“The hell I will!”
“I didn’t argue with her,” Maggie grinned. “For a change.”
“Come upstairs, birthday girl, we can’t talk here,” Barney said, taking her suitcase and leading the way up two flights of stairs to the room he’d rented.
“It’s not a palace, but it’s home sweet home,” he said proudly, opening the door on a back room with one curtainless window looking out on a dusty tree. The walls were already all but concealed with bike posters, he had a futon on the floor partly covered by a threadbare rug, and a table held the essentials for living: a tape deck, a hot plate, and a can of insect spray. A tiny, ancient refrigerator hummed in the corner, and the sink on the wall had room for a soap dish and a toothbrush. A mirror hung above it. The room, even the window, looked clean if nothing else.
“There’s a closet, and a john down the hall. I can cook and do my dishes, and my neighbor has a shower he’ll rent out for a quarter for five minutes,” Barney said proudly. “As they say in France, I have le tout confort.”
“No princess phone?”
“There’s a drugstore around the corner. So what do you think?”
“It’s perfect. I had no idea you were so neat. It’s you, Barney. The real you. Where’s your bike?”
“Safe in the shop. I got a job at a big Harley repair place, entry level but plenty of room to rise to the top. I already know more than most of the guys there but I’m playing it cool, not letting them know yet.”
“Wise,” Maggie said, reclining as sedately as possible on the improvised couch. “Are you liking it?”
“I love every second. And I’m a reformed character.”
“You? In one week?”
“Yeah, me. Joined the Y, lifting weights, no beer, no pot, early to bed, saving half my salary, no time to waste goofing off, and I figured out how to cook hamburger and scramble eggs. I can also open a can of tuna fish. Even got mayo. Want something to eat, my beautiful birthday girl?”
“I’m starving.”
“Listen, you take a nap, you’re half asleep already, and I’ll go get something for an early dinner. We’ll celebrate being free. I’ll get Twinkies, too, and birthday candles.”
“No, Barney, I have to get a place to live first,” Maggie said regretfully, gazing at him. He looked a year older than he had last week. And ten years more adorable. If only she could kiss him … she sat up quickly.
“Hell, you could stay here for just one night,” he said indignantly. “I wouldn’t jump you.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Not ‘jump’… exactly. Maybe … more like a suggestion … a birthday commemoration? You’re only eighteen once.”
“Nope, no can do,” she said briskly, making herself stand. “Do you think there are any rooms to rent in this building?”
“It’s full up. This was the last room, a lucky break. But at the drugstore there’s a bulletin board for the whole neighborhood, people selling stuff, looking for soul mates, lost cats, even legit roommates. We could go look.”
“Forward, comrade. Do they make sodas in this drugstore?”
“Maybe they did, forty years ago.”
“Find anything yet?” Barney asked. He’d managed to get Maggie an ice cream cone and a Coke while she investigated the bulletin board.
“Lots of local color and one possible roommate. Listen to this. ‘Wanted, to share part of rent: female, open-minded, unshockable, immaculate, quiet, NON-SMOKER, no pets, no tattoos, no body piercing, no post-Beatles music. Private room and bath. P. Guildenstern.’ And it gives a phone number.”
“Sounds like a weirdo. ‘Immaculate and unshockable’—and what does ‘no tattoos’ mean?”
“It sort of sounds like me. I’m going to call her. What have I got to lose?”
“How do you know it’s a woman?”
“I don’t yet,” Maggie laughed, dialing the number on the wall phone.
“Hello,” said a deep, gruff voice.
“P. Guildenstern?”
“Herself,” the voice said, in its normal feminine tone.
“I saw your notice. My name is Maggie Horvath. No tattoos, unshockable, nonsmoker. Is the room still available?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether I think you seem like a suitable person.”
“I’m immaculate too.”
“That’s always a subjective judgment. Come on over and let me see for myself. It’s three blocks up, the house on the corner of Amsterdam, top floor. I have a German shepherd, trained to attack if you make a false move.”
