(13 page)

She hugged Henri, feeling a surge of hope. Tomorrow, first thing, she’d see about placing an ad.

“You’re เ genius. How am I ever gonna get along without you?” She felt a desperate urge to be wrapped up in him, engulfed by his body. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

In Dolly’s oversized bed (custom-built to accommodate Dale’s six-foot-six frame), Henri carefully untied each of the three flimsy ribbons holding the front of her gown together. Reverently, he palmed the straps off her shoulders, smoothing them down her arms to her elbows. Dolly felt her breasts sag free of the tight bodice. The cold air, and Henri’s hot touch, made her nipples stiffen with an almost painful suddenness. Reflexively, she crossed her arms over her chest.

Henri pried her arms away gently, and kissed first one breast, then the other.

“Cleveland from here looks very nice,” he murmured.

She glanced down his torso, and smiled. “Right now,” she told him, “Old Faithful looks even better.”

Moments later, he was inside her, and Dolly forgot everything but how wonderful she felt, all that heat wrapping itself around her, flowing through her, like sinking into a hot bath on the coldest of days. She kissed him, opening her mouth to take in as much of him as possible, loving even the roughness of his tongue and the coarse prickling of his mustache. What could be sweeter than this? A man who loved her. Who thought she was beautiful.

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

99

Why, she could die this very minute, and she wouldn’t feel she’d missed out.

Dolly came with a falling-through-space sensation. It was wonderful, but a little frightening too, as if in a way she really had died. As if she might soar on and on forever without coming back down to earth. And dear Henri, she could feel him holding back, reining himself in until the moment she began to descend, before he let go with a heave of pleasure.

Afterward, in his embrace, listening to Henri’s breathing as it deepened into its sleeping rumble, she felt sublimely content.

“I love you, Henri,” she whispered into his unhearing ear.

But she’d been around the track enough to know that the odds were not so great on love conquering all. That only happened in movies, and then all you got was the fade-out-so who knew?

“Looks pretty foxy,” Gloria said.

“If it works.” Dolly held up crossed fingers.

She had the Times open atop the display case and was staring at the half-page ad. A selection of chocolates was featured at the top, plus the usual copy about Girod’s seventy-five years of international awards, including this year’s top prize at Gourmand magazine’s annual chocolate fair. And smack in the center, a cut-out from an old glossy of Dolly from her Hollywood days, heavy lipstick, icecream-cone tits, tight sweater and all, the weirdest chocolate ad in history. But she was hoping-grasping at straws really-that Annie might see it, and recognize her. Her name below t, read big as you please: DOLLY DRAKE, proprietor. |

For a whole week now, she’d run personals in the Times, the Post, the News, the Voice. But no reply.

The idea for this big display ad had come to her on her way back from seeing Henri off at the airport. Hugging him, she’d promised him saucily that The Knockers That Ate Cleveland would still be waiting for him next time he

could get to New York. And that made her remember that old publicity photo. Thinking of her nieces, she wondered, why not a big spread that included her photo? That way, even if Annie only leafed through the Times, she couldn’t miss it.

The important thing now was to get to them before anything happened to them. She shivered, tugging on the arms of the pink sweater draped over her shoulders.

“If it doesn’t work, you’ll come up with something else,” Gloria piped up, breaking into her thoughts. “And, lady, if you can figure out what to do with all those Easter eggs we got sent by mistake, then what’s a little problem like finding two missing girls?” She winked at Dolly, then sallied over to greet a woman in a fur coat who had just walked in, holding a fidgety Yorkshire terrier tucked under one arm.

Easter eggs? Good Lord, she’d almost forgotten them. Yeah, she’d better think of something. Quick.

Descending on the front window, she began tearing down last month’s display. Out came the Amish halfbushel baskets overflowing with red and gold maple leaves, and the old cider press painted to match the window’s hunter-green trim. Next, the flowered Victorian washbasin heaped with gilded walnuts and marzipan apples, and its matching pitcher, overturned, spilling a cornucopia of truffles-bittersweet brandy-ginger, caf้ au lait, cognac and hazelnuts, white chocolate flecked with Sicilian pistachios, caramel-centered ones rolled in crushed pralines.

