A Gift to Remember

by Melissa Hill

  Grace shook her head. ‘Oh Darcy, come on, you know better than that. So you aren’t dripping in silly designers from head to toe, how many of us are? And who cares? I already know that there is plenty about you that makes you special – your kindness, for one. Don’t ever sell yourself short like that,’ she finished earnestly.

  Darcy was touched by her neighbour’s kindness. ‘Thank you, Grace, I appreciate you saying that and I appreciate your friendship too. I can’t believe we spent almost three years living side by side, barely saying hello when we passed each other by.’

  ‘That was my fault,’ Grace said gently. ‘I was still grieving for my Ralph and didn’t want to know anyone, didn’t want anyone in my life. I remember you smiling at me that first day you moved in, but I knew I wasn’t ready for friendship – in truth, I wasn’t able for it. But that was my mistake.’

  ‘And that was then,’ Darcy finished, reaching out and squeezing the older woman’s hand. She cocked her head at Bailey and smiled. ‘And they say this guy is man’s best friend?’

  Grace laughed and patted Darcy’s hand in turn. ‘What I said just now, I’m not just being polite. I mean it. Sure, every man might dream about being with a Supermodel, and some guys might even get to date them once in a while, but it’s gals like us that are real. And there are more of us in the world, too. Last time I checked, plenty of them get their happy ever after.’

  Darcy nodded, wondering just who would get their happy ever after in this story.

  Chapter 32

  Once she knows how to read there’s only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself. Virginia Woolf

  ‘Hey, you don’t happen to know anything about ballet, do you?’ Darcy asked Joshua the following day at work, explaining about her latest potential lead in tracking down one of Aidan’s elusive loved ones.

  ‘’Fraid not. Not really my thing. Musicals, however . . .’

  ‘Yes, we know.’ She smiled fondly. A devoted Broadway fan, her colleague was known to periodically break out in bursts of ‘Defying Gravity’ or ‘The Wizard and I’ at any opportune moment. It was a most effective tactic for clearing the store at closing time.

  Darcy took the photo of the ballerina out of her messenger bag and showed it to him.

  Joshua’s eyes went wide. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘I think it might be Aidan’s girlfriend, and I’m trying to track her down.’

  ‘Classy,’ he said, handing the picture back. ‘If a little cold for my taste.’

  Darcy looked at the photograph for the umpteenth time. ‘She really does look like a ballerina though, doesn’t she?’ She went on to tell him about the significance of the pose and picture outside the Revson Fountain, and about her and Grace’s night out at the Koch Theater, ending with her trundle through the various ballet schools the day before in the hope that somebody might recognise the woman.

  ‘I’ve only got one more place to visit and if that doesn’t work out, I’m stumped. I just don’t know how else I can get in touch with somebody Aidan knows.’

  ‘You’re really dedicated to this, aren’t you?’ he said, echoing Grace’s gentle probing from the night before.

  ‘Yes. He’ll be coming home from the hospital tomorrow, but I can’t really relax until I know he’s OK, and that somebody else will be there to look out for him.’ She’d spoken to Aidan on the phone a little earlier and he’d informed her that despite his doctor’s protests he was checking out of the hospital and going home. ‘There’s no point in sitting here in an empty room scratching my head when I could be doing the same at home, surrounded by things that I will surely recognise,’ he told her, and by the sound of his voice she knew he’d reached the end of his tether. ‘I can’t have you keep to-ing and fro-ing here with various bits and pieces either, Darcy. It’s not fair; you have your own life and I’ve taken up more than enough of it. ‘

  But Darcy didn’t want to admit to him that she was enjoying the adventure, the brief distraction from her humdrum routine. His life had become her life.

  ‘When will Apple have the phone back? I’m sure that will straighten things out once and for all. Better than you cycling around Manhattan on a wild-goose chase. Or should it be swan, seeing as you think she’s a ballerina?’