“I’m harmless. All right if I bring my cousin to check you out?”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“No, leave him one flight down. I’ll leave the door open so you can scream if you think it’s necessary.” P. Guildenstern’s voice trembled slightly.
“I’ll be right over.” Maggie put down the phone. “She’s ten times more scared of me than I am of her, Barney. I bet she doesn’t even have a tabby cat.” She finished her cone, looked at herself in the mirror of her compact, wiped a speck of chocolate ice cream off her lip, applied a little powder, and smoothed her hair. “Do I look nice and clean?”
“Distinctly nice, definitely clean,” Barney agreed, using all the verbal restraint at his command.
Breathless from the climb to the top of the six-story building, Maggie knocked at the bright blue door on which was tacked a tiny card engraved with the word “Miniatures.”
The door opened on a stout chain and P. Guildenstern looked up at her with wide gray eyes attempting a fierce stare. Maggie looked down at a dainty woman of perhaps five feet one inch, whose mass of curly red-blond hair was tied back from her neck with a black velvet ribbon. She had a charmingly delicate face with a small, piquant, pointed nose and Victorian rosebud lips. A German shepherd almost as tall as she stood at attention by her side, on a short leash.
“Good afternoon, Miss Guildenstern,” Maggie said gravely.
“Good afternoon,” she answered tentatively.
“I’m Maggie Horvath, I just called.”
“Oh, good. I couldn’t be sure. Sometimes strangers ring …” she said vaguely, while she inspected Maggie rapidly and keenly from head to toe. “Is your cousin downstairs?”
“Barney, give a yell,” Maggie called.
“I’m down here,” Barney called up from the fifth-floor landing.
“Tell him to stay there.”
“It’s okay, Barney, just stay put.”
“My name is Polly,” P. Guildenstern said, unlocking the door but keeping the dog on the leash. “Please come in.”
“Oh, how wonderful.” Maggie stood stock still, astonished by the large skylight that let a flood of late-afternoon sunshine into what was clearly a studio. “You’re an artist.”
“I paint miniature portraits.”
“I didn’t know anyone still did that.”
“They rarely do, since the camera was invented,” Polly said with a trace of wistfulness, “but there’s still some specialized call for them. It’s not steady work but it’s what I do best.”
“What do you paint on?”
“I use vellum, or what passes for vellum laid on card—what does this have to do with the room?”
“Nothing, I was just interested,” Maggie explained, peering across the studio at a work table topped by a fascinatingly time-worn, good-size box with many drawers and a top that had been raised to form an easel.
“You may take a look at the room now.”
“Does that mean you think I look like a suitable person?” Maggie was suddenly conscious of being in the presence of an utterly benign personality who, nevertheless, possessed a sharply functioning and critical mind.
“Fairly suitable,” Polly Guildenstern said with a considering sniff, walking down a hallway and unlocking a door. “It’s stuffy,” she apologized, throwing open both of two barred windows, “but of course I keep these locked
when there’s no one here. You can’t be too careful.”
Maggie looked around. A canopied four-poster bed, hung with rather tattered pale blue and white damask, dominated the room. The walls were covered with an old floral paper in dim but still-gay yellows on white. There was pattern upon pattern everywhere, a garden of embroidered and painted flowers composed by worn but unmistakably elegant floral fabrics, some satin, others taffeta and silk. They were draped over two French armchairs, made three skirts of different lengths on a round table, and were used freely as draperies at the windows. A patched floral rug covered the floor. Nothing matched, everything had mellowed into shades of faded pastel, and everything melted together. It was like stepping through time, into an illustration from an old book of fairy tales.
“Oh, it’s heaven!” she gasped.
“I collect old textiles,” Polly said demurely. “I keep them away from the light, but here I used the ones that were faded beyond hope.”
“It’s a dream, it’s like a museum, but I’d be afraid to use the bed,” Maggie cried yearningly. “What if I tore something, or spilled something by accident? I’d never forgive myself.”
