by Allison Lynn
“Thanks,” Emily said. “We’re looking forward to settling in.”
“Which house?”
Emily didn’t know her new address by heart and clumsily tried explaining where the place was situated, adding, “It’s got a new-growth maple out front? The old owners put it in to replace a birch that rotted out last year?”
“The Schermerhorns’,” Winnie said. “It’s in decent shape, at least. I’d redo the roof, but that’s just me.”
Emily smiled.
“You have kids?” the second woman asked. “The Schermerhorns left the jungle gym up in back, I noticed.”
“One son, ten months,” Emily said. “You?”
“Two boys, already in school. Track me down if you need sitters. I’m a valuable resource. Eric has my number.”
“And you?” Emily asked Winnie, filling the silence.
“Kids?” Winnie said. “Christ, no. But it’s nice of you to ask.”
Emily grinned and stepped slightly away, hoping that her clothes (two days into their luggageless weekend) didn’t reek. Over Eric’s shoulder, she watched a crowd begin to disembark from a colossal cruise ship, a monstrously large vessel for this harbor. The passengers streamed single file straight from the boat to the Oktoberfest tent, merging with the men in tights. A cruise ship would make a great getaway vehicle, Emily thought. Women who played shuffleboard and ate at fruit buffets were above suspicion.
Officer Eric and his friends continued to talk as the sounds around them—the bellowing of the harbor-cruise hawkers; the bells from the cyclists who sped by on the road, navigating the small slip of pavement between the cars and the curb—encroached on their space.
“We’re headed into Oktoberfest if you want to join. I get a free pass,” Eric said.
The cruise’s passengers were still filing down the ship’s slanted ramp.
“I should get back to Nate. He’s not really an Oktoberfest kind of guy,” Emily said. She didn’t want to get dragged into the festival, but she also didn’t want to sound pretentious—like a New Yorker who thought she was above corny local traditions—or suspiciously rushed. Historically, Emily had a habit of making terrible first impressions. “Not that it doesn’t sound fun, Oktoberfest, you know? We’re all about being tourists, checking out attractions until Tuesday when we can move into our house. But Nate’s mother was Austrian, so Oktoberfest, you know, it’s too close to home.” This sounded like a lie, she was sure of it. She should keep her mouth shut.
“It’s a good weekend to do the cottages, if you’d rather do that sort of thing,” Winnie said. Emily noticed how the term cottages rolled off her tongue, matter-of-fact and without irony. “I hear the Elms added extra tours for Columbus Day.”
“The Elms?” Emily said. She almost added, Nate and I aren’t mansion people, but she held back. Nate wasn’t a mansion person. Emily, on the other hand, was embarrassingly eager to visit the town’s historic residences.
Sure, given the state of the world, she knew she should hate mansion tours (so much excess!), should hate even the idea of a mansion tour, but she loved walking through grand houses where she knew that not only would the owners approve of her snooping, but they’d also moved out a generation ago, leaving the homes to museums and nonprofits that had now roped off the valuables for safe viewing from a distance. (If only the Barbers had roped off their valuables!) She craved stepping into a home that had history, that had been honestly lived in. She craved stepping into someone else’s life, if only for an hour.
“The Elms is right on Bellevue,” Winnie said. “Up two blocks and a half-mile to the south. Can’t miss it.”
“I’ve probably got time to do a quick tour right now,” Emily said half to herself, half to Winnie, her new best friend and tour guide. Nate and Trevor would call if they needed her, wouldn’t they? She had her cell phone, and she didn’t want to sit inside all day, changing diapers, eating her way through the minibar, worrying about their life to come. Emily still had eighteen dollars burning a hole in her pocket. A tour couldn’t possibly cost more than that.
The group started walking in the direction of Oktoberfest, and Emily followed. As they approached the edge of the tent, she could hear the metallic hum of accordion music and an airy wheezing, like ailing bagpipes.
“Last chance for Oktoberfest,” the other woman, the one who wasn’t Winnie, said. Emily should have caught her name, this woman who wasn’t Winnie. She was sure Eric had introduced her by name, but now it was too late.
