by Thea Thomas
“Angel-girl, what’s the matter?”
Mom turned too and they both hurried up to me. My face was wet with tears.
“Oh! Noth-nothing. I was just thinking.” How could I explain? I wasn’t sure I understood it myself.
“Thinking what? Why are you crying?” Mom put her arm around my shoulders.
“Well, just – you know – the two of you are so beautiful and happy and, like, into each other, and I – I – you looked like a perfume ad. And the day, and about love – and stuff, you know....”
Mom and Dad looked at each other and back to me. Dad nodded. “We know.”
“A perfume ad! That’s pretty flattering.” Mom definitely liked that picture.
The three of us continued to walk along the shore, arm in arm, with me in the middle just like when I was a little girl and I didn’t care who saw us. Not that there was anyone here.
Way too soon, we were back at the lodge packing our things. We were quite, and the reluctance to leave hung heavily between us. As we piled into the car and took one last lingering look at the lodge, Dad said quietly, “Don’t worry old lodge, we’ll be back soon enough.”
On the way back to the city, I fell into a lovely sleep world where I walked along the moody, stormy, ocean shore, but I wasn’t with my parents. I was with the beautiful and sad-eyed boy next door.
And this time we looked like we were in a perfume ad.
* *
When we got to the apartment building it was dark and raining. The parking structure felt cold and depressing. My mood moved into a dark place too. Not only did I feel like I wasn’t ready for the heavenly weekend to be over, but there was some other dark thing. I could feel deep into my cold bones that something wasn’t right.
Homer opened the front door, pleasant and polite as always, and the foyer was warm and smelled delicately of fresh flowers. There was a comfortable familiarity in walking up to the elevator and pushing ‘7.’ But I still felt deeply that something was wrong.
“Mom?” I asked as we rode up, “do you feel something? Like, something’s not right?”
“You’re just tired, Sweetheart.”
The doors opened. The hall was warmer and looked even more comforting than the foyer.
“Yeah. Must be I’m tired.”
Dad started to put the key in the lock, but the door swung open when he touched it. We stepped inside.
“Robbed!” Mom whispered, while Dad threw down the luggage, got out his phone and dialed 911.
Chapter VI
I flew to my room and grabbed my jewelry box. Trembling, I sat on the edge of my bed and opened the box. It was still full of my trinkets, but everything was shifted around, and the hidey hole stood wide open and empty. “Oh no!” I wailed, clutching the box. “Grammy!”
Mom hurried into my room, followed by Dad. “The police are on their way,” he said. Then he looked at me. “Oh ! They got Grammy’s emerald.”
I couldn’t say a word, I just nodded. A cold wave of shock and loss rolled over me. It didn’t matter what anyone said, I could not, and I would not, be consoled. I couldn’t bear to lose Grammy again. And that’s what it felt like. How could I live with myself? Why hadn’t I listened to Mom and put the ring in the bank safety box? I was overwhelmed with guilt and a sadness that felt like an unreachable pain.
A minute later I heard Homer come into the living room. Dad and Homer’s voices rumbled in serious tones, and then the police pounded at the door. Dad and Homer and the police poked and prodded around. They eventually all crammed into my room, The policeman told me I shouldn’t have touched anything. This made me start to cry in earnest. It was all too unbearably awful. Through my own fault I lost the most important thing in the world to me, and then through my own stupidity, I cause it harder to be found.
The policewoman shooed the men out of the room and closed the door. She was kind, and asked me questions about Grammy’s ring. She made me feel hopeful.
“I’m so sorry your ring got stolen,” she said, “I’ll keep an eye out for it myself. I comb the pawn shops from time to time, let’s hope it turns it up.”
I felt a small ray of hope. “Really? You mean, that’s possible?”
“Well – don’t get your hopes up. I’m sorry to say that antique jewelry often gets stripped for the gem stones and the gold, but once in a while stuff gets moved in its original setting. We’ll just have to hope. Do you have a picture of the ring?”
“Yes. I have a picture of me wearing it.” I dug through a photo album. “Here it is. My grandmother let me put the ring on, and I had Dad take a picture. I was about five there.”
The police woman studied the picture for a minute and handed it back to me.
“You don’t want to hang on to it?”
“I know now what the ring looks like. An emerald that size will be hard to miss, if....”
“If what?” I asked, knowing the policewoman meant if they haven’t broken down the stone and melted the gold.
“Nothing. Like I said, let’s hope for the best.”
We went into the foyer where the policeman, Homer, Mom and Dad were talking.
“What’s strange,” the policeman was saying, “is that there’s absolutely no indication of breaking and entering, no prints anywhere, no jimmied locks, no nothing. Just a really clean job. But we’ll keep our eyes open. Good thing the owner had that photo record of the furniture and art. Just shows how important record-keeping is. Don’t hesitate to call if anything turns up that we missed.”
And they were gone.
After the door closed behind them, Mom and Dad and I looked at one another, tired and discouraged.
“Well,” Mom said, “Tomorrow’s a school day. You’d better get unpacked and go to bed. Let’s not worry about something we can’t do anything about right now. At least everything is insured.”
