by Remy, Carole
Aggie’s said, I told you so.
Angela’s acknowledged, You’re right. He knows.
“We invited him to come up and meet you,” Mary added. “But he said he had a meeting to get to. He…”
“Mary,” their father cautioned.
“That’s right,” she agreed. “It’s nothing. Let’s see. What would you girls like to do today?”
“We’ve both been invited out for dinner tonight,” Angela announced. She threw caution out the window. If he knew, what was the harm in being seen together? “Maybe we can go shopping for some new clothes.”
Their father groaned. “That’s women’s stuff. Do you want to show me around Science World, Andrew?”
The younger man readily agreed and the males were dispatched. The females took longer to exit, but eventually made their way across to Robson Strasse, the European-looking street they had noticed earlier. The strasse lived up to its appearance, and the three passed a happy day poking into arty shops and spending more money than they should have.
By four o’clock everyone had returned to the hotel. Their father and Mary departed for an evening alone together. Angela left Aggie in the living room trying one more time to break up with Andrew. She went into the bedroom and plopped onto the bed. The afternoon had firmed her resolve. She was a crook. She had been a prostitute; she had tried to be a swindler for a hundred-twenty thousand dollars; now she was going to become an art thief. The contract was void. Richard would never want her when he found out she had been a hooker; he probably didn’t want her anyway. She refused to go back to turning tricks. The Giacometti was her only remaining option. Surely Jimmy wouldn’t blame Aggie for her sister’s larceny.
Angela sat up and opened her shopping bags. She had found a pair of harem pants with a deep hidden pocket. She was sure the Giacometti would fit. She pulled on the pants and a thin silk blouse and twirled in front of the mirror. Nice. If Richard could see her now… No, she banished the thought. She tucked a silk scarf into the pocket and smoothed it out so it didn’t bulge. She would wrap the delicate statue in the scarf to protect it. Flat shoes and a streak of carefully applied red lipstick completed the outfit. If Jimmy wanted to meet the real Angela, here she was.
Angela found Aggie and Andrew at opposite ends of the small living room, glaring. She shooed Aggie into the bedroom to dress and turned on the erstwhile boyfriend.
“Andrew,” she began.
“You look terrific,” he interrupted. “You know, I don’t like you, but you do know how to dress.”
“You don’t,” Angela told Andrew bluntly. “Go home.”
“I’m not giving up my woman without a fight.”
“Aggie is not and never was your woman,” Angela pointed out. Maybe rudeness would work. “You are in the way here. We both want you to go back to Cincinnati.”
For answer, Andrew sat on the couch and opened the newspaper.
“I’m ready,” Aggie announced. She looked nice in an Aggie-way. Slim pants and a long tunic. Casually elegant if you liked simple.
“Enjoy your evening,” Andrew called from the sofa as they walked to the door.
“You’re right,” Angela admitted to her twin. “He won’t budge.”
Angela found she almost looked forward to confronting Jimmy as two people. At least the one deception would be done. He and Aggie could get on with their obvious love affair. She would disappear with the statue and never bother them again. She thought of never seeing her twin and her eyes glazed. Maybe Jimmy would eventually forgive her. She could pawn the statue, invest the money, make a mint, redeem the statue and return it to him. She smiled at her foolishness. Maybe by the end of the evening, she’d have thought of an alternative to larceny.
Jimmy greeted the two women with a huge smile at the door to the apartment building. He walked unerringly up to Aggie and kissed her hard.
“How can you tell?” Angela asked.
Jimmy shrugged. “I just know. I always did. Aggie, introduce your sister.”
Angela wondered why he continued the charade. He must know they knew that he knew their father. Whew. What a tangle.
“Jimmy, this is my twin sister, Angela,” Aggie obeyed Jimmy’s superfluous instruction.
“The evil twin,” Angela reminded Jimmy with a smile as she held out her hand.
“What?” Aggie asked.
“Jimmy thinks I’m the evil twin,” Angela explained. And tonight I’ll prove him right.
