by Susan Wiggs
“Oh, my God. No wonder you collapsed and went to the hospital. How did you get there? Did some big hunky EMT rescue you?”
“You got the big and hunky part right. Dominic took me.”
“The banker guy?” Neelie’s eyes widened in bafflement. In their lexicon, “banker” was code for boring.
“He waited for me, too. I think he felt guilty for making my head explode.”
“I certainly hope so.” Neelie rummaged around in a cupboard and found a pair of big mugs for the soup. “What did the doctors say?”
“That my head is about to explode. Or, more accurately, my heart.” Tess showed her the information from the ER.
“Oh, my gosh. I’m scared for you, Tess.”
“I’m scared for me.”
“Then you need to take care of yourself. You’re all stressed out and this bomb that just got dropped on you... It’s too much for anyone to process. First thing, you need some time off work.”
“No way.” Tess’s reaction was swift, automatic. “I don’t take time off work for anything.”
“How do you suppose you got yourself into this situation, anyway, hmm?” Neelie led her to the kitchen bar, forced her to sit down. “Eat. Chicken soup. I hear it’s good for the soul.”
“I don’t think the problem is with my soul.”
“Whatever. Eat. You’re too skinny. And as you know, skinny girls tend to piss off their friends.” Neelie handed her a warm fresh bread roll from the deli bag.
Tess bit into the roll, redolent of herbs and butter. “I’m glad you’re my friend,” she said.
Neelie’s fingers flew over the screen of her phone. “There,” she said. “I just sent a text to Jude. Told him to let your office know you’re taking some time—”
“What? Give me that.” Tess grabbed for the phone.
Neelie held it out of reach. “Too late. Just eat the damn soup, Tess.”
Resentfully, Tess sampled the soup. Delicious, but it tasted like defeat. “Today was supposed to be my big breakthrough at work. I had a meeting with Dane Sheffield himself. I’m pretty sure he was going to offer me a position most people only dream about—New York, right alongside the biggest players in the field. And I stood him up.”
“You had a personal emergency. Tess, you get to have a life. I think what happened today is a sign that you need to have a life.” Neelie paged through the recommendations from the ER. “So this is perfect. You need down time. You could take some time, go to Archangel, figure out what this guy is talking about—a grandfather. A sister. In Archangel. I’ve been there, you know.”
“Archangel?”
“It’s in Sonoma County—the prettiest part, if you ask me. Boutique wineries everywhere, some of them world class. Ivar took me there—remember Ivar, the Norwegian hottie?”
“Two or three boyfriends ago.”
“We stayed at a B and B. There’s this amazing town square, fruit stands everywhere, scenery so gorgeous it doesn’t even seem real. Wines you won’t find anywhere else in the world. It was magic. It’s the kind of place that makes you question why you live in the city.”
“Because we have work here. Jobs and friends. Duh.”
“Well, whether you like it or not, you have some personal matters to see to in Archangel. I know you, Tess. If you don’t go, you’re going to stress out about it, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to be avoiding. You’re going to lie awake at night wondering about this sister, and the poor old guy who fell off the ladder.” She grabbed Dominic Rossi’s card from the top of a stack of mail on the counter. “I’m calling him for you.”
“Don’t—”
“Eat.”
“Bossy old thing,” Tess muttered. But she ate.
* * *
The next day, Tess jumped out of bed, surprised by the time showing on the screen of her phone, but not in the least surprised that there was no message from her mother.
Leaping up, she rushed through brushing teeth and hair, pulling on dark wash jeans and a black cashmere turtleneck. Then she yanked open the closet and surveyed the cluttered press of clothing in her overstuffed closet. What did one take to the probable deathbed of a stranger, and to see a sister one had never met?
She flung a variety of items into an overnight bag, dropped her phone into the no-man’s-land that was her purse, then added the charger, as well. This development—Archangel, Bella Vista, Magnus and Isabel—had left her completely scattered. She had no idea how to feel about all that had happened.
