Two of a Kind (18 page)

C
hristina hurried up the steps of the Haverstick house. She was so excited; Derrick had called Phoebe to tell her that, yes, the Sargent was authentic and that given it was a late—and therefore highly unusual—portrait, it would be worth even more than he had initially estimated. Christina felt hurt that Derrick had not called her first—she supposed he was still angry, humiliated, or both—but she wasn't going to dwell on it. The important thing was the painting was real.

“Have you had it insured?” asked Christina when Phoebe had ushered her inside.

“Yes, but we'll need to change the policy now that we know it's worth more.”

“That makes sense. Why don't you and Ian go ahead and start putting that in motion?”

“Derrick said he'd like to do a light cleaning,” said Phoebe. “Do you think that's a good idea?”

“I do. You don't know what's on the surface; what if it's something potentially corrosive?”

“All right, then.” She seemed to be thinking something over. “How long do you think that will take?”

“I'm guessing a couple of weeks at most.”

“Good. I need time to work things out with Ian,” she said.

“Because you think he's going to want to sell it?” Christina phrased this as neutrally as she could.

“I
know
he is,” Phoebe said. “Especially now.” She stood up. “You had some fabric samples to show me, right?”

Christina pulled them from her bag, relieved not to have to discuss Ian anymore. But she fretted about him all into the city, where she was going to meet Oliver. What was the source of his hostility? She couldn't attribute it entirely to the painting; the feeling had been there almost from the start.

Once she reached the showroom on West Twenty-eighth Street, she was able to push Ian out of her mind. She wriggled her way between the bolts of fabric that were everywhere, stacked horizontally in rows on industrial metal shelving, or standing packed together like saplings. But after half an hour of searching, she still did not see what she had come in search of: a crinkly, douppioni silk in a shade somewhere between pale ale and champagne. A sudden thud startled her. “Oliver?” she called. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, I think so,” he called back.

“What happened?” she said when she made her way over to the other end of the store. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “I made kind of a mess, though. . . .” He gestured to the bolts of fabric he'd knocked off a high shelf and which now created a barricade in the narrow aisle.

It was a week before Thanksgiving, and Oliver's third week of working for her. Christina had felt so horribly guilty over his expulsion from school that when he had asked if he could
hang out
with her, she immediately said yes. But although he undoubtedly meant well, he'd been more of a hindrance than anything. He cleaned a season's worth of debris from her garden but had also inadvertently dug up several recently planted peonies; he'd thought they were weeds. He had also broken inventory in her showroom, blown a fuse, dripped paint on her dining room rug—and now this.

“Hey, is everything all right up here?” Drawn by the noise, one of the store's clerks had come bounding up the stairs.

“Yeah, I just pulled a little too hard and they all came tumbling down.”

The clerk frowned. “I hope nothing got dirty,” he said.

“I'll pay for anything that's damaged,” Christina quickly offered. Just like she'd paid for Oliver's other mishaps. And she hadn't told Andy either; the poor kid was in enough trouble as it was.

“I'm sorry,” Oliver muttered. Together, they picked up the fallen bolts.

“That's okay,” she said. “I think we should go now.”

“But you didn't find your silk.”

“Another time,” she said.

Outside, Christina steered Oliver toward a favorite diner on Tenth Avenue. The area had gentrified rapidly, and now the avenue was dotted with expensive little bistros, bars, and cafés. Still, this place—Nell's—had held on and they were able to find a seat right by the window. Whatever there was of sunlight on this intermittently gray day formed a diamond on the tabletop; Christina reached for a menu and handed it to Oliver. She already knew what she was having—the spinach pie with a Greek salad—because that was what she had every time she came here.

“Do you know what you'd like?” she asked when the waitress appeared at their table.

“A tuna melt,” he said, snapping the menu shut.

“Fries with that?” asked the waitress.

“Sure,” he said, and then, leaning over to Christina, “But don't tell my dad. He'd lecture me for, like, an hour about the fat, the carbs, the bajillion chemicals in the ketchup.”

Christina did not say anything. Andy
was
a bit of a proselytizer when it came to eating. When their meal came, she had to admit the fries did look delicious—crispy and golden—and she accepted Oliver's offer first of one, and then another.

“Our secret,” she said. “We won't tell your dad.”

“Deal.” He took a fry from the plate. “What do you like about him anyway?”

Christina had to think. The first thing that sprang to mind—the erotic connection she had with Andy—was
not
something she was going to share with Oliver. “He has a good voice?” she said lightly.

Oliver snorted. “Come on. You can do better.”

“He's smart, he's caring, he has so much integrity about his work—”

“He thinks he's God, you mean.”

“You may be right about that.” Christina smiled. “And we have a lot in common. We both lost our spouses, and we were both lonely—”

“My dad lonely? Not!” Oliver shook the ketchup bottle vigorously.

“Why do you say that?”

“He's been dating from practically the
second
we buried her,” he said bitterly. “It's like he couldn't
wait
.”

“He loved your mother very much.”

“I know. But when she died, he wanted to, like, put it behind him. Immediately.”

“Whereas you wanted to stay in that place for a while longer.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I did. I still do, I guess.”

He took a bite of his sandwich. “I'll bet
you
didn't have, like, a dozen guys buzzing around the minute
your
husband died.”

“No,” she said. “I didn't.”

“He was relieved when it finally happened. He never said it, but I could tell.” His bright blue eyes probed her expression. “I was too. I mean, she was in
so
much pain.”

“I understand,” she said. “It must have been horrible.”

“It was.” He ate another fry before speaking again. “How did your husband die anyway?”

“In a fire,” she said. “It happened quickly. Or at least that's what the fire marshal told me and I so badly wanted to believe him.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn't have asked.”

