A Katherine Reay Collection

by Katherine Reay

  “All right.” He said the words smoothly and evenly, as if such requests were made every day.

  Lucy stepped out the front door. She took a deep breath, capturing the crisp morning, the soft breeze, and the hint of sun. Raindrops from the night before had left everything shiny and new as if fireflies made of light, air, and hope danced off leaves, car windshields, signs, and store windows. She felt her face crack in bright and genuine delight as she turned right and loped down the hill toward the bus stop.

  Lucy hopped on the bus and replayed the last few days. Was it that long? She raised her hand and counted it off in hours. Only forty. She rested her head against the window’s cool glass as the scenery flashed by—gates, moss-covered walls, shops, and cars, whizzing by so closely that she felt as if she could reach out and touch each.

  It’s not genetic. Crazy, but not genetic. She stopped her line of thought. Her father wasn’t crazy; he simply played by his own rules. Bette might call it Moral Relativism. Lucy’s mom would call it “Me. Me. Me,” as she had chimed all through Lucy’s childhood when she felt her daughter had done something selfish, wrong, or unkind.

  Lucy reached into her bag and pulled out her copy of Jane Eyre, the one her dad had sent for her thirteenth birthday. That had been his gift to her. The stories. If she could carry anything away from these forty hours and call it her own, it could be that. Nothing more, but nothing less either. She rolled the small paperback in her hands, feeling its material weight—paper, ink, and a worn and torn slick cover.

  As the bus pulled onto the highway and accelerated along the straight, smooth road, Lucy let herself trail through her favorite scenes. Jane Eyre running into the passage, into the garden, calling, Where are you? knowing Rochester was out there and needed her. Then sitting with Rochester and asking, Have you a pocket comb about you, sir? She loved that line—true love defined by a pocket comb.

  It really was that simple, that tangible, and found in day-to-day acts. Her mind drifted to Wives and Daughters and the moment when Roger realizes he loves true-and-loyal Molly. It took him time, he made mistakes, but he found his way. And in Wuthering Heights when Nelly declares, I believe the dead are at peace . . . At peace.

  She envisioned North and South—at the end, when John takes Margaret into his arms and pulls her hands from her face. What had she said? About his mother? Oh . . . That woman. She was certain Mrs. Thornton would exclaim that disapprovingly upon hearing of their impending marriage. That woman . . . The words stuck in Lucy’s mind. She played them over and over, knowing they pointed elsewhere, but she couldn’t place it. That woman . . .

  “What a woman!” Lucy barked aloud then ducked down into her seat. That was it. James had said that about Jane Eyre when they first met. He’d admired Jane’s courage, her moral fiber, and her strength at the end of the story. She was the conqueror . . . She wrestled loose her happy ending. What does it take to claim that?

  An hour later and still pondering the question, Lucy found an empty seat on the train to London. In fact, she found a nearly empty car. Only an old man and a couple of teenagers, making out in the back, shared her company. She dropped into the seat farthest from her companions and tapped her phone.

  “Hello, meu pequenino, are you on your way home?”

  “Maybe.” She skipped over Sid’s Portuguese, knowing it would be an endearment because that was Sid. She closed her eyes and recited her new battle cry. Come further up, come further in. “Sid? I need to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “The MacMillan vases and the books.” Lucy laid the whole truth before him, starting with her first book sale, when she found herself telling a story . . . to sell the story. She concluded with the call from MacMillan’s assistant, Aidan, and how she’d agreed to pay him a fee, a bribe, to move up the list and procure Sid’s three vases immediately rather than wait over another year.

  “He asked for money? For him personally?”

  “In exchange for ‘a favor’ as he called it. He asked for five hundred pounds to guarantee immediate delivery. I paid it and entered it in the books as a purchase for The Purloined Letter.”

  “That’s not remotely funny.” Sid remained silent for a few heartbeats. “What do you expect me to do?”

  The question wasn’t rhetorical or sarcastic. Lucy could tell that Sid genuinely wanted to know; he was out of his depth. She heard his breath catch over the line.