  ‘Ha. And the phone is due back any day now. Just waiting on Apple’s Head Office to authorise the replacement and then the store can do a data transfer.’

  ‘Well, if I were you, I’d concentrate on that,’ Joshua said with a carefree shrug as he got ready to finish his shift. ‘Let the wizards of Apple sort out the confusion once and for all.’

  But for Darcy, things were no longer that simple. She was by now way too deep into this story, and the romantic in her almost didn’t want to rely on the phone data to fill in the gaps, tie up the loose strands and wrap everything up in a big red bow. Less satisfying somehow.

  She wanted to find Aidan’s girlfriend, and let her know that Aidan’s gift was still there waiting for her. That her lover hadn’t let her down and was likely still as much in love with her as ever.

  ‘Well, I just think you’re crazy,’ Joshua said, when she tried to explain this to him. ‘But then again, since when did anyone around here care what I think? See you tomorrow!’ With that, the door chimed and he was off like a blast, all ninety-eight pounds of him, reindeer antlers bobbing as he went.

  When he left, Darcy was almost grateful for the silence and the opportunity to be alone with her thoughts as she moved through the shelves, rearranging the children’s section to face out the more seasonal titles, and finding a home for new stock. She adored Joshua, but sometimes he was like a black hole, sucking dry everything around him with his manic energy. She also felt as if she’d never spent so much time around people as lately. She was used to her solitude and it felt strange to be in the middle of so much activity.

  Later that evening, once she’d closed up the store, she made her way to the last ballet school on her list. The bike was trusty and sleek beneath her as she dodged traffic all the way to Lamont’s, on the Upper East Side, the only place she hadn’t visited.

  This academy, located just off Madison Avenue, was according to her research well-respected and exclusive, and the beautiful Renaissance building in which it resided was definitely the most upscale of all of the schools she’d visited.

  She’d also learned from her mistakes, and wasn’t going to risk ruining what was possibly her last and only chance at finding the dancer she was looking for by actually going inside and flashing the picture around like some amateur.

  Instead she found a juice bar at the end of the same block and, as she had with so many of the other schools and studios in the last twenty-four hours, decided to hide in plain sight. Locking her bike up nearby, she went inside and ordered a banana and low-fat yogurt smoothie with an immunity boost and sat at a window table waiting for classes to finish.

  After about thirty minutes, the door opened and in walked half a dozen girls, leg warmers pink and high, throats flush with perspiration, their hair in six identical ponytails. The girls ordered in synchronised high-pitched voices and paid with six separate cheque cards, and it took forever for them to collect their drinks, gossip about their classmates and eventually drift towards the tables on either side of Darcy.

  She’d finished her own drink almost twenty minutes ago and sat there, turning the photograph over and over in her hands, the plastic wrap worn from constant handling. As the girls launched into their smoothies Darcy turned to the table behind her, clearing her throat. They looked up at her, so young and thin, instantly suspicious.

  ‘Hi, there. Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you,’ she began, smiling as they inched back in their seats. ‘I won’t waste your time but I’m just wondering . . . this woman is a dancer and I heard she used to attend your school.’

  She’d learned by now never to sound uncertain or hesitant, as people naturally responded to confident authority. Still, Darcy didn’t think she’d ever quite make
it in the NYPD.

  She showed the girls the picture and despite their snootiness, they all craned their necks. One of them spoke up. ‘Yes, she looks kind of familiar.’

  ‘I think her picture is on the wall somewhere?’

  Another shook her head. ‘Nope, never seen her.’

  Then without another word, they turned around and left Darcy still holding out the picture. She turned to the second table, who ignored her completely and stood instead, and took their smoothies out the door. The first table quickly followed and Darcy sat there, deflated, her palms moist and head throbbing. Well, that was it then. No more academies to visit, no more ballerinas to ask.

  Sorry, Aidan, I really tried.

