Time After Time

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  "No," he answered grimly. "Not anymore."

  She needed some air. She slid the pin back into its satin cushion and closed the red box. The silvery, penetrating sound ceased at once.

  That left Liz more disturbed than before. She wanted to lift up the lid, just to test the box, but she was so grateful for the quiet, the peace, that she let it stay closed.

  "I guess my ears were ringing," she said in a clumsy lie. "How much do I owe you for the key, then?"

  Jimmy flapped a beefy hand at her and said, "Ah, nothin'. It's just an old key."

  "Thank you," Liz said, still in a subdued voice. "That's awfully nice." Afraid that she wasn't seeming properly grateful, she took a business card from her purse and handed it to the locksmith. "If I can ever return the favor. . ."

  Jimmy read the card. "Parties, eh? Well, I got grandkids, and no mistake. Do you have one of them Barney getups available?"

  Liz smiled wanly and left with her red box and her new old key.

  Chapter 3

  One mystery was solved, anyway: There was no treasure map, only a pretty little pin.

  But now a new, more daunting mystery faced Liz: what had produced the strange and melodious chime-note? She glanced at the red box sitting innocently on the front seat alongside her as she crawled through downtown traffic on her way back to her cottage. As it happened, she was trapped behind a Jeep blasting rap music; it was all she could do not to march over to the driver and rap him on his damned head. Jimmy was right. It was all so rude.

  She tried not to think about the traffic or the box and instead turned her thoughts to the Eastman birthday party. She could save money by making the cake herself: say, a giant Mickey Mouse head, with eight-inch cake-pan ears. It would be the pièce de résistance of the affair. No one would ever remember that the decorations were skimpy; everyone would go home raving about the huge Mickey Mouse cake. Good. The cake idea was good.

  She glanced again at the red box beside her. Had she imagined the sound? By now, she was as curious as Pandora. She took a deep breath, then lifted the lid an inch. Nothing. Thank God, nothing. Relieved that that was over, Liz swung up to Bellevue Avenue, hoping against hope that traffic would be slightly less crushing there than on narrow Spring Street, the only other northbound street to her cottage.

  Wrong. On a steamy Friday in June, Newport traffic came in only two versions: horrendous and murderous. Obviously she should have walked, but old habits died hard. The deep Fifth Ward, where she'd been brought up, was just a few blocks too far from downtown to be quickly walkable. Then, after she married, she and her husband had rented a little ranch house in Middletown, farther up the island, because it was close to both their jobs at Raytheon. But now she had a house smack-dab in the middle of everything. Walking was the only way to go.

  Eventually Jack Eastman's exquisite manor house loomed ahead. With its steeply pitched roofs, multiple chimneys, intricate shingles, and half-timbered stucco, the house was one of the finest and biggest Queen Annes in a town that overflowed with them. Liz could still remember pedaling down Bellevue Avenue on her way to the beach when she was a child, liking the Queen Annes more than any of the French chateaus, Italian villas, or granite castles that lined the famous avenue. Something about the brooding Gothic lines of the shingled English style appealed to her.

  And scared her, of course, which she loved.

  Liz turned off Bellevue Avenue toward her house and then, entirely on impulse, she pulled up in front of the Eastman mansion. She had a question for Jack Eastman. She could have asked it by phone; but she had changed into a stylish skirt and a new knit top, and she wanted to prove that she didn't always look like something the cat dragged in.

  Scanning her image in the rearview mirror of her minivan, Liz poked her thick blunt-cut hair back into place, then decided that maybe she needed a bit more lipstick.

  And a little mascara.

  And a touch of eye shadow.

  Whatever it takes to make him see that I'm ... I'm — what? Professional? Hardly. A professional would have called first before dropping by. She strode up to the front door, trying not to listen to the little voice running around madly inside her head screaming, "You idiot! You just want to show him you can look pretty! You idiot!"

  But it was too late for second thoughts. Ignoring the doorbell above the discreet brass nameplate engraved with the name "East Gate," she lifted the heavy dolphin doorknocker and brought it down in three sharp thumps.

