Return to the Beach House

by Georgia Bockoven

  “In what way?” Carrie took the shrimp and crab out of the refrigerator and started opening cupboards looking for a colander.

  Danielle took one down from the cupboard beside the stove and handed it to her. “I just thought that maybe all the traveling you do now and all the wealthy people you’re dealing with . . .” She shrugged. “You’re not exactly in the flip-flops and cargo-pants world anymore.”

  Carrie didn’t smile at the memory the comment stirred, she looked wistful. “I left that world a long time ago.”

  Danielle couldn’t put her finger on what was going on with Carrie. She was not only uptight but distracted. And of the three of them, it should have been Bridget, who’d lost a baby, who would have bittersweet feelings about Angie’s pregnancy, not Carrie, who’d never tried.

  “Do you like the new job?”

  Carrie leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “I think I do, but I’m still at the walking-on-eggshells stage. There’s so much riding on this career-wise that there’s no room for me to make a mistake. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll feel like I’m running around the city with a big ‘L’ stamped in the middle of my forehead.”

  “A little melodramatic, don’t you think? With everything you’ve already accomplished, you’re never going to be able to convince anyone that you’re a loser.” Danielle grinned.

  When Carrie didn’t say anything, Danielle pushed harder. “What’s the hang-up? What could keep you from succeeding?”

  “Me. The economy. Any of a dozen things I have control over and two dozen I don’t.”

  Carrie was the one the rest of them believed without question would succeed no matter where she landed. It was a given, just like it was a given that Angie would lead the most interesting life. Despite hating cold weather, Carrie had moved to Chicago to take a low-paying job with huge potential, saying there would be time to sit in the sun when she’d put away enough money to retire early. Although she’d given lip service to the idea of settling down and having a family, Danielle had never been quite convinced by what seemed like Carrie’s forced enthusiasm. She just couldn’t picture Carrie changing a diaper.

  “The whole thing hinges on how the clients feel about me,” Carrie went on. “They have to trust that I know what I’m doing in a field where forgers and thieves are the go-to guys for information. They have to have absolute confidence that I can get them the best price whether they’re buying or selling their jewelry or artwork or antiquities. Before I stupidly took this on, I managed to convince myself that having a minor in art would be an asset, but all it’s done is show me how little I know.”

  “I’ll buy that you’re scared, but I hear a lot of excitement in your voice too.”

  Carrie gathered her hair and twisted it into a loose cord over her shoulder. “Yeah, there is some of that. Right now I’m in the process of finding an expert in Inuit art to appraise a potential client’s established collection. I was hoping Angie might be able to put me on to someone, but she said the woman who was considered the most knowledgeable in the state was killed in an airplane crash last year.”

  “In one of Angie’s planes?”

  Carrie shook her head. “She had her own plane.”

  “I worry about Angie,” Danielle admitted. “Those things scare the crap out of me.”

  “I know. Me too. But in her mind, it’s safer being up there than the two of us driving back and forth to work every day.” She reached for the wine and poured herself another glass.

  “Are Inuit antiquities going to be your main focus?”

  “I wish it was that easy. We’re going to be handling everything from the Old Masters, which has been fairly straightforward, to Asian antiquities, which is a field rife with forgeries, to photography, which I know even less about than babies.”

  Danielle shook her head. “What’s happened to you? You used to have more self-confidence than the rest of us put together.”

  “Looking at turning forty and having all those thirty-year-olds snapping at my heels.” Carrie opened the package of shrimp and dumped them in the strainer.

  Danielle went back to cutting a lemon. “Is it really that bad out there?”

  “Which ‘out there’ are you referring to—jobs or dating or something else? Please tell me you’re not thinking about leaving Grady. This group needs one long-term-romance success story.”

  “Grady and I are fine—as long as he doesn’t bring home any more animals.”

  Carrie laughed. “You don’t really think I’m buying that, do you? I remember the year you worked with a spay-and-neuter group in Charlottesville, and how you almost missed one of your finals because you were late getting back from a protest at a zoo that chained its elephants.”

  “It’s the job market I was wondering about,” Danielle said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “All you hear anymore is doom and gloom, and I was curious what it’s like where you are.”

  “For some of us, it’s downright scary. Especially the ones stupid enough to allow themselves to be talked into jumping out of a plane without a parachute.” Carrie arranged the shrimp on the plates in a circular pattern, then put the crab in the strainer for a quick rinse before mounding it in the middle.

