“Open it.”
“What?”
“It might tell us something.” He takes the package from her and tears it open enough to see inside and find antique napkin rings. “Rachel. I don’t know your friend. I don’t know your relationship. What I do know is that you deserve a hell of a lot better than this.”
“I’m so scared for her, and shoot! Now I’m mad, too,” Rachel says, taking the package. “What does she need from me?”
He knows it’s the closest she’s gotten to her since she disappeared, these items Sara Beth touched and bought. “Right now, it doesn’t matter.” Michael slips an arm around her shoulder and walks her to the door. “Come on. You deserve a night in Manhattan that is all yours.”
A vast vaulted ceiling mural of gold constellations set against a deep green sky rises above them in Grand Central Terminal.
“You’re big on wishes, so, Pegasus, Orion, now there are some stars to wish on,” Michael says. “The zodiac constellations are there too. Over two thousand lights of them.”
“This is incredible,” Rachel says as he guides her to a bench where they can take it all in. “I’ll bet a ton of wishes are made here. Oh, it’s so beautiful.”
“Wishes and maybe prayers. You’re seeing the constellations from God’s eye view. They’re all reversed, as though you’re seeing them from His side.”
“Wow. It feels like a church, doesn’t it? What a genius artist.”
“Maybe. Some people say the artisan who installed the mural accidentally reversed the constellations, some that it’s based on a medieval manuscript depicting them that way. Nobody really knows, so believe what you want.”
That’s what so much comes down to: believe what you want. Wish what you want. Whatever gets you through, whatever validates your choices, whatever saves you. She wonders what Sara Beth is believing this weekend.
They stop at their jazz club, she likes that, that it’s theirs now, and he orders wine. But she reaches forward and clasps his fidgeting hand. “I’d like a scotch.”
“Make it two,” Michael says. “On the rocks.”
And it works, in a melancholy way. During the first half of her drink, Rachel pulls out some of the sterling silver napkin rings from the puffs of tissue in Sara Beth’s package. They’re animals, each one a surprise: a squirrel, a parakeet, a cat. They cull from the note scribbled on the receipt that Sara Beth purchased them from a lower Manhattan antique shop, said she was staying at The Plaza, and failed to properly complete the Connecticut ship-to address. The shop couriered the package to the hotel.
“She’s in the middle of a crisis and buying antiques?” Michael asks.
Rachel turns the squirrel ring over in her hand. “Antiques are what she does. She’d planned to open a shop but got sidetracked with the new baby.”
Michael pulls the napkin ring from her hand, rewraps each one and fits them in the small box. “Put them away.”
She takes the box, surprised at his order, and slips it into her black shoulder bag.
He glances at the patrons in the room, so much so that she wonders if he’s looking for someone. But then he reaches for her hand and stands. “Listen, if she’s buying napkin rings, she’ll be fine. Come on.”
On her feet, the scotch warms her, its heat welling through her veins. She feels him close, feels his hand through the fabric on her back, his face touch against her hair, feels him lead her through a slow song. The liquor lets her do that, feel.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” he whispers. “Early.”
“Early?”
“I need as much time with you as I can get,” he says, then kisses her once and a little longer again. “Well, if that’s okay with you.”
“How early?” she asks, her cheek pressed to his.
“Say, in a couple of hours?” He pulls her close and slows his step. And so it goes, shoulder to shoulder, her face near his, he looking past her, their few words reaching each other. He holds her with him, not releasing any of her, not one bit, to Sara Beth until the night is done.
“I’ll take you somewhere nice. We’ll be back by noon, for Sara Beth.”
“Okay.” And she closes her eyes as the motion of the dance lulls her like sweet ocean waves. The sea, the sea. She’s on a buoyant tube, the sun on her face, salt water swaying, dipping her toes in the water with a small splash. The beach is always there.
Chapter Ten
Sara Beth thought that rubbing shoulders with the world’s premier auction house might bring good karma. She could hear herself already, her pride swelling over a Sotheby’s piece.
