“What would you have done?”
“You’re grieving right now and you aren’t using your best judgment. Also, I fucking hate Patrick, so I’m a sympathetic person right now, like as sympathetic as fucking Gandhi. But this isn’t good. This isn’t good at all. And neither is you running around punching paparazzi.”
“He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did. But we had to pay him to keep his mouth shut. And I don’t like paying these people. I don’t like it at all.”
“Look, I’m sure wherever Melody is, she’s there for a reason. And I’m also sure that Dustin is fine and that they are happy together and love each other and belong together. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Okay. Fine. Just, keep your head up, okay. The police don’t care about mother-son love and shit like that. If they find her, they’re going to arrest her. I’m not sure how I feel about this as your employer.”
“You’re not my employer. I quit.”
“You were serious about that?”
Charlie hung up.
* * *
Arthur McCreary owned an antique shop of his own in the Boston suburbs and had known George for thirty years. He had done much business with the Westfalls. When he arrived, he stopped at the memorial table. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come sooner,” he told Ana. “I spoke to him a few days . . . before . . . He wanted me to come down to see the painting. I wasn’t able to get away. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Ana said. “We didn’t think it would happen just yet. No one did. Here, I’ll take you to the painting.” She ushered him through the crowd and into the study, where he put on his glasses, stooped, and examined the Magritte. Ana told him what had happened the night before, all the grisly details.
“Well, that’s not good at all,” Arthur said, “but it will depend on how extensive the damage was. And from what I’m seeing here, it isn’t so bad. There are people who can clean this.”
Josef was in the doorway. “What’s the verdict?”
“He just got here,” Ana said, shooing him out. “Let the man work in peace!”
Abbott strolled into the study, not looking where he was going, and careened headlong into the desk, hitting his head. Hearing her son scream, Charlie dashed through the living room, colliding with her cousin Clara, Natalie, Rey, and an old lady she didn’t know. Ana was on her knees holding Abbott, and he (to Charlie’s utter amazement) yielded to her touch and returned her embrace, throwing his arms around her and putting his head on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Ana said. “It’s okay. You’re going to be fine.”
Charlie was in disbelief. It was such a rare occurrence that Abbott allowed anyone to touch him, let alone hold him. But here it was. And she saw her mother take strength from it. Abbott clung to his grandmother, calming down. And behind them, Charlie, in the doorway with one hand on the molding for support, got teary-eyed.
* * *
Nora’s presence only served to hurt Josef’s chances with Natalie. He supremely wished that he hadn’t begged her to come. He wanted to get back to McCreary in the study but had to stop because Marc Crawford was coming through the front door, taking off the most ridiculous fedora Josef had ever seen on a grown man (no, any man). Behind Crawford was his (10 with a bullet on the hotness scale) trophy wife whose name was Veronica or Victoria or something like that and with whom Josef (no surprise) found it hard to converse or even look at without thinking of what she looked like bent over naked with her panties stuffed in her mouth.
“Josef!” Marc said.
“Crawford?”
“I wanted to come pay my respects to your father. I know how close you were.”
“You did? I was?”
“Let’s forget about the other day, huh? I understand the pressures, man!”
His hand was out and apparently he wanted Josef to shake it.
“I, uh, yeah, I appreciate that. You drove all the way up here?”
“What a drive!” Crawford said. “We took the Roadster. Even had the top down. It’s beautiful out! Some storm! All the trees look like they’ve been permanently tilted. And the foliage this time of year! They aren’t kidding about that foliage!”
“I’m just,” Josef bumbled on, “very surprised to see you is all. After . . .”
“Water under the bridge, okay? We should talk, though. Later. Not now. Later. I want to run some things by you. I think you’ll like what I’ve got to say.”
Josef found himself nodding. He also felt Nora’s hand slap his ass.
“Introduce me to your friends,” she said.
* * *
Armie wasn’t happy with the table. He saw now that he’d not leveled the legs perfectly and there was a slight but perceptible lean to the whole thing. It canted vaguely to the right. The imperfection was minor but felt glaring in the face of so many people standing before the memorial, one after the next, paying their respects.
* * *
Charlie did a deft job avoiding Rey, who kept grabbing her arm and demanding that she talk to him. “We need to talk,” he repeated over and over, and in response she yanked her arm out of his grasp the way she’d seen Melody do in pretty much every film she’d ever been in.
“Excuse me, Rey,” Charlie said. “I need to take care of the music.”
“Music?” he said.
She checked her phone, ignored the admonishing texts from Leilani, and plugged it in to the stereo. She called up the Tom Waits playlist (she’d listened to it, oh, about twenty times in the past week) and put it on low as a sort of somber background mood-setter. Which wasn’t required, as the mood was already sufficiently somber and no one heard it, with all the murmuring chatter, but she heard it and that was good enough. It helped quiet her mind and distracted her from the clawing desire to pop an Enabletal, which of course was impossible; she no longer had any. Unless Melody or someone in attendance did? She could always ask around if it got bad. Her father had not been a fan of music in general. He often said exactly that. “I’m not a fan of music in general.” A statement that had prompted Charlie to ask him to explain just what he meant when he said it. To which he would reply that the “noise” of “music” made it hard for him to “hear his own thoughts.” So most likely he wouldn’t have approved of anything outside of some lame classical selections to be played at his send-off. But he isn’t here to object, is he? Charlie thought with a macabre laugh that popped out and that she then felt ashamed of.
