“It’s all over, vulture scum,” Jen shouted gaily to the reporters. “You can go home now.”
They ignored her, of course. They were busy with their phones, calling in the story, alerting their vulture masters to send some more people over to Sloan, Hart, where the show would begin its second act.
Jen turned to me. “You ready, Joplin?”
“Yup.”
“Where’re you going?” Chloe asked.
“To some antiques shop where they fix broken things.”
“Oh,” she said. “Great. I’m going back to bed.”
We stood outside Lucius Doyle, Antiques (“Repairs and Restoration”), looking in the window through the security shutters. A man inside was flicking on lights, bustling around, getting ready to open.
“Looks pretty fancy,” I said. Everything inside either sparkled or gleamed—cut crystal, old wood, silver and gold. It reminded me of my former best friend Abby’s house, with the teardrop crystal chandeliers, and the gilded ceiling, and all kinds of precious stuff we weren’t allowed to touch.
“It’s fancy, all right,” Jen said. “But the important thing is that Lucius Doyle is a true artist at restoration. He knows about the materials people used five hundred years ago—old glue, varnishes, that sort of thing. He’ll do a proper job.”
The man was at the door now, unlocking it. We stood back while he rolled up the metal shutters. Then he invited us in.
“Mr. Doyle, I’m Jennifer Moss. I work at Christie’s. We’ve met before.”
“Good to see you again.” He glanced down at me and my cookie tin. I had the feeling children weren’t especially welcome at Lucius Doyle, Antiques.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Moss?”
“Joplin here has a treasure she would like to have repaired.”
There was a heavy pause. He was probably imagining a doll that had lost its head.
“What sort of treasure?”
“I’m guessing it’s a very old delftware platter. Not my area of expertise, but you would know. It’s badly broken, I’m afraid.”
Lucius Doyle suddenly seemed much more interested. “Let’s take it over to my desk,” he said. “We’ll give it a good look-see.”
We followed him down a pathway between tables, all of them groaning with precious, old, super-expensive things that Abby’s mother would die for. I gripped the cookie tin and pulled in my elbows, making myself as small and harmless as possible.
At the back of the room was a large desk, probably antique. Lucius Doyle took his place behind it and we sat across from him.
He was a short, solid man with a funny haircut and a bulbous nose. On the index finger of his right hand he wore a big gold ring with a square blue stone. There was a smaller one with a red stone on his pinkie. I figured they must be antique rings, so he’d put them on whatever fingers they fit.
Jen took the cookie tin and set it in front of Mr. Doyle. He touched the lid, right in the yellow center of the red poinsettia. “Sears, 1957,” he said. When we both looked confused, he laughed. “My apologies. A feeble joke. May I open it?”
“Sure,” I said.
He worked off the lid and set it aside. Then, very carefully, he took out the broken shards, putting each in its proper place as I had done the day before. Except that he did it faster, as if he already knew where the pieces went.
Finally, Mr. Doyle turned on this strange sort of gooseneck lamp. It had a ring-shaped fluorescent light with a magnifying glass in the center. He kept changing the angle of the glass so he could study every part of the platter.
At last he moved the magnifying light aside and just sat there staring at the scene laid out before him—the trees, grass, and little windmill, the pond, the flock of geese, and the girl.
Lucius Doyle was breathing pretty hard by then, the way old people do when they climb stairs. But he wasn’t old, more like middle-aged. And he was sitting down, not climbing stairs. I could tell he was trying to control the heavy breathing, like he was embarrassed by it.
“What do you think?” Jen asked.
“You were correct,” he said. “This is delftware from Holland, probably mid-seventeenth century.” Then to me, “That means approximately 1650.”
“I know what seventeenth century means.”
“Good. So how did it come into your possession?”
His skin was flushed. He was gleaming with sweat, though it wasn’t hot in there.
“It belonged to my grandparents,” I said. “My mother gave it to me.”
“Well.” He was really struggling to breathe now. I wondered if maybe he was having a heart attack. I was pretty sure that sweating and agitation were two of the symptoms. “It’s badly broken, as you can see. And that’s a pity. It would have been highly collectible in its original condition. But as it is now, it’s worth nothing.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I just want it fixed. You can do that, right?”
“Of course. But that won’t restore its value.”
“I know. That’s all right.”
He was looking down again, touching the broken bits of pottery as if stroking a kitten, tracing the delicate lines drawn in blue. “But you know, this really is quite charming. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the work of Hans van der Brock. I’d have to do some research to confirm it, but my instinct tells me this is so. The quality of the portraiture and the absence of a factory mark support it.”
“Is he somebody famous?” I asked.
“Not really. Only to connoisseurs of antique porcelain. He was an unusually gifted artist.”
I turned to Jen. “Have you ever heard of him? Hans van der Brock?”
“No, hon. But that doesn’t mean anything. Painting’s my subject, not ceramics.”
“I wonder,” Lucius Doyle said, looking directly at me, “if you might be willing to sell it? I would give you a hundred dollars. That’s a very good price for a broken platter. You can ask Ms. Moss if you have any doubt that it’s a fair offer. But I have always wanted to own a Van der Brock, even a broken one. And it would cost you twice that to repair it.”