“Oh, no, thanks,” Emily said. “I’ll pass.” And then, because it seemed they were waiting for her to say something more, she added, “This way?” She pointed up the road that continued beyond the tent and uphill. The street was jammed with traffic. “Is that the way to the Elms?”
“Winnie and I can walk you,” Eric said. “Right? It’s so close it’s stupid for us to send you wandering. I still feel bad about your car. In Newport for less than an hour and you’re robbed. Must not give you faith in the local law enforcement.”
“We’ll walk you,” Winnie said to Emily. “We can drop you off and be back here in time for the Bavarian singers. As long as we don’t linger.” And then, to the other two, she said, “If you pick up our beer badges, we’ll meet you at the grandstand?”
The limestone Elms was hulking, square and symmetrical and staunch, its bulk splayed heavily on the land. Laminated signs (PARKING THIS WAY and WELCOME TO A PRESERVATION SOCIETY SITE) were impaled in the wet dirt beside the pathway to the front entrance.
“Thanks,” Emily said to Winnie and Eric. The walk had taken no time.
“Don’t thank us. It’s our duty to accompany a newcomer,” said Winnie, who’d been talking nonstop since the walk began. “Eric has an in at all the tourist destinations. He’s a VIP.”
“I don’t have an in,” Eric said. “You make it sound like I’m on the take.”
Inside the mansion’s foyer, a woman sat at a desk with a small cashbox and a stack of brochures.
“Hello, Sergeant,” she groaned to Eric. Emily turned to face the woman, whose skin sagged on her face, her cheeks weighted down by leaden makeup. “Nice to see you, again.”
“Back at you, Margaret,” Eric said. “A pleasure.”
“A sergeant?” Emily said. “I had no idea you were a sergeant.” Emily could never remember the hierarchy of rank. Was sergeant higher than lieutenant? The only thing she knew for sure was that the captain was in charge. At least Eric wasn’t the captain. Emily thrilled, her blood pulsing at her temples, to be standing so close to an actual police sergeant. She’d never been one of those people who believed it was smart to keep your enemies closer.
“I’ve been a practicing policeman for some time,” Eric blushed.
“Oh, give it up, everyone’s a sergeant,” Winnie said. When Eric started to argue, she amended her comment. “Practically everyone. Everyone who sticks around long enough.”
According to the placard next to the ticket seller, the guided tour cost fifteen dollars. Emily took out her money and approached the table.
“Lady, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need a ticket,” the ticket seller, Margaret, said. “It’s on the house.” And then, her tone flat and dour, a defeated sing-song, “Any friend of the law is a friend of the Elms. We’d like to treat you to a tour, on the house.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” Eric said. “Again.”
“I’m happy to pay,” Emily turned to face Eric. She had the crumpled eighteen dollars in her outstretched hand. “It’s really nice of you to come along, to walk me up here, but I can afford my own ticket.” It was nearly all she could afford, but she had the money. “I’d prefer to pay, to tell you the truth. I’d like to pay.” She held the money out farther away from her body, as if waiting for someone to snatch it. “I’d like to support the mansion,” she said. She wanted to be rid of her surreptitious cash. The minute it left her possession, she wouldn’t be holding it back from Nate anymore. She’d no longer be hiding anything from him.
Well, anything except a Rufino.
“You could use a treat, after what happened to you Friday. Don’t worry about it.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Eric said firmly. “Take the free ticket. Take it.”
“Take it,” Winnie said, and then, just before walking out the door with Eric, “let the sergeant abuse his power. He won’t accept no for an answer.”
Emily dug her toe into the dirt on the Elms’ front lawn. She hated her secret money and she hated the fact that she’d let the diaper bag out of her sight, but it would work out okay. The bag was with Nate, it was fine, the Rufino was safely stashed, she was sure of it.
