Authors: S.W. Hubbard
Cal holds his hand up and glances around the restaurant.
Right. Not the best place to be discussing Agnes’s larcenous habits. I think I’m blowing my beautiful evening out, but my need to know how Agnes got my mother’s ring is greater than my need to charm Cal. “Can we talk about it later?”
Cal nods, but then he can’t let the matter drop. “She worked hard all her life, Audrey. Her husband was sick for years. She never had two cents to call her own. When I saw the stuff, I knew.”
Now I’m the one who reaches for his hand. “I understand. It’s not so terrible—seems like none of it was ever missed.”
Cal touches my ring. “Your mom never wondered what happened to this?”
“My mom disappeared on Christmas Eve when I was three years old.”
Cal signals the waiter. “Let’s get out of here.”
Back at my place, several glasses of cognac later, I’ve told Cal the entire story of my life—my mother’s disappearance, my father’s estrangement, my suspicions that my mother might have been pregnant, my determination to know the entire truth.
“Finding the ring after thirty years, and then nearly dying two days later—what can I say? All that stuff you hear about near-death experiences is true. I feel liberated, like I’m finally free to do exactly what I want to do.” All the booze has loosened my tongue. I’m saying things that I never realized I felt. “All my life I tried to keep my grandparents happy, and my father—he’s impossible to make happy, but I tried not to make him more unhappy. But this I’m doing for me. I deserve to know what happened to my mother.”
“Of course you do.” Cal pulls me close to him on the sofa and studies the ring on my finger. “I don’t know when my Aunt Agnes crossed your mother’s path. She didn’t keep records of the families she worked for, and she was always paid off the books.”
“I’m pretty sure she never worked for us—my father always used an agency. But there has to be some link between our families. Do you remember her talking about the people she worked for? Any names at all?”
Cal shakes his head. “I really didn’t spend much time with her, Audrey. She wasn’t our most fun-loving relative.”
“Who would know? Your mom?”
“Maybe. I’ll ask.” Cal massages his temples. “When I ask her what the hell I should do about all that stolen jewelry. That should be a great conversation. My mother’s policy is to ignore all unpleasantness and shoot any messenger who brings it to her door. Thanks for keeping the trunk for me, by the way. I’ll take it off your hands after the election, I promise.”
“If your mom can’t tell you who Agnes worked for, you’re not going to be able to return the stuff to the rightful owners.”
“I know. I’d like to toss it in the Passaic River, but in politics you can always be sure a reporter will pop up at the worst possible time.”
“I have an idea. Whenever we have stuff left over from a sale that’s too good to throw away, we ask the estate if they’d like to donate it to this community group in Newark run by Sister Alice. She always finds a way to sell it or use it.”
Cal raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know—how are you going to explain a trunk full of jewelry to a nun? I don’t want it traced back to me.”
“She won’t ask questions. Sister Alice is a great believer in the hand of God. She’ll see that jewelry as the divine intervention she needs to get her furnace repaired.”
“Okay, I like the Robin Hood angle. Just to be on the safe side, can we wait ‘til after the election to give it to her? ”
“Sure.”
“Thank you.” Cal brushes his lips across my forehead.
Oh, God—here it comes! Can I do this?
“You’re so tense, Audrey. Relax.”
He runs his hands along my back and pulls me close to him. I let out a little moan.
Ethel comes over and tries to insinuate herself between us. I nudge her away with my knee.
I can definitely do this.
I don’t cross the threshold of the office until nearly eleven, and before I can stagger to my desk someone starts pounding on the door. Each knock is like a jackhammer to my aching head, so I rush back to the door to shut the insistent fool up. I‘m greeted by a delivery man with a monumental bouquet of flowers, which is why Jill is now kvelling.
“Ooo, Audge! Who sent them?”
Of course it has to be Cal, but he left my bed only three hours ago, after which I fell back into a fitful doze. How could he have managed to get these flowers here so quickly, when I’m still too exhausted and hung over to even contemplate a bowl of Cheerios?
I stagger slightly as I read the card tucked among the lilies and iris. Maybe it’s the cognac still circulating in my bloodstream, or maybe it’s the message: “You’re on my mind, Cal.”
“Who sent them?” Jill continues to demand. She’s as puzzled by my stunned response as she is by the lavish arrangement.
“Cal Tremaine.”
Jill cocks her head, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Ethel when she’s trying to discern the source of distant barking. “Wow, Audge—this is the second time he’s sent you flowers. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing. That’s the kind of guy he is.”
A player.
I know that. This thing with Cal is nothing serious, but I can still enjoy it, right? I’m finally doing what my friend Maura is always encouraging me to do: change up my game. Maura accuses me of always dating what she refers to so charmingly as “pencil dicks”—thin, mournful intellectuals. Why not try a fireman, a lacrosse coach, a bond trader? You might be surprised how much you like it, she tells me. Oh, yes, Maura would approve of Cal. The attention, the flowers, the sex: all good, as long as I accept it for what it is.
A hook-up.
