The Gift of a Lifetime

by Melissa Hill

  ‘It sort of cools the ankles, doesn’t it?’ he replied, appreciating the view.

  Beth sucked her breath in and tensed. There it was – the words she had been waiting to hear, the very words that had been sewn in to the scarf addressed to her.

  And it was right in this most famous scene from The Seven Year Itch. She turned to Danny.

  ‘Why did DiMaggio and Marilyn divorce after this movie?’ she asked again, hoping he would know the reason. It had to connect to this clue.

  ‘It was because of that scene, actually. The studio filmed it in public and DiMaggio was there. The location had been leaked to the press, and paparazzi and fans showed up to watch. About five thousand of them. It made Joe quite mad having other men salivate over his wife, going nuts over her, catcalling at her. He was embarrassed and angry. And when it was over, they went back to their hotel and got into a huge fight. She flew back to California shortly thereafter and filed for divorce. This movie scene essentially marked the end of their marriage.’

  Beth listened intently to Danny’s words. Of course, everything he said made sense, and she now knew without a doubt that the clue connected to this scene. But she had another question to ask. A question that she guessed would make all the difference.

  ‘Danny, you said that she flew back to California, and that’s where she filed for divorce. Where was she flying from? Where was that scene filmed?’

  Beth waited with baited breath for the answer, while doing her utmost to try to overlook the idea that Danny was helping her solve a riddle someone else had likely set for her.

  And when she heard his reply, Beth knew without a doubt exactly where she was supposed to go next.

  ‘Right here in New York,’ he confirmed. ‘At the corner of Lexington and 52nd.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘Um, miss? I’m looking for these in a size eight, do you mind helping me?’

  Beth jumped to attention, only barely registering that a customer was speaking to her. This was not good; she was becoming way too distracted lately and needed to get herself together. ‘Of course,’ she said, with as much cheer as she could muster. ‘I’ll get those for you straight away.’

  As her customer tried on the size eight Ferragamos, Beth discreetly checked her watch.

  It was still a while till lunchtime and the hours seemed to be really dragging by today – she was dying to get to the corner of Lexington and 52nd Street. The suspense as to what would happen next in the search (not to mention who on earth was behind it) was teetering on the brink of unbearable.

  She had been in a daze all morning really, completely consumed with this next piece of the puzzle as well as Danny’s surprising revelation about Billy. When leaving for work, she’d been relieved that the concierge was on the phone when she passed by, as she guessed she’d be too embarrassed to talk to him.

  He’d smiled his usual greeting, and she couldn’t see much in his behaviour that suggested that he was being anything other than friendly. She guessed (and very much hoped) that Danny was mistaken because while Billy was lovely, she certainly had no interest in the man, and she couldn’t see him going to so much trouble with the treasure hunt.

  And for what – just to get her attention?

  And then there was the other piece of information she’d gleaned from Danny: the location where Marilyn had made her husband, Joe DiMaggio, green with envy while on set filming The Seven Year Itch.

  Yesterday, Beth had to delay checking out that location, as Danny would have surely questioned why exactly she had to check out the corner of Lexington and 52nd so late on a Saturday evening. So she had to wait until today – which, maddeningly, coincided with one of her alternate Sunday work shifts.

  Still, she and Danny had ended up having such a rare evening in together that, despite the revelation, Beth didn’t want to go anywhere.

  After the movie he’d suggested they put up the Christmas tree, and with festive tunes in the background, and Brinkley prancing at their feet, it felt almost like old times as they took out the various themed Christmas ornaments they’d collected throughout the years. A bright pink flamingo they’d picked up one memorable weekend in Florida, the Hollywood sign Danny had brought back for her from a work event in LA, the roulette chip from a spontaneous fun-filled trip to Vegas, a glittering pair of ice skates from the Christmas markets in Bryant Park, where a couple of years back the two of them had gone ice-skating at the outdoor rink. The little happy couple snow globe she’d bought for their very first Christmas in this apartment; each and every ornament served almost as a road-map of the good times they’d had together, and the festive ritual seemed to relax them both as a couple and almost reaffirm their relationship.

