The Day Before Forever

by Anna Caltabiano

  Ronald continued giving Tabitha a strange look, as if trying to make her speak up. She caught his look and pretended not to notice. Finally she spoke.

  “It’s not our common practice to buy directly from our clients,” she repeated. “But it has been done before in cases where our client wanted to alleviate himself of the burden of a specific sale.”

  I was confused what she was trying to point at.

  “Selling directly to us will not give you the highest price you can receive on this object, Mr. Beauford,” Tabitha said. “It’ll certainly be a faster transaction, since you will not have to wait for the auction to take place, as you said. But also, this means that the sale would be at whatever price we deem fit.”

  “I understand,” Henley said. He hadn’t moved from his position with his arms on both armrests.

  “At auction, there could be a bidding war, or a buyer might fall in love with a specific piece, bidding higher than market value. That will not happen selling directly to us.”

  “Of course.”

  Tabitha’s eyebrows were slightly raised at how calm Henley looked.

  “I’ve already made my decision,” Henley said. “I won’t make my sale at Carter House unless I can sell directly. Otherwise, I will take my business to another auction house—maybe one back home in the States might be better, don’t you think?”

  That made Tabitha pause. She glanced at Ronald, but it was evident that he desperately wanted to make the sale if it meant more time with the jewelry.

  There was a knot in my stomach. Henley was surely bluffing. We would be broke if we couldn’t get them to buy the jewelry from us. We wouldn’t have the money to get home, and we’d most likely starve while waiting for an auction to take place.

  “We can make you an offer.”

  Thank God.

  “Of course, we’d have to send the jewelry out for further appraisal by our experts.” She looked at me. “We like to make certain we’re getting exactly what we pay for. You’ll be able to make a final decision to sell or not once the appraisal is complete.”

  “Naturally,” Henley said. “How long will the appraisal take?”

  “Typically anywhere from a week to two.”

  “Two weeks?” Henley raised his brows. “We’re traveling. We can’t stay in one place for long. I still have to make arrangements for my grandmother—”

  “Of course,” Tabitha said. “We can have them take a look at the jewelry sooner and have the appraisal done in about a week.”

  “That would be marvelous,” Henley said, but the way he said it, it was as if that was the bare minimum they could do.

  “Then it’s settled,” Tabitha said. “Could I please have your ID to make a copy of it? We want to ensure the jewelry gets back to you should you ultimately decide not to sell. Any form of identification is fine—a passport, a driver’s license . . .”

  Henley handed her both fake driver’s licenses. I was relieved we’d had the foresight to get them before the meeting.

  Tabitha took one look at the IDs in her hand. It seemed to pass her scrutiny. “Please excuse me while I get the appropriate forms and make a copy of these.” She left the room.

  “Pleasure meeting you both,” Ronald said, shaking our hands a second time. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to look at these incredible pieces. I’m sure the other jewelry specialists will love to study them.” And with that, Ronald followed Tabitha out.

  Henley and I were alone in the room. I breathed a sigh of relief, but Henley didn’t move. His back remained rigid, and he took up the same amount of space in his chair as when he had tried to look imposing and professional.

  “Looks like we did it,” I said.

  “It’s too soon to tell,” he said. “But hopefully they’ll pay enough for the jewelry after they verify it.”

  “I don’t know how much they’ll pay for the jewelry, but they might just do a bank transfer—which is fine because Miss Hatfield has an American bank and she made me memorize the number, but then I don’t think we can have access to the money for quite some time.”

  “That’s the only problem? Why can’t we ask for some of the money in cash?” Henley said.

  “Because . . . ,” I started. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “Maybe the hardest part is over,” Henley said.

  Maybe he was right. Carter House was definitely interested, that much was for certain.

  Tabitha came back into the room with a small stack of pink forms. She took her seat and passed the papers to Henley along with a pen.

  “All these pages may look daunting, but there’s no need to fill out all of them,” she said. “This is just proof that you understand this is only an agreement for an appraisal. Neither party is required to go through with the transaction. Just full legal name here. Address of main residence here. A phone number we can contact you at—hotel numbers are fine—here. Sign here and here.” Tabitha pointed a perfectly manicured finger at various sections of the forms.

  Henley nodded. He took out the business card of the hostel and carefully copied it onto the forms. I was glad he had thought to pick one up earlier.

  I looked over his shoulder as he signed the various pages and printed his full name. Henley Ainsley Beauford. I had always known his middle name started with an A, but I had never known what it was.

  “Which address should we put down?” Henley turned toward me. “The town house or the country house?” As his lips spoke, his eyes were telling me something else. Henley was trying to get me to tell him Miss Hatfield’s address. It was the only permanent residence we could call our own, and he didn’t know the address.

  I took the pen and paper from him and pretended to think about it. “Why don’t we put down the house in the city? We get most of our mail sent there anyway.”

  “What a good idea,” Henley said, as if he hadn’t known I would give him that answer.

