Two of a Kind

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “Are you selling the house?” she demanded. “To those people I met outside? Mr. Turban and Ms. Sari?”

  Christina turned slowly. “I am,” she said quietly.

  “Mom!” Jordan wailed. “Oh, Mom!” She dumped her bag on the ground and then she flopped down beside it. “It’s because of the baby, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Christina seemed older and more worn-out than Jordan could ever remember.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? And how can you sell the house? You promised me you wouldn’t!” She flung herself into a chair and began to cry.

  Up above, a window opened. Stephen stuck his head out and called down, “Is everything all right?”

  Christina turned her face upward. “No, actually it’s not,” she said. “Maybe you could come down and we could talk?”

  Jordan, whose own face was now covered by her hands, did not look up. But she was glad Stephen was coming down to talk to her mom. Maybe he’d help make sense of things. Because right now, nothing made any sense at all.

  • • •

  Telling Jordan that they were selling the house was the hardest thing Christina had to do since telling her daughter that Daddy had died in the fire. But once it was done, she felt a massive sense of relief. Stephen was understanding, if hurt—I just wish you would have told me sooner, was what he said—and she prayed her failure to have done so would not cause a permanent rift between them. Now that everything was out in the open, she felt galvanized, and sprang into action. There were spaces, both personal and professional, to be seen. And a call to Amy, to tell her that she was going ahead with the pregnancy. “I’ll want to see you in a month,” Amy had said.

  In two days, Christina saw thirteen apartments and an equal number of professional spaces; on the third, she called Holly Shafrin, the real estate agent, to tell her she had settled on a two-bedroom rental on Plaza Street until she could figure out where—and if—she wanted to buy again. But the question of the business was left up in the air. “I just can’t decide on everything so quickly,” she said. Holly understood, and even helped her find a local storage place where she could stash all the merchandise from her showroom.

  Christina tried to be a booster about the new apartment. “It’s about a three-minute walk to the subway station,” she told Jordan. “It will make your commute so easy!” Jordan glared but did not reply. She was still acting like the decision to sell the house was a personal betrayal. Christina just let it go. The subject of the new baby was even more verboten. Whenever Christina tried to bring it up, Jordan left the room. Who knew what she was thinking? But Christina could not speculate for long; she was too busy trying to get everything done. It was on one of those busy mornings that she heard from the detective at the Seventy-eighth Precinct.

  “I just thought you’d want to know that we found Derrick Blascoe,” he said. “He’s been in Florida for the last several weeks, moving from hotel to hotel; we found him in Key West and think he was on his way to Mexico.”

  “Florida? And then Mexico?” asked Christina.

  “It wasn’t pretty,” said the detective. “He’d been on a very long bender—booze, coke, and girls—a couple of them underage.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she said, trying to avoid a pair of women pushing strollers and a small child on a scooter. But then she thought of that last night she’d spent with him, and she could.

  “Good thing we caught him when we did. He was trying to sell that Sargent.”

  “Please tell me that he didn’t.” She was surprised at how much this mattered, how much she wanted that auburn-haired girl to go back where she belonged. To go home.

  “No, the dealer he approached had been alerted and contacted Miami police; they contacted us. He’s in custody now and he’ll stand trial in New York.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. But the rest of it—what a terrible story.” Christina paused, letting the sadness of it sift through her. Poor Derrick. How had his life come to this sorry pass? She hoped she had not played a part in his unraveling.

  “I just want you to know that you’ve been completely exonerated in all this; he was questioned thoroughly and you were in no way implicated.”

  “Thank you very much for telling me.”

  Christina walked back to her house thinking of Derrick. She was still thinking about him later that day when the bell rang and she found an unexpected visitor on her doorstep: Phoebe Haverstick. “I know I treated you very badly and I’m sorry,” Phoebe launched right in without even saying hello. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t invite me in, but I’d be so grateful if you did.” Phoebe wasn’t pregnant any longer; Mimi Farnsworth had told her she’d had the baby back in the winter. Christina wondered whether the nursery she designed was working out; the pleasure she’d taken in designing it was what made her step aside and let Phoebe in.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” Phoebe said once she had settled into a chair in Christina’s office. “I was just heartsick when the painting went missing and Ian, well, he had me convinced that you had something to do with it.”

  “I would never have done that,” Christina said quietly. “And I wish you had taken even one of my calls to let me tell you that myself.”

  “I was a coward,” Phoebe said, lacing her fingers together tightly.

  “The painting is coming back to you; my good name is restored.”

  “Yes, but now you have to move your business! And that’s Ian’s fault. He went to the zoning board; he knows people.”

  “It’s not just my business,” Christina said. “I’m selling my house too.”

  “Oh no—does this have anything to do with the findings of the zoning board?”

  Christina looked at her in disbelief. Was the woman really so insulated by her wealth as to not know the answer to that question? All she said was, “Yes.”

  “Oh, I feel even worse now!” Phoebe said.