  Though Beth noticed that Danny seemed almost … melancholy when, as was their habit, they finally positioned the star atop the tree and stood back arm in arm to admire their work. As he was nowhere near as sentimental as she, she was surprised to see his eyes shine a little when afterwards he bent down and kissed her softly on the lips. Once again she got the sense that there was something going on with him these days, or at the very least that she was missing something.

  And it made her worry afresh.

  * * *

  Now, deciding to focus on her customer in an attempt to banish these worrisome thoughts, she was happy not only to sell one, but two pairs of Ferragamos to the client. Another nice commission, she congratulated herself.

  A little while later, she spied Ryan making his way through the department, heading in her direction.

  ‘I was hoping I could persuade you to go to lunch with me today. It seems like ages since we’ve talked,’ he said.

  Beth felt a blush creeping to her cheeks, somewhat against her will, but doubted that she would be able to pull this off – handle her treasure hunt errand, and go to lunch with Ryan, especially when she and Danny had begun to reconnect a little. It just seemed too conflicted, not to mention inappropriate.

  ‘Well, I actually have to run a bit of an errand today, and I’m not sure if I’ll have time for lunch.’

  ‘Another errand? Or are you just trying to give me the brushoff? Beth, you’re killing me here.’ He put a dramatic hand over his heart. ‘Tell me, what did I do to invite such rejection?’

  She made a face, feeling caught between a rock and hard place. She was beginning to feel hungry at this point, and would have to eat lunch, of course. But she needed to get on with the treasure hunt. Now that Beth understood where she was supposed to be, she didn’t want to put off finding the next clue any longer. She couldn’t.

  ‘It’s just I really do have this thing I need to do. A long story,’ she added, in case he was curious about what she was up to. ‘But I am hungry too; all I had was a coffee for breakfast. What did you have in mind? Maybe I can fit in both?’ she suggested.

  ‘A multi-tasker, I see,’ he teased. ‘Nothing special today. Just craving some deli food. I was thinking Toastie’s, not sure if you know it?’

  Beth searched the recesses of her mind for the location of such a deli, but couldn’t place it. Though it was hard to throw a stone in Manhattan without pegging a deli at some point.

  ‘I don’t think so. But a sandwich would be perfect, as I can eat on the run. Where is it?’

  ‘Oh, not far. This place has become one of my favourites since I got here. It’s on 54th Street, between here and Third Avenue. Is that good for you?’ He was directing that smile at Beth, and she couldn’t decide if his words were laced in double entendre, or if his suggestion was mere coincidence.

  ‘Actually, that’s quite serendipitous,’ she said, convinced now more than ever that he, and not Billy, was the mastermind in question. And it merely made this all the more confusing. ‘The very area I was heading to, actually.’

  * * *

  Having knocked off at the same time for lunch, Beth and Ryan arrived at their destination in no time – Ryan springing for a cab further down Lexington Avenue so they wouldn’t have to ‘deal with the cold and
the Christmas crowds’.

  As the cab made its way to their destination, Beth watched all the festive hustle and bustle on the streets outside, and realised that it was now less than a week until Christmas. Time had seemed to fly by lately, and what with Danny blowing hot and cold, as well as this treasure hunt keeping her so preoccupied, she felt she barely had time to breathe.

  The cab pulled up to the corner of 54th and Lexington, and Beth easily spied the deli that Ryan was so eager to go to. As he helped her from the cab, he nodded in the direction of where they were headed.

  ‘So where is your errand? Do you want to do it before or after lunch?’

  Beth needed to think of a way to shake him – he might be playing dumb about where she was headed, but she really needed to do this part on her own.

  ‘Just a couple of blocks away. Why don’t you go ahead and order? I shouldn’t be long.’

  Ryan smiled mischievously. ‘You got it. Just tell me what you want.’