“Everything can be and has been patched a dozen times over,” Polly murmured reassuringly. “There’s nothing of real worth here, though they do look lovely all together, don’t they? There’s a closet and a small but complete bathroom. Would you like to look at it?”
“Oh, yes, but what’s the point? There’s no place to cook.”
“So it would seem. But nothing is quite what it seems, don’t you find?” Polly asked, drawing back a four-panel screen painted with vines and revealing a compact little kitchen.
Picking up a nest of plastic measuring spoons, Maggie burst into tears. She couldn’t stop sobbing once she’d started, and, not daring to sit down in one of the chairs, she sat on the floor and cried her heart out.
“Not the spoons?” Polly asked after a while, giving her a box of Kleenex.
“No,” Maggie gulped, and dissolved into fresh tears.
Polly sat on the bed and let Maggie recover herself slowly, apparently not embarrassed by this large stranger’s emotion.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie finally was able to say. “I’ve had a tough day and it all hit me at once. And it’s my birthday, on top of everything. I’m eighteen.”
“I’m twenty-six, and you need a cup of tea.”
“Oh, yes, please.”
“Is two hundred dollars a month all right?”
“Am I suitable?”
“Absolutely. But first we have to talk.”
“We do?”
“I’m afraid so. Come back to the studio and I’ll make tea.”
Maggie sat quietly, after repairing her makeup, while Polly boiled water and measured tea leaves into a pot.
P. Guildenstern, she observed, wore a white cotton dress she must have bought in a vintage clothing store, for it wasn’t of this century. She covered it with a pinafore, from a time long ago when people wore pinafores, made of a sprigged material that she was certain must be called dimity, although she wasn’t sure what dimity was. White ballet slippers and a locket around her neck completed the outfit. Passing strange, Maggie thought, but strangely suitable.
“You see,” Polly said, passing the sugar in a silver bowl, “I’m a lesbian.”
“Huh?”
“I know, I know, that wasn’t the first thought that came to mind when you met me. But I am, devoutly so. It’s only fair to let you know. ”
“I don’t care, one way or another,” Maggie told her truthfully, trying not to look too surprised.
“Still, you might reasonably wonder if I were attracted to you. That’s why I put ‘no tattoos or body piercing’ on the notice. I only like my own gender when they are tattooed and pierced. Not that it has to be evident at first glance. I have a weakness for black leather and boots … on others. As I said, nothing is quite what it seems. You’re a very pleasant-looking girl but simply not my type—I’d never rent to my type.”
“That sounds … sensible.”
“I learned that the hard way. She broke my heart.”
“Did it mend?”
“Oh, yes, many times,” Polly giggled deliciously. “I have all the virtues except fidelity.”
“Oh, my God, Barney! He’s still waiting! I’d forgotten him.”
“I take that to mean your cousin is the faithful type?”
“Madly faithful.”
“Well, let’s offer him a cup of tea, in that case. Go tell him to come up.” Polly called her dog. “Stay, Toto,” she ordered him.
“Toto!” Maggie whirled around.
“Don’t dare laugh.”
“Barney,” Maggie called, “you can come up now.”
“About time,” he growled, mounting the stairs two at a time.
“Polly, this is Barney Webster. Barney, this is Polly Guildenstern and this … this is Toto.”
“Fucking unreal!” Barney said, taking in the scene in bewilderment.
“Barney!” Maggie reproved him.
“That’s all right, you should hear what most people say,” Polly laughed. “Barney, would you like a cup of tea?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked around the studio, shaking his head in continued wonder. “This place is great! Have you been here long?”
“About five years.”
“So, have you two worked things out?”
“Yes, we’ve covered the necessary ground,” Polly said with her lilting giggle. “I believe you wanted to check me out.”
“It’s not important,” Barney said hastily. “You look very … ladylike … I mean, proper and nice, very nice. And pretty, of course, I mean, you know that.”