  Can you imagine how I feel? Christina endured some more useless breast-beating on Phoebe’s part before she was able to get the woman out of her house—and her life. She never wanted to hear from either of the Haversticks again.

  Later that night, the bell sounded. The pregnancy was making her tired and she was already in her bathrobe. She was not happy to find Phoebe standing there; this time she was not inviting her in.

  “Please, I just had to see you again,” she said.

  “I was just going to bed,” Christina said coldly. “Can’t it wait?”

  “No, actually, it can’t. I’m begging you, Christina.”

  The good girl in Christina won out. Stepping aside for the second time that day, she let Phoebe come in, but kept her standing in the hallway.

  “I want you to know I feel sick about what’s happened. Just sick!” Gripping the doorknob tightly, Christina said nothing. “And I want to make it up to you.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” Christina said. “This is the house I grew up in. And because of your husband, I’m forced to sell it.” She was gratified to see the stricken look on Phoebe’s face. Even worse, she suddenly imagined doing harm, not to Phoebe, but to Ian. He had sabotaged her, taken away what she loved most. She could have responded in kind, looked for something that would wound him. An eye for an eye, as the Bible counseled. Why had she backed off so meekly from the fight? But when she looked at Phoebe, standing there with tears trickling slowly down her face, she knew why. Despite everything, she actually felt sorry for this woman. Instead of revenge, she had turned the other cheek—contradictory wisdom from the same source. Awkwardly, she reached over to pat Phoebe’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Oh God, I just feel terrible!” Phoebe was crying in earnest now. But at the same time, she was fumbling in her bag, like she was trying to locate something. “Here!” she said, thrusting a thin, flat package at Christina. “This is
for you.” Puzzled, Christina opened it. Inside was a small oil sketch, done on paper. The pose was different, but Christina recognized the redheaded girl immediately. “Victoria!” she said, looking from the portrait to Phoebe. “Where did this come from?”

  “I found a bunch of pieces like this in a folder,” said Phoebe, sniffling but no longer crying. “This one was the best. Or at least that’s what I thought. And I wanted you to have it.”

  “You did?” She was incredulous.

  Phoebe nodded. “It seems like the least I could do, after the way Ian treated you.”

  “Does he know you’re doing this?”

  “No,” she said. “But there’s a lot that Ian doesn’t know.”

  Christina nodded, looking back down at the sketch. Although the background was a mere blur of color, the face was beautifully rendered.

  “. . . It’s not worth as much as the painting, obviously, but it’s worth quite a bit,” Phoebe was saying.

  “Oh, I don’t want to sell it!” Christina said.

  Phoebe smiled. “No,” she said. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  Christina thanked Phoebe and then submitted to a hug, which was as bone crushing as her handshakes had been. When she was gone, Christina took the sketch into her office and propped it on her desk, so she could enjoy it before packing it up. She only wished that Ian Haverstick had been here; how she would have loved to witness the expression on his smug, infuriating face when he saw it.

  • • •

  Christina heard the echo of her footsteps as she took her final walk through the Carroll Street house. It was a sultry June morning and banks of gray clouds hovered ominously overhead. Though sticky and uncomfortable, she didn’t want to open the windows because she’d be leaving soon, and would only have to close them all again. Jordan had said her mournful good-byes the night before and was staying with Alexis; she couldn’t bear to witness the final exodus. Stephen and Misha had also decamped to their new place in Fort Greene. That they were not angry about having to move was just one more small but precious thing for which Christina could feel grateful.

  She walked up the stairs, running her hand along the smooth banister down which she once used to slide. The boxes were all on the parlor floor and the rooms above and below were empty. But even empty, they were crammed with memories, recent ones mingling freely with those from the past. The parlor window in front of which she and Will had put their first Christmas tree as a married couple was the same window she’d hung the paper snowflakes she’d cut out with Aunt Barb. The apartment where Stephen and Misha had hosted their soigné dinner parties had once housed her beer-drinking, ever-boisterous aunt.

  If there had been a chair left in the house, Christina would have sat down. But there was no chair and so she continued her solitary meandering. The papers were signed, and the money—all 3.3 million astonishing dollars of it—was in her possession. For the first time since Will had died, she would have no more financial worries. She could buy an apartment or even a house—or not. She could run her business, send Jordan to college—if she elected to go—hire a nanny to help with the baby, and, if she was prudent, even start planning for her retirement. So why was she feeling so bereft?

  Christina heard the groan and wheeze of a truck outside—the movers were here. She hurried downstairs and out the door to check. But the red lettering emblazoned across the side said HANDLE WITH CARE; that was not the name of the company she had hired—she was sure of it. Maybe they were using another company’s truck? At just that moment, Charlotte Bickford stepped out onto her stoop. “Right on time,” she called to the driver of the truck, who had poked his head out of the open window. “Everything’s ready; you can start whenever you want.”

  “You’re moving? Today?” Christina was so shocked that she forgot she had not spoken to Charlotte in more than five years.

  Charlotte turned just as the driver had stopped in front of her house and a pair of brawny young men got out and hurried up the steps. When they passed, she finally said, “Yes, I am.”