“Only when you pretended to be Aggie,” Jimmy amended. “Come upstairs. I’ve ordered in from the Four Seasons.”
“Ever heard of Chinese?” Aggie teased.
Upstairs the trio toasted their newfound understanding with champagne. Then Jimmy unveiled a many course meal with enough food for ten sets of twins. By the time they finished the quails in aspic, they had also consumed several glasses of wine. The tarte aux framboises found them all tipsy and in good humor. Angela had to struggle to hang onto her resolve to become a criminal. Jimmy was nice, really nice, when he was with Aggie.
At last the meal was over and Jimmy suggested they take their coffee into the library. He handed Angela into a seat with a direct view of the Giacometti. Could he possibly know? She dragged her eyes away from the statue. She and Aggie continued to regale him with tales of growing up in rural Alabama. Decorating the yard all out for Halloween and Christmas. Auburn football games and the steady stream of blue and orange festooned cars carrying eighty-five thousand rabid fans from all over the south to Jordan-Hare Stadium.
He told them in turn of growing up in Vancouver. Of pick-up ice hockey games at the local rink. A quiet Thanksgiving in October, laughing at all the fuss the Yankees made in November. To Canadians, everyone who lived in the U.S., even in Alabama, was a Yankee. The Canucks liked their southern neighbors, but found them rather strange. They couldn’t even spell. Kept dropping the u’s. And what about that ‘eh’, eh?
Suddenly the mellow evening turned on Angela. The conversation was too easy, the smiles too pleasant. Life was basically tough, and Jimmy and Aggie didn’t seem to know that. She couldn’t stand to be around their happiness any longer.
“I’m going to leave you two lovebirds,” she stood up and announced.
Aggie and Jimmy exchanged a glance. Angela realized they had been waiting for her to go and she flushed. They walked with her out to the lobby and Jimmy pushed the elevator button. Now or never. Angela pulled one glove out of her pocket.
“Oops,” she announced. “I think the other glove must have fallen out of my pocket in the library.”
She turned back to the door and sighed in relief when neither followed. They were probably too absorbed in each other to notice her absence. She slipped into the library but was afraid to close the door. She walked straight up to the statue, stood sideways to the door, put it in her pocket and wrapped it as best she could in the scarf. It fit. The folds of the full pants hid the bulge. It was done. Angela wondered if she looked as pale as she felt. She definitely was not cut out for a life of crime. She picked up the glove she had dropped in her chair.
“Found it,” she announced, waving the glove as she walked out into the lobby.
She was surprised to see that Jimmy and Aggie had their coats on.
“Jimmy wants to show us the terrace,” Aggie explained.
“Isn’t it raining?” Angela asked. She wanted to get out of the apartment fast.
“It cleared up while we were talking,” Jimmy smiled. “Come on out. It’s a lovely view.”
Aggie linked her arm in Angela’s and walked with her through the lobby and dining room and out onto the terrace. The statue bumped awkwardly against Angela’s leg. She struggled not to wince or stumble as it hit again and again in the same soon-sensitive spot. Jimmy walked behind them and Angela prayed there was no visible lump. Eventually they made it to the railing.
Jimmy was right. The view was breathtaking. A shimmer of lights dusted the far shore, with a broad ribbon of flat black water between. The
boats in the harbor made their own display of lights like a Christmas show, each doubled by its reflection in the calm bay. Angela relaxed against Aggie’s side. The statue bumped painfully into her other leg and she jerked.
“Are you all right?” Aggie asked. “Jimmy, I think Angela’s hurt.”
“No,” Angela assured her. “I’m fine.”
“Come inside,” Aggie urged and took Angela’s arm.
Angela couldn’t walk straight now; the pain was too intense. It felt more like a cut than a bruise.
“There’s blood on your pants,” Aggie exclaimed when they reentered the light.
Angela thought fast. It was over. She was caught. A limb of the statue must have cut through the thin fabric of the pocket and then into her skin. Somehow now that the moment was here, she couldn’t bear to admit the depth of her depravity to her sister. She would do anything, go to jail, go back to hooking, anything so Aggie wouldn’t know. Her eyes met Jimmy’s and she realized that he understood.
