After I'm Buried Alive

by Catharine Bramkamp

  Who else would know about this? Everyone else. Miranda was a social creature given to routinely revealing more information that anyone wanted to hear.

  Which clearly was a bad, bad thing.

  Chapter 7

  My superpower is I am trustworthy. Back in the day, Miranda signed me on all her accounts. I was the chief signer on all of Max’s accounts. I paid all my parents' bills and monitored their assets I retrieved cash from ATMs, I sold art and took the proceeds, no questions asked. I even piled the most precious of Max’s collection into an obscure storage facility, so obscure Max didn’t even want to know where it was. Now that is trust.

  I was better known at the bank than Miranda, but it had been a good four years since I walked into the Republic Bank on her behalf. Would Phillip, junior clerk, still be there? I remembered encouraging him to propose to his girlfriend of six years. And just before I took off for Egypt, he had popped the question. While I worried about his love life, he worried that I was too much at the beck and call by my formidable friend.

  “You need your own life, Signora,” he insisted every time he opened the safe deposit box for me.

  “This is my life.” I countered, lightly.

  I was like a tiny ushabtis, working away in both this life and probably the afterlife as well. It was part of the deal, how I earned my keep.

  I would deposit the hippo and its attendants into what I remembered was a commodious safe deposit box. Phillip would help me, but no one else at the bank, standing around, working carefully against the pending avalanche of paper and rules, would remember me or remark on what I was doing. Would the typically slow bureaucracy and form filling and delays work to my advantage? It drove Max crazy. He was so acutely aware of time running out that every day was a race to get things down now, today: take the old sample books to storage today, clear out the closet right now, file these papers this afternoon.

  The deposit box key wasn’t in her desk. I looked in the bright red Murano glass dish on that shelf where we kept the house keys. Nope.

  One would have thought, I certainly did, that a safe deposit key was important. Had the thief taken it as second prize? A participation trophy? But the key was devoid of bank logos or addresses. If the thief had taken the key, they would not know where it belonged.

  Think, think.

  The light on the ceiling wavered and picked out highlights from the paintings. So many. She had been busy while I was away, and obviously no one was around to help her replace, so she just added. One painting hanging above the other.

  I wanted to sit on the lanai and contemplate the colors on the canal. I needed a nap. I needed to find the safe deposit key.

  What would Miranda do if she knew the next people to look for something like a key or a treasure would be Lucy or Tiffany?

  She would screw with them.

  I returned to the bed and the hidden drawer. Sure enough. The safe deposit key was taped to the side of the toy box. Oh Miranda.

  For this errand I did not want to attract attention. According to my mother, nice girls did not call attention to themselves. I had years of practice doing just that, being invisible; it was a brilliant skill for a photographer's assistant, and it would help me today.

  A close friend commented that the bigger he gets, the less he is seen. A little extra weight helps make you forgettable.

  I already had the rather long curly gray hair. I bundled that up in a low bun.

  I hunted through Miranda’s clothes for something pastel, like what that Paula on the water taxi wore. In fact, if I could create that look, I’d be home free.

  My own jeans would do.

  I found a pale blue sweater, cashmere, but that couldn’t be helped, and I topped it off with a blue and tan flowered scarf. Which must have been a gift since Miranda favored black and red.

  I was already wearing the low shoes. At least not white tennis shoes, but just short of Velcro fastening.

  I’ve been in fashion my whole career and at no time did Anna Wintour ever announce that Easter-egg pastels are a thing! Tan cargo pants are this fall’s must have! Never.

  Dressed like this, I could rob the bank. No one looking at the security feed would know what to make of me. The best descriptor anyone would come up with was—she was a little old lady.

  It’s a perfect disguise. Of course, you must have a boat load of self-esteem to even consider this disguise, which I was a short on, but I needed to do a job, and I needed to be ignored.