  To determine what this clue means, she thought. But she ordered a sandwich just the same.

  After outlining her order for a pastrami on rye and an iced tea, she watched as Ryan headed in the direction of their lunch place, thankfully not giving Beth a backward glance.

  Maybe he understood that she simply needed privacy for this, or perhaps he was merely pretending that he wasn’t interested. She looked briefly over her shoulder, but yes, he was definitely gone and she was now on her own.

  Approaching the corner of 52nd Street, she quickly figured out exactly where she was supposed to be headed. A small group of tourists were amassed around what had to be the world’s most famous subway grate.

  Beth moved closer to the group and realised that she’d happened across a tour in progress. She stood close to the back of the crowd, listening to what the tour guide had to say.

  ‘So, the iconic scene from The Seven Year Itch was originally scheduled to be shot here, on location in Manhattan on 15 September 1954,’ said the pretty young tour guide in charge of the group. ‘It was slotted to begin at one a.m.; however, the location was leaked to the press and thousands of fans and media personalities showed up, just to get in on the action. The crowd was going absolutely wild – watching Marilyn’s skirt blow higher and higher – much to the chagrin of Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn’s then current and bitterly jealous husband. He was present in the crowd and it was absolutely driving him mad with envy that the crowd was so intent on ogling his wife’s nether regions. Their marriage was already on the rocks, apparently, but this put it over the edge. And the couple divorced shortly thereafter.’

  Beth tapped her foot, thinking hard. So the guide had confirmed Danny’s story. But what now?

  ‘Ultimately, the footage shot that day was all for naught, though. It was completely unusable as film editing techniques of the time didn’t allow for the noise in the background to be removed. So the director, Billy Wilder, ended up having to shoot the entire sequence at 20th Century Fox Studios in LA at a later date. Just a bit of movie trivia. However, if you would like to take this opportunity to stand where Marilyn stood, please do. There isn’t an active subway line under this grate; it was inactive even when they were filming here. Instead an effects man was tasked with standing under this grate, using a fan to blow up Marilyn’s skirt from below. I only tell you this so any ladies wearing skirts today know there is nothing to fear,’ joked the guide.

  The crowd began to disperse, going about posing and taking a look down into the depths below the grate. Beth smiled at the touristy craziness of it all. After all, while Marilyn Monroe happened to stand on this particular section of earth over half a century ago, at the end of the day it was still just a subway grate.

  Finally, when she had the opportunity and the way was clear, Beth approached the grate, wondering if she should be looking for something specific. She stood over the ironwork and looked down – nothing to see but darkness. She placed her feet where she imagined Marilyn might have and tried to summon the imagery of that scene – the heat, the sexiness, the excitement. She closed her eyes and could even have sworn that as she did, she felt a breeze sweep through the area – cooling her ankles. Her imagination, no doubt.

  But when she opened her eyes again, she was no further ahead – she didn’t know anything that she didn’t know before.

  What am I looking for? Beth thought, peering up at the buildings around her. OK, so an iconic movie moment might have happened here, but this corner was just like any of the hundreds in Manhattan.

  But just then her line of thought was interrupted.

  ‘Excuse me, miss? I think you dropped something,’ said a voice behind her.

  Beth spun around to meet a stranger’s face – a young man, probably no more than nineteen or twenty, wearing what appeared to be a hotel bellhop or concierge uniform. He held a jacket in one hand and Beth could just make out a name tag reading ‘Steve’ attached to one of the garment’s lapels. However, what captured her attention was not his uniform, but what he held in his other hand.

  A book.

  ‘I think you dropped this,’ the young man called Steve said again, holding the book out to her.

  ‘No, I didn’t. It’s not mine,’ Beth protested politely.

  But Steve was already shaking his head. ‘No, really, I saw it fall out of your bag. This is definitely yours,’ he insisted, smiling.

  She stared at the book for a beat longer and looked up to meet the guy’s eyes. ‘You said you saw it fall from my bag?’ she asked dubiously.

