by Amy Korman
What with the relaxing music, and it now being past five, I thought to myself, well, now that I’m here, I could really go for a glass of wine.
“Your Scotch, Mr. B.,” said Ronnie the bartender just at that moment, entering discreetly with a silver tray bearing a glass of Dewars, a chilled glass of chardonnay, and a dish of peanuts. “Kristin.” He nodded at me, handing me the glass of wine and a cocktail napkin as nonchalantly as if I was sitting on the porch with Joe and Holly, rather than sitting in an attic with a seventy-five-year-old man who’d run away from home.
“Gosh, you’re good!” I told Ronnie admiringly. Clearly, the network of secret passageways and staff gossip in the club is extensive enough that everyone who knew Jimmy was stashed away up here also already knew that I was upstairs visiting him. Were there cameras throughout the club, or did Ronnie and his staff have some kind of sixth sense for what the members were up to? I’d have to ask Ronnie when I got a minute alone with him in the bar. In any case, some of the club staff had clearly decided to take Jimmy under their wing, and were taking exceptionally good care of him. There was an open door behind Jimmy’s leather couch that led to a bedroom, where I could see that a bed was made up with crisp white linens. A thick white terry bathrobe borrowed from the men’s locker room hung on a peg beside the bedroom window, and on a chest of drawers to my right, a tray held a pitcher of water, some glasses, and a bottle of Amaretto.
“Roast beef tonight, Mr. Best?” asked Ronnie. Jimmy nodded happily, rubbing his hands together with glee. I loved the fact that Jimmy, who had almost no money, was being so well taken care of in a club where ninety percent of the members were enviably rich. Jimmy’s long-standing membership and no-bullshit style had clearly made him a staff favorite of the waiters and barmen, and of course he’d always flirted relentlessly with the sixty-year-old waitresses, to their delight. Most of the members hated Jimmy, but he didn’t give a fig about that.
“Are you staying for dinner, Kristin?” Ronnie asked politely.
“No, thanks,” I told him. “I have an, um, appointment tonight.” I looked at my watch surreptitiously. I still had thirty-five minutes before my rendezvous with John. That should be enough time to convince Jimmy to forgive Hugh and go home.
On second thought, maybe not. Jimmy was as cozily settled in here as Hugh Hefner on movie night at the Playboy Mansion. He clinked my glass from his perch on the sofa as I sat down on the red chintz chair. “He’s a reliable bastard,” he said fondly about Ronnie, as the barman silently disappeared. “Good bartender, too.”
“He does always seem to know just when you need a drink,” I agreed.
“Now that you’ve found me,” said Jimmy, waggling his bushy gray eyebrows at me, “what do you plan to do with me?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe have another cocktail?”
“I’D LOVE TO look through these boxes with you, Jimmy,” I said, sipping chardonnay and feeling the delightful California grapes surging through my bloodstream. Jimmy’s good mood was contagious, and Ronnie had delivered another round without being asked. I pushed the glass of wine away and focused on the stuff from the Bests’ house that Jimmy wanted me to look through. “I only have ten minutes before I have to leave, so I’ll have to make it quick,” I told him.
Jimmy had transported several incredibly dusty boxes and an old leather suitcase to the club from his house, which he told me he planned to have me sell at The Striped Awning or take out to Stoltzfus’s flea market, and the stuff was currently shoved into a corner of the Conwell Suite. My white dress (well, Holly’s white dress) would be ruined if I unpacked these musty old boxes without some kind of protection, so I asked Jimmy if I could put his on his bathrobe over my dress to protect it from smudges. He agreed affably.
“Might give old Ronnie fodder for the club rumor mill if he sees you in my robe,” he said with some interest as I shrugged it on and rolled up the long sleeves.
Borrowing a pad and paper I’d noticed on the sideboard where the Amaretto bottle was perched, I sat down cross-legged on the floor, and began to open one of the old cardboard moving boxes. I didn’t feel comfortable selling any of the Best heirlooms without first asking Hugh, but I could at least look through the stuff while I was here.
“You’ll probably really miss Hugh by tomorrow,” I told Jimmy without much conviction, as I pulled out old newspaper that was stuffed into the box to protect its contents.
