days to hear back from Cartier’s archive department in Paris, in answer to his inquiry. They were looking for the files on the pieces he had inquired about, and promised to get back to him in the next two weeks, and would be ready to show him their archives when he got to Paris. They were extremely gracious and assured him that they were making every effort to find the records and working drawings of the pieces he was interested in. And Van Cleef had said the same.

“Having the working drawings in the catalog will give life to the show,” he explained to her.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked him quietly.

“A week. I have to go to London too, and maybe Rome.” He wanted to trace the Pignelli pieces at Bulgari. He wanted to do as thorough a job of it as he could. Even if jewelry wasn’t his preference, he gave the sales his all, particularly this one, which he had developed a personal interest in. And clearly, his mother had too.

After dinner, he walked her back to the building, and she went upstairs. She hadn’t told Phillip any of what she had discovered from Fiona. She wanted time to digest it, and she wasn’t ready to talk about it. She had no idea what would happen when she did, or how it would affect the sale. She didn’t want to upset the apple cart yet, although in time she’d have to if she was Marguerite’s heir.