Having escaped Jill’s prying eyes by inventing errands to run, I now stand in the lobby of a big boxy office building staring at the board listing the tenants. Burke and Fein, the first PR firm on my Chamber of Commerce list, is on the third floor. Will they know anything about my mother? Will I even be able to talk my way in to find out? My work has made me adept at persuading people to do what they secretly long to do. (I’m sure your grandmother would
want
you to sell her mink coat if you’ll never wear it. That sterling flatware could pay off your student loans—why not let me find a buyer?) But I’m less confident in my powers of persuasion when it comes to convincing people to do what I want. I take a steadying breath and press the button for the elevator. The doors slide open before I have the chance to cut and run.
The minute I step into the Burke and Fein reception area I’m filled with doubt. The vibe is all wrong here: utilitarian office furniture, factory-produced “art,” a honeycomb of cubicles stretching out from either side of a long hallway. Surely my mother never worked here. Of course, the Burke and Fein of thirty years ago might have been less antiseptic. But still…
“May I help you?” the efficient looking woman at the front desk asks.
I stammer out my request. My fears that my cover story would sound implausible were groundless. This woman wants nothing more than to process me out of her reception area—either back into the maze or out the door, it matters not to her. With a few clicks of her computer and buzzes of her intercom she has my answer. This firm was never located on Reston Ave; Charlotte Perry never worked here.
Out the door I go.
The reaction at the second PR firm on my list is much the same: no Reston Ave, no Charlotte Perry. I get back in the car to drive to the third address. Traffic is stop and go, and as I glance in the rearview mirror before changing lanes, I notice a small gray car with the dinged front bumper. Wasn’t that car parked across the street from Burke and Fein when I left? I watch it behind me for three blocks. Then I turn right and it keeps going straight. I realize I’ve been gripping the steering wheel awfully tightly, and peel my fingers back. Paranoia really isn’t my style—I’ve got to relax.
As soon as I pull up in front of The Van Houten Group, I feel a tingle of anticipation. The red brick building looks as if it started life as a standard issue suburban bank, and somewhere along the way encountered a post-modern architecture fairy. Two wings cantilever out of the building’s sides at improbable angles. The front wall is solid glass. The Van Houten Group is etched on a slab of granite by the curb. This is the kind of firm that could have started out in a Victorian on Reston Ave.; I’m sure of it.
Two steps into the foyer and I’m overcome with wardrobe anxiety. Everything is smoky gray and stainless steel. I should be wearing black, as I’m sure all the employees here are required to do. Certainly the receptionist, with her long raven hair, short black dress and high black boots, blends in chameleon-like with her surroundings. Her black mascaraed eyes scan me from top to bottom. She pauses a beat, then speaks. “And you have an appointment with…?”
All right, obviously I don’t look like one of their regular clients, but does she have to treat me like a Jehovah’s Witness? As I stammer out an explanation, a young man in big rectangular glasses (black, natch) glides up to her desk and adds his curious stare.
“We’ve been in this space for seven years,” he says with authority. “Before that we were somewhere on the west side of Palmyrton, I believe.”
“Reston Avenue,” a deep voice says from behind me.
I see Black Glasses exchange a glance with Black Boots.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Van Houten.” The receptionist strides out from behind her desk, skates around me, and holds her arms out to the old man who’s just entered. “Let me take your coat.”
“Who are you?” he asks me. His voice is imperious but not insulting. Sharp blue eyes stare at me from under a crest of pure white hair. I feel compelled to tell the absolute truth.
“Audrey Nealon, Charlotte Perry’s daughter. Did she used to work here?”
“Charlotte Perry!” His whole face lights up. “You’re her daughter? My God, the last time I saw you, you were wearing a pink hat with bunny ears.” His eyes narrow to a squint. “You don’t look much like her.”
“So I’ve been told. Did you know her well?”
“Oh, my yes. I hired her.”
Now I’m the one whose face lights up. “Look, I understand if this is not a good time, but could I talk to you for a few minutes about my mother? I mean, I can make an appointment and come back…”
“Tamberlynn.” Mr. Van Houten’s voice is as sharp as a finger snap. “Bring Miss Nealon and me some coffee in my office. And take her coat.”
As Tamberlynn scrambles to do his bidding, Mr. Van Houten smiles at me and extends his arm. “Right this way my dear.”
Van Houten’s office is a shrine to Mid-century modern. There’s a Milo Baughman chrome sofa and a Morris Lapidus coffee table. Gingerly, I sit in an Eames chair opposite his desk. I’m sure this is the real deal and it takes every ounce of self-control I possess not to flip the chair over and check for the trademark underneath. I should be thinking about what I want to ask the man, but my eyes keep darting around, lighting on the kinds of things I’d kill to find in the homes of aging baby boomers being shipped off to assisted living: Eero Saarinen stools, Heathware pottery, a chrome cigarette lighter, even though no one can smoke in offices. Finally, I bring my attention back to Mr. Van Houten. That’s when I notice the framed painting above his desk. I’m out of my chair in a flash.
“My God! Is that a David Salle?”