It felt good to be clearing out the old, making way for the new … though she hadn’t the slightest idea yet what the new would be. She felt oddly reassured by her own ghostly reflection mirrored surrealistically in the small square windowpanes, swimming in and out, arms flashing, hands flitting like minnows.

Scooping out armloads of dry, sweet-smelling grass, she suddenly realized how to use those fancy chocolate eggs they had sent her instead of the chocolate turkeys she’d ordered. Here in the window, she would display the real Faberg้ egg Dale had given her as a wedding present, and surround it with the chocolate ones; and in those

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

101

wonderful Russian lacquer frames she’d bought at Gump’s on her last visit to San Francisco, she’d put photos of the Czar and his family against the backdrop of an antique embroidered shawl. Maybe she’d throw in a samovar while she was at it, like the ones at the Russian Tea Room. In her mind, she could see it perfectly. Her customers would be intrigued. They would ask about it. And I’ll tell them that any woman who spends all day cooking and washing dishes, or busting her buns at work, deserves something more than turkey leftovers… .

Well, okay, it was a little off base … but then, the best ideas usually were. And how Henri would love it when she told him! Dolly felt her spirits rise.

With the window-well bare, she stopped and looked about her, at all that she had accomplished over the past two years. Why, the space alone was a marvel-a former apothecary that had somehow escaped the twentieth century, with a massive, ornately carved, built-in breakfront meant for displaying Pharmaceuticals. She’d left the greenand-blue tiled floor alone, installed reproduction oak display cases parallel to the breakfront, now gleaming under a fresh coat of varnish, its brass pulls and handles polished to mirror brightness. Along its shelves, and in its crannies, tucked among Girod’s gift-wrapped boxes and confitures from the Girod orchards, was a hodge-podge of knickknacks-a fluted carnival-glass bowl, a pair of pewter candlesticks, an old shaving mirror, an antique bisque doll wearing a leghorn hat trimmed with a faded ostrich feather. Eons ago, in leaner times, Dolly had disguised grungy furnished apartments with her flea-market spoils, and even now she loved poking around in flea markets, searching for buried treasure.

But even as she sketched out the new display in her mind, Dolly couldn’t stop worrying about Annie and Laurel. The radio had said it might snow today. She imagined them shivering on the sidewalk somewhere, crouched over a steam vent… .

Dolly’s heart twisted in her chest. Good Lord, ad or no ad, what was she doing here when she could be out looking. Impulsively, she darted into the small room

102

EILEEN COUDGE

behind the counter, and reached for her coat, which hung on a peg inside the door.

By the time her cab reached Grand Central, snow was coming down in earnest. Thick fat flakes danced in the updrafts created by the jammed traffic along Lexington Avenue, and swirled dizzily before catching on Dolly’s coat sleeves and in her hair. She pushed her way inside, relieved to be out of the numbing cold.

This was a hub of the city, but New York had so many. As she made her way across the vast domed chamber, crowded with commuters hurrying in all directions for their trains, she wondered why she had come here. What did she expect to find? All these people, focused on only one thing-getting home-how could any of them help her? Then she noticed that some weren’t in any hurry. Near the entrance to one of the tracks, she saw a man and a woman in scruffy clothes, squatting, each holding a paper cup, begging.

Dolly felt someone tugging at her sleeve, and she turned to find a teenage girl in a navy pea coat and filthy jeans gazing at her beseechingly. Her heart flipped over. So young … just a kid … could it be … ?

“Annie?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” the girl muttered, her youthful face hardening, seeming to age ten years in the blink of an eye. For a terrible instant, Dolly felt her joints loosen and her head grow light, and thought she was going to faint. “Annie, Frannie, Jannie, you got a quarter, you can call me anything you like.” She stuck out a grimy hand.

Dolly, trembling, dug into her purse and fished out a bill. The girl snatched it from her hand and darted off, the torn heels of her sneakers slapping the tiled floor.

Dolly had an urge to run home. This was nuts. Even if she saw Annie, she probably wouldn’t recognize her from those fuzzy snapshots of Ned’s. But next thing she knew, Dolly was down on the lower level, still searching, looking everywhere for two girls together, going from track to track, through tunnels where the clacking of her high heels

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS 70

echoed back at her like some crazed pursuer, and then up to the waiting room again, going from bench to bench. Scared that she wouldn’t find them … and scared that she would.