  I locked the door and hid the key under the fat haunch of one of the seven plaster cherubs decorating the hall. The landlord saves money by rarely lighting the stairway. The little cherubs are easy to overlook.

  The bank, like everything in Venice, was a few blocks away. I didn’t want to take the taxi, because I didn’t want to wait in line, the bulk of my purse was too tempting. I hefted the purse onto my right shoulder and held it against my hip. The day had turned bright and gorgeous almost like the photos in every cruise brochure, and yes, I peeked into St.. Mark’s Square as I passed by. It was packed with men wearing shorts and baseball caps, and woman who looked just like me.

  The bank was open, a relief.

  I hadn’t asked Tiffany if she had already filed the succession paperwork and pulled Miranda’s bank statements. If so, I was SOL. The whole enterprise would be shut down and I wouldn’t be able to open the safe deposit box, key or no key, because I was not an heir. Did Tiffany even know about the safe deposit box? We had usually kept some cash in the box for buying paintings, or from selling paintings (rarer). Miranda stored some jewelry here, depending on her mood and who was staying in the apartment. But it looked like Tiffany was draped with the best of Miranda’s collection, so I didn’t know if there would be anything in the box at all.

  I hunched my shoulders and shuffled in.

  I stood in line and offered up the key as my proof. I surreptitiously glanced around for Phillip. He was not on the floor, which I hoped meant he had advanced to management. I hoped he married and now had an adorable family. He was such a lovely boy.

  I glanced at my watch, 1:00, still lunch time.

  The young man who could have been Phillip five years ago, who was clearly not at lunch, was a bit put out that I showed up at such a slow time.

  He glanced at the key, found the signature card and dutifully checked my signature. I held my breath: had Miranda deleted me completely?

  He glanced at me without really seeing me and nodded, leading me to the old-fashioned room with a lock on the door. The young man, still sighing heavily, retrieved the square box and set it on the low counter. He gestured that he would wait right outside the room. I nodded and thanked him.

  He just barely kept from rolling his eyes. No respect for his elders.

  The box was as empty. I sat down and rested my elbows on either side of the empty container. Was I disappointed? No. I gently placed the hippo and ushabtis into the box. They looked forlorn, with no Book of the Dead scrolls or tiny barcas to keep them company. Hell of a way to end up, so far from Egypt to rest in a foreign tomb.

  I hesitated. Once in the vault, the only way to get them back was to be named as the direct inheritor. It could take three years for all that to clear. A long time. Damn. I tried to imagine Lucy, who looked like her sister only brunette, discovering these. What would they do? There would be questions. Accusations. Miranda would be blamed, maybe not for long, people forget. But during the discovery, she would be labeled a thief, and her reputation smeared. Perhaps, because her daughters were disinclined to defend her, a label that could out last even her photos. It would be my fault. I broke her heart once already; there was no need to do it again.

  On the other hand. If I couldn’t access them, no one could. Like a hot potato, the last person to touch them would be responsible.

  The young man coughed.

  I took another breath. Okay, not so great an idea. What if Nic had heard about these? Could he return them? How did Miranda get them in the first place and why?
That was the real question: why have these at all? If I couldn’t get at them, I couldn’t leverage them.

  I did not check to see if the taped key had been disturbed. Had someone already cleaned out this box? Did they have better, faster access than me? No, this was a bad idea.

  I stuffed the guys back into my purse, adjusting the bag so it wasn’t so bulky looking. I thought about draping it across my body, but the strap cut across my boobs like a bandolier, not a flattering look. I checked my phone, secure in my pocket and emerged, handing the closed, but still empty box to the young man who barely glanced up as he took it from me.

  I headed back to the hotel, my phone either silent because the battery had cut out or because Tina was between panic attacks. I relished the reprieve.

  A group of men passed me and knocked against me. I shouted, but they were out of earshot their voices ringing against the shop walls and cobblestones.