  Netta answered the door immediately, as if she'd been hovering on the other side. Startled, Liz said, "Oh, hello, Netta. Is Mr. Eastman in? I wanted to ask him about the cake and, if it was convenient, to look around the— "

  She was interrupted by the very gentleman in question, whose outraged voice thundered from behind a set of closed paneled doors off the massive, portrait-lined entrance hall, itself as big as the whole first floor of Liz's toy cottage.

  "What the hell do you think you're up to, inviting those slimeballs on the property!" she heard him shout.

  The hair on Liz's arms stood on end as she murmured, "This may not be the right time —"

  "Dear, it surely isn't," the housekeeper said uneasily. Liz heard another man's voice, obviously attempting to calm Eastman down, and then Eastman again, interrupting him.

  "You want to hang out with those sewer rats, go ahead — but do it in their sewer, not the shipyard! If I see them there again, I'll run them off myself!"

  Again the other voice, soothing and yet urgent.

  Then Eastman's voice, hoarse with rage: "Are you crazy? You mess with them, you'll end up in jail! You think they're along for the ride? They want the land, you bloody old fool! Not the business!"

  Then the other voice, also angry now.

  And then Eastman again, cutting him off. "They'll do whatever they have to do to get it! You bloody, bloody old fool!"

  Then the door opening. Then the door slamming.

  And there he was, face to face with Liz for the second time that day, except, of course, that now she looked pretty.

  "Mr. — Mr. Eastman," she said piteously. "This may seem like a trivial question ... but I wanted to know ... chocolate cake?" she asked in a faltering voice. "Or white?"

  Still flushed with fury, he stared blankly at her for a moment. "The question's not only trivial," he growled at last. "It's goddamned stupid!"

  He brushed past her on his way out, leaving Liz — for the second time that day — agape.

  "He doesn't mean that, dear," said Netta apologetically, wringing her hands. "Truly. I've never seen him this angry. He would never talk to someone like that."

  "I see," said Liz, shaking with indignation. "Then I guess we both imagined it!"

  "I mean, he's always a perfect gentleman," Netta said.

  "With gentle ladies, you mean," said Liz grimly. He'd looked at her ... answered her ... stormed past her, as if she were some low-life panhandler.

  "I mean with everyone," his housekeeper insisted. "But Mr. Eastman's been under tremendous strain. You simply can't imagine," she said, her voice trailing off. She was shaking her head and looked exactly the way a housekeeper in a Gothic mansion should look: distressed, old, and loyal to the bone.

  But Liz was unmoved. As far as she was concerned, Netta's master was ruder than either chimes or rap music. "Well!" she said crisply, tapping her foot on the marble floor. "Now that I'm here: would you like to show me where the event is going to be held?"

  Netta furrowed her brow with uncertainty and studied the closed doors. "Yes," she said, suddenly making up her mind. "Why not?"

  She knocked once on one of the paneled doors and then opened it. Liz followed her into what was obviously East Gate's Great Room, a soaring affair of dark and gleaming elegance. From the parquet floor and exposed timbers to the deeply silled windows topped by panels of stained glass, everything about the room suggested excessive wealth and power. Nothing about it was timid or subtle. Nothing about it was even remotely feminine. It was a statement
of pure male dominance.

  The seating was grouped into several arrangements of sofas and chairs, most of them covered in dark, rich tapestries, each grouping with its own exquisite Persian rug. One armchair stood out from the rest. It was the only one in the room made of tufted leather, with big rolled arms. Obviously it was an old favorite, worn soft by generations. In that chair, which was positioned in front of a massive fireplace heaped with ashes, sprawled an older, thinner, and altogether calmer version of Jack Eastman.

  He'd been deep in thought when they walked in. He, too, seemed angry, although there was no hint of a scowl on the etched features of his still-handsome face. Liz decided, on the spot, that this man would never permit himself to scowl: it would take too much energy.

  When he realized that Netta had someone with her, he stood up from the leather armchair and said pleasantly, "I beg your pardon."

  He looked expectantly at Liz. He had the same blue gaze as Jack Eastman — and yet not the same at all. There was something about the way he looked at her. There was no doubt about it: he was taking her in, from her head to her toes. Liz was glad, after all, that she was well-dressed.