  I quickly scrawled down Miss Hatfield’s address in the city. I was lucky that one of the first things Miss Hatfield had made me do was commit it to memory. She had been worried I wouldn’t be able to find her again in 1904, but thankfully street addresses don’t change much and it was the same street name in 2016.

  I passed the page back to Henley, who gave it and the other forms a once-over before handing them back to Tabitha.

  “Thank you,” she said, beginning to stand.

  “One more thing,” Henley said. “Since we’re still traveling and won’t be home for potentially a few months, would it be possible to have a smaller amount in cash?”

  “Cash?” Tabitha’s eyebrows were raised so high, I thought they’d meet her hairline. “We usually do a bank transfer. Cash is—”

  “Yes, cash,” I chimed in. “Say . . . ten thousand pounds?”

  “That’s highly irregular. I’m not sure—”

  “We have the jewelry,” Henley said. “And once it’s dated and appraised by Carter House, we will go forward with the transaction, since there’s nothing more to prove about its validity. Unless, of course, Carter House would be unable to pay the small portion in cash. Then we’ll have no other choice but to take our business elsewhere, won’t we, Rebecca?”

  I nodded as I watched Tabitha grow more flustered.

  “I-I’m not sure what the policies surrounding that are . . . I’d have to check with someone from the management team.”

  “It’s just that we’re traveling . . . And this way is simply a lot easier for a foreigner in the UK.”

  “That seems understandable,” Tabitha said slowly. “I will check with someone from management as soon as possible. Could we also take your bank information down at this time? Of course, this will not be the final transaction—a mere formality of sorts and also a way for us to ready the documents for your next visit.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Please excuse me.” Tabitha left the room again. Thankfully, she was less pale this time, having had time to recover from the shock I’d given h
er previously. She was almost back to her usual color.

  Tabitha came back a few minutes later. She sat down with a laptop in front of her. “Could I first have the name the sale would be under?”

  “Let’s put it under my name, dear,” I said, making a show of patting Henley’s hand. “It’ll work better for our taxes.”

  “That’s right,” Henley said.

  I turned to Tabitha. “Rebecca Hatfield.”

  Tabitha clicked furiously. “Let’s see . . . I’m just verifying your online presence—another mere formality, I’m afraid.”

  My mouth went dry. That was something I didn’t plan for. I glanced toward Henley and saw that he had a worried crease in his forehead.

  “I’m sorry, this takes a bit more time than it should,” Tabitha said. “The first couple pages of Google tend to be social media links . . . And I see you’re no different. Your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages are coming up first.”

  I didn’t even know I had accounts on those sites. Miss Hatfield, perhaps? We did have the same name, and she was a fan of blending in seamlessly . . .

  “Oh,” Tabitha said suddenly.

  I prepared myself for the worst.

  “I see you own your home. Yes, good. Home ownership is a big plus . . . I’ll just send these over to our finance department, but everything looks fine and in order,” she said, while typing. “Where do you bank?”

  “Chase,” I said, as Miss Hatfield had taught me.

  “And your bank account number.”

  I prattled off the number that was ingrained in my mind.

  Tabitha continued to type. “And you wanted ten thousand pounds in cash? Let me just make a note of that in here. Everything will now just go through our finance department.” Tabitha shut her laptop.

  “Wonderful,” Henley said.

  As she stood, Tabitha reached for our hands. “It’s a pleasure working with you. I’m sure we’ll find your grandmother’s jewelry a nice home.”

  Henley was as slick as Tabitha when he spoke. “The pleasure is ours, working with an institution as fine as Carter House.”

  “Please, let me walk you both out.” Tabitha held open the conference room door for us.

  We followed her down the hall. I didn’t know how much time we had spent in that room, but the other conference rooms were still empty and dark. I wondered how many clients they saw per day.

  Tabitha opened the last door that led out to the Carter House lobby.

  “Thank you again,” she said. “And we’ll see you again in a week.” She turned on her heel and left. The door swung shut after her.

  Henley called the elevator. When it opened, we saw the elevator man was already in it.

  “What floor, sir?” he asked as we entered.

  I didn’t like how everyone in this building seemed to only talk to Henley and ignore my existence.

  The woman at the Carter House lobby desk called out to us as the elevator doors closed. “Hope you had a good visit!”

  I thought we had, but it wasn’t clear if Henley agreed.

  I handed Henley the can of beans. “Kidney beans?”

  It was a good thing we’d had the foresight to ask Aaron for a can opener on our way back to the room.

  “Fine . . . ,” he grumbled, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “You don’t have to eat them,” I said.

  “No, I do, since I’m hungry and that’s practically the only food we have.”

  “We could buy . . .”

  Henley cut me off. “Things are still uncertain. We don’t quite know what’s going to happen yet. Something might cost us a lot of money down the line. We need to be prepared. Kidney beans are fine.”

  I walked over to Henley and handed him the can. Since we didn’t have any utensils, he started slurping up the kidney beans.

  “That’s so . . .”

  Henley put down the can. “Disgusting?”

  “Yes, precisely. Disgusting.”

  Henley wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “You’re going to wash that, right?” I looked at his hand.