Dustin and Abbott grew restless and their antics—running, yelling, jostling about amid the dour gathering—could no longer be ignored, and since the weather was pleasant it was deemed appropriate for them to be relocated outside. Charlie grabbed her cardigan and offered to chaperone. Abbott insisted on taking his My Little Pony backpack, which needed to be retrieved from upstairs, and Ernest the Donkey Puppet was of course affixed to his hand and he scampered out barking at Dustin.
Out back they went. Branches torn by the storm carpeted the yard.
* * *
Armie had taken up a spot in the living room talking with Father Chukwumereige when Audrey arrived, her stooped grandmother Ying in tow. Audrey looked, Armie thought, radiant in a navy blue dress and loafers. Her hair, pulled up, was shiny and elegant. Ying went to the table and futzed with the flowers. It looked for a second like the old lady was maybe pouring out one of the vases? Audrey saw Armie across the room and grabbed Ying by the shoulder and pulled her away.
“Hello, Mrs. Tan,” Armie said, leaning in to give the grandmother a halfhearted hug and kiss on the cheek. Ying recoiled.
“She’s not big on the kissing-hello thing,” Audrey explained.
“Mmmeh,” Ying said.
Father Chuk coughed into his hand.
“Grandma, this is Armie Westfall. His parents own Westfall Antiques, right up the block.”
“He’s in the army?”
“No. His name is Armie,” Audrey said.
“What
?” Ying cupped a hand to her ear and shuffled forward. Her rubber shoes squeaked on the hardwood.
Armie spoke louder. “I’m named after a character in one of my mother’s favorite books.” He felt sweat collecting in uncomfortable spots on his body, and to his dismay Father Chuk was no longer part of the circle. He was alone with Audrey and Ying.
“The table looks lovely,” Audrey said. “Don’t you think so, Grandma?”
“Table?”
Audrey stepped in and put her arms around him. “I just want to say again how sorry I am about your father,” she said into his ear.
In his loins he felt a stirring hotness, a tightening, and he knew he was getting turned on and that was bad, especially in front of the senile grandma and all these mourning relatives. When he went to speak, his voice got caught in his throat and sounded shrill.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he croaked.
“Haven’t had a drink in forty-seven years,” Ying said.
“I’d love a glass of water,” Audrey said.
Armie lurched away, leaving them behind. He headed straight to the kitchen and out into the backyard, where he stood at the porch railing, clutching it, white-knuckled, taking deep breaths. He was not alone. Abbott and Dustin were playing out on the square of lawn that constituted the “yard.” Dustin attempted to heave a large branch into the air while Abbott barked with his weird donkey puppet and Charlie sat slumped in one of the two Adirondack chairs at the porch edge, either watching them or not watching them. When she noticed Armie, she sat up and wiped at her eyes with the palms of her hands. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“It’s okay!” Armie said. “You should cry. We should all be crying.”
He sat in the second chair. She let out a massive sob and fell forward and cradled her face in her hands.
“Oh, Armie, it’s all such a mess!”
“Hey. Hey. Come on. Seriously. It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”
“Ha! No, it’s not!”
“Dad was sick, you know.”
“It’s not Dad. Well, it is Dad, but it’s not just that . . .” She pulled herself up and raised her face. If she had been wearing makeup, this would have been one of those running-mascara moments, but she wasn’t, so it wasn’t. She stood and went to the railing. “Abbott, don’t hit Dustin with Ernest, honey. He doesn’t like it!”
Armie came up beside her and tried one of those consoling half-hug deals where he put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to him. She fell into the embrace, thus relieving most, if not all, of the clumsiness in the gesture. Armie would have stayed out there with her all day if it meant not having to go back in the house and face Audrey. It made his throat weak just thinking about it. She looked so lovely. He envisioned, bizarrely and violently—so violently that a ripple shuddered through his body—Ying standing in OR scrubs and he lying on an examination table, naked and exposed, as she looked him up and down and proclaimed, with a pointed, decrepit finger, and vibrantly lucid, “Not a real man!” while Audrey looked on, nodding.
Charlie leaned her head on his shoulder. “My marriage is a disaster, Armie.”
“What do you mean?”
She pulled the Ziploc bag with the panties out of the pocket of her cardigan. “I found this in my underwear drawer two weeks ago.”
“Uh.”
“They’re not mine.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Yup!”
“Could they be, like, the cleaning lady’s or something?”
“You’ve never met Manuela, have you?”
“What did Rey say about them?”
“Nothing. He won’t say anything about them.”
“I’d imagine silence is the best route when mysterious panties turn up.”
“I just want to hear the motherfucker admit it. Admit that he’s cheating on me. Give me a reason, something, anything.”