  "This is Mrs. Coppersmith, Mr. Eastman. Mrs. Coppersmith is planning the — oh, what is it? The event," she said.

  "Ah. Good. Has Jack supplied you with a guest list?"

  Liz shook her head.

  He turned to Netta. "Round up the usual suspects for her, then, would you, Netta? Make sure you include children. We must have some somewhere."

  He took up his wineglass and raised it to them in an amiable toast. "Well. I'll leave you to it, then," he said, and he left.

  Netta sighed and relaxed visibly; it was obvious that she had no heart for confrontations such as the one the two women had just overheard. She tweaked the belt on the simple brown dress she wore, pushed her plastic-rimmed glasses back on her nose, and adjusted the set of her broad shoulders into normal-business mode.

  "All right, then. The party will be in this room. The ballroom is far too big," she added, "and besides, it's pretty much unfurnished. I don't know if you've planned a menu yet, dear, but Mr. Eastman — Jack, that is — doesn't want red wine served, or anything with barbecue sauce or ketchup, because of the rugs. We'll roll up the one in the corner and have a couple of children's tables there. The adults will eat buffet-style."

  "That's fine. Do you have trays, nesting tables, that kind of thing?" asked Liz. When Netta frowned, Liz said, "No problem — I'll bring them."

  "We don't entertain much anymore," Netta explained. And then she added with a petulant sigh, "I hope the boy's springing for more than rolled baloney slices and olives on toothpicks."

  The boy, as Netta termed him, was hardly springing for that. "Don't worry about a thing," said Liz reassuringly. "I guarantee that it'll be a birthday everyone remembers. I'll call when I get a little farther along with the plans."

  She took one last look around the handsome room with its priceless rugs and rare antiques. The Eastmans could easily entertain royalty here, but apparently they chose not to. Liz's parents, on the other hand, didn't have room to swing a cat, and yet they were always entertaining someone or other in their chips-and-beer fashion.

  Ah, well, Liz thought. F. Scott Fitzgerald was right. The rich are different from the rest of us.

  ****

  Three quick right turns brought Liz spiraling back to her tiny cottage on its dead-end street. It looked smaller now than ever, but Liz didn't mind: Unlike East Gate, it made her feel welcome.

  Inside the house she yoo-hooed for her daughter.

  "In the kitchen, Mommy!" yelled Susy cheerfully.

  Ah, good; all better, Liz decided as she strode the half-dozen steps down the opened-out hall to the kitchen.

  Susy looked up from her coloring books with her usual happy grin. Victoria, who was sitting at the table opposite the child with her back to the heavenly view of East Gate, was completely immersed in a letter she was reading. Almost as an afterthought Liz noticed that the table was covered with letters — some in packets, some out of their envelopes, the rest scattered on the floor like snowdrops across a lawn in March.

  "We cleaned up your whole mess," said Susy proudly. "You hardly can tell anything, except for the hole in the ceiling."

  "Victoria!" said Liz. She understood at last where all the letters were from. "You brought down the trunk?"

  Victoria tried to tear herself away from the letter: her head moved in the direction of Liz's voice, but her eyes stayed glued to the heavy linen stationery. At last, having finished, she looked up. "What?"

  "Are those from the attic?" asked Liz in an annoyed voice.

  "Of course they are," said Victoria, surprised at her tone. "Susy, go out and play with Toby. I just saw him stalking some birds again. Make him stop."

  Susy rolled her big brown eyes melodramatically and said, "You weren't even looking. You just want to talk to Mommy by yourself." But she slid down from her chair anyway and ran out to the backyard to amuse herself.

  Victoria held out the letter for Liz. "Look at this," she said in a hushed, almost awestruck voice. The skin of her face, under its scattering of freckles, was pale, almost translucent. "Look at this."

  Liz took the sheet from Victoria and scanned it. "All right," she said. "I'm looking. So what?" But she wasn't looking at all; she was too upset that Victoria had beat her to the letters. Surprised by the petulance in her own voice, Liz observed, "It's dated July 1881."

  "Exactly. Over a hundred years ago. Now look at the signature."

  Liz turned the letter over. "What incredibly flamboyant handwriting," she said, still feeling misused. "It's as bad as yours."