  He shook his head with conviction. ‘Absolutely. Fell right out of your bag. Right onto the subway grate.’

  Beth thought about what he was telling her. She knew without a doubt that the book didn’t fall from out of her bag. For one thing, she didn’t have a book in there, and for another, she guessed this must be all part of the treasure hunt.

  She was suddenly on high alert. What with Lin on the boat and the assistant at Tiffany’s, this wasn’t the first time someone had known to expect her at a location. This bellhop might be part of the plan, too.

  In any case, Beth felt at a loss for what to say. OK, so this book – wherever it came from – definitely didn’t belong to her, but how was this a piece of the treasure hunt?

  ‘But, I don’t understand. I mean…’

  ‘You don’t have to understand. You just have to have faith,’ the bellhop said then, smiling.

  Beth stared at him intently, her brain synapses firing all at once, as the nerve endings beneath her skin tingled with recognition. Where had she heard those words before?

  ‘Faith in what?’ she asked, feeling as if she was reading from a script – or at least working to ad lib a script that she hadn’t yet been provided with.

  Steve shrugged happily, as if she had taken his cue exactly the way she was meant to.

  ‘Destiny,’ he said simply.

  Beth sucked in her breath. Destiny? She accepted the book without further hesitation and opened it quickly, without looking at the title. A five-dollar bill was tucked inside.

  ‘Hold on, there’s money in here. This must belong to you,’ she said in confusion, but Steve was already shaking his head.

  ‘No, that wouldn’t be possible. After all, you dropped it, remember?’

  ‘OK,’ she said absently, feeling a little like she’d stepped into a scene from a movie herself, it was all so surreal. She picked up the banknote from where it sat, folded, between the book’s pages.

  On it there was writing in pink marker. It said, ‘23’.

  Heart pounding, she looked excitedly up at Steve, wondering what would happen next. ‘This is a clue, isn’t it? It will point me where I need to go next. Is there anything else?’

  Steve gave her a wink. ‘I think it might, but that’s all I can say … Beth.’

  She smiled broadly. ‘You know my name. Of course you do. And you’re Steve.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ he asked, frowning suddenly.

  Beth pointed to his jacket. �
��Your name tag. On your jacket. Where do you work?’

  ‘Oh.’ With some relief, Steve looked down at where she indicated. But suddenly he seemed eager to get away. ‘Speaking of which, I need to get to work. Good luck.’

  And then he was gone, walking off in the other direction from where she’d come.

  Beth was left standing on the corner of Lexington and 52nd Street with a book, a five-dollar bill and a mysterious number: 23.

  How to put it all together? Then she closed the book, caught sight of the title for the first time, and suddenly knew exactly what it all meant.

  Love in the Time of Cholera.

  Beth thought back to what she had said earlier, when Ryan had suggested they head to this area for lunch, and her eyes widened.

  Serendipitous indeed.

  Chapter 18

  Ryan sat across the table from Beth and watched her happily dig into her pastrami sandwich. She was definitely enjoying it, and he loved a girl who could eat and who wasn’t afraid of doing so in front of others. Whatever ‘errand’ she had been on had brightened her mood, and while she had seemed a bit tense on their way here in the taxi, she now looked as if she was walking on air. Ryan couldn’t help but smile. He really liked this girl.

  Looking up from her sandwich, Beth bit her lip and raised her eyebrows at her lunch mate. Immediately, she grabbed her napkin and covered her mouth as if she was afraid she had food on her face.

  ‘What is it? Oh, no, am I being a slob?’ she asked, her cheeks turning pink. Ryan couldn’t help but be enchanted by her. She was so ladylike – even when she was self-conscious – and so easy to be around. Make no mistake, he really had a thing for her. Of course, that was complicated in itself. Primarily, because she already had a guy.

  He let out a laugh and shook his head. ‘No, nothing on your face. And really, you’re the last woman I would ever call a slob.’

  Beth put her napkin down and made a face. ‘Then what are you grinning at?’ she asked.