He swivels in his chair to watch me studying his artwork. “Yes, one of his early pieces. You know his work?”
I tell him the story of the Lee Krasner I found in the home of an old drunk. Van Houten looks pleased.
“You have a keen eye for quality. So did your mother. She was with me when I acquired that painting at a gallery in Soho.” He chuckles. “That was when Soho was quite disreputable.”
“Really?” I have an intense desire to touch the painting, or even the simple black frame. I clasp my hands behind my back and turn to face him. Van Houten looks to be about ten years older than my father. What was he doing taking my mother to Soho art shows in the seventies?
He seems to pluck the question right out of my mind. “In those days, this firm had all sorts of dodgy clients who couldn’t afford to pay their bills. The gallery owner went to art school with someone who worked here. He hired us to get publicity for his shows, and then couldn’t come up with any cash. So I agreed to take a painting instead. Your mother chose that one. It’s valued at two hundred thousand today. Not bad for getting
New York
and the
Village Voice
to write a few lines about the show, eh?”
I feel a slow smile spread across my face. Maybe I did inherit some traits from my mother after all. “Thanks for telling me that. I was only three when she disappeared, and I’ve always felt I wasn’t much like her.”
“No one was like Charlotte. She was one of a kind.”
Oh cripes—here it comes. The Charlotte Perry was an angel come to earth routine. Somehow I’d expected better than that from Mr. Van Houten.
“Hell to work with, of course. Demanding, temperamental, volatile. Couldn’t keep a secretary. Alienated a few clients who had the nerve to disagree with her. But when she had one of her strokes of insight—look out.” The old man shakes his head. “She would’ve been one of the PR greats. Such a shame she didn’t live to see the 21
st
century. The internet, blogs, YouTube—she could have done so much with today’s media.”
There’s a timid knock on the door and Tamberlynn enters with the coffee. The break gives me a chance to collect my thoughts. So, my mother wasn’t a saint. Secretaries hated her. She ticked people off. I feel an uneasy trembling in my jaw. Christ, I can’t cry here! But Van Houten has opened up a new view of my mother, as if he chopped down a tree to reveal a panorama that’s always been there. I like this new, flawed mother. I miss her.
As the door closes behind Tamberlynn, Van Houten leans back in his chair and spends an inordinate amount of time doctoring his coffee. Then he fixes his bright blue stare on me. “Your mother’s been dead for thirty years, Miss Nealon. Why are you inquiring about her now?”
The old man sure doesn’t pull any punches. Completely direct, says what he means, leaves no room for misinterpretation. What a welcome change of pace from my father. Or Cal, for that matter. I find myself twisting the pearl ring on my finger. When I realize what I’m doing, I force myself to stop, but the impulse remains like an unscratched itch.
“That was your mother’s ring, no?” Mr. Van Houten asks.
“Yes.” I can admit that without saying how I got it. Why would I tell him about Mrs. Szabo’s attic when I’ve told no one else? But his directness seems to demand honesty in return. I extend my hand.
“Supposedly my mother never took this ring off. So, she should have been wearing it the night she…disappeared.” I’ve stopped saying died. “But I found it a few weeks ago. Found it in the attic of an old lady’s house. Her name was Agnes Szabo—does that name mean anything to you?”
Mr. Van Houten arches his bushy white eyebrows. After a lifetime in PR, his mental address book must hold thousands of names. He’s processing Mrs. Szabo. I wait anxiously.
Ultimately he shakes his head. “Szabo—an unusual name. It doesn’t ring a bell. Where was this house?”
When I tell him the address his eyebrows tick up another quarter inch, as if to say, “What would Charlotte have been doing
there
?” He continues to gaze at me appraisingly. “So finding this ring has caused you to….?”
Turn into an obsessed lunatic. Question my sanity .
“Well, it made me wonder, wonder what really happened that night. You know, the last minute gifts on Christmas Eve, the car accident.” I’m rambling now. “I mean, you knew her. Does that seem plausible to you?”
Van Houten sits without speaking. His eyebrows have descended to their rightful place.
I keep blathering. “I’ve started wondering if my father…and my grandparents…if they were entirely truthful with me, about, you know, my mother. I mean, they always portrayed her as this, this saint. And you’re the first person to say she wasn’t and, well, I wonder if the whole last minute Christmas gifts, drowning in the lake story makes sense to you?” My ramble ends on a high-pitched, inquisitive note.
The eyebrows are creeping up again. “And the alternative would be…what?”
That she ran away.
I can’t speak those words aloud, so I change tacks. “Do you remember the weeks before that Christmas? Did my mother seem different to you? Excited? Keyed-up?”
Van Houten smiles. “Charlotte was always keyed up. And impulsive, so I accepted that she might have run out for Christmas gifts in a snow storm.” He leans back in his chair and makes a steeple of his long, gnarled fingers. “But yes, now that you mention it, I recall she did seem rather more excitable than usual in those weeks before she died. As if she were about to burst.”
This is it—I lean forward eagerly. “Burst about what? Did she tell you what was going on?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, so I leap in with more questions. “Could she have just found out she was pregnant?”