I looked at Jen, shocked. “Two hundred dollars?”
“Don’t worry, Joplin. That’s pretty much what I was expecting. And he’ll do an expert job.”
“But I don’t have two hundred dollars.”
“Relax. This is my treat. It’s really not a big deal.”
“Okay. But I don’t want to sell it. Just fix it, please.”
Lucius Doyle opened a drawer and took out a form. He asked for my name, address, and phone number. His writing was beautiful—fancy and swirly in an old-fashioned way, like on the Declaration of Independence.
“Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I can’t imagine what a little girl like you would do with a damaged old platter.”
“I’d look at it. I think it’s beautiful.”
“I think so too. How would it be if I offered you five hundred?”
“Dollars?”
“Yes.”
I sat there blinking stupidly, stunned by the amount. I didn’t know what to do.
Also, something about Lucius Doyle was really bothering me.
“No, thank you,” I said in a whisper.
“As you wish. But if I’m really pleased with the restoration, I might be willing to offer you more than five hundred. Maybe then you’ll change your mind.”
“Actually,” I said, “I have changed my mind.”
Doyle drew a quick breath, as if he was about to say something, but then he didn’t. He just looked at me expectantly, his head cocked to the side.
“I’ve decided I don’t want it repaired.”
“Are you sure?” Jen and Lucius Doyle said at the exact same time.
“Yes.” My voice was trembling. “I . . . it’s more fun to play with the way it is. I can put it together like a puzzle.” I shot Jen a pleading look. She gave me the tiniest nod.
“Oh dear,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Doyle. I’m
afraid we’ve wasted your time. But children, you know—they have the most curious notions. And it is her special treasure. I suppose she can do whatever she wants with it.”
All this time, while she was nattering on about how silly children were, Jen was collecting the pieces and putting them back into the cookie tin. Lucius Doyle just stared, frozen with astonishment, apparently unable to speak.
“Thank you for being so patient and understanding.”
Jen had the lid on now and the cookie tin firmly in hand.
“I’ll talk to her about it,” she added, as if I weren’t standing right there listening to everything she said. “Maybe she’ll come around.”
We left in a more or less civilized manner. But once outside, we raced down the sidewalk, looking over our shoulders like a pair of escaping ninjas. Not till we reached the corner did we stop to catch our breaths.
“You think I’m crazy,” I said.
“No. You were way ahead of me. I couldn’t get past his reputation. He’s so well respected in the art world. But you were noticing other things, and you were right. Lucius Doyle wasn’t being straight with us.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept saying how worthless the platter was, yet he was so insistent about wanting to buy it. You hear stories all the time about antiques dealers who buy some dirty old picture for fifty bucks and it turns out to be a Turner or a Rembrandt. He had that air about him, like he’d just hit the jackpot. And he was trying so hard not to show it.”
“Yeah. He was sweating and his hands were shaking. But that’s not why I wanted to leave. I just really, really didn’t trust him. He gave me the shivers. Like he was the devil in disguise or something.”
“That’s going a bit too far. But I assure you, we won’t go back.”
“Good.” When the light changed, we crossed the street for no particular reason. We still didn’t have a plan. “So you think my platter might be worth something?”
“Could be. I’ll ask around at work, see if anyone’s heard of Hans van der Brock. But for now I think we should take it back to the apartment and wrap the pieces in tissue, then put it away in a safe place.”
“I don’t want to put it away. I want to hang it on my wall with one of those plate-hanger thingies, so I can look at it whenever I want.”
“Positive?”
“Absolutely. Is there someone else who would do a good job? Besides Lucius Doyle?”
“Yes. A very sweet lady on the Upper East Side who doesn’t even remotely look like the devil.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Let’s go.”
5
A Mean Species
I SLIPPED INTO HOMEROOM ON Monday morning, keeping my head down, avoiding eye contact, and generally trying to make myself invisible. It didn’t work, of course. The whole class stopped whatever they were doing and turned to stare at me.
You’d think I’d come to school naked.
My first, instinctive thought was of Abby. And for one brief, pitiful moment I actually imagined her seeing how miserable I was, throwing off the evil spell that had turned her into a mean girl, and defying her new clique of designer-purse-carrying Fashionistas just long enough to come over and give me a hug.
I looked straight at her, willing her to do it. But she didn’t. She just gazed down at her neon blue fingernails, like they were the most interesting things in the world.
“Joplin,” the teacher said, “will you come here a moment?”
Going to stand with the teacher in front of the whole class was the very last thing I wanted to do. But I had no choice. So I trudged back up the path between two rows of desks and stood beside Ms. Warrick, waiting.
She draped an arm gently over my shoulders and pulled me closer, giving me a little squeeze. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said. “Your grandfather was a remarkable writer, as I’m sure you already know.”
I noticed how she pitched her voice just low enough that it sounded like a private conversation, yet loud enough for everyone to hear. This wasn’t just for me; it was for the whole class.
“I read All the Fanfare, All the Lights when I was in college and it really rocked my world. Camrath was still a cult author back then and those of us who read him felt, you know, really sophisticated and ahead of the curve. Then he won the Pulitzer and was on the cover of Time, and our so-called secret was out. He’s in the pantheon now. You must be terribly proud of him.”