“I’ll get Angela into the bathroom,” he took command. “Aggie, you boil some water for tea.”
He picked Angela up in his arms, carefully avoiding the statue and the injured leg. He carried her into the bathroom and started to put her down on the edge of the huge circular bathtub.
“No,” Angela warned him “You might hurt the statue.”
She stood holding onto his arm with one hand and pulled out the bloodied gauze-wrapped bronze with the other. She held it out to Jimmy.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
At least he didn’t say it was all right. He didn’t say it was nothing. Angela knew it wasn’t all right and it wasn’t nothing. What he did say was, “Let’s look at that leg.”
He put the statue on the counter and lifted the full leg of Angela’s pants. She looked down to see a jagged bloody gash. No wonder her leg had hurt. She heard footsteps. Jimmy put the statue behind the toilet and put his finger to his lips. Angela could have kissed him.
“Are you okay?” Aggie asked.
“She must have brushed against something on the terrace,” Jimmy explained.
“Let’s see.” Aggie looked at the ugly wound and her eyes became moist. “Oh, Boo.”
“It’s okay,” Angela said hastily, her own eyes damp. The cut was the least punishment she deserved for what she’d tried to do. She couldn’t stand that her twin felt sorry for her, a criminal.
Jimmy wiped the cut with a warm washcloth. He was gentle, Angela noticed, and the cleansing barely hurt. The cut was more like a scratch, though jagged and ugly. By the time he finished cleaning it, the bleeding had stopped. He pulled a sterile bandage from a drawer and taped it to her thigh.
“Good as new,” he commented, looking up into her face.
“Thank you,” she said aloud.
“For everything,” she mouthed behind Aggie’s back.
Though all her problems still remained, Angela felt as though she had won a lottery. She felt free and happy as she hadn’t since the night she’d written the letter to answer the ad. She wasn’t a criminal. She wasn’t a swindler. She wasn’t a prostitute any more. Somehow, she would be okay.
Chapter 23
Like clockwork, the buzzer rang. Jimmy pushed the button to release the elevator to the lobby. Damn, he was good. He had hoped the terrace diversion would keep Angela in the apartment till the rest of his guests arrived. Her attempt at larceny had added the few extra moments he needed. Jimmy realized now that Angela was more desperate than he had thought. They would have a long conversation soon.
The elevator doors opened just as Aggie and Angela emerged from the bathroom. Gordon and Mary Trout stepped into Jimmy’s lobby and Gordon greeted his daughters casually.
“Hi Blossom, Peach Fuzz.” Jimmy stored away the nicknames. Peach Fuzz?
The twins looked stunned. Aggie turned to Jimmy and glared.
“You knew. You knew everything. How soon? What did you do, spy on us?”
Jimmy watched in glee as Aggie’s anger rose with each question. Her hands were on her hips now. She looked about ready to take a swing. As Jimmy braced himself to ward off the blow, Aggie startled him by bursting into loud laughter.
“You should see your face,” she choked. She turned abruptly to her father, “Dad?”
The single word held interrogation and menace.
“What did you tell him?” she continued, her voice deep.
“I didn’t tell Jimmy anything,” he protested. “I didn’t need to. You girls have been up to some naughty tricks.”
Jimmy noticed Angela wince. He walked to her side and put his arm around her shoulder.
“Nothing a good spanking won’t solve,” he chuckled, unable to resist the tease. Angela’s cheeks blushed to a rosy pink.
“Come on in,” he urged the older Trouts. “Let me show you around.”
While Jimmy took Gordon and Mary on a tour of the apartment, he kept half an eye on the furiously consulting Aggie and Angela. They must be wondering how much their father really knew. He’d let them stew a little longer. Midway through the tour, the buzzer rang again. That must be Richard. He left his guests in the library and pressed the release button in the lobby. He waited by the elevator to greet his friend.
An unknown young man emerged instead, carrying a flat box and waving a long pistol in the air. Jimmy gave the youngster a long look, pointedly ignoring the pistol.