“If you cry, I’m going to cry. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m just—”
“It’ll get better. I promise.”
“How? How will it get better?”
“You’re on top of things. I know you. It’ll work out.”
“I don’t feel like I’m on top of anything.”
Abbott scream-laughed and jumped around in a circle while Dustin threw leaves in the air.
“I just want to be with someone who sees what I’m worth!” Charlie said. “Is that too much to ask?”
“You will be,” Armie said.
“Look at this!” Abbott screamed. He swirled in a circle, revved his mouth like an engine, and waved Ernest high in the air.
“I see you, sweetie,” Charlie said.
“Come run!” Dustin, roving in his own wider orbit, said.
“There you are!” Melody was at the door. She barreled out and inserted herself between Armie and Charlie. She looked sternly over her sunglasses at Charlie. “You can’t just leave me alone in there!”
“Mommy!” Dustin said.
“Hey, my little munchkin!”
* * *
In the kitchen Florence held her copy of the first Thornglow novel behind her back. Within its pages she’d tucked the copy of the letter she’d written the night before, which, if she didn’t chicken out like Isobel kept telling her she would, she planned to read aloud in front of all these people. She was nervous—extremely nervous—but she was going to force herself. It was good for her. That’s what her English teacher, Ms. Poplears, was always telling her. It was good and necessary, Ms. Poplears said, to confront your fears, and one of Florence’s biggest fears was public speaking of any kind, even the five-minute book reports she was required to deliver to her classmates from the podium at the front of the room (once a month!).
The rumor mill at school speculated that Ms. Poplears still lived with her mother in a Queens apartment and that she had never had sex or even been kissed. No one had ever confirmed any of this, and Florence liked Ms. Poplears and thought she was sweet and so she felt guilty when she laughed at any old-spinster jokes. And Florence was genuinely sad about her grandfather dying, so the letter was also about doing something nice in his honor. She wanted her father to know that she loved her grandfather too. Then maybe her father would be proud of her and love her as much as he loved Isobel, which was stupid because Isobel was always rude to him and why did he care so much about her anyway when she wasn’t even nice to him or even excited about the trip they were going to take to Hawaii? Isobel insisted that their dad wasn’t ever going to take them on this “supposed” trip. He would flake like he did with everything else, she said, but Florence had faith, for whatever reason, in her dad. So she would read her letter. She would do it. But not before she went up to Melody Montrose (eek!) and asked her to sign the book. And in addition she would make a point of telling Melody how beautiful she looked with her new haircut! Short and blond! Melody always looked so good in every single issue of Us Weekly Florence pilfered from her mother. No matter what color or length her hair was or what outfit she wore. She even looked good just walking down the street with her son! That was why movie stars were so amazing.
Florence marched across the kitchen and right up to Melody.
“Hi, Serena!” she said, surprised at the loudness of her own voice and instantly mortified that she’d called Melody Serena. “I mean—”
“I guess my disguise isn’t that good.”
“Disguise?” Florence tried to look Melody in the eye, which was another thing Ms. Poplears recommended, but that was hard to do because Melody had giant sunglasses on that covered half her face. Her uncle Armie was out there and so was her aunt Charlie and Charlie’s spazzy kid, Abbott, who was screaming something in a monster voice. “You look so beautiful,” Florence said. “I’m sure it’s super annoying and you’re, like, on vacation, but I love the Thornglow movies!”
“Why, thank you,” Melody said. A smile beneath the monstrous sunglasses. “Would you be a doll and go back in there and get me some coffee? I can’t deal
with all the weirdos.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course. I’d love to,” Florence said. “Do you think . . . do you think you’d sign my book?”
“Isn’t it weird she wants you to sign a book you didn’t even write?” Isobel said.
Florence hadn’t seen her sister follow her out, but there she was, on cue, trying for one last sabotage. Melody took the book.
“Not really,” she said to Isobel. “I am on the cover.” She pointed to the photo of Serena running in a white bodice, blood on her lips, the wind blowing her hair in a dangerous yet sexy way.
“Yeah, right! Totally!” Florence said, seeing her opportunity to further justify the autograph. “That’s exactly why I wanted you to sign it!”
“What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Florence Abigail Westfall-Karzhov.”
“Yikes! Okay, well, we’ll just put Florence.”
“Sure!”
Melody scrawled something in the book. As she did, the letter fell out. “What’s that?” she asked.
“Nothing!” Florence snatched it up. “Just a letter I wrote to my grandpa.”
“I heard he was a cool guy,” Melody said. She handed back the book.
“He was,” Florence said. “He totally was.” She opened the book and read aloud what Melody had inscribed. “ ‘Dear Florence, Always . . . stick . . . I think this says stick . . . to your dreams. Love, MM.’ ”
“It was the best I could do under pressure.”
“It’s perfect! Thank you so much!”
“But listen, seriously, you can’t tell anyone I’m here. Okay? It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“A secret?”
“I kind of ran away.”
“I won’t tell anyone. I would never.” Florence pantomimed zipping her lips.
The Antiques Page 22