“Oh, it’s from Sotheby’s.”
“I’m sorry, it’s not for sale.”
“Thank you. I found it at Sotheby’s.”
Being among all the auction house’s finery inspires her to move ahead with her dream. The Chippendale Carved Mahogany Lolling Chair. A Queen Anne Cherrywood Chest. The Federal Inlaid Cherry Tall Case Clock. A Dutch Oak Renaissance Cabinet. Italian White Marble Figures, a Swiss Gothic Tapestry Panel, the Jewel Set Pendants and Chains, Impressionist and Modern Art, Americana Furniture. Oh if only her mother were here to see this. To help her choose.
The thing is, she decided to do this Sotheby’s thing so late, there’s little time. In a few hours she has to be back at The Plaza. All she needs is one item to bid on, to be her unveiling piece, her signature statement. It should be something more to display than to use. Maybe brass trumpet candlesticks. Or 18th century art, floral, beautifully framed. Or a small table on which to set alternating displays. That would be pretty, with an antique lace doily or small lamp.
She checks her watch. At least she’d registered when she arrived, giving her name, ship-to address, email, phone, personal preferences. Sotheby’s even created a Wish List in her name so they could email her if her preferences came in for bid. She liked that service and wanted to emulate it in her own small corner of the antique world.
The piece she really wants, the eighteenth century slant front writing desk to hold her computer and store customer information, is way over the limit, not only of her budget but of her bravery, too. $20,000 to $40,000 are not feasible numbers.
But there’s another piece that catches her eye. She sets her beaded bag down beside her, feeling the weight of her leather journal in it. The old journal’s become her security blanket: As long as she structures her new life in it, one entry at a time, she’s okay. Feeling its presence, she gets the nerve to inspect the rare snake foot candlestand. It would fit perfectly in a small space with a vase of flowers or a framed painting set on it. What a perfect way to start an antique shop, circa 1765. She checks her watch again and decides to bid. She has to move fast to get back to The Plaza, but needs to own this piece. So there’s nothing to do but place her offer at the high end of the range. Her hand actually trembles with the thought of bidding. So first she has to psych herself to become who she wants to be. Before she bids, she closes her eyes, tries to unclench her stomach, touches her new earrings for luck. That’s when she knows it’s time. Her hand raises from her lap to the computer mouse at the Internet Café, and her online bid is placed.
Five thousand dollars. No checking with Mom. No worrying about Tom. No urgent cell calls or text messages waiting for approval. She’ll come up with the money. It’s a small price to pay to start living her choice life.
But she’s so happy that she actually placed her first Sotheby’s bid, she has to at least send her mother an email. It’s become such a habit, logging on and zipping off quick one or two line messages, staying connected. She can imagine her mother reading it and keeping her fingers crossed for Sara’s bid.
“Do you want to come up? I could use some company.”
“You’re nervous about explaining this to her husband, aren’t you?”
Rachel sits beside Michael in the taxi. “I just wish none of it had to happen.” It helps being able to lean against someone, to not be so alone. He kisses the top of her head and she thinks that’s comforting
, being kissed there. It’s such an underrated thing, the way it makes your eyes drop closed, being kissed on the head, and the way his fingers barely move on her hair, like another kiss, and the way the feel of it all lingers. It’s a little refuge, that kind of kiss. They’d been beneath the George Washington Bridge at The Little Red Lighthouse for two hours. Years ago it helped ships navigate into the harbor.
“Maybe this is what Sara Beth needs,” Rachel had said after they’d climbed the spiral staircase in the forty-foot lighthouse to the observation deck. The Hudson River view, with the span of the George Washington Bridge crossing it, was breathtaking. “Some beacon, guiding her back.”
“Don’t we all,” Michael had answered. “At one point or another. Maybe she’ll find it.”
Now, as they near The Plaza, Rachel dreads what will happen if Sara Beth hasn’t found a beacon leading her back here. She’s glad to have Michael with her to talk it out. “Oh, I have something for you,” she says, pulling a small wrapped box from her bag.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a keepsake.”