I was too depressed and exhausted to say anything. I picked up my luggage and stumbled off to my room. I closed my door, went into the bathroom, closed that door too and turned on the shower. Then I curled up on the bathroom floor, crying until the room was full of steam. The image of Grammy’s emerald being hammered into a dozen pieces was more painful than I could endure.
I finally drug myself to bed and fell into a fitful sleep. But I woke up with a start when I heard someone calling my name. The room was warm and had a cozy glow. “Nikki,” Grammy said. She stood in the far corner of the room, her gentle face beaming with the softest illumination and her whole body looking not only like she was standing in a fabulous kind of light, but like she was the light.
“Grammy,” I whispered. I wanted to fly from the bed into her arms, but my body behaved as if it was made of warm molasses syrup and it refused to make a move.
“Don’t be unhappy, Dear Heart, the ring is not me, neither is it my love for you. My love will last through eternity. I can’t explain how that is, but trust me. However, I want to tell you that the ring will be returned to you. Now sleep and don’t worry. And never, never think that you’ve lost me. I’m where ever you are.”
The image of Grammy started to fade, and although I tried to beg her not to leave, I couldn’t speak a word. The warmth of the syrupy feeling stole into my brain, putting me into the deepest, calmest sleep I could ever remember – or not remember – having.
Chapter VII
Mom had to shake me awake the next morning, but even then, I still felt the presence of Grammy – the warmth of that light – into my very bones. That sensation lingered on, even when the missing ring and the robbery and everything came back to me.
“Poor Nikki, I guess you’re pretty worn out from all the drama.”
“But Mom, I saw...” I stopped. I realized that not only would Mom not believe that I’d seen Grammy, she’d wo
rry like crazy about my mental condition. And I realized I didn’t want to tell anyone about Grammy’s appearance. At least, not now. “... I mean, I had a dream that I got Grammy’s ring back. I feel it in my bones.”
“Because I know it means so much to you, I hope you’re right. But Sweetie, don’t get you’re hopes up too high, just in case....”
“I won’t, Mom. Well, I’d better get ready for school.”
The feeling that lingered after seeing Grammy and the calm assurance from her that I would get my ring back lasted all day. On the way home, I decided to stop in and chat with Mr. Zingas. He had talked my ear off one day, telling me the local folklore about how the building we lived in, and particularly the seventh floor, was haunted.
The little bell over the door rang with an old-fashioned cheeriness as I crossed the threshold. The smells of fresh bread and sweet pastries, mixed with the tang of cheeses, comforted me. There were no customers in the store, and Mr. Zingas was occupying himself with a feather duster and a top shelf of dust. He looked down at me, then brought his chubby body down the step ladder. “I heard about your family’s misfortune. I’m so very sorry.”
“Thank you, Mr. Zingas. Well, it does seem pretty lousy that the moment a family goes away for a couple of days, someone comes in and takes everything. I mean, why couldn’t they have done that before we moved in? The place was vacant for months, and it doesn’t seem quite fair.”
Mr. Zingas nodded sympathetically, and as he did so, he cut a couple slices off the cheese cake and motioned me to join him at one of the little deli tables in the back of the store. “Hot tea? The water’s ready.”
“I’d love it.” I heaved a sigh. It was great how he seemed to know just what I needed. “You should be a therapist.”
“Exactly, Nikki.” He brought two cups of steaming tea to the table. “I’m my own kind of therapist, which is why I’m in the business of food – comforting and nurturing. I can listen, I can talk. But always, I have the food and the drink. I see you need the whole treatment.”
I cracked half a smile and nodded. “Well, yes. In fact, I came by because I’m really curious now about that stuff you started to tell me once about my building, especially my floor, being haunted. At that time I just thought of it as stories, but now... well, here’s the thing, the police are really mystified because there’s not a sign anywhere of breaking and entering. They have no idea how anyone got in. And I’ve been puzzling over that all day. How can it be that professionals, who look at ripped off places every day, can’t find one single clue? Pretty strange, isn’t it?”
“So you’re thinking that some ghosts decided to fence some furniture and pictures?”
“Jeez, it doesn’t make much sense when you say it out loud, does it?”
Mr. Zingas shrugged. “I try not to pass judgement on how those on the other side reason things out. It’s beyond me. But taking a lot of antique furniture and pictures does seem strange. I mean, if they’re ghosts, and they live there already, why would they want to move out the furniture?”
“Yeah. Why? So it must be real live people who took everything. But how?”
“A provocative question, young lady. I guess you’re not so much wanting to hear ghost stories right now?”
The little bell over the door tink-tinkled.
“I do want to hear them – some time. But you’ve managed to help me think along other lines. Thanks for the tea and cheesecake. It’s great brain-food.”
Mr. Zingas nodded and winked, then got up to help the woman hovering at the deli counter. At the same a buzzer in the back of the store went off and I could hear someone coming through the back door of the shop.
“That you, Alex?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“Come in here and keep Nikki company for a few minutes.”
“I’ve got that delivery.”