Jimmy stared at me with utter contempt. “I don’t think so, darling,” he finally said from the sofa, swirling his Dewars disdainfully. “Been living with him for most of the last seventy-plus years, except when I was married, and haven’t missed him once.” Inwardly, I agreed with Jimmy. It seemed like they could really use a trial separation. But Hugh was so worried about his brother, it would be cruel to keep him in the dark about Jimmy being found safe.
“You have to at least let him know that you’re safe,” I pleaded. “And you two have to figure out together what to do about your house and moving to Florida. And what your plans are for all this stuff you brought here.” I wasn’t sure how Jimmy had ever gotten all this stuff out of the house by himself, but there I sat, making a quick mini-inventory of the silver and china in the box in the short time before my cute-vet date. It was your basic WASP hodgepodge: There were mismatched Limoges plates, and two ancient leather-bound Nathaniel Hawthorne books coated in pale dust. There was most of a silver tea service in urgent need of polishing, and old leather photo albums, a beautiful but tattered family Bible, and a set of gilded salt cellars. I was touched by seeing it all spread out around us, elegant reminders of when the Best family had been more prosperous, gathering for black-tie dinners and roast pheasant suppers in the proper old Philadelphia way. It was familiar, and oddly reassuring, to see the remnants of this charmed and long-gone style of living.
While I made notes, Jimmy munched his way through the bowl of nuts and told me about the last two days, which had been spent watching porn and baseball (Ronnie had wired the old TV in the bedroom into the club’s satellite dish), gulping cocktails, and inhaling fatty foods.
“I check out the tennis on the lawn in the afternoon,” he added gesturing toward the window seat, with its view of the grass courts, “though I must say the players here aren’t exactly Maria Sharapova in the looks department. And last night at eleven, I snuck down and bowled a few frames in the basement. Easy to wander around here at night, since the old bastards who belong here all have dinner at six. Boring fuckers, really.”
There was no way Jimmy could stay for too much longer, because even if the club still allowed members to move in—which it didn’t—he’d never be able to afford it. And why would the staff hide him for more than a day or two? It’s not like Jimmy was Anne Frank. And he had to tell his panicked brother where he was. Or at the least, he had to tell him he was alive.
“Jimmy, you have to get in touch with Hugh,” I told him. “If you want, I’ll tell him that you’re fine, but aren’t ready to come home yet, and that you’ll get in touch with him in a couple of days, okay?”
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, picking up a Racing Form and rolling his eyes.
I kept unpacking his stuff, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the things I’d uncovered so far, while loaded with sentiment and charm, wouldn’t bring more than a hundred bucks all told at The Striped Awning. Maybe I’d have better luck with the contents of the battered old leather suitcase. The top layer of old newspaper contained some ancient and not very clean fish forks held together by a rubber band. Next was a bunch of embroidered linen napkins, and underneath those, a faded black leather box about the size of a box of animal crackers.
The leather was fraying at the edges, peeling away from the parchment and wood that formed the box, but the S-shaped catch opened easily. Inside, the interior was lined in velvet that had once been black, and was now faded by the years. There was a ring nestled in the velvet, and I lifted it out of
its snug place and held it up in the light still flooding in through the windows. The ring was set with a huge dark red stone surrounded by tiny white diamonds set in white gold or platinum. While the jewel was darkened by age, it was still stunning. I don’t know much about jewelry, but this elegant knuckle-grazer seemed like it must be of some real value.
“Jimmy, this ring is gorgeous,” I raved. “Was it your mother’s? I love it!”
“Cocktail ring,” said Jimmy, looking over his newspaper with his reading glasses halfway down his nose. “Looks pretty snazzy, I agree, but not worth much. Came down through Mother’s side of the family. She had it looked at some years ago—well, quite a few years ago—back in the sixties, as I recall. Took it to an antiques market in the city and they said it was basically worthless. Semi-precious stone, apparently.”
“It’s really beautiful,” I told him, disappointed for the Bests’ sake that it wasn’t worth more. I slipped it on my right hand ring finger and admired it. Then I caught sight of my Timex, which looked seriously outclassed by the dramatic ring, and noticed it was 6:24 p.m.