I muttered something. She squeezed my shoulder again. But as I went back to my seat, I noticed the mood had changed.
One point for clever, kindhearted teachers.
But ten points for forgetful students. Because by the time we’d left homeroom, prizewinning and world-rocking were ancient history. Kids I didn’t even know stared and pointed at me in the hall. They whispered to their friends, who snickered. Then from the crowd I started hearing animal sounds—mostly dog growls and barks, though there was also the occasional ape call.
Exactly what I’d been afraid of.
Jen’s guess about the “rather unpleasant stuff” had been amazingly accurate. There were “crazy recluse” stories, with pictures of my grandfather looking unkempt and unwashed. There were “wild man” stories, showing him outside in his underwear with his hair all over the place. But when Jen very reluctantly showed me the worst one of all, I knew that life as I’d known it was over.
The “reporter” had apparently gone through my grandfather’s garbage can and found some empty dog food cans in there. He conveniently ignored the fact that my grandfather also owned a dog. So the headline read: “WILDMAN AUTHOR CAMRATH LIVED ON DOG FOOD.”
Naturally there was a photo to prove it. He was out in the yard on his hands and knees (wearing pants this time). I don’t know what he was doing—pulling weeds, maybe, or looking for something he’d dropped. But it didn’t matter, because they’d Photoshopped a dog bowl into the picture so it looked like he was about to chow down on a nice warm pile of Liver ’n’ Kidney Delight.
Obviously someone had found the site and forwarded the link to half the school.
Hence the barks and growls.
As Jen said, we’re a mean species.
When the bell finally rang for middle school lunch, I almost fainted with relief. It meant I could go to the library, where, for a full fifty-five minutes, no one would bother me.
This was nothing new. The library had been my refuge since September. That’s when Abby, all tan and rosy from two months on Martha’s Vineyard, had dropped her little bomb.
We’d been “drifting apart,” she explained in this weird, preachy, obnoxious voice. We “didn’t have that much in common” anymore, so there was “no point in dragging it out.” Maybe it would be better just to “rip off the bandage, get it over with, and go our separate ways.”
Now, I’ve known Abby Strasser since we were four years old, and that’s not how Abby talks.
That’s how her mother talks. And her mother never liked me.
Mrs. Strasser thought I was “kind of scruffy” because I wore jeans a lot.
She thought I was “peculiar” because of the way I talk—that is to say, I use big words.
Also because I was “named after a drug addict,” which I guess is technically true if you only count Janis Joplin.
She said my life was “unstable” because my parents were divorced and Mom “couldn’t even afford a basement apartment unless she shared it with a roommate.” That last bit was total garbage. We own our apartment. Mom inherited it from her mother. And Jen lives with us because we love her.
In short, Mrs. Strasser felt that I was “not the sort of person” Abby should be friends with, because it would “harm her socially.”
I knew all this because Abby had told me. I guess it didn’t occur to her that hearing all those mean things might hurt my feelings. Which of course it did. But it didn’t hurt too much because we laughed about it together. We made fun of the way Mrs. Strasser talked with her lips pursed, and how she walked aro
und with her nose in the air so people wouldn’t notice her double chin. We called her grand double brownstone with the butler and the gilded ceiling the “Palatial Mansion,” PM for short. And we called my place the SBA for “Squalid Basement Apartment.”
Abby had her feet on the ground back then. We took something ugly and had fun with it.
I guess it’s to her credit that she stuck with me as long as she did. But once she’d bought the line her mother had been selling for years, it was sudden and shocking. Worse, I found myself totally out in the cold because Abby was the only friend I had—except for Jen, who was practically middle-aged, and Chloe, who was a college student.
So I spent what free time I had at school with the librarian, Ms. Finney, and a handful of nameless nerds, all of us keeping politely to ourselves. It was lonely and pathetic, but at least it felt safe.
I couldn’t wait to get there.
I headed for my usual table in the far right corner, half hidden by the last row of the nonfiction section, and settled in to eat my lunch in peace.
The next thing I knew, Ms. Finney was sitting down beside me.
I was holding a partially eaten peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, and we weren’t supposed to bring food into the library. Ms. Finney pretended not to notice.
“I’m so sorry about your grandfather,” she said, like all my teachers. A memo must have gone out to the staff, designating Monday as “Be Kind to Joplin Day.”
I nodded and put on a fake smile, as I’d been doing all morning. Next she’d tell me how my grandfather’s work had transformed her life.
“Have you ever read any of his books?” she asked.
“No. My mom said to wait till I’m older.”
“She’s right, of course. But I’m kind of sorry, because I think it would help if you understood how truly amazing he was.”
“Um,” I said, suddenly aware that we were being watched. Ms. Finney followed my gaze.
“What is it, Barrett?”
He was one of the regulars, a tall boy with lots of dark, curly hair. He was standing at a polite distance, hands folded, waiting to get Ms. Finney’s attention.
“Sorry. I just wanted to ask if The Hound of the Baskervilles—”
Joplin, Wishing Page 3