This is crazy, she told herself, after scanning a thousand strange faces. I’m going crazy just like my sister.

From Grand Central, she took a cab to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was newer, more brightly lit, but even more dreary. She took an escalator up to the platforms where the buses let their passengers off. She caught sight of a black man in an ankle-length fur coat, a jeweled ring on almost every ringer … a pimp on the prowl for fresh talent. The thought of innocent girls falling into his diamond-encrusted hands made her stomach turn over. But he wouldn’t bite. And what if he did know something?

She went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me … I’m looking for my nieces.” She pulled a dog-eared photo from her purse-more than a year old, but the best she could do-and thrust it at him. “Have you by any chance seen them? It would’ve been about three weeks ago.”

The pimp glanced at it, then shook his head and quickly moved off, as if he thought she might be an undercover cop trying to pin something on him.

Dolly watched him go, feeling both relieved and despairing.

She returned to the shop late, worn out, shivering, her feet numb inside her suede boots. All she wanted to do was go home, soak in a hot tub, then help herself to a stiff brandy, maybe two.

Gloria, who should have closed up and gone home an hour ago, looked up from the package she was wrapping. “No luck? Well, look at it this way … least you got it out of your system.”

Dolly shrugged, almost too disheartened to speak. “Thanks for waiting. But you go on home now.”

Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d try Penn Station, and then start checking YMCAs. And she’d keep on looking, even if it was a wild-goose chase.

104

EILEEN GOUDGE

Two days later, the snow along the curb had melted to filthy slush. Dolly, depressed by the weather, had almost given up hope of ever finding the two girls. She was checking over the day’s receipts when the old-fashioned bell over the door tinkled. Looking up, she watched a tall, angular young woman hesitate a moment on the threshold, then, with a deep breath, enter the shop. The girl wore a thin coat, and loafers that looked soaked. Her dark shoulderlength hair wasn’t covered, not even a scarf.

Dolly was about to turn away, leave this one to Gloria, but something about the girl held her. That long neck and those high cheekbones, those startling indigo eyes.

The girl looked straight at Dolly, and Dolly felt her heart tip sideways in her chest, seeming to tumble over and over as if down an endlessly steep slope.

“Annie,” she whispered. “Honey, is that you?”

“Aunt Dolly?”

She thought: If this was the Bible, a bolt of lightning could come right down out of the sky and strike me dead.

But there was no lightning. Only this silence, which hung in the air between them like the smell of ozone before a storm.

A scrap of memory surfaced. That day she had taken Annie to the beach-Annie couldn’t have been more than three-and they’d stopped at a clam house for a bite to eat. And when the waiter came around to their booth, little Annie, sitting up straight, dressed in a checked pinafore and white shoes with little ruffled socks, had piped clearly: “I’d like a hamburger. And french fries, please, but don’t put the catsup on top. I like it on the plate.”

Even way back then, Dolly had seen the mark on her-the smart, headstrong woman she would someday grow up to be.

And here she was … practically grown up. And beautiful, as Dolly had known she would be. A bit too thin, maybe, but she’d soon fix that.

Then all at once, it struck her: She’s really here.

“Jesus in the manger,” Dolly whispered. She started to cry. “Oh, sugar, I was afraid … Well, don’t just stand

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

105

there, come over here and let me give you a hug.” Dolly gathered the tall, angular girl into her arms.

Annie remained stiff at first; then, tentatively, her hands came up and circled Dolly’s back, and with a sigh, she brought her head to rest against Dolly’s shoulder, like a weary traveller easing a heavy burden.

“I saw your picture in the paper.” Annie drew away, a thin smile touching her lips. “Well, actually … it was Laurey who saw it. But I recognized you.”

A thousand questions bubbled to Dolly’s lips all at once. But she asked only the most important one: “You okay, sugar?”

“Sure.”

Annie stiffened, glancing fearfully about the shop, as if she half expected someone to spring out from behind a door and clap a pair of handcuffs on her.