by Sophie Davis
Platters with the usual brunch fare sat nearby: flaky croissants, tiny blueberry and banana nut muffins that I knew would be warm and fluffy, homemade oatmeal with plump raisins and candied walnuts, crispy strips of bacon, perfectly-browned sausage links, impeccably poached eggs next to a gravy boat of bright yellow hollandaise, thinly sliced smoked salmon, whipped cream cheese, an assortment of freshly baked bagels from the Jewish deli nearby, and a bowl of cut up mango, pineapple, and strawberries.
There was enough food to feed ten families our size, completely over the top, exactly how my mother liked it. It was the only day of the week she ate carbs, and she liked being able to take a bite of this, or a piece of that. The absolute waste used to weigh heavily on me, so I’d convinced my very reluctant mother to let the household staff and drivers enjoy the rest of the food once she’d picked at it. I also encouraged Jeanine to wrap up meals for her sons – the growing boys ate like kings half the time.
“Good morning, guys,” I said, rounding the table to place a peck on each of their cheeks.
“Good morning, sweetheart! Will you be joining us?” My mother looked so hopeful that I hated to disappoint her. So, I took a seat, reaching for a bagel as I did.
“Sure.”
“Brunch with your parents instead of your friends? To what do we owe the pleasure?” my father asked, sparing a moment away from the financial news to feign interest.
“I’m just not really in the mood,” I responded, knowing that answer would be enough to satisfy his mild curiosity. Sure enough, he resumed his perusal of the upcoming week’s forecast before the words were even out of my mouth.
“Jeanine! We need another place setting!” my mother called to the housekeeper, eyeing the bagel I’d placed on a napkin. “How was Taylor’s party?” She was always anxious to know about my social life. I supposed it was her way of reliving her glory days.
“Fun,” I replied with a shrug that I hoped conveyed indifference. “Done with the usual Vanderkam flair.”
“Hmph, she gets it honestly,” said my father, around a bite of poached egg. “Those people waste more money than anyone on this island. And that’s saying something.”
“Those people are our friends, and they throw the most magnificent parties,” my mother replied, not bothering to hide her irritation that my father didn’t share her love of social affairs. This sparked a re-telling of Mrs. Vanderkam’s mother’s first-ever Hampton’s White Party, which my mother had attended as a young girl. It pre-dated Diddy’s annual bash by several decades.
“By the end of the evening, we could have renamed it a Red Party; Bitsy had red wine covering her Lilly dress!” Bitsy was Mrs. Vanderkam’s ridiculous nickname, the origins of which were unclear. “Of course, to hear Bitsy tell it, she was paying homage to Lilly herself because, as you well know, she started adding color to the collection after she kept getting fruit juice on her white dresses while working at that quaint stand in Florida.” My mother’s eyes sparkled as she reminisced.
My father was still reading the paper, and I was focused on covering my bagel with schmear and arranging lox on top, so I wasn’t exactly sure who she thought was listening. Not that she cared. To my mother, the world was her audience, hanging on her every word and ready to leap to their feet in ovation at the conclusion of her act. She obviously had a firm grasp on reality.
When she launched into yet another story about yet another fabulous soirée, I was free to inwardly cringe at my lie about Taylor’s party. I wondered what they would do if they knew I had absolutely no recollection of the night before. I wondered what they would think.
“Of course, those were the good days when life was still exciting,” she finally finished. “Melinda’s little get together was an absolute bore last night, hardly worth the effort of leaving the house.” I smiled at this because my mother would never miss an event, especially one that the Times sent a photographer to document.
Sure enough, sitting conspicuously on top of her part of the newspaper was the Sunday Style section, a photograph of my parents with the host and hostess on the front page. I picked it up, knowing she’d be pleased. I swear my mother would have a scrapbook of these clippings if it weren’t considered so gauche. She was wearing an elegant black sheath that showed off her slim physique, and Dad was in his usual formal attire. Though my mother was on top of every trend that came down the runway, he always opted for classic, refusing to let my mother dress him in the latest absurd men’s fashion.
“You look lovely, Mom. And Dad, so dapper in your tux,” I offered.
Dad, as expected, didn’t even look up, but a carefully contained smile of satisfaction crossed my mother’s face.
“You are too kind, dear.” Her smile slowly morphed into a frown as she began to scrutinize the details of the picture. “My necklace isn’t shining as it should.” By this point, she’d taken the paper back, her nose mere inches from the newsprint, and was examining the picture with the intensity of a drill sergeant. I was about to offer her a microscope when an idea took root in my mind.
“Would you like me to take it to the jeweler’s to be cleaned? I was thinking of calling Camilla to do some shopping anyway; we could drop it off beforehand.”
“Nonsense,” my father replied. “You should be studying. Jeanine can take it.”
“I don’t exactly trust the maid with the rarest gem in Manhattan.” Her faux whisper was audible to anyone with ears. She turned back to me. “Are you sure sweetheart? It would be such a help, I have so much to do today.”
My father rolled his eyes at this, and I suppressed a smile.