Figure out what the next step is, and then take it. Miss Winther’s words drifted unbidden into Tess’s mind.
“Okay, so the next step is—”
The buzzer went off.
“Answer the door,” she muttered. Dammit, he was faster than she’d expected. Her apartment was in its usual state of disarray. She made no apology for that, though the arrival of Dominic Rossi made her self-conscious about her messy habits—piles of research clutter on the coffee table, sticky notes everywhere because she didn’t trust her memory, last night’s dishes she hadn’t bothered to do, hand-washed lingerie draped over a lamp in the corner.
Too bad, she thought. She wasn’t going to change her ways just to impress some banker.
However, the word banker did not compute when she opened the door and looked up at him. For some reason, he had the kind of face that drained her IQ down to two-digit territory.
“Um. I’m not ready,” she said.
“I’ll wait until you are,” he replied easily. “I’m glad you called, Tess. How are you?”
“What? Oh, that. I’m okay. Really. You know, I never properly thanked you for helping out at the hospital, for being there.”
“I wasn’t expecting thanks. I’m glad you’re all right.” And he gave her that slow smile of his, brandishing it like a secret weapon. “Mind if I come in?”
“No, I just need a few minutes more.” She felt a little self-conscious, watching him as he looked around her place. The apartment made perfect sense to her, but to a stranger, the old things probably seemed eccentric, or at the very least, sentimental.
“I like your place,” he said, checking out a walnut radio console on the counter. “Is this a family heirloom?”
“Yes.” She closed up her laptop and started rummaging around for its case. “Not my family, though. That radio—there’s a message on the back.”
He turned it and read, “‘To Walter, a very brave boy, at Christmas. 1943.’ Who was Walter?”
“I’m not sure. I just... I’m drawn to things that have a past. A story.”
He picked up a deck prism, which she used as a paperweight.
“That’s from the Mary Dare, wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia in 1876. The prisms were used to let light in below decks.” She found the laptop case and put it with her overnight bag.
“And this?” He held up an elongated piece of carved ivory, with scrimshaw etchings on the surface.
“It’s called a he’s-at-home.”
“Which is...?”
“A sex toy,” she said, trying not to laugh as he quickly set the thing down. “On Nantucket Island, back in the days of whaling, the women used to get lonely when the men were gone for years at a time, hunting whales.”
“No wonder whaling was outlawed.”
“I need to grab a few more things,” she said, ducking into the bedroom. Having a guy in her apartment had awakened her vanity, and she decided to add a few things to her bag. “Help yourself to something from the fridge,” she called into the next room. At the same time, she thought, Please do not look in the fridge.
“Thanks,” he said, and she heard the refrigerator door open. “Maybe I’ll grab something to drink.”
She cringed as he said, “You’ve got a stack of notebooks and papers in your fridge.”
“Why, yes,” she said casually, returning to the kitchen. “Yes, I do.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because there was no more room in the freezer.” Hi
s puzzled expression made her want to laugh. “Those are my handwritten notes and papers. They’re one-of-a-kind. I have no backup copy until I get them typed up.”
“So you keep them in the refrigerator.”
“If the place burns down, they’ll be safe in there.”
He nodded. “Good plan.”
“And to answer the next obvious question, yes, I have a fireproof safe. But I misplaced the combination and it’s too small anyway.”
“What is it that you do?”
“I’m a provenance expert. I authenticate things—art, jewelry, family heirlooms.”
“Sounds...unusual. Interesting.” He swung the refrigerator door wider and checked out the shelves. She had a supply of key lime yogurt, some boxed Chinese leftovers and a twelve pack of the only beverage she drank regularly—Red Bull. The energy drink was probably all kinds of bad for her, but it kept her from falling asleep on the job.
Dominic held a bottle up to the light. “Is this even legal?”
“Don’t judge,” she said, whipping a pair of purple lace panties off the lamp where she’d hung them to dry. She hoped he hadn’t noticed.
“Nice panties,” he said.
Okay, so he’d noticed.