  She went to slide the picture back in her messenger bag when a shadow crossed her table. She looked up to see a girl about her own age, but razor thin and with reading glasses sliding down her nose.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the girl said. ‘But could I see that picture for a moment?’

  Darcy slid the photograph over and, immediately, the girl smiled. ‘It’s Melanie Rothschild,’ she said, nodding in recognition, and Darcy’s heart almost stopped.

  Melanie – she’d found her.

  ‘When I heard Emily, one of the dancers, say just now that she’d seen the woman’s picture on the wall, I suspected it might be one of ours.’

  Darcy’s heart was pounding. ‘Are you an instructor?’

  ‘Me? Heavens, no. I was actually a dancer until a few years ago when I tore a hamstring. Madame Scarsdale, who owns Lamont’s, was kind enough to give me a receptionist job, and I’ve been there ever since. I see Melanie’s picture in the hallway every day, along with the rest of Lamont’s success stories.’

  Darcy breathed a giant sigh of relief. ‘So she is a professional ballerina then?’

  ‘Yes, she performs with the Boston Ballet, last I heard. Lamont’s is really very proud of our graduates; many of them do go on to truly great things.’

  The Boston Ballet. ‘So she’s not based here in New York then?’ It made a certain sense, as the majority of the missed calls on Aidan’s phone had come from a private number with no area identification. And it matched up with him living alone for the most part.

  Darcy felt heartened.

  ‘What was her surname again?’ she asked the girl, taking a pen and paper out of her bag. ‘Rothschild, did you say?’

  ‘Yes. Respected old New York family.’

  A blue blood. Of course. What else? But it was good news in a way as it might just make it easier to track Melanie down.

  ‘I don’t suppose I could take a look at that photograph in your building?’ she asked then. ‘Just to be sure.’

  ‘In the foyer? Sorry, no,’ the girl laughed. ‘I’m afraid today was our last day of term before Christmas. But can I ask you why you’re looking for her?’

  Darcy bit her lip. ‘How long do you have?’

  Chapter 33

  I had so much restless energy that I had been walking all over Manhattan with Bailey since that morning.

  Stephanie Everly still had not called me back and here I was, the day before The Day, wondering how the hell I was going to pull this feat off in time. This was seriously bad.

  Currently, I was walking down Sixth Avenue, somewhat aimlessly, passing Radio City Music Hall on my left, taking note of the throngs of tourists waiting in line for the annual Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular.

  I thought of last year, when Mel insisted that we go to see it, even though the attraction was a mecca for tourists. She said that she didn’t care, she just loved the Rockettes, and despite my cynicism I had to admit that it was good fun. Still, most things she suggested turned out to be fun; that was one of the joys of spending time with her. That and her boundless enthusiasm for life.

  I had an idea for something different this Christmas though, something I knew she’d enjoy, and had picked up the tickets from the Koch Theater box office earlier. The New York City Ballet’s performance of the The Nutcracker was as much a city tradition as the Rockettes at this time of year. One that I figured Mel was especially likely to appreciate.

  Trudging on, I stopped at Magnolia Bakery on the next block. While it had always been popular, it had now gone interstellar thanks to being featured on that TV show. Perhaps not surprisingly, I’d never watched it.

  Still, regardless of the fact that the place was now almost always overrun with glamorous city-girl wannabes who don’t look as if they eat a lettuce leaf let alone a cupcake, I stopped off to pick up a red velvet for Bailey and a chocolate vanilla for myself.

  Un-macho perhaps, but it was still an old favourite for both of us.

  The sugar gave me a temporary boost but I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was like an inmate on Death Row. Here I was, less than twenty-four hours from when I should be making the delivery, and I was currently standing around empty-handed. Well, apart from the cupcake.

  ‘What now, Bailey?’

  He peered up at me with those big blue eyes that said, ‘No idea; let’s just keep walking.’