“Thank you,” Polly replied, including him in the blessing of her sunny disposition. “In what way are you two cousins? I love hearing about family trees.”
“Well …” Barney hesitated. “It’s sort of complicated. My dad’s stepbrother was married to Maggie’s sister, before he died.”
“Hmm … then you’re not really cousins?”
“But we were brought up together,” Maggie said hastily, as she felt the blood rise to her cheeks. “When we were little, that is.”
Polly’s keen glance traveled from Barney to Maggie and immediately comprehended the essentials of their relationship. She smiled gently to herself. Very sweet, she thought, and harmless. Straight people were so simple to figure out. And she did enjoy watching them, it was like being around two adorable, decidedly naughty children, trying hard to look innocent.
“Barney, Polly’s an artist,” Maggie said hastily, following the speed and import of Polly’s sweeping appraisal. “She paints miniature portraits on vellum.”
“No kidding?”
“Would you like to see some of my work?” Polly asked them.
“We certainly would,” Maggie said eagerly. She’d been dying of curiosity, but was too polite to ask.
“People commission them, sometimes of themselves to give as presents so people will remember them, sometimes they have them made of their friends,” Polly explained as they moved toward her worktable. “The largest portrait can be shown on a small easel and the smallest you can put in a locket. The medium is water-color, and the brushes are made from animal hairs—in the sixteenth century they used hairs from the tails of squirrels. Now this one is meant to go on a night table—it’s exactly two and a half inches square, and this little oval is destined to be worn around someone’s neck.”
Maggie and Barney bent in wonder over the exquisitely detailed, ravishingly painted, hyper-realistic miniatures, the oval no more than an inch and a quarter in length.
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” Maggie said, choosing her words carefully. “Your work is extraordinary and amazingly beautiful, truly beautiful, Polly.”
“Thank you—it’s something of a lost art. Some museums have collections and occasionally they turn up at auction, but I don’t know anyone else who’s doing this now.”
“Wow,” Barney muttered. The oval miniature was of a heavy-leather, short-haired, glorious biker chick, every tattoo rendered in perfect detail, every stud on her jacket as definitive as a jewel. The square miniature showed the most magnificent pair of naked breasts he’d ever imagined. No shoulders, no torso, just full, exquisitely shaped breasts and nipples, bathed in a radiant light, the gradations of flesh tones breathtaking. “They’re really … something else.”
“They are indeed,” Polly agreed solemnly. He was blushing violently. Good, she’d thought those breasts were rather a tour de force.
“Someday I’ll show you some of my favorites, the ones I kept for myself,” she promised him, lowering her lids so he wouldn’t see the mischief in her eyes.
“Great! Say, Maggie, should I go and get your bag now? Then we can go out for dinner.”
“Would you? Wonderful.”
Barney retreated quickly down the stairs. The two women looked at each other, rocking with silent laughter.
“Men,” Polly said at last.
“Men,” Maggie agreed. “They scare so easily.”
24
Maggie, xerox all these papers, file them, give the originals to Miss Hendricks, bring me two boxes of large paper clips and three packages of little Post-its, get rid of that stale bagel, empty the coffee machine and refill it, then report on the double to Mr. Rexford in Coins. He has some work for you that has to be done immediately.”
“Yes, sir.” Maggie hastened to the Xerox machine, anxious to get these tasks for Mr. Jamison of Animation Art out of the way so that she could go downstairs to Coins, whose immediate neighbors were the departments of Tribal Art, Arms and Armor, and Collectibles. Collectibles was her personal favorite of the fifty-nine different departments at the venerable auction house of Scott & Scott and one into which she never failed to cast an eye, no matter how rushed she was, since she was always rushed.
In her three months working as a temp, Maggie had never had a job she had found as interesting, confusing, and overwhelming as this one. She’d probably never understand the maze of complication that constituted a great auction house, she realized, and during the past two weeks, since she’d arrived, she’d been happy just to be able to observe its mysteries while she zoomed around carrying out her errands.
The Jewels of Tessa Kent Page 26