  Chapter 8

  Hotels will hold things, not well, not necessarily safely, but they will allow you to stash a suitcase or two before your room is ready or after you check out so you can see the city for one more hour before your flight. How safe then would my little workers be? I had to believe they would be safe enough.

  I hunched over and as quickly as is reasonable for a woman my age, scurried across the lobby. I whispered bon giorno to the receptionist who barely raised his head.

  Took the stairs two at a time.

  I always pack a nylon shopping bag. Indispensable for extra purchases, shoes, gifts, books, artifacts of suspicious provenance. I stuffed the six statues into six socks and wrapped the hippo in a tee shirt. One of the socks held extra cash. I dumped the twenties and hundreds back into my suitcase and put the final statute in. The whole round package fit into another tee, then into the bag. It looked and felt like laundry. Perfect.

  I brushed the bills to the bottom of the suitcase, checked for my lucky keys and closed it. I had one more night reserved. I checked my phone, no calls. Everyone in California must be asleep. I stuffed the phone back into my back pocket.

  I carried the bag back down to the lobby.

  “I can’t believe this city is so crowded!” It wasn’t Paula, but a dead ringer for her. Do we really all look alike?

  The woman had her hands on her hips, her mouth pursed as if the crowd in the square was a personal insult.

  “It is the cruise ships madam.” The desk clerk kept his head down and continued to shuffle papers.

  “Well, they need to do something about it, just ruins it for others.” She sniffed, took her plain room key and harrumphed away.

  “Excuse me.” I kept my voice soft and a little high. Little old ladies often develop a higher voice often described as querulous. After three years of that pitch, it was distressingly easy to mimic.

  It took the young man a minute to turn from his absorbing paperwork to look up. I smiled and pushed the oddly shaped bag across to him.

  “Can you hold this for me?”

  He gave me a look as if waiting for me to start complaining as well. But I kept my head down, my eyes on the precious bundle.

  “It’s for the girls, gifts you know. I don’t want to leave them in the room.” I tried to look as guileless and as naive as possible. He seemed to buy it.

  He swallowed, eyeing the package that didn’t look like much worth stealing. But who knew what was going on in an elderly brain?

  “Certainly madam.”

  “Room 416.”

  He took a tag, wrote the room number and tied the tag to the floppy handle.

  “Don’t let anyone pick it up but me.” I winked.

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

  I watched him casually stuff the bag under the desk. Soon it would land in unclaimed luggage.

  Perfect. As long a young clerk doesn’t fling a hard-sided check in case on top of my bag, we were good.

  I know I shouldn’t compare. But my years spent with Max in his luxury apartment were very different from the years with Miranda which in turn were different from my years with Nic in the desert.

  I ricocheted between living in the cover shoot for Elle Decor and extreme camping. In fact, I remember back when I first met Max, the flat actually had just been featured in House Beautiful or Architectural Digest. One of those. The fame, such as it was, gave you bragging rights only for the rack-life of the magazine, no longer. It’s tacky to keep bringing it up.

  Miranda’s place was in no danger of becoming obsolete because no photographer or editor, no matter how drunk, ever thought it was a great idea to create a magazine feature of the former model’s Venetian digs or, unfortunately, the former model herself.

  “But why not?” Miranda always gestured with the hand holding her drink. The carpets needed to be replaced yearly.

  “Darling, it’s just so white.”

  Miranda looked up at the white walls, little more than Mondrian strips between thick gilded picture frames. “It’s not white at all.”

  Whomever she had taken on, would lean back, blink at the overwhelming number of paintings cantilevered from the top of the walls and drop the subject as quickly as they could.

  Not to say that Max’s home wasn’t just as filled. But he knew when to jettison the tired and dated. Miranda couldn’t let go of anything. Max had style. Miranda had stuff.