  “So am I,” said Christina. “I’d say that’s an astonishing coincidence.”

  “Not really,” said Charlotte. “The Sharmas want to start demolition as soon as possible and so the sooner we’re out, the sooner they can get going.”

  “Demolition?” Christina was sure she had misheard her. In all her negotiations with Pratyush and the Sharmas no one had said anything about demolition. “What are you talking about?”

  “You mean you really don’t know? When the Sharmas bought these three houses, they were planning to tear them down and build a single new structure on the lot.” Charlotte seemed supremely gratified to deliver this news.

  The words landed like bombs. “Three houses?” she asked. “What do you mean three houses?” Mira Sharma had taken both of Christina’s hands in hers, doe eyes misting prettily as she thanked her for selling the house to them. She had gestured to her black-haired daughter and said that she wanted her to grow up right here, in this house, on this block. What a snake! What a liar!

  “Next to you, of course.”

  “Miss Kinney? She would never sell. Never.” Christina heard the desperation in her own voice. But then she was hit with a sickening memory: the foil-wrapped cookies that had remained untouched in front of the older woman’s front door. At the time, it had not meant much. Now it meant everything.

  “Geraldine Kinney hasn’t lived in that house in months; her family put her in a home last November. Hadn’t you heard?”

  No, Christina had not heard. “The Sharmas never said anything about buying three houses,” she said, still refusing to believe Charlotte. “Or demolishing any of them.”

  “Well, no, of course not. That would have driven the price up even more. As it was, they paid me a bonus for not mentioning the sale to you.”

  They had done the same thing with Christina! “They tricked us—that’s what they did,” she said. Her initial shock was swallowed by fury. “They tricked each one of us—you, me, and Miss Kinney.”

  “Miss Kinney isn’t thinking about her house; her daughter told me she has dementia. And I’m pleased as punch with the whole deal. The Sharmas paid me a lot of money and I’m going to buy a studio in Manhattan and a place upstate. There’s only one person here who seems to think she’s been tricked.” Charlotte’s voice oozed with pity and contempt. “And that person is you.”

  • • •

  Christina went back inside and immediately called the lawyer, who said that she had no legal recourse. The houses were not in a landmarked zone, and Geraldine Kinney’s family had agreed to the sale, as had Charlotte Bickford. There was nothing preventing the Sharmas from tearing down Christina’s house, or the two houses on either side. Christina was the linchpin in the whole deal because her house was at the center—that was why they had offered her so much money. “Mrs. Sharma said she loved the house,” Christina said to the lawyer, trying not to cry. “She told me that personally.”

  “She may have loved it,” said the lawyer. “But I just got off the phone with her attorney. She loves the idea of the big house she plans to build on the lot even more. She’s moving her whole family in—not just her husband and kid, but her sister, brother, and their spouses and kids, her mother, his brother—it will be like a village.”

  “A village built on my childhood house, my home,” Christina replied.

  “The Sharmas paid you a lot of money,” the lawyer said. “Well over its market value. You could buy another house in the neighborhood with all that cash.”

  “It won’t be the same,” she said miserably, and got off the phone so she could surrender herself to the torrent of tears that had been waiting to fall. Then another truck pulled up, beeping and honking at the one that was already loading up Charlotte’s furniture. She wiped her eyes furiously with her hands before stepping outside. There was the moving truck she had hired,
and when it pulled up with its own crew of brawny young men, she could do nothing but stand aside and let them complete the sorrowful task of emptying out her home.

  FORTY-ONE

  “It’s bad enough we had to move,” Jordan said irritably. “When are we going to start living here? It’s like a warehouse or something.” She was standing by the door, ready to leave for her dance class.

  “I know, sweetheart,” Christina said. She had only recently gotten up and was still in her robe. “I’ve just been . . . busy.” Also pregnant, exhausted, and wretched. “It will get done, though. You’ll see.”

  “I hope so,” Jordan said, and while she did not exactly slam the door, she did not take special care not to let it slam either. Christina flinched slightly from the sound; the pregnancy had made her hypersensitive to loud noises. But Jordan was right. It was like a warehouse in here. Ever since they had moved in a month ago, Christina had been overcome by a crippling lassitude. Oh, she could blame it on being pregnant, but she knew that was only part of it. Her anger at the perfidious Sharmas had been displaced onto the apartment—it was as if she blamed this handful of rooms for what had happened and wanted nothing to do with them. She could not bring herself to unpack, let alone decorate, and the place was still piled with unopened boxes and shrouded furniture.

  Today would be different, though. Today she was going to try to make a dent in the chaos. Getting dressed was the first step; brushing and fixing her hair was the next.

  She made herself a strong cup of tea—at least the kettle was unpacked—and, perched on a big box, sipped it while she called today’s clients to reschedule. Then she called Stephen, who immediately offered to come over and help; he was there within the hour. But once he arrived, whatever slight bit of energy she had summoned seemed to scatter, like beads from a broken necklace.