  “I can’t process this,” he added.

  “I should’ve waited until I got back. Some things are better in person, but I didn’t want to wait and I knew you’d need time.” Lucy willed her heart to calm. “For now, you need to know that I’ll make things right. As right as I can in each and every case.”

  “The books?”

  “All of them. I’ll figure it out.”

  “The MacMillans? I almost sold one. Me.” He was quiet a moment. “That’s my name on the door.”

  “I know, Sid, and I’m sorry.” She imagined him standing in the gallery by the George III desk looking out the window, his name painted on the glass in crisp Helvetica font in glossy black. “Could you please set out all three vases? I’ll call Jones and Jones to come crate them and ship them back.”

  “Yes . . . I need to hang up. This is too much, Lucy.”

  “Wait. Please,” she cried out. The teenagers broke apart and searched for the sound. She shifted low in her seat.

  “I’m still here.”

  “While you’re thinking, digesting, cursing me . . . Please know I’ll never do anything like this again. Any of it. I won’t cross that line. I’ll make everything right. I want to stay at your gallery in whatever capacity you’ll allow me. You don’t owe it to me, I know, but I’m begging for a second chance.”

  “Why should I give you one?”

  “No reason at all.”

  “And that’s supposed to sway me?” His voice arched high as if he was now begging.

  “You asked why you should give me one; that’s the answer. If you asked why I want a second chance, that’s something else entirely.”

  “Then answer that question.”

  “Because I need a mentor. All my life I have been seeking ways to define myself and I’ve been following all the wrong cues. I understand that each and every decision is my own and that I’m accountable, but I also need a guide, Sid. I’m not guaranteed a happy ending just because I make it to the last page—every choice along the way matters and they have real consequences. I want to learn from you. There is no one I admire or respect more.”

  She’d launched it in one breath. She took another and pressed on. “You seek to truly understand your clients, to bless them, not so they can bless you, but because you want to bring them joy. You get the proper place of things in a life and you treat what you do with a light and respectful heart, knowing that deeper truths exist and more important aspects of life hold greater value. I spent a lot of time hauling down curtains and moving furniture with Bette in Haworth and I never felt so alive. I was helping her, Sid, and it was creative and colorful, and I felt creative and colorful and I think Bette’s still on cloud nine. I’m rambling . . . But will you think on all of that, please?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. She heard a soft clicking sound and knew he was tapping his toe against the floor. “I hear you. Now I need to go.”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes. “Thank you, Sid.”

  Lucy clicked off her phone and tilted her head to the window. Comefurtherup, comefurtherin. She felt if she kept repeating it, she could stay closer to the truth and have the courage to endure it. She tried to smile but couldn’t. She only managed a tiny wavery thing she caught in the window’s reflection. “What have you done?” she whispered to it.

  Lucy closed her eyes and let the cadence of the train provide a tempo for her thoughts. She thought about her apartment with its few furnishings and knew she’d do it differently if she could. The space would be filled with “gems” like Sid often found during his travels and at garage
sales. She, too, could restore them by hand and make them unique by adding color or a stain or simply scrubbing them with steel wool to change their texture.

  She would cover the walls. Load them with pictures of her friends, moments of laughter and love. She could enlarge that beautiful black-and-white photo of her mom and her at the beach when she was sixteen and hang it in her living room as the centerpiece. Her dad would be there too. She’d find a good picture, hang it, and let him be himself. No better, no worse. The smiling face of a man she did believe, in his own way, loved her.

  The drapery panels. She’d finally hang them too. There were no patches left to fill. Waiting was arrogant and cowardly at the same time. It said she couldn’t be satisfied, was always holding out, and was never content. Also cowardly because she was leaving an escape open, never letting anything tie her too closely to a home. And the result? Beauty wasted and lying on a cold wood floor and books with no shelves of her own to hold them.

  Lucy tapped her phone again.

  Her mother answered with a soft “Did you find him?”

