“Everything good?” I asked.
“Cold one today, huh?” he said, pretending to shiver. “I’m looking forward to spring weather.”
“You and me both,” I said. I trudged past him and through the lobby to the elevator. It was a pre-war building with all the beauty and embellishments of the era’s architecture. Unfortunately, that also meant a pre-war elevator. It crawled to the fourth floor and I took the opportunity to dig through my purse for the key. I had a habit of misplacing things, including keys and security cards. I’d lost my security card no fewer than a dozen times during my tenure.
Well, that wouldn’t be an issue anymore.
I discovered the key at the bottom of my purse and felt victorious as I attempted to slide the serrated edge into the lock.
Except it didn’t fit.
Frowning, I tried again but no dice. I knew it was the right key because it was attached to the Tiffany keyring that Andrew had given to me last year as a gift. Okay, technically, it wasn’t a gift. He’d received it from his boss and thought it was too feminine, so he’d passed it along to me. Still, I hadn’t paid for it and Andrew had given it to me so it qualified as a gift in my mind.
I looked up and down the hallway to see if the super happened to be within shouting distance. No such luck. I pulled out my phone and looked up his number in my contacts.
“Benito here,” he answered.
“Hi, this is Mia Thorne from 4G. My key doesn’t seem to be working.”
“That’s because I changed the locks like you asked me to,” he said.
“I didn’t ask you to change the locks.”
“Mr. Kilkenny told me.”
I wasn’t sure why he would do that without telling me. “Can you bring me a spare key, please? Andrew didn’t tell me anything about this.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Then have someone else do it. I need to get inside. I’m drenched and I’ve had a terrible day.”
He hesitated. “No, ma’am. I mean I’m not allowed to let you in.”
I stared at the lock like I might blow it up with laser vision. “What do you mean you’re not allowed?”
“Mr. Kilkenny instructed me not to let anyone to have a new key.”
“Anyone as in me?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am.”
My legs nearly slid out from under me. “I don’t understand.”
“You haven’t spoken to Mr. Kilkenny?”
“Clearly not about this or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Thorne. I was under the impression that he would be sharing this information with you today.”
“I called him several times to tell him I lost my job, but he hasn’t answered.”
“You lost your job, too?” Benito interrupted. “Oh, man. Talk about a bad day.”
“Yes, it is a no-good, horrible, very bad day.” I pressed a shoulder against the wall to keep myself from plummeting to the floor. “When did he give you instructions to install a new lock?”
“When?” Benito asked, clearly stalling.
“Was it today?” Had my proposal somehow sent him spinning into survival mode?
“No, ma’am. It was last week.”
Last week. This must’ve been what Andrew had intended to discuss with me over coffee today. I’d been planning a proposal while he’d been planning a breakup.
“What about my things?” I asked.
“All your stuff’s in storage,” he said. “It’s perfectly safe there until you’ve made arrangements to move it. Mr. Kilkenny agreed to pay any fees.”
“How generous,” I said, my tone laced with sarcasm.
I staggered back to the elevator and returned to the lobby where the doorman awaited me. He must’ve been watching me on the surveillance camera because his expression was pure sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wanted to say something, but it wasn’t my place.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. I had nowhere to go. No job. No home.
“If it’s any consolation, she’s not nearly as pretty as you are,” he said.
My face must have registered surprise because the doorman backed away slowly. “I thought he might have told you by now.”
“He hasn’t told me anything.” There was already a she. A replacement model. How could Andrew have kept this to himself? How were we still living together when there was already another woman in the picture?
“He’s a tool, Miss Thorne. A complete tool. You can do better.”
I stared at the doorman, tears obscuring my view of him. I was a forty-two-year-old disaster.
“No, Mr. Doorman. I don’t think I can.”
Chapter Two
I sat in the Starbucks on 86th and Columbus and tried to put on a brave face. I’d gone from privileged middle-aged white woman in a relationship to unemployed, alone, and homeless in a matter of hours. I didn’t even get to fully enjoy the fruits of my flash mob labor.
I sucked down the last of my vanilla soy latte with one extra pump and stared at my phone. As much as I dreaded it, I was going to have to bite the bullet and call my mother. I would’ve preferred to call my dad, but that would require a direct line to the afterlife since he died when I was twelve. My mother and I weren’t exactly close. She was on her third husband and I’d only met the latest one a handful of times, including their wedding. Madeline and Jurgen now lived in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a place filled with strip malls and highway jughandles I’d successfully managed to avoid visiting, although I feared that would have to change now.
My mother picked up on the first ring. “What’s wrong, Mia?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“You’re calling me at dinnertime. You never call me between the hours of six and eight.”
“That’s because I never call you.”
“Hence the other reason I know there’s a problem. What is it this time? Did your car get towed again? I warned you to stop parking it on the street. You can rent a spot…”
“I lost my job,” I blurted. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d sold my car two years ago to pay bills. That was before I’d moved in with Andrew. He’d seemed like a white knight in a starched shirt and pleated trousers, riding to my financial rescue.