“Shit!” I said to Jimmy. “I’ve gotta go.” I looked down at the other unopened cardboard box in front of me and had a brainstorm. “Can I take this box with me? It might make Hugh feel better if I bring a few things home. Then I’ll come back here tomorrow, and we can look through the rest of this stuff, and figure out when you’re going home.”
“Suit yourself,” said Jimmy. Then he gave me a grin. “Why don’t you wear the ring tonight, darling? It hasn’t seen the light of day in forty years. It might be fun for you. You can always give it back to me tomorrow.”
“I’d love to!” I said. I hung up his bathrobe, washed my hands in his ancient white porcelain bathroom sink in the bathroom off the Conwell apartment’s bedroom, taking care not to ding the cocktail ring, grabbed the box, and waved good-bye as Ronnie opened the door bearing a tray with Jimmy’s dinner, which was being kept warm under a silver dome.
I DASHED DOWN the steps and was trotting down the first-floor hallway of the club, when I nearly ran smack into Bootsie.
She stared at the cardboard box tucked under my arm.
“What’s in the box?” she demanded.
I ransacked my mind briefly.
“Some old silver the club wants to sell off,” I lied. “They never use it, so I’m going to sell it at the store to raise money for the, er, club maintenance fund.”
“Oh,” she said. Luckily, Bootsie was totally bored by this misinformation, and turned to scan the scene on the porch through a south-facing window, missing the cocktail ring on my finger, which was mostly blocked by the dusty old box. “Want to have a quick drink?” she asked, adding, “I’ve got some time, my doubles match was canceled.”
“Oh, sorry, I have to take care of these boxes,” I said. “But I can’t wait for our tennis lesson tomorrow!”
“Okay,” she said. “Remember, 7:30 a.m. sharp. Early tennis is always fabulous!”
“Great!” I yelled over my shoulder as I headed out the front door toward my car, where I quickly stashed the box in the trunk of my car. It was 6:29 p.m., so I dialed Hugh Best as quickly as I could on my cell phone.
“Your brother is fine,” I told him.
“Oh, thank heaven,” bleated Hugh.
“He’s safe and he has all your family heirlooms, but he refuses to come home right now, and I promised him I wouldn’t tell you where he is for at least a couple more days. I think I can talk him into it very soon. Are you okay with that?” I asked Hugh hastily.
“I suppose I have to be,” he sighed fussily. I could hear him uncorking a decanter and sloshing Scotch into a glass. “Stubborn bastard,” he added.
“I’ll stop by your house first thing tomorrow morning,” I promised. I hung up, did a lip gloss and hair check, and inspected the white dress, which was blissfully smudge-free.
My Timex read 6:31 p.m., so I took a deep breath and got out of the car, wondering how I could somehow convince John that we should eat inside the club, hidden in a dark corner of the empty dining room, when everyone else was having a fabulous time outside on the porch on this beautiful night. I just couldn’t conduct a date with the vet under the watchful eye of Bootsie. And even worse, what if Honey Potts, or the dreaded Mariellen—the vet’s mother-in-law—were here tonight, Mariellen sitting and angrily smoking her Virginia Slims on the porch? She seemed to be here every other night of the year.
I looked up and there in front of me in the parking lot was John, in a sport coat and khakis, looking tanned and lean.
“Hey, there. I had an idea,” he said with a smile. “Would you like to go to that new place, Gianni? I get a little tired of eating at the club sometimes.”
Chapter 16
JOHN DROVE TO the old firehouse, where I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t run into Holly, Joe, or Bootsie. I knew Holly wouldn’t eat anything on Gianni’s carb-and-meat-laden menu, and Joe was likely too weary to go out after his day of redesigning with Sophie. I was fairly sure that Bootsie was still trolling the club for someone to drink with.
However, everyone else in Bryn Mawr seemed to be at Gianni tonight: The bar was packed, and nearly every table was full, too. Wow, this was the suburbs on a Tuesday night?