  Max told me stories about redecorating, cleaning the mold, replacing the wallpaper, troubleshooting the original plumbing circa 1684. His apartment on the canal forced rotating upgrades every few years. It was expensive, but the result was that he learned all sorts of tricks and had many, many friends in the construction business. Max’s apartment was on the ground floor and always in danger of flooding. Miranda's was on the third floor, which I assume made it more impervious to the ravages of Venice’s tides and weather. At least according to Miranda, it was.

  The last time I lived with Max, right when he passed, the living room was lined in navy wallpaper outlined in silver. He had replaced the carved Moroccan settee and matching chairs (inspired by Saint Laurent’s place) with mid-century modern, a vintage Eames chair and a low-slung upholstered couch in silver and chrome. It contrasted beautifully against the blue walls, which of course complemented the patio blue chairs and the canal outside. We replaced all the pictures frames, silver for gold.

  And where did the old stuff go? Even though Max wanted to save the gold frames, I had a better place for them. I hauled the frames over to Rachael’s brand-new art gallery. Rachael, like many of my acquaintances, was a former model. I met her at one of Miranda’s parties. Rachael had been as slender as her cigarette. Clutching a flute of champagne she entertained a group of guests by unerringly pointing out which of Miranda’s paintings were fake and which were real. Miranda was not amused. But I liked the girl, and immediately knew that Rachael should use her skills for good. Months later Rachael appeared at our door. The stories of her career ending defeat preceded her. During what was her last runway show, she had indulged in a particularly acrimonious and unfortunately, memorable, shouting match with a designer over his use of real fur. From the runway she announced she was out of the business.

  But not out of luck.

  Max came to the rescue. He funded the perfect gallery space for Rachael, and I loaded her up with all of Max’s rejected gold frames to class up the place and attract tourists and high rolling locals.

  I insisted the frames were a loan since Max typically redecorated every three years. I also knew that Max did not have three years left.

  “You are too kind.” Rachael had quit smoking, not because she was no longer modeling, but because of a special boy. She was nervous and paced up and down her bare gallery unsuccessfully searching for something to do with her hands.

  “No, Max would want you to have them. You can use them for the time being.”

  She finally paused and started to sort through the frames. “Are you certain? These are lovely, some are antique and valuable.”

  “All the better. You can pay
me back later. Us later.” I quickly amended.

  She raised her perfectly arched brows.

  “Miranda will need more paintings, you can help, how’s that?”

  She nodded. I left with Rachael still holding a frame, squinting at the gold leaf.

  No more gold in Max’s apartment, it was all silver then, maybe still. Silver and navy in the main room, the powder room was lined in silver wallpaper with navy touches.

  We had three bedrooms (so different from my years stuffed into a single flimsy tent jammed against the half-excavated wall of an ancient village hut). I had my own room, decorated in peach, a color popular back in the day for walls, not, as we discussed, for slacks. Max never changed his beloved emerald green complemented by a brilliant fuchsia, yellow, and pink-pattered bed spread and, courtesy of Rachael, original art. The third room was the work room, and, in a pinch, a place for various pretty, pretty boys that he called friends to land when they were in need.

  Many were in need. Since I was familiar with the type, as well as the average half-life of a lovely young thing in residence, I developed a system: fewer bathrooms than people. Give a girl or a boy their own bathroom and they will never leave. Max’s apartment had one full bath, one half bath. To shower, the pretty boys had to wait their turn. It was the perfect organic way to keep guests in full rotation.

  Max’s place was so perfect, why ever leave?

  Why indeed.

  St.. Mark’s square was bright and glittering in the morning light. The spires of the Basilica glowed gold against the blue sky. I would say something poetic about the cobblestones and the pigeons and the small chairs gathered around the edges of the square, but the only beautiful thing I could see were those tall domes of the Basilica; the rest of the square was packed with tourists—shoulder to shoulder. They all looked like me. Which was quite enough to stifle any emerging poetic impulse.

  I automatically checked my back pocket for my phone and pulled up my now feather light purse onto my shoulder.