“No problem, I just have to grab my bag from upstairs.”
“It’s in the closet safe, and the card for its jeweler,” she said it like the guy only took care of this one piece, “is on my desk. There should be a few of them there.”
“Right, got it,” I called, already on my way up the stairs.
Striding into the master suite, I considered what a typical New Yorker would think of the space. It was easily bigger than most apartments in the city. A mid six-figure salary couldn’t buy a condo with the square footage of my parents’ bedroom.
Crossing quickly through the formal sitting room – because you obviously needed a place to serve high tea in your bedroom – I entered the massive sleeping area. The bed was on a slightly raised platform next to expansive windows that offered a vast view of the skyline. Around the double-sided fireplace was an informal sitting room, where I detoured to my mother’s antique roll-top desk before passing through to the dressing area. Twin walk-in closets that would be considered large enough to house a family of four in the low-rent districts sat facing each other with a walkway between them. I chose the right one, which housed her vast wardrobe. The left was of course my father’s, almost exclusively filled with dark suits.
The center console was like an island amidst a sea of Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Prada, and any number of other designers who catered to the fabulously wealthy and Hollywood’s A-list. It was reserved for her accessories, same as the one in my own closet except three times the size. Some of the drawers required combinations to access the stately pieces inside. But the Kingsley Diamond, the center stone in the pearl necklace I was to fetch, was far too important for such an obvious hiding place. No, the priceless gem was impossible to find, unless you knew where to look.
Behind a glass case full of Hermes and Tiffany’s scarves was the first wall safe. The case had originally been stationary, but that was before it became home to the largest, flawless red diamond ever unearthed. A state of the art security team had worked their magic, and now the case swung out from the wall on hidden hinges when two recessed buttons were pressed simultaneously, revealing a fireproof, waterproof, airtight, titanium installation.
I quickly punched in the code, the red numbers flashing green when the correct alphanumeric sequence was entered. This safe was reserved for all the pieces appraised at over half a million. Each exquisite item had its own case
that ejected from the cubbyholes fitted into the wall, creating a display of sparkling jewels worthy of royalty.
My parents had given me the code when I was fourteen, and I was allowed to choose from these ruby, sapphire, emerald, and diamond creations on special occasions. I rarely took advantage of this offer, usually only at the fervid pestering of my mother. I surveyed the glass cases carefully, pressing buttons on a keypad to return some of the cubes to their slots. The sequence was important; it was yet another code that had to be entered in the correct order to unlock the capstone of the collection. Of the twenty-four cases that slid out, eleven specific ones had to return to their cubbyholes.
I heard a soft click, letting me know I’d chosen correctly. Then the entire safe moved forward on hydraulics. Reaching underneath, I felt the slight indents of nine more recessed buttons. I pushed six of them in rapid succession, my fingers flying over the keys, and was rewarded with a final click. The bottom of the safe dropped open and slid forward, exposing a hidden necklace case within another titanium compartment. This was what my father had paid the security company big bucks for, what thieves would find nearly impossible to uncover. This one piece wasn’t just valuable, it was irreplaceable.
Opening the case to ensure it was still there, I quickly admired the largest, most flawless, red diamond, its brilliant shine enhanced by the creamy pearls surrounding it, in the entire world.
Smiling to myself, I could barely contain my excitement. This was almost too easy.
“How’d it go at The Pines?” Asher asked around a mouthful of unagi.
I stuffed one of my own, less exotic, sushi rolls – shrimp tempura – into my mouth to stall for time. We were having dinner at what he thought passed as a clever attempt at a do-it-yourself coffee table. In fact, it was actually just a stack of unused pizza boxes he’d bought from Jumbo Slice Pizza on Georgia Avenue. We’d run into each other upon my return from the less than productive job search, and I’d agreed to join him, remembering my earlier thoughts about needing human interaction.
“You know,” I began after practically swallowing a large chunk of fried deliciousness whole, “I’ve heard Ikea has super cheap furniture. I bet you’d have paid less there than you did for all these boxes.”
Asher laughed good-naturedly, and I knew the distraction had worked. He launched into some long explanation about how his mom loved modern art and got a kick out of homemade furniture like the pizza box table.
While he talked, I considered confiding in him about the cryptic letter I’d found in Lark’s apartment and my subsequent trip to Union Station. But when I crafted the conversation in my head, it sounded ridiculous. He’d think I was certifiable if I told him I’d wasted the day traipsing around a train station, following clues – if they were actually clues – that some girl I didn’t even know left behind. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced I was in over my head. Who did I think I was? Veronica Mars?
“–and classes start next week,” Asher was saying when I tuned back into the conversation.
“So soon,” I mused, nodding my head and selecting another roll with my chopsticks.
“Maybe you could go suit shopping with me?” he suggested.
Apparently I’d missed more of the conversation than I’d thought because I had no clue where suit shopping came in.
“Sure,” I shrugged, “I’ll have to check my schedule, but I’m pretty sure it’s wide open.”
“No luck with the job search?”