There restaurant buzzed with a Tuscany-meets-Beverly-Hills vibe. The place smelled heavenly, and a well-dressed crowd was eating pasta with the gusto of dockhands, happily sucking down red wine and pinot grigio. I had to hand it to Chef Gianni: Even though he was still stuck in the hospital, his restaurant was doing really well.
As the hostess walked us through the crowded restaurant to a table on the shaded patio, I noticed that she was about twenty-four years old and had an enviable Olivia Munn–style body in her tight all-black outfit that would leave most forty-year-old men with their tongues unfurling from their mouths. But John, I noted approvingly, merely followed her through the dining area. Okay, he shot her one quick glance, but honestly, what guy wouldn’t? He looked great, I thought, in his sport-coat-over-a-polo-shirt outfit, and the light-colored jacket in a subtle check set off his great tan and his blue eyes. He turned to smile at me as we walked along behind the Olivia Munn look-alike.
Just then, a woman at a table in the center of the restaurant clutched my arm with a coral-manicured paw. “Kristin,” she sang out. “How are you, dear?”
Uh-oh. It was Bootsie’s mom, Kitty Delaney, who was wearing a shocking-lime-green shift dress with pink ribbon trim, and a pink headband on her graying bob. Kitty is a nice woman, but it’s from her side of the family that Bootsie inherited her insatiable taste for gossip. Kitty’s base of gossip-erations is the porch off their house, over near their tennis court. She has an old green telephone out there, set up on a table with the vodka and mixers, and spends all day chatting and sharing information with her extensive network of bridge-playing friends, before they all meet up for cocktail hour at the club.
Bootsie’s dad, Henry, who doesn’t talk much, gave me a friendly grunt while he continued to eat what looked like delicious gnocchi.
“And who’s your charming friend?” Kitty pressed on, her eyes gleaming with unbridled curiosity and a slight Stoli haze at John. I made some hasty introductions, and we continued loping after the hostess to our table.
Well, that was that, I thought, smiling in what I hoped was a relaxed and carefree way at John as we walked out onto the patio and reached our white-clothed table. As we sat down, my mind raced through the ramifications of a Kitty Delaney run-in. Bootsie had known I was interested in the vet, but I hadn’t told her we had an actual date tonight. I was going to have to tell Bootsie everything about my date in painful detail tomorrow (or tonight, if Bootsie could reach me on my cell phone, which was currently on silent).
I glanced back over my shoulder at Kitty, who had produced her own cell phone and was furiously punching buttons on it. Was she texting? Bootsie must have finally convinced h
er mom that she needed to be able to receive and dispense information wherever she went. In fact, I’d be lucky if Bootsie didn’t show up in the next fifteen minutes, and bribe the waitress into giving her and her husband, Will, the table next to ours.
“I hear the tagliatelle is great here. Even though the chef’s not here tonight, he’s got a couple of guys who trained in Italy who make it by hand,” John was saying amiably as he took off his sport coat and hung it over the back of his chair. Wow! I screamed inwardly, checking out his arms under his white polo shirt.
While we unfolded our starched white napkins, I noticed two people lurking at the end of the large terrace. The pair was behind some potted ficus trees that the Colketts had banked at the end of the patio to camouflage a kitchen door. I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke coming from that direction.
I realized the smoker was a petite blonde in towering heels, who was huddled in close conversation with a tall guy in chef’s whites: Jessica, the young and gorgeous girlfriend of Gianni, and Channing, the muscular cook, I realized. Were they kissing between puffs of her cigarette?
Flustered and having flashbacks to my high school days watching The Young and the Restless, I nodded when John asked me if I liked Italian wine. As he ordered a Montepulciano, a collective murmur came from inside the restaurant. All of us on the patio turned to stare through the screened doors toward the hostess desk, where a tattooed, muscular man in a hospital gown and Crocs had just limped in.
“I am back!” announced Chef Gianni, brandishing his crutch triumphantly. “Gianni’s enemies cannot keep Gianni away from his restaurant!”
As the dining room broke out in admiring applause, the ficus trees parted, and Jessica rocketed from behind the hedge and back into the restaurant, where she silently appeared next to Gianni, taking his arm supportively while grinding out her Marlboro Light on a passing waiter’s tray.