“Oh, sweetheart. That’s terrible. What did you do?”
I held my breath. Naturally she would assume I did something to deserve it. That was the way her brain worked—usually because I’d done something to deserve it.
“There’s more,” I said. “Andrew has gotten involved with someone else and he kicked me out of the apartment.” I didn’t mention the flash mob proposal. That would only add insult to injury.
“You’re kidding,” my mother said. “So much for the packet of perfume samples I sent you.”
“That’s okay. I still have the last fifty samples you sent me.” My mother was constantly sending me makeup and perfume samples that she got for free from her job. I kept a handful in my purse in lieu of pepper spray.
“I told you to sign a contract with that man,” she said.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “This really isn’t the time for I-told-you-so.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t see these things coming.”
I rolled my eyes. “Here we go again.”
“Your father used to insist you have a gift.” Her tone was mildly mocking. My father used to say I had the family gift, which my mother had always made clear was complete nonsense.
“The only gift I have is the one for bad timing.” Okay, maybe I seemed to know things sometimes or I’d get vibes about people, but nothing earth-shattering. I certainly should’ve foreseen today’s cataclysmic events.
“I can’t argue with that,” my mother said. “In any case, there’s a lesson to be learned here.”
“Mom, I just told you I’m unemployed and homeless. Can the lesson be learned l
ater?”
“Mia, you’re an adult. When is later for a woman your age?”
A woman my age. “How about next Tuesday at three o’clock? I think there’s room in my schedule now.” Despite my snarky reply, the question stung. “I’m sure I can stay with Tracy for a few nights, but she’s got the kids, so it’s not a long-term solution.”
Tracy Gladstone was a friend from one of my previous jobs who’d actually stuck around after I got fired, probably because she left to become a stay-at-home mom soon after. Most colleagues didn’t keep in touch once I left. Then again, I wasn’t very good at maintaining relationships. Tracy made an effort and that was the real reason we were still in contact. I’d texted her on my way to Starbucks but didn’t expect to hear from her until later. Her kids were involved in all manner of after-school activities and she didn’t have a lot of spare time once the school day finished. Watching Tracy constantly have to fire on all cylinders no matter her mood was one of the reasons I’d avoided the topic of kids with Andrew and my boyfriends before him. The thought of setting my own feelings aside and forging ahead for the sake of someone else wasn’t in my wheelhouse. I’d once tried to lecture Tracy about the idea of learned helplessness, but she’d pointed out that her children were five and seven and were, in fact, relatively helpless.
“Why don’t you go check out that house that your father’s aunt left you?” my mother asked. “It’s been sitting empty for months.”
I tapped the side of my empty cup. “Um, what house?”
“The one in Pennsylvania near the river.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
My mother offered her characteristic huff of annoyance. “You would if you ever bothered to read my text messages. I reminded you a month ago. I have the receipts to prove it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not a Real Housewife, Mom. You don’t need to bring the receipts.” I paused. “Did she really leave me a whole house?”
“I doubt it’s even half of one. I’m sure it’s a shack, but it’s probably bigger than your apartment and it’s certainly better than being homeless. I mean, what would I tell my friends if you had to move in with me at your age?”
“Yes, that’s the real concern here. Not that I’d have to pee in a stairwell under the cloak of darkness, but what ever will you tell Maude and Kathleen?”
“I don’t know anyone called Maude, and Kathleen was the name of the housecleaner we had when you were a teenager.”
“Kathleen was the one you fired because she ate your biscotti.”
My mother made a disgruntled noise. “I am not going through this with you again, Mia. It was theft, pure and simple.”
“Maybe she was starving because she made less than minimum wage and could barely afford to feed herself.”
“Then I doubt a cinnamon biscotti was the answer to her problems.”
I wasn’t in the mood to argue, not with my life in its current state of unwelcome flux. “Where is this alleged house?”
“A town called Newberry. I’ve never been there, so I can’t tell you more than that. That’s what the internet is for.”
I tried to recall the name of my father’s aunt. It had been many years since she’d been mentioned. “Her name was Hazel Thorne?”
“Yes, she was the younger sister of your father’s father.”
“Holy smokes, how old was she?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Old. She never married. With your father dead, she had no heirs except you.”
“So she didn’t leave the house to me specifically,” I said. “I was just the only option.”
“I’m sure she didn’t have to leave it to family if she didn’t want to,” my mother said. “She could have left it to the SPCA like our old neighbor did. Remember that uproar?” She laughed at the memory. “Each one of those nieces thought they would inherit. I’ll give Sheila credit. She had those girls catering to her every whim up until she died.”
“It was manipulative if you ask me. Sheila had no intention of leaving her nieces anything.”
“That’s not true. She left them her jewelry, remember?”
“It was hardly the blue diamond from Titanic.” My thoughts turned back to my own predicament. “Do you think if I turn up in Newberry, then someone will just hand me the keys to Aunt Hazel’s house?”