  “I did and he’s everything, I suspect, you thought he’d be—living with a woman about my age who thinks he’s forty, asking me to lie so she wouldn’t do the math, working a touring scam and running away with the deposits, using all the stories I believed were sacred and defined him, me, and our relationship—It was eye-opening.”

  “Your tone makes me want to laugh, but I don’t think it’s a laughing matter.” Despite her words, her mom’s tone held no laughter.

  “It is.” Lucy wiped at her eyes, unsure if she was on the brink of tears or laughter herself. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Sit me down and make me listen to what he was? Deep inside.”

  “What good would it have done? Some things you needed to learn on your own. And you are so like him . . . I know you don’t like it when I say that sometimes, but there is good there too. You loved the stories, the playacting, and had—still have—an amazing imagination. Look at your creativity now. That’s a gift from God. He gave it to you both, and your father helped cultivate it in you.” Her mother paused then asked quietly, “Are you okay?”

  “I am. Mom . . . I’ve been such a fool. I was so certain that if he was okay, then I could be too. You’ve been telling me for years he couldn’t do that. And I wanted him to; it made it easier for me . . . I called Sid and told him everything.” Lucy laid her head on the cool window.

  “I don’t know what ‘everything’ means, but this time your tone tells me it isn’t a laughing matter.”

  “It’s not. I’ve made a real mess of things, but I’m coming home to set them right. I’ve got a stop in London, then there are a couple flights with open seats out tonight.”

  “How can I help? Do you want me to drive into the city? I have appointments tomorrow afternoon, but I can be there by seven o’clock.”

  Lucy rubbed her eyes again. “There’s nothing you can do to help, Mom, but I’d love the company.”

  Lucy disembarked at Paddington Station and crossed to the Bakerloo Line. She rushed back up at Wembley Station, dragging her rollerboard behind her. She headed west to a small shop with two words beautifully scrolled across the red door-frame. Duncan MacMillan.

  The setting sun sent a vivid color palette of pinks and blues across the sky. A glow of rose highlighted the single, exquisite vase resting in the window. It was easily three times the size of those she’d acquired for Sid, with the same gold cascading over the top into a puddle of midnight. The gold morphed in texture and radiance, burning even brighter, as it threaded along an edge to pool near the bottom of the blues, as if finally finding peace. Lucy felt a surge of courage and pushed open the door.

  A woman with emerald cat-eye glasses and a severe bob glanced from her computer screen then returned her focus.

  Lucy walked to her desk. “My name is Lucy Alling and I purchased three vases for a gallery in the States, but I need to speak with the manager about them.”

  “Was there a problem?” The woman sat straighter and glared over the rim of her glasses. She picked up a pen and rapped it against her desk. She appeared confident, efficient, even bored, but Lucy read tension in her eyes.

  “No problem with the vases, just with how I acquired them.” Lucy sensed that her next question would shake the woman’s equilibrium. “Is Aidan here?”

  The woman stood. “Aidan no longer works here. Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”

  “I think you must know.”

  Without a word, she took her seat and stabbed a red-nailed finger to the chair across from the desk.

  Lucy sat. “Aidan contacted me and offered to move up my gallery’s order for a fee. I paid it.”

  “Which are you?” She pulled a paper from her drawer. “Sid McKenna, Weis Haus, Holmann, or Fine Arts? I assume from your accent McKenna or Fine Arts.”

  “Technically, McKenna, but my boss knew nothing about it. He didn’t ask me to pay the bribe and was horrified when I told him about it an hour ago.”

  “Really?” The sarcasm struck Lucy.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve fired Aidan. Why are you here?”

  “I came to apologize and I’ve arranged for the vases’ return. As soon as I get the tracking numbers, I’ll pass them along to you.”

  The woman sat perfectly still, leaving Lucy to take another step.

  She pulled a card out of her bag. “Here’s my card and here”—Lucy dug for a pen and wrote her cell number on the back—“is my phone number. I don’t know what comes next. Do you want me to stay in London until you get the vases?” She slid the card across the desk then clenched her hands in her lap. “I’m trying to make this right.”