“Please! Remain on the pedestrian walkway!” Kiara, the tour guide, yelped. Emily had drifted onto the grass. There were nine other people in the group, not counting Emily and Kiara, and they stood clustered in front of the mansion, shoulder to shoulder as if drawn together by tour-induced magnetism. So far they’d learned little about the Elms but quite a bit about Kiara: she was in her junior year at Salve Regina, led tours two days a week, and had a passion for the long-gone grand styles of Newport living. “Stay close,” she cautioned, apparently unaware the small crew was already glued together. “I don’t want to have to yell!” She screamed.
As for the mansion, Emily had expected Newport’s estates to be set aside in their own sprawling district amongst rolling hills. But the Elms and the other nearby cottages sat on compact, intricately manicured grounds nestled right up against the neighboring suburban houses. Behind the Elms, on Spring Street, a row of side-by-side federalist shacks abutted the mansion’s lawn.
“This is how the servants would have come and gone,” Kiara said, leading the tour to a covered doorway at the side of the house. She gathered her faded prairie skirt in a tight fist as she descended the shallow flight of stone stairs toward the door. “The foliage canopy hid the servants’ activities from the family and their guests on the floors above.” Emily followed Kiara down the steps.
“We’re touring colleges this week,” the woman next to Emily said, motioning to her daughter. She spoke half in the direction of Emily, half to Kiara, who either cared or was good at feigning it.
Kiara nodded and smiled as she held open the door, motioning the rest of the crowd into the basement. “I love Salve Regina,” Kiara said. “The endowment’s huge, seriously, no one can figure out why tuition is so high, it’s like, there’s no middle class at Salve. But it’s worth it. Seriously, I get to go to school here.” She let the door to the servants’ quarters close behind the tour and stepped back in front of the crowd. “Well not exactly here. But in Newport.”
“We’re in Rhode Island to tour Brown. Not Salve Regina,” the mother said, with an impatient edge. Her daughter seemed patently disinterested in the college conversation, and in this tour, and probably in Brown, as well. She was looking down at her own waist, knotting and reknotting the drawstring of her cargo pants. Emily again felt a yearning for her own college years. She had been someone in college, she’d had a future. And now? If she was convicted of larceny? The thought terrified her. Even if she eventually got out of jail, she’d never get a job again. She’d be whispered about every time anyone from their old crowd bought a work of art, or stole supplies from their office, or snuck out of a party dubiously early. Her entire past would be nullified. The success she’d been as an undergrad? No one would care. Her potential would evaporate like a shallow puddle on hot tar. Trevor might be taken away from her as well. Trevor! She needed to remain calm. She could beat this. She could beat it for Trevor.
“This is the servants’ domain,” Kiara said. She walked backward as she talked, stopping briefly by the hot and cold kitchens to open the door to a small lift. “This is the dumbwaiter they used to haul the laundry up and down the flights. It’s the only elevator in the house!”
“Check it out,” one of the tour’s two twentysomething women nudged the other and nodded toward a stone corner of the cold kitchen. “A pastry station.”
“It’s the pastry deck,” Kiara said to them before leading the group over to the countertop. “It’s far enough away from the hot kitchen that the stone could be kept ice cold, day in and out.”
“And to think we just spent a fortune on marble,” the second twentysomething said to the first. Then, noticing Emily eavesdropping, she said, “We own a bakery, small scale, in Providence. Near Brown,” she rolled her eyes toward the college-tour mom.
“I almost went into the food industry,” Emily said. “Cheese-making.” It sounded so real when she said it out loud, like a dream that had come this close to fruition.
“You’re based where?” the first twentysomething asked Emily. “New England cheeses are having a renaissance, but you must know that.”
“I’m in New York,” Emily said, and almost corrected herself, almost told them she was a Newport resident, but what she felt, more than anything, was that that wasn’t true. She couldn’t possibly feel less like a Newport resident.
“Upstate?” The second girl asked. Unlike in Manhattan, there were cows and goats and dairy farms upstate.
Emily nodded. It was a small nod, a minor neck twitch, a half lie. Then she walked quickly into the next room, catching up with Kiara and the rest of the group. Her chest began to tighten, her head to float. She had just lied without premeditation, without even noticing it until the fabrications were out of her mouth. When had this started? Lying was a form of thievery, stealing facts and inserting them into her own life story. This tour was only supposed to last forty-five minutes, yet already Emily felt as if she’d been on it for days. She hadn’t taken a pill since before dinner last night, and now her remaining meds were in the bottom of the diaper bag, with Nate and the Rufino. Crap.