Michael unwraps the box to find a Christmas ornament of the Empire State Building.
“I bought it for Ashley at the gift shop there. But I thought it would be a better gift for you. Do you have one already?”
“No I don’t.”
“Well you should, with your grandfather working on it. Lunch on a fifty story beam and all that? He needs to be commemorated.”
“You’re right,” he says, slipping the ornament into his jacket pocket. “I should have a tree of these.”
When Rachel gets out of the cab, the sunshine is golden, the air clear. Why couldn’t the day just be easy, like this?
Back in the hotel room, she checks her voicemail, her answering machine at home, and the hotel’s voicemail. She feels Michael watching, and so talks while dialing her home phone. “I extended the checkout time a few hours, in case we need it for Sara.”
“I know. You’ve really gone the extra mile. But you shouldn’t pack her bags.” It makes her hands stop and set down the phone. “It might be better to leave things how she left them.”
She turns to him standing at the window, wearing khakis today with a button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled casually up. He’d been looking over the room, at the tapestry sofa, the Queen Anne cherry tables, the paintings. At her jacket neatly folded over the back of a chair. At her purse and keys set on the table, next to an opened pad of paper with a fountain pen laying across it.
“In case she doesn’t come back,” he adds.
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”
“Everything is, at this point. And her possessions could hold a clue to what happened.”
“Come here,” Rachel says. “I want to show you something.” They go into the bedroom and stop at Sara Beth’s dresser. Her hairbrush and the velvet jewelry case her daughters gave her are there. He has to see that they are fine items chosen with care. “What do you think about all this?” she asks.
“It seems like she wanted to enjoy herself.”
“That’s what I thought too. Which makes me feel terrible.”
“Terrible? Why?”
She pulls open the closet door. “Check out the clothes she brought. But something snapped and I never saw it coming. And I should have. There were things going on. Like her mother dying unexpectedly last year. Sara was devastated, maybe more than I realized.” Sara’s cabaret night outfit hangs beside the jeans, next to a long skirt and a couple of light sweaters and jacket. “Because she’s not thinking right anymore. I mean, she didn’t even take her coat. And walking out like this? What the heck is she doing?”
“Rachel. We can’t guess. When’s her husband getting here?”
She walks to the living room window, which faces the park. Is Sara Beth somewhere in Central Park? Is she taking a horse and buggy ride, a pretty mare trotting her along, the big carriage wheels turning beneath her?
“I’m scared of what’s next. My best friend, what has she done? Something’s very wrong. Maybe I should have been there more for her, with the baby, and her mother. I could’ve helped her settle her thoughts.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Let her husband handle it now.” He steps closer. “If I were married, and my wife went missing, I’d want to know. I’d bring in the detectives, the works.”
“Let me call his house to be sure he left. I know he had to pack the girls’ school things. They’re staying with Sara’s sister Melissa tonight.” How many times has she dialed Sara Beth’s home number without a thought? Zipped right through it, anxious to share a piece of news or make plans or just, well, talk, damn it. Why didn’t Sara Beth talk this out with her? She leaves a brief message and hangs up the phone.
“He must be on his way.”
“Why don’t you try his cell?” Michael asks.
“Maybe I should pack first?”
Michael walks to her and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Listen, I hate what this is doing to you. But you might be staying another day, if things get bad.”
“Okay.” If she doesn’t come back goes unsaid. If she’s messed up somehow. She picks up the phone and starts dialing Tom’s cell, holding her pen as though she might need to jot something down, something urgent and new that will fix this, that she’ll have to write down before it gets lost in other talk.
“Rachel,” Michael interrupts her dialing. He nods toward the door right as Sara Beth closes it behind her.
She’s not sure what she thought. That she could breeze in easily? Like she had stepped out on a quick errand? That Rachel would say Hey you. Did you find what you wanted? That coffee would be poured and they’d laugh, check in at home, then leave for the train?