  Danielle was at a loss for words. She’d gotten the impression that Carrie’s new job was going to be a hell of a lot of work, but that it was also pretty much a slam-dunk—a perfect fit for her insatiable curiosity. “When are you supposed to be ready for clients?”

  “According to the head of the real estate division, I’m already four weeks behind schedule. You wouldn’t believe the fit he threw when he discovered I was taking a week off to come here. Didn’t matter that I haven’t taken a vacation in three years or that I brought my computer and will be putting in almost as many hours here as I would in Chicago.”

  “How long have you been working to set this up?”

  “Two months of dealing directly with clients. Over a year in the planning stage.”

  Still, something didn’t ring true. Before Carrie went to work for Pearson Inc., Danielle hadn’t known such companies existed. Carrie had tried explaining that they were like a pie baked specifically for wealthy clients, with each wedge a different brokerage flavor. Those flavors varied wildly, from real estate to insurance to options to commodities. It made perfect sense that they would move into the art world; connecting a real estate client in Argentina who collected pre-Columbian art to a commodities client in Canada who was looking to sell his collection of pre-Columbian art was a commission opportunity that, until now, they’d been giving away. Even if they were only brokering a purchase or sale for an individual client at an auction in New York or London or Hong Kong, there was a commission to be had.

  Danielle mentally sorted through what Carrie had told her and finally came to a logical, if far-fetched, conclusion. “Is it possible that there’s trouble in the other divisions and they need you to come up with something to bail them out? Could it be that they’re using this new division as a distraction . . . that they’re shifting focus hoping outsiders will get the impression the company is doing so well it’s time to expand?”

  Carrie threw her arms wide in a hopeless gesture. “It took you all of five minutes to figure out what the executive board has convinced itself no one, not even the reporters who write for the Chicago Tribune business section, will be able to see. And you’re not even in the business.”

  “And if you fail—which seems likely the way they’re pushing you to get this off the ground—where does it leave you?”

  “Exactly where you would imagine. I’ll be the scapegoat.”

  “Who’s going to believe that you had that kind of power?”

  “When it comes to accepting blame, these guys are experts at shoving their hands in their pockets.”

  “So, what if you succeed?”

  For the first time since they’d come into the kitchen, Carrie’s mouth turned up in a genuine smile. “That’s the one thing I have covered. It’s the primar
y reason I’m working as hard on this as I am. I figure momentum is going to give me at least a little time on top of the curve. While I’m there, I’m going to let it be known that I’m ready to move. All I need is a little luck and perfect timing and I should be able to make the jump to start my own art brokerage house before everything collapses at Pearson’s.”

  “Won’t you be blamed for the collapse?”

  “Only to the point that the division fell apart because it couldn’t function without me at the helm.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be. Not until it happens. It could be that you answer a knock on your door one day and find me holding a sign: WILL WORK FOR A STELLA MCCARTNEY HANDBAG.”

  “Totally understandable. How can you be expected to present yourself in the best light carrying anything less?” It was the perfect opportunity for Danielle to tell Carrie what would really happen if she ever did show up in Denver. But that revelation was for another time.

  Chapter 7

  Bridget listened for signs that Danielle was asleep before she got out of bed, picked up her slippers and robe, and slipped out of the bedroom. As usual, she and Danielle had wound up bunking together, this time in the one bedroom out of three that had twin beds.

  As the night owls of the foursome, they habitually talked until well after midnight when they were together. Carrie and Angie were morning people, rising with the sun and jogging on a trail or treadmill, believing it was possible to exchange a lifetime of morning misery for some indeterminate longevity.

  Would exercise have prevented her breast cancer? As with so many other things that brought up niggling questions, she had her doubts.

  About everything.

  Should she have refused a lifetime of routine dental X-rays? What about non-organic food? Red meat? Milk that came from cows that were fed antibiotics as if they were food supplements?

  Was there anything she had done, should have done, or could have done that would have stopped the appearance of that first aberrant cancer cell? She lightly ran her hand along the wall until she reached the living room and spotted a dim light coming from the kitchen. Before traversing the maze of furniture, she stopped to put on her robe and slippers. A minute later she was peering through the arched opening that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house. Carrie was sitting at the table, her laptop