“It's all right,” she told him. “You wanted to know.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“A wall of flame engulfed him. I had to identify him by the buckle of his belt; the belt was mostly gone, but the buckle hadn't melted completely. It was fused to the little bit of leather that was left.” She looked down at her salad. “I still have it.”

“You do?”

She nodded, picturing the charred rectangle covered by the charred buckle; both resided in the blue Tiffany box that had once housed the silver bracelet she always wore.

“Was he, like, the only person who got killed?”

“The only one. He went back in to save a girl; it was an insane thing to do. But the fire department hadn't gotten there yet. And I know he couldn't have lived with himself if anything had happened to her while she was on his watch.”

“And did he? Save her?” Oliver said.

“Yes,” said Christina. “She came to see me when she got out of the hospital. Her parents came too. Their relief was so enormous it was like some force field, almost a
glow
that emanated from them. I'll never forget it.”

“Wow,” Oliver said. “Your husband—he was
a hero.”

“He was.” Christina looked at him. His struggle to understand what had happened—to Will, to his mother—was so visible on his open, undefended face. She wanted to take him in her arms, but she didn't know him well enough for that. Maybe she never would. Yet here she was telling him things she had not shared with his father. Death, it turned out, was even more intimate than sex.

The waitress returned to clear the table and asked whether they wanted dessert. Christina ordered a black coffee, but Oliver opted for rice pudding piled high with whipped cream. “I wish you were having Thanksgiving with us,” he said.

“Me too.” Given Jordan's open hostility, Christina and Andy thought it best not to celebrate together. He and Oliver were going to Andy's mother's; Christina was planning to spend the morning helping prepare and serve a meal at her church, and for the afternoon she had invited Mimi Farnsworth over with her sons. But now she realized that maybe there was a way that Oliver and Andy could spend at least part of the day with her. “What time do you go to your grandmother's?”

“Around five.”

“So you're free in the morning.” She sipped her coffee.

“Yeah.”

“Why not come to church with me? Not for a service,” she quickly added. “A bunch of us volunteer to make Thanksgiving dinner for the residents of a local shelter.”

“You make food for, like, homeless people?”

“Yes,” Christina said. “That's exactly what we do.”

“I am
so
down with that.”

It took Christina a moment to realize he was saying yes. “Your father can come too,” she added. “That is, if he wants to.”

“Yeah, he'll want to,” Oliver said. The rice pudding was gone. “He likes pretending he cares about other people.”

“Do you really think he's so bad?” she asked, and when he didn't answer, she gave in to the urge to reach across the table and tousle his blond hair. Then she tensed, waiting for the push back. There was none.

•   •   •

Emerging
from the subway station, Christina turned the corner and began walking up Carroll Street. There they were again—the Indian couple. Only this time they had two other people with them; one had a camera and was taking pictures of her house. She accelerated her pace, wanting to catch them in the act. What right did they have to take photographs? But before she reached them, her phone buzzed. It was Phoebe Haverstick. Christina hesitated; she did not want to miss Phoebe's call, but she wanted to talk to these people as well. In her moment of hesitation, the Indian man saw her coming and tapped the photographer on the shoulder. He turned in her direction and then they all scurried into the waiting car. They were gone by the time Christina reached the house.

“—and I hope I'm not disturbing you,” Phoebe was saying. “But I really needed to talk to you.”

“Is everything all right?”

“It's the painting,” Phoebe said.

“The portrait.” Christina thought again of the clear-eyed girl and her wondrous hair. The Indian couple began to recede.

“Ian thinks we can get a lot of money for it. More than a million dollars, in fact.”

“That
is
a lot of money.”

“The problem is I don't want to sell it,” said Phoebe. “I'd like my girls to be able to live with it. Grow up with it, even.”

“If money is not a pressing issue—,” said Christina.

“It's not,” Phoebe said. “We'll have enough money to pay for college. Ian earns a good salary, plus we have investments, savings. My aunt left us money too; she was always very generous.”

“Well, if you don't have to sell it, you shouldn't. It seems to mean a lot to you.” Christina wondered about the reason for this call; Phoebe had already made her decision.

“That's what I think. Ian doesn't see it that way, though. He thinks of it the same way he thinks of my great-aunt's furniture—another piece of junk.”

“Very valuable junk,” Christina murmured. “In more ways than one.”

“He says he sees no reason to live with
a
useless artifact from an outmoded time
. Those were his words, or close enough.”

“That's really too bad,” Christina said. “But I'm still not seeing how I can help you.” She had not yet let herself into the house.

“You know the appraiser. Maybe he could help. He could explain that the painting would appreciate in value and that the children would be able to sell it at some point if they wanted to.”

“Couldn't you tell him that?”

“I know Ian. He thinks I'm being sentimental. But if he hears it from an expert, he might see it differently.”

“That's true.” She took out her key and opened the door. Just as she was going inside, she caught a glimpse of Charlotte Bickford opening
her
door—and then shutting it again very quickly.

“Please, would you do this for me? I'd be so grateful.”

Christina thought it over. It would be a smart move to help Phoebe, who was after all paying her for an extensive job. But even more than the self-interest involved, she felt some empathy for this woman, some sense of kinship born of their mutual regard for that painting. Christina understood the deep tug that objects exerted. “All right,” she said. “I'll call Derrick.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Phoebe effused.

Christina walked into her office in search of Derrick's number. She had not heard from him since that awkward encounter at his loft. Maybe if she made it clear she was calling in a purely professional manner, he'd pick up or respond. But when she called the number on Derrick's card, she was surprised to hear a recorded voice telling her that the number was no longer in service and no further information was available.