  "Exactly!" said Victoria, her beautiful green eyes dancing with triumph. "Read it!"

  "Hmph. It looks like Victoria something."

  "Victoria St. Onge," said Victoria, flipping her long red hair over her shoulders. She scooped up a handful of letters and held them up to Liz as if they were gold nuggets. "These are almost all from her. It's beyond coincidence," she said in a low, breathy voice.

  "What? That you're both named Victoria?"

  "More than that, Liz!" her friend insisted. "Listen to me. I know you think I tend toward flakiness, but just listen. She lived in this house. Victoria St. Onge lived in the house that I tracked down for you. Didn't I track it down? We both agreed I did," she insisted almost feverishly.

  She began a wild shuffle through the letters, looking for one particular one. "Not only that, but — okay, you tell me — how have I decorated my house? In what scheme?"

  "You mean, in high Victorian style?" asked Liz, baffled.

  Victoria slammed a fist on the table like an auctioneer. "Right again! This Victoria," she said, tapping the letters with her forefinger, "was my age during the high Victorian period."

  "I'll bet lots of people your age named Victoria have done up their houses in Victorian style. So what?"

  "My God," whispered Victoria. "1 can't believe you don't get it. What motif" she said slowly, as if Liz were in the final round of the College Bowl, "what motif have I featured in every room of my house — in my bedding — even in my bathrobe?"

  "What? Your thing about angels?"

  "How's your French?" whispered Victoria, more to herself than to Liz. "Ange or 'Onge'? Close enough, don't you think?"

  It was, at last, beginning to dawn on Liz that her friend was serious. "Victoria," she said gently, "Everyone's into angels nowadays. I have an angel."

  "I gave it to you!"

  "Whatever!" Liz snapped. Victoria was fragile; her entire identity was a piecemeal, makeshift affair. Liz knew it and respected the fact — and still lost her cool. "Are you nuts? You think, what? That you're a reincarnation of this Victoria St. Onge?"

  "Who else can I be?" Victoria asked ingenuously. "I don't know who I am. I have amnesia. In the hospital I pluck a name out of the blue — Victoria. I buy a Victorian house, do it up as a period piece, fill it up with all kinds of angels, then I find
you a house, then you find the trunk, then I happen to haul down some letters .... My God." She smiled a truly angelic smile, as if she'd fallen off a cliff and landed unhurt on a cloud.

  "Who else," she repeated as a tear rolled out, "can I be?"

  Liz, worried now, laid the letter she was holding on the table, then bent over behind her friend and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "You can be anything you want to be, kiddo. Haven't you always told me that?"

  Victoria turned and pressed her cheek to Liz's, then sat her friend down in the chair alongside. "There are little things as well — like the fact that she rinsed her hair red with some kind of tea and henna mix — and the fact that she liked Johann Strauss. Didn't I just buy the complete collection of his waltzes on compact disc? You were with me at the Music Box, accusing me of being an impulse buyer."

  She lifted a packet of still-bound letters and pressed it to her breast. "Don't you see, Liz?" she asked in a plaintive voice. "Isn't it as obvious to you as it is to me? Judy Maroney died in that car accident, along with her husband and two children. And Victoria St. Onge stepped into her body and started it up again. It explains the amnesia. It explains so many things."

  "But why?" Liz asked, despite herself. "Why would this Victoria St. Onge do that?"

  Victoria lifted her shoulders in a smiling, forlorn shrug. "I don't know. I'm hoping I find the answer in these letters."

  "Which reminds me," said Liz. "The box."

  She ran out to the car to retrieve it, then laid it on the table between them. "The locksmith had a key that fit. Look what was inside," she said, lifting the lid, not without trepidation.

  But she heard no chiming sound, only blissfully deafening silence.

  "Ah, how pretty!" said Victoria, taking up the pin. "I love it. Do you suppose it was hers?" she asked in her guileless way.

  "It could have been, I guess. I'll tell you what," Liz said impulsively. "You have it."

  Victoria colored and said, "I wasn't hinting for it. I just meant —"

  "No, take it. To be honest, I'm not sure I like it as much as you do. It made me feel ... odd. I feel almost guilty, in fact, dumping it on you."