I looked down at my plate guiltily. After finding Lark’s train locker, I’d been too worked up to find Raine’s, let alone seek out help wanted signs. Twelve months’ worth of cashier’s checks had been in that locker. Twelve months’ worth of rent at an extremely expensive apartment building. As if that weren’t strange enough, she’d written a bizarre haiku on a scrap of paper and stuck that in the middle of them for good measure.
Two lips across mine
Ten fingers run down my spine
No space between us
Yeah, poetry had never been my thing, but apparently it was Lark’s. And I was positive it was hers since the handwriting matched the journal.
“No luck because you didn’t actually look for a job today?” guessed Asher.
I wrinkled my nose and met his gaze across the table. His brown eyes held no judgment. At least he didn’t misconstrue my lack of desire to work in the food service industry for lack of ambition in life.
“I went in a couple of restaurants, but no one was hiring,” I said defensively, and flicked a loose grain of rice at him with my chopstick. The rice was sticky and only flew about an inch before plopping onto the pizza box table top.
“Maybe the Senator needs two aides. I can always ask at the interview.”
“Interview?” Was this why he needed to go suit shopping?
Asher misinterpreted the question in my tone. “Yeah. I mean, like I said, it’s a done deal. So, I guess you’re right, it’s not actually an interview. It’s really just a formality. Everyone wants to do my dad a favor, you know?”
No, actually I didn’t know. My family wasn’t the sort that people owed favors to or tried to get in good with. Unless you counted the PTA women who tried to butter up my mother before every bake sale so she’d make some of her “World Famous Blueberry Pie.” I was pretty sure it wasn’t even “State Famous,” let alone “World Famous,” but whatever.
“Giving you a job too will only make him feel as if he’s paying Dad forward.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said quickly. “Thank you for the offer, but I don’t really think that would be my thing. I’ll figure something out.”
Asher shrugged and stole a rainbow roll from my plate.
The offer had been really sweet, but working for a senator seemed a little serious for me. I wanted real world, real life experience, just maybe not quite so real world and real life. Politics weren’t my thing, anyway. I’d probably say or do something completely asinine on day one and embarrass Asher and his father.
“What’s the deal with this guy, this Senator? Why does he want to do your dad favors?” I asked.
The talkative older boy clammed up. Odd, this was the second time that mention of his father had caused Asher’s constant verbal stream to run dry. I feared I’d overstepped my bounds, but he’d brought the topic up.
“You know what they say,” he shrugged and averted his eyes, “politics makes for strange bedfellows.”
Okay. I’d never heard that saying, nor did I know what it meant exactly. Now I had strange images in my head of an older version of Asher cuddled up under a comforter with our current President. I almost laughed out loud. One look at Asher’s uncharacteristically serious expression, and I suppressed the urge.
Asher was one of those people who had to fill a silence. It was like the quiet unnerved him or something. I, on the other hand, had no problem with lapses in conversation – it gave me time to think. So, it came as no surprise when Asher began to explain about his father, even though the subject clearly bothered him.
“Dad’s an environmental lawyer, I think I told you that?”
I nodded in confirmation.
“Right. Well, he’s extremely knowledgeable about U.S. import and export laws. Like, really well-versed,” the emphasis he put on that single word was an unmistakable indication that Asher didn’t necessarily think was a great thing in his father’s case. “He prides himself on being the go-to guy when a company wants to sell a product here that doesn’t quite meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements.”
“Is he like a smuggler?” I asked, curiosity piqued. No wonder Asher didn’t care for his father’s line of work.
“No, I mean, it’s nothing illegal. That’s kind of the thing, it’s all precisely legal. It’s more like he drafts documents and words things in a certain way that makes it so the products will meet our EPA or FDA guidelines or whatever. A wordsmith, as he calls it.”
“I take it you don’t agre
e with the practice?” I guessed. The frown of disgust told me Asher definitely did not, but he shrugged it off.
“I just want to do something worthwhile. You know, help people. Cheesy, right? Everyone says they want to go to law school to help the less fortunate, but I really do. At least, I think I do. I dunno. Helping people who can’t pay obviously has a downside too.”
I laughed. “Yeah, they can’t pay. I’d say that’s a pretty big downside.”
Asher grinned.
“It’s very altruistic of you, though,” I said.
“That’s me, St. Asher.”
I smiled and reached for a piece of unagi off of his plate. Eel was new for me, but I was all about trying new things lately, so I figured what the hell. The sauce was sweet and delicious, and completely masked the fishy taste I was expecting.
“Good, huh?”
My mouth was still full, so I nodded and tried to smile without letting sticky rice escape.
“Maybe I’ll just volunteer at legal aid for the year,” Asher mused. The guy was seriously type A. He seemed to have a million thoughts racing in his head all at one time, and just vocalized the one on the top of his list.
His eagerness to help those in need brought my thoughts back to Lark. She needed help. Whether she was still alive or not, she’d been desperate to tell someone her story before her disappearance. Through some odd twist of the cosmos, I’d been the one to find her journal. Who’d have ever thought a girl like her would need help from a girl like me? Asher was right; money didn’t solve all your problems.