“Hey, Rach,” she says, setting her bags down.
“Sara. Oh my God, Sara Beth.” Rachel hugs her friend and doesn’t let go for a long moment. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, yes. I’m so glad you’re still here.” She glances over at the man standing further in the room. “We have company?”
“Company?” Rachel asks. “Well, no. And of course I’m here, I was so worried about you. Michael’s with the police, Sara. He’s been helping me look for you.”
“Look for me? Why? I told you not to worry.”
“You’re kidding, right? Don’t worry? You disappeared.”
“Do you need anything?” Michael interrupts, stepping closer, and Sara’s surprised to see he’s talking to her. “Something to eat? Water? A doctor maybe?”
“What? No. Why would I need a doctor?” Her eyes move from Michael to Rachel.
“It’s routine,” Michael explains, watching her carefully. “Medical attention, in case anything’s out of sorts. In case you’d been assaulted.”
“Assaulted? Rachel? Didn’t you get my note?”
“Come on,” Rachel says. “This was so unlike you. Disappearing like that. We’re still trying to figure out what to make of it.”
“You’re sure you don’t need anything? Maybe file a report? Were you a victim of a crime, do you need medication, an examination?”
“Stop, please. You’re scaring me now.”
“Listen. I need to be very sure you weren’t coerced.”
“No. Nobody forced me to do anything. Rachel, is this necessary?”
“Yes it is, for the record. But if you’re fine,” Michael says, turning for his jacket, “I’m going to take off.” He takes Rachel’s arm and leads her to the door, lowering his voice. “Unless you want me to stay. But you two have a heck of a lot to hash out.”
“You’ll wait downstairs?”
“No, I’m going home, but I’ll come back in a few hours, okay? Don’t leave?”
“Sara?” Rachel asks, turning. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, of course I am. You really don’t need the cops here, Rach. I’m fine.”
“Rachel,” he says, and she turns back to him. “She looks okay, a little beat. But her eyes
are clear and she’s making sense. Be careful, though. You have my number. Call me if you need me, if she changes her mind about filing a report or whatever, for anything. Okay?”
She nods and glances back at Sara.
“Give her something to eat. And lock this door, too. Be sure.”
And when he leaves, telling Sara Beth seriously to take care now, when he walks out the door, Sara sees the pallor of Rachel’s face, the strain of the past days, the notes by the telephone, the police, empty coffee cups, and what it all becomes is an artist’s sketch, the random form and dimensions of the weekend, the suggestion of what happened in her absence.
Chapter Eleven
Sara Beth watches Rachel pack her bag. Nothing is what it seems. Art, people, friends. They’re all layers, and this layer of their friendship is not one she’d ever fathomed. She listens to Rachel as she packs, listens to the whole story: Billy’s cupcakes to help ease the talk, the pacing the city, her breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Today Show, the Empire State Building. Every coffee shop she passed, Rachel did a double take inside, looking. Searching. The cell phone checks. The endless worry. The text message she never got.
Sara Beth sees that. She doesn’t need to hear the words. Studying art in college, she’d been trained how to look. At a showing she’d once seen of a lesser known Impressionist’s work, there was a long, narrow case in the museum’s exhibit room. Inside the case, a display of his sketches was set out for viewing. They had to be behind glass; they were the originals, on one-hundred year old paper, pencil and charcoal delineations of his paintings. Human touch would sully them.
Initial sketches contain rudimentary shapes and forms. They help to translate an image onto canvas, which makes sketching an important early step in the development of a piece of art. So through studying the artist’s sketches behind glass, one can observe the stages of the Impressionist’s paintings hung close by.
Now she can see in the ovals of Rachel’s eyes and in the lines of facial expression, the past three days. Because if art is done right, no words are necessary. But still, when Rachel turns to pick up her bag to leave, the tears lining her face catch Sara Beth by surprise. Which is the intent of great art: to move, to evoke.
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