“It can wait.”
“It can wait?” There was incredulity in the young man’s voice. He stepped through the bead curtain. “Oh! Hi there.”
“Hi,” I said back.
“You’re in my World Lit class,” we said together, then laughed.
He extended his hand, “Hi, Nikki.”
I shook his hand, happy to meet the sandy-haired boy who sat in the back of class and occasionally made quiet wise cracks that made everyone laugh. Fortunately, that often included the teacher. “Hi, Alex.”
He sat down where his dad had been sitting and picked up his dad’s tea and started sipping it like it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
“That’s your dad’s tea.”
“What’s his is mine. So, do you live near by?”
“Yeah.” I pointed at the building which could just be seen through the little high up window. At least, one of it’s fantastic gargoyles was clearly visible.
“Oh. That place.”
“Hmmm... yes, that place. What does that mean?”
“Just...” He shrugged. “What floor do you live on?”
“Seventh.”
“Cool!” he said like I couldn’t have given a better answer.
“Yeah? Why?”
“Okay, no ghostie stories,” Mr. Zingas said, returning and taking his tea from Alex. “They were robbed last night.”
“Oh! You were the ons robbed?”
“Yeah. Us.”
His mood changed completely from the kid who was about to make a bunch of jokes, to someone who sincerely cared. “I’m sorry to hear it. That would be awful.”
“It is. But you dad has made me feel a lot better with his ‘medicine.’” I pointed at my empty plate, “And his wise council.”
“My Dad? Are you sure?” Alex was back into his teasing mode.
Mr. Zingas snapped Alex’s ear with his forefinger. “Show respect, young man.’
“Yes, sir,” Alex saluted. There was nothing but pure affection between them.
“Thank you. Thank you both for making me feel better. I suppose I’d better get home.” I finished my tea and stood.
“See you tomorrow,” Alex said.
“Yeah. Cool. See you tomorrow!” Boy, that felt great to be able to say. I hurried home thinking this would be a huge entry in the GOOD side of my GOOD–BAD lists.
As I came through the door, Mom stood in front of me, clearly waiting for the elevator to ding, announcing my arrival. She held her fists out in front of her. “Guess which hand,” she said with a huge grin, just like she used to do when she had a special treat for me when I was little.
I pointed at Mom’s right hand. She opened it, and there sat Grammy’s emerald ring!
I squeaked in delight, grabbed the ring and kissed it. “Where did you find it?”
“Right on top, in your jewelry box, silly girl. You must have been so scared that the ring was gone, that you shuffled everything around, and buried it without even noticing. I decided to look for it, because it didn’t make sense to me that it was missing. I mean, everything else that was gone was furniture and paintings. Thank goodness they didn’t take the piano.”
“Yeah, Mom, like they could move a baby grand out real subtly.”
“Well, anyway, I didn’t have any jewelry missing, in fact, my jewelry box hadn’t even been touched. So that’s what made me think to look for your ring myself. And there it was. I should have known we couldn’t get rid of the ugly thing.”
I was so stunned by her finding the ring in the jewelry box that I didn’t even argue. But one thing I knew for sure, the ring had not been in my jewelry box. How had it re-materialized? Had Grammy somehow done that? Made her ring come back to me where it was supposed to be?
“Well, now that the two of you are reunited,” Mom continued, “I need you to pick up a few things for me that I forgot t
o get earlier. I tell you, I can’t think straight with the house empty, and all the activity of the police and everything. Here’s a list.”
I took the list. “Why didn’t you text me?”
“I wanted to surprise you with the ring.”
“Oh, yeah. Good job, Mom. You really did surprise me. I guess Mr. Zingas is going to get his fill of me today.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just came from there on the way home from school to, ahm, to pick his brain. About what he knows about the neighborhood, you know, and the people. To see if he had any ideas about what might have happened, who might have done the robbery. He’s lived here forever.”
“And did he know anything?”
“He knew we were robbed and was very sympathetic, but he didn’t tell me anything I don’t know. His son, Alex was there. And guess what? He’s in my World Lit class. And we talked and he’s really nice.”
“That’s wonderful Nikki,” Mom said, but in that distracted way, like she heard me but it didn’t register that I had an actual talked with a peer. She carried on about the robbery. “I’m still hopeful that the police’ll come up with something. They struck me as pretty savvy last night.”
“Yeah. The policewoman was very sweet.” I went to my room, closed the door, closed the closet door, closed the bathroom door and pulled the shades, then, in the darkness, I hid Grammy’s ring in a place I hoped I could find it again. I ran back out to the living room and picked up the money Mom left for the groceries. “I’ll be right back,” I hollered over Mom’s arpeggiated scales.
Just as the elevator doors closed, I heard a door down the hall open. Once out on the street and heading for Mr. Zingas’ I looked over my shoulder. There was the gorgeous boy from next door. He acted as if he didn’t see me, but his long legs gained on me, and he entered the store right behind me. I felt my heart race, while everything around me seemed to recede. What did Mom want me to get? I looked down at the list. Okay, milk. I moved to the cooler. There he stood.