  And so we did. And the cold barely even affected me. In fact, we walked so long that I felt I was taking in most sightseeing tours around Manhattan.

  I wished that I had more time like this to take in the sights and the sounds that made the city just so special at this time of year. I remembered something Tom Wolfe had said about how ‘one belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years’. That resonated with me and indeed spoke of how I felt about this city.

  I knew that some people didn’t get it – Ciara a case in point. As worldly as she was, she was happiest in California. I tried to get her to move across one time but she wouldn’t. ‘Only for fun and shopping,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do permanent.’ And I think she had an eye on returning home to Dublin sometime too, though that would never be a consideration for me. That was where we grew up, where our family home had been, and some people found it much harder than others to abandon their roots. It pained me a little to realise that I hadn’t been back to the place in over seven years. But life – and admittedly work – always somehow got in the way.

  Suddenly Bailey came to a stop and I emerged from the fog I had been in and finally paid attention long enough to realise that we were all the way down in Greenwich Village. I looked in the direction that we were heading and saw that Washington Square Park loomed ahead of us.

  ‘You want to take a breather, big guy? Get some water?’ I asked. He panted, his tongue almost dropping to the ground and I took that as a yes.

  We headed into the Park where I found a drinking fountain and filled up his portable mesh and plastic dish that I always carried with me. I sat down on a bench and placed the water dish at my feet.

  Bailey drank happily and I took a moment to slip my wallet out of my pocket. Thinking about family and Ireland and all of it had made me feel slightly melancholy. Maybe because it was so close to the holidays.

  I opened my wallet and flipped through the pictures, finding the black and white one I wanted. Mam.

  I don’t think she was more than seventeen or eighteen in this picture. All dressed up to go to Mass or something. Ciara and I had only found it after she’d died and I wished that there had been an opportunity for her to tell me where she had been going, or what she had been doing, or if she had met Dad yet when the picture had been taken.

  Hell, I wish I even knew what colour her dress was. I know it sounds silly, but with this picture I felt that there was a whole other side to my mother that I didn’t know about. Something that she didn’t tell Ciara and me as kids. I always said that if and when I ever had kids I would make sure they knew whatever they wanted to know about me. History was important at the end of the day.

  Bailey finished drinking and then looked up at me, sending the signal that he was ready to start walking again.

  Crossing Sixth Avenue again we headed back uptown. Several times I felt myself pulling Bailey back towards me, aiming t
o avoid being hit by a bicycle messenger – a crazy breed who effortlessly rule Manhattan’s streets while also endangering each and every one of us in their path.

  I’m all about physical fitness and being kind to the environment by using alternative transport methods and all that, but seriously, watch where you are going.

  Or, to quote many a New Yorker: ‘Hey, I’m walking here!’

  Chapter 34

  You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. A.A. Milne

  The following morning, people seemed to look at Darcy differently this time as, leash in hand and dog at her heels, she strolled along the Upper West Side passing by the same fancy bistros, the same five-star restaurants, modelling studios and funky furniture stores. Although she was wearing the usual comfortable work clothes, and her usual messily-tied ponytail bounced on her shoulders, now she noticed an accepting nod from the other city-dwellers as she passed them by.

  The old women in their silken scarves and two thousand-dollar bags gave her space on the path. The hipster dudes in their Converse hi-tops, three hundred-dollar skinny jeans and designer stubble grinned at her and Bailey.

  The couples with their shopping bags from places like Henri Bendel, Bloomingdales and Comptoir des Cotonniers beamed at the dignified Husky, their eyes warm and suddenly neighbourly.

  If a pure-bred dog was all it took to feel like you belonged in this part of town, Darcy thought to herself, Bailey gliding jauntily along at her heels, she should have got herself one years ago. And she couldn’t deny that these days she was feeling emboldened with the people she’d spoken to and the places she’d been to in her quest to try and help Aidan. It was almost as if she’d found a new sense of connection with the city and was more certain of her place in it.