  The woman removed her glasses. Lucy noted her eyes were hazel, with distinct threads of green and gold—not unlike a cat’s. She swirled the glasses in her hand. “Duncan is firm that he doesn’t want any press. We aren’t demanding the return of the vases. Later this week, I was planning to notify each of the four galleries that paid Aidan. A shot over their bows is the least they deserve. But the customers? None of them are to blame. Have you promised or sold the vases?”

  “We can return all three without breaking any commitments to our customers.”

  The woman set down her glasses and fingered Lucy’s business card. “Well, Lucy Alling, I appreciate you coming here. I’ll let you know if I need anything more from you.”

  “Thank you.” Lucy stood and turned to the door, only to spin back. “So you don’t need me to stay here, in the country or anything?”

  The woman leaned back in her chair, bouncing slightly, and laughed. “That you came here today speaks volumes. I have your number. I suspect this will be my easiest conversation regarding the matter. I doubt San Francisco, Berlin, or Vienna will be so contrite.”

  “I suppose not . . . Thank you.” Lucy rolled her suitcase out into the evening glow and hailed a cab. She rewound the day in her head as the cabbie whisked her to Heathrow. My name on the door. Then the woman saying, We aren’t demanding . . .

  She pulled out her phone and tapped James’s number. She didn’t wait for a hello when he answered but rushed ahead. “Did you all get home safe?”

  “Yes, Grams is fine and I—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, James, but I need to ask you a question. A legal question. I told Sid about what I’d done with the books, but I realized that as I undo all that, he’s at risk. His name is on the door.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “That’s not going to work. He can’t pay for any of this. How do I make it so he’s not liable?”

  “You’re his employee and it’s his business, Lucy. How did you think that worked?”

  “Clearly, I didn’t,” Lucy snapped then bit her lip. “Sorry. Please, James, how do I separate myself from him and him from this?”

  “That’s what you’ve got to do. Separate him from the book business. Buy it and take it out from under his gallery, rename it, whatever. If you pay him rent, yo
u can then sell out of his space and it can legally remain independent. Or move it if you want. That’s the best you can do at this point.”

  “How on earth am I going to do that? Even with all my savings, I don’t have that kind of money.” Lucy deflated.

  “You asked what you should do, not how you’re going to do it.” She heard James’s breath shudder over the line. “I wish I had something better to tell you, but there aren’t many options here.”

  “Okay then. Thank you.”

  Lucy mentally drained her savings and was adding up everything she owned when James called out, “Wait. Don’t hang up.” He dropped his voice. “You asked me a question a couple days ago, at the inn, during lunch, and I didn’t answer it honestly, about true lo—”

  “That’s okay, James. Don’t worry about it. Oh . . . We’re at Heathrow. I have to go.” She hung up.

  Chapter 32

  Two weeks later, Lucy looked up from her account files to find hands pressed against the window. She blew back her bangs as she ran to the door, unlocked it, and threw it open.

  “I called you. Did you get my messages?” Lucy hugged Helen, noting that she felt thinner, more petite, if that was possible in such a short period of time.

  “I did, but I didn’t want to call you back. I wanted to come see you. Then one day became two, then three, and over a week, but I’m here.” Helen took in the gallery. “And so are you, I see.”

  “In a fashion. I bought the book business from Sid and am renting this corner of his store.” Lucy crossed back to her desk. Helen started to follow then stopped and gaped at the mahogany bookcase.

  “A lot of the books are gone. I sent the ones I tarnished to a shop in New York. They’ll sell them with full disclosure and make good money too . . . And slowly, step by step, I’m making everything right. Some things I can’t, but for the most part, people have been very gracious and allowed me to do something.”

  Helen continued to the desk and sat in the offered chair. “Oh, Lucy. This must be so hard.” Helen’s soft tone conveyed a complete understanding of Lucy’s situation.