“I’m sure you’ll have papers to sign, but yes. Pretty much. At this point, they’ll probably roll out a red carpet. I dread to think of the state of the house now that it’s been sitting empty for months. You have a way of letting things fester.”
I glanced at the busy street outside. The honking horns and the bustling commuters. Lynette’s threat to blackball me. As much as I loved the city, maybe a change was in order—at least in the short-term.
“Fine. I’ll go,” I said. “But I’m only staying long enough to shower and sell the house. Then I’ll figure out next steps.“
“Do you need me to resend the text with the information?” my mother asked. I could tell she was trying not to sound too delighted by my acquiescence.
“Would you mind? I’m hopeless with the search function on my phone.” And even more hopeless when I knew I’d deleted her messages without reading them.
“I think you should consider staying there. A new start in a new town is a great opportunity. I bet there will be more than a few divorced men. And Jurgen and I can come visit as soon as you’re settled. It will be a nice change not to have to stay in a hotel.”
I never invited my mother to visit me in the city. She would announce her intentions only days beforehand and swoop into town, expecting me to drop everything to cater to her. My saving grace was the small size of apartments in the city. She had no choice but to book a hotel room.
“I never liked Andrew,” she continued. “To begin with, he was cheap and a man should never be cheap, at least not in the early days of courtship.”
“This isn’t the 1800s, Mom. Nobody’s courting anyone.”
“You’re better off without him. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Then you and the doorman are in agreement.” I didn’t want to talk about Andrew or anything else. I felt emotionally drained and my mother would beat this to death if I let her. I waited for the bus to stop outside, knowing the loud hydraulic system would drown out anything else I said. “Thanks for the talk, Mom. Gotta go,” I yelled.
I set down the phone and saw the incoming text from my mother—or Nurse Ratched as she was labeled in my contacts. I tapped the screen and reviewed the message and then immediately went to the map app to find Newberry, Pennsylvania. There was no connection by train, but I could take Amtrak or New Jersey Transit as far as Princeton and then take an Uber across the Delaware River from there. I wasn’t so broke that I couldn’t afford the train ticket and the thirty-minute drive. I could claim the house long enough to put it on the market and sell it, then use the money to tide me over until I began the next phase of my life. Maybe I’d have a mid-life crisis. Blow the money on a fast car and make poor decisions. Hmm. It seemed like my entire adulthood had been one prolonged mid-life crisis, minus the car.
How much did a Maserati cost these days? I quickly dismissed the thought. My mother assumed the house was a shack and I had no reason to doubt her theory. By all accounts, Aunt Hazel had been an odd duck and it was unlikely she’d left a mansion behind. A momentary sadness settled over me. Aunt Hazel had arguably been a lost opportunity. A connection to my father. I recalled years ago when I first learned of the older woman’s existence, asking my mother to visit her.
“We’re not visiting someone we don’t even know,” she’d said.
“But she’s family,” I’d protested.
“In name only,” had been her response. “For all we know, she could be a serial killer.”
“Have you ever met her?”
My mother had appeared thoughtful, but I knew she remembered. She mentally catalogued every slight, grudge, and grievance, probably listed them in order of severity
too.
“She came to our wedding and she sent a gift when you were born.”
I’d perked up. “What kind of gift?”
She’d wrinkled her nose. “Something inappropriate.”
“A strip-o-gram?”
My mother had sighed deeply. “I believe it was a pack of tarot cards. I gave them away after your father died. You know I don’t go in for that sort of thing.”
I’d agreed that tarot cards seemed a bizarre choice for the birth of a baby. Still, Hazel Thorne had been the only member left on my father’s side of the family. It would’ve been nice to have had that connection to him, no matter how odd she was.
Too late now.
I closed the app and leaned against the chair. “Looks like I’m finally paying a visit to the mysterious Aunt Hazel, a few months too late.”
Chapter Three
The town of Newberry looked like an artists’ colony from the 1800’s blended with the West Village in New York City. Psychics, tattoo parlors, a theatre, boutique hotels, and trendy shops and restaurants along cobblestoned paths lined the riverfront. A bridge with a pedestrian walkway spanned the Delaware River, connecting Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
I wandered along the main street, taking in the sights while I searched for the real estate office of Stella Battenberg. I passed a black cannon that, according to the plaque, had been used during the Civil War. I’d never paid much attention to the historical aspects of the city. My knowledge was limited to pre-war versus modern architecture.
I stopped in front of a charming white building with black shutters. This was the address Stella had given me. I opened the door and entered the office. A red-haired woman with glasses on a chain around her neck stood at a desk rifling through papers. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. Her leopard-print knitwear hugged her ample bosom. It was only when she looked up at me that I saw the evidence of age. If I was a betting woman, I’d put her at seventy-two. The bright red lipstick didn’t help either, bless her.
“Are you Stella?”
The older woman lifted the glasses to the bridge of her nose and examined me from head to toe. “Amelia Thorne?”
Petal to the Metal Page 2