She should sneak out of the Elms. She should go back to the Viking to find Nate. She should at least call him. She was rarely away from Trevor for this long.
“Follow me, this is a treat just for the underground tour!” Kiara motioned the group through a doorway, past a small throng of other tourists wearing headsets, who were taking the eight-dollar self-guided route. “Seriously, we’re going to go all the way up to the roof next, eighty steps up! But first, even though you thought we were in the basement, there’s one more level down!” There was always one more level down, Emily knew. Even when you were at absolute zero.
She lowered herself slowly onto the stairs, shallow and slick, a lawsuit waiting to happen. (Easy money! Emily thought before coming to her senses.) With her left hand she clung to the metal railing, cold in her grasp. At the bottom of the flight, the other tourers stood uneasily with their eyes to the ground. There was nothing else to do. This room was an empty expanse, a completely underground dungeon the size of a backyard swimming pool. Emily’s eyes locked on the basement’s brick walls, marred by soot and dust. It wouldn’t surprise her to hear that the original owners had kept their prisoners here. She imagined the early WASP settlers had bound and gagged the Jews and Catholics who mistakenly wandered onto their property—but then she remembered that despite this town’s appearance of privilege, Newport was founded as a bastion of acceptance. If Nate’s partners were to be believed, to this day the year-rounders were devoted to diversity and rampant self-expression. And yachts.
“Welcome to the utilities rooms,” Kiara said. She pointed up at the large pipes overhead. “If you turn to the cabinet on your left, this way,” and she motioned to the crowd’s left, “can any of you tell me what this contraption was used for?”
As if in answer, Emily’s phone rang. She edged away from the tour, toward the back wall of the basement, and flipped open her cell. “Nate, thank God,” she whispered into it.
“Emily Latham?” a voice said. Not Nate. She hadn’t looked at the caller ID.
“Who’s calling?” Emily kept both her voice and her eyes low.
“Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Anthony Ogden, New York Police Department. Anna Barber gave me your name and number. We’re taking statement
s from the guests who attended her party last Wednesday. There was a theft from the Barbers’ home that fits the time frame of the party.”
“Oh,” Emily said, afraid to breathe. A lieutenant this time. “Yes, I had heard.” The lieutenant didn’t respond, apparently waiting for more from Emily. Her hand shook as she clutched the phone. “I didn’t see any theft, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“If you could recount your own activities during the party, it would help. When you arrived, where in the apartment you spent time, and when you left.”
Emily suddenly felt like a suspect. The air in the basement was damp. “This cabinet was a lightbulb tester!” Kiara said, her voice slicing through Emily’s interior tintamar. Being kept in this room as a prisoner wouldn’t be so bad. It would beat being paraded in public, being locked in stocks. Being humiliated in Manhattan district court. “The house’s spare bulbs were stored here, on the subbasement level,” Kiara said, “and who would want to climb all of the way up to the main floors to replace a light, only to discover it was faulty?”
“That whole thing is a lightbulb tester? A lightbulb tester?” asked the prospective Brown student. “That whole cabinet? Whatever.”
“This isn’t really a good time,” Emily said into the phone. “I’m on a historic tour, it’s a holiday weekend.”
“Of course,” the officer said. “I can schedule a time to come up and talk with you in person.”
“In person?” Emily felt a wheeze rising to the top of her lungs. “I didn’t see anything. And I live in Newport now, you can’t come up to Newport.” She was trying to sound polite, but all that seemed to be coming out was anxiety. She wished Nate were here, and not just because he had her pills on him. “I wouldn’t want you to waste your time,” she said.
“We’re covering our bases, Ms. Latham. One of the Barbers’ other guests mentioned that she’d seen you walk to the back of the apartment, and that’s where the theft occurred. That makes you a person we’d like to talk to, in our fact-gathering.”