“Again I say, don’t judge.”
“Never,” he promised and twisted the cap off the soda bottle. He took a swig, and she could see him visibly trying not to gag. “You can tell a lot about a person by the place where she lives,” he observed.
“Oh, really? What can you tell about me?”
“You like puzzles.” He gestured at a stack of newspaper crosswords, anagrams and brain teasers, all of them obsessively completed.
“So sue me. What else?”
He perused a collection of yellowed documents and daguerreotypes. “You live in the past.”
“No. I study the past for my work. I live in the here and now, which is perfectly fine for me. It’s wonderful for me.”
“Right. Got it.”
She knew he didn’t mean to seem critical when he said she lived in the past, yet she felt criticized, as though she’d done something wrong. “I have a fascination for puzzles and old things. At least I’m not a hoarder. Please tell me you don’t think I’m a hoarder.”
“I don’t think you’re a hoarder. Your collection of old things is fascinating. I’ve never met a girl who had a he’s-at-home.”
“As far as you know,” she said.
“As far as I know. Tell me about the desk,” he said, gesturing at Nana’s kneehole postmaster desk. It was by far the most dominant object in the place, almost architectural in its size and presence.
“I thought you were analyzing me,” she said, trying to keep it light. She hoped they would both manage to keep things light between them, but it was hard. Because even though she barely knew this guy, she liked talking to him way too much. She liked the way he looked at her, the way he actually seemed to care.
“I am,” he said. “Tell me about the desk.”
He had to ask. It was the one thing in her apartment that was truly personal, truly hers, not some object with a history that had nothing to do with her. “My grandmother had a shop in Dublin. When I was a girl, I spent a lot of time with her there because my mother was always traveling for her work. Nana was a dealer in art and antiques.”
“That’s cool. You lived in Ireland?”
“Up until I came to the States for college.”
“A redheaded Irish woman,” he said.
“Don’t ask me if I have a temper to match. Then I’d have to hurt you.”
“Thanks for the warning. So your desk...”
“Was in Nana’s shop. Antiques and ephemera, she used to tell people—called Things Forgotten. I can still picture her there, working at the desk. She was beautiful, my nana, and Things Forgotten was my favorite place in the world. To a little kid, it seemed magical, like a world filled with treasures.” Tess couldn’t deny the feelings that came over her as she shared her private memories with this stranger, as if telling him about some nostalgic dream was going to help her finally make sense of her life.
Sometimes, in the middle of a tedious or frustrating transaction, or when she stood in an endless airport security line just knowing she was about to miss a connecting flight, Tess thought about Nana’s shop. She imagined what it might be like to try a different path. Every once in a while, she wondered what it might be like to take a risk and open her own elegant antiques shop, one that had the same look and feel of the shop run by her grandmother, long ago. It was where the fondest memories of her childhood lay, hung with the ineffable scent of nostalgia—the dried bergamot and bayberry her grandmother kept in glass bowls around the place. She merely thought about it, though, because there was no way she would give up her hard-won role at Sheffield’s.
“Do you get back to see her?” asked Dominic.
“She passed away when I was fifteen.”
“Sorry to hear that. It’s nice that you kept her desk.”
“Is it? Sometimes I wonder if it’s an albatross dragging me down.”
“An anchor.”
“I like that better.” Turning away to hide a smile, she zipped up her bag. “Ready,” she said. “I guess. I’m not really sure how to be ready for any of this.”
He picked up her bag. She scanned the place one more time, then followed him outside.
She was surprised to see a taxi waiting on the street in front of the house. When he’d offered to take her to Archangel, she’d assumed he would be doing the driving.
“Isn’t it, like, sixty miles to Archangel?” she asked.
“Seventy-eight. It’s in the northern part of the county.”
“Who’s picking up the fare?”
He held the rear passenger door for her. “We’re not taking a taxi all the way.”
“Then—”
“I’ve got a faster way to travel.”