“Aggie,” he called into the library. “I think you have company.”
Aggie poked her head into the lobby and her reaction was everything Jimmy could have imagined.
“Andrew!” she yelled and charged forward. She shoved him back with both hands on his chest. “Go home!”
As she readied another charge, Jimmy reached out an arm and snagged her around the waist.
“I’m here to take you back,” Andrew stammered. He lifted the gun. “This man has you bewitched.”
“The other way around,” Jimmy murmured.
“I challenge you to a duel,” Andrew said bravely and held out the box. Jimmy pinned the struggling Aggie to his side and covered her mouth with his other hand.
“How would you like a job working on the new x99B chip?” Jimmy offered.
“What?” The gun wobbled.
“I understand you’re a computer expert.” Aggie stilled at his side and he released her. “One of my companies is working on the x99B.”
“The x99B?” Andrew echoed. The gun dropped to his side. “Wow! That’s the prototype for the next generation.”
“So you’d like the job?”
“Sure!”
“You’re hired.” Jimmy pulled the gun and the flat box from Andrew’s unresisting hands. “Now that you’re my employee, you aren’t allowed to shoot me.”
Andrew flushed deep purple.
“I…I…I …” he stuttered.
“That’s okay.” Jimmy put an arm around his shoulder and guided him through the library door and into a chair. “I agree that Aggie’s worth fighting for, as long as you understand that I just won.”
Andrew nodded and sank into the chair. Jimmy caught Aggie’s eye in time to stifle her giggles. He sat on the sofa and pulled her down beside him.
“So,” Gordon spoke. Jimmy felt Aggie tense beside him. “You girls answered a personal ad.”
Aggie stared up into Jimmy’s eyes, her own asking a multitude of questions. How much had he told their father? Did he know about the money? What was going to happen now? Jimmy shrugged. She and Angela had dug a pit. He would enjoy watching them climb out. Aggie’s eyes swerved to Angela’s. The older twin lifted her little finger in a crook.
“Jimmy put an ad in the New York Times,” Angela explained. “Didn’t you Jimmy?”
He wondered where she was going. He nodded to Gordon and waited.
“I sent the ad to Aggie.” The little minx. “I just sensed something about it. Aggie felt the same way, so she answered it.”
“You sensed something?” Gordon asked.
; “Like an aura,” Angela agreed.
“What did the ad say?” Gordon asked.
Angela nodded to her sister and Aggie took over. Now that she knew that her father hadn’t read the ad, Jimmy expected the story to be a good one.
“It was blunt and yet romantic,” Aggie mused. “I can’t remember the exact wording, but he talked about commitment and caring.”
Jimmy smiled in appreciation. She was skewering him to the wall and he loved it. he laid his arm along the back of the sofa behind her and gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“He put in a quote from Shakespeare,
What is love? ‘tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter.
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come and kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.”
“Sounds like a long ad,” Gordon commented. His prosaic remark tickled both Jimmy and Aggie and they went into a duel fit of chuckles while the rest of the company stared.
“I think it’s a pretty poem,” Angela asserted.
“Me too,” Mary agreed.
Andrew was silent. Jimmy imagined he was lost in an intense fantasy of exotic chip design.
“Why did Angela come too?” Gordon asked, persisting in his efforts to penetrate the mystery. “And why all the secrecy? Why didn’t you just tell us?”
Jimmy waited gleefully as Aggie squirmed. Her twin came to the rescue.
“Aggie was embarrassed that she’d answered an ad,” Angela explained. “She wanted to get to know Jimmy better before she introduced him to you. I came along for a holiday.”
“But when we met you on the beach,” Gordon turned to Jimmy.
“Hush,” Mary interrupted. “No need for an inquisition. I’m just glad we’re all together here tonight.”
Jimmy smiled. Gordon had found himself a good woman. He was about to suggest coffee when the elevator buzzer rang yet again. He excused himself to the company and went again to the lobby. This time it must be Richard. When the elevator opened, he got his first real shock of the night.