  Henley got up and handed me the can on his way to the bathroom. I heard him turn the faucet on.

  I stared down into the can. Henley had left a few bites—or rather sips—of beans for me. How thoughtful of him.

  I started to drink. After two sips, I screwed up my face at the taste. It just wasn’t worth it.

  When Henley came out, I handed the can back to him and he downed the rest.

  He threw away the empty can and went to lie on the bed.

  I quickly wrote down Carl’s phone number from my wrist. I couldn’t relax while I was thinking I could accidentally rub it off.

  “So I guess all we can do now is wait,” Henley said.

  “Yeah . . . Do you want some celery, Henley?” I was already getting out the stalk we had bought. We needed to finish eating it before it went bad. At least it’d taste better than a canned-bean smoothie.

  I also took out the peanut butter and climbed on the bed.

  “You’re the only woman I know who comes to bed with celery,” Henley said.

  I pretended to whack him with the stalk.

  “We have everything set in motion,” I said. “So hopefully everything will go according to plan.”

  “Everything will go according to plan. And then we can get out of here.”

  “You’re so focused on leaving everything and getting back,” I said.

  “What, and you’re not?”

  I sat up cross-legged and opened the jar of peanut butter. “No, I am . . . just not as intensely as you—”

  “You’re the one who can’t physically stay in one time period for too long without going insane.”

  “And I know that.” I took a piece of the celery and dipped it in the peanut butter. “It’s just that you remind me of your mother sometimes.”

  “Miss Hatfield,” Henley said, as if he was correcting me.

  “Yeah . . . I guess it’s strange that I got to know your mother more than you did,” I said, taking a bite of the celery.

  “You guess?”

  “Did you want to know her?”

  Henley took his time answering that question. He took a piece of celery from me and dipped it into the peanut butter. He took his first bite, chewed, and swallowed before answering.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  I waited for him to say more.

  He took another bite. “Sometimes I wonder if she would have liked me.”

  “Of course she would have liked you! You’re her son!”

  “Besides that, I mean. As a person.” Henley bit his lip. “Moreover, I’m not sure ‘son’ had much meaning for her. She left me with Mr. Beauford.”

  “You know she couldn’t have raised you,” I said. “People would have noticed that she wasn’t changing. They’d know that something was different. And it wasn’t as if she could take you with her—you were only half-immortal.”

  “I know,” Henley said. “It’s only—”

  “You think about the way things could have been.”

  “I suppose you do that too? If Miss Hatfield hadn’t turned you immortal?”

  “Sometimes I’m amazed by how well I took it,” I said.

  Henley wrinkled his forehead, trying to understand.

  “When Miss Hatfield aged me and then turned me immortal, sure, there were tears and hysterical sobs, but there wasn’t any screaming or locking myself in the room.”

  Henley shook his head. “You were in shock,” he said, as if he had been there.

  “Shock, yes. But more than that, I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. Once it happened, there was no going back.”

  Henley turned his face away from me.

  “I know you can’t think of your mother as all good, but—”

  “Rebecca, she took you away from your family and did this to you.” Henley spoke through his teeth.

  “And then she became my only family. Sh
e had her reasons,” I said. “We both might not agree with them, but she wasn’t cruel.”

  “You were too kind to someone like that.”

  “I didn’t fight her that first day because I was resigned to my fate. I knew she was right—I couldn’t go back to my family after she had aged me and taken away death. It wasn’t kindness. It was resignation.”

  Henley finally turned toward me. “But what about now? The woman is dead and you speak of her almost fondly,” he said.

  “I speak of her as a mentor and the only family I had for a long time. Look, you didn’t know her—”

  “You’re right, I didn’t.”

  I wished I hadn’t said that.

  “But don’t you want to?” My voice was soft.

  “Want to know your kidnapper? Of course not.”

  “Want to know your mother,” I corrected. “Just because we don’t agree with what she did and just because I have no intention of continuing Miss Hatfield’s legacy doesn’t mean Miss Hatfield didn’t do what she thought was right in the given moment.”

  Henley looked at his hands. “You can’t separate out the different parts of people to suit yourself.”

  “You can and you have to,” I said. “Every person wears different faces and plays different roles. It’s not just your mother. People show different versions of themselves. One version isn’t truer than the other. It’s something we all do.”

  There was silence, but I knew Henley was listening.

  “She would have wanted to know you,” I said.

  Still no response, so I continued to tell him about his own mother.

  “She had hair a little lighter than yours. With more of a red undertone. She liked to wear it up, but at night, she would take it down and it would make waves down her back.”

  I watched Henley’s chest rise and fall with his breath.

  “She spoke sharply and believed in always enunciating the endings of her sentences. Her words never died off in a mutter. She wasn’t like that.”

  I studied Henley for a sign that he was taking in my words. He only sat still.

  “You have her nose . . . had her nose,” I corrected myself. Henley didn’t have his own body anymore. “And the way your eyebrows furrowed and made the creases in the middle of your forehead when you worried—that was hers too. You carried a lot of her. You can’t run from that.”