* * *
Tess stood on a floating dock at Pier 39, regarding the twin-engine plane, bobbing at its moorings. Nearby, piles of glossy brown sea lions lazed on the floating docks, occasionally lifting their whiskered faces to the sun. San Francisco had its own ocean smell, redolent of marine life and urban bustle—diesel and frying food, fresh breezes and the catch of the day.
“If you’re trying to impress me,” she said, eyeing the small plane, “it’s working.”
He didn’t say anything as he placed her suitcase in a wing compartment. Then he took off his suit coat and tucked it in, as well. She was not surprised to see a label from a well-known tailor. Yet, although the suit was well cared for, it was definitely not new.
He unlocked the cockpit and unfurled the mooring ropes. He had the shoulders and arms of a longshoreman, yet he moved with a peculiar athletic grace. She’d never known anyone remotely like him.
“Something wrong?” he asked her.
Caught staring, she ducked her head and tried to hold a blush at bay. “Archangel is inland, isn’t it? So I was wondering where this plane will land.”
He opened the door. “She’s amphibious.” Grasping Tess’s hand, he helped her into a seat, then climbed up behind her.
Turning to him, she frowned. “Where’s the pilot?”
“You’re looking at him.” He started flipping switches on the intricate array on the dashboard.
“You’re a pilot?”
“Yeah. Want to see my license?”
“Not necessary. Or should I be more skeptical?”
“Seat belt,” he said. “And put this headset on. It’s going to get noisy in here.” He got out and shoved off, expertly balancing on a pontoon as he stowed the mooring lines. In one fluid movement, he swung himself into the pilot’s seat, put on his seat belt and headset and started the engine.
The twin propellers spun into translucent circles, pulling the small craft past the flotillas of sea lions and out into open water. Tess gasped as the takeoff stole her breath. For the next few minutes, she was glued to the window, admiring the view.
San Francisco Bay was always a sight to behold, but from the air on a sunny day, it was pure magic. As the plane climbed through the sky, she looked over at Dominic, and the entire experience took on a surreal quality. She had flown all over the world, but this felt different, like a forbidden intimacy with a man she’d just met.
Once again, he caught her staring. He turned a dial on his headset. “Everything all right?”
His voice sounded distinct yet tinny in her ears.
“Under the circumstances,” she said. “It’s not every day I go flying with a strange man in a private airplane.” I could get used to it, though, she thought.
“I’m not strange. I’m a banker,” he said.
“You must be a really good one.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I assume most bankers don’t have their own private planes.”
“This doesn’t belong to me,” he said. His expression changed just a little, but she didn’t know him and couldn’t read his face. There were things about this guy that didn’t add up, and she found herself wanting to put him together like one of her most challenging puzzles.
He was uniquely distracting in a number of ways. He had brought her some extremely hard-to-digest news, yet he’d delivered it in person, and with compassion. He’d waited through her ordeal at the ER. Now Tess was about to find out about a whole part of herself that had been in the shadows until now. It was like cracking open a door and peeking through to an unknown world within. She’d yearned for family all her life, and it turned out they were here, all along, just a short distance away. The thought of all she’d missed made her heart ache. Her mother had a lot to answer for.
“Down there on your left,” Dominic said as the city fell away behind them. “It’s the Point Reyes lighthouse.”
The slender tower of the light, perched on an outcropping of rock at the end of a precarious twist of steps, passed in a sweep of color. The plane seemed to skim along the craggy cliff tops while the ocean leaped and roared as it crashed against the rocks. They went northward along the craggy coastline, ragged fingers reaching out into the ocean. After a while, the plane banked and turned inland, over hills and ridges of farmland. The orchards, vineyards and dairies formed a crazy quilt of impossible shades of green and autumn colors, the sections stitched together by the silvery threads of rivers, flumes and canals, or the straight dark stretches of roads. The small towns of wine country sprang up, toylike, almost precious in their beauty, yet robust with commerce. She could see cars and utility vehicles on the roads, and farm equipment churning across the fields. Tess felt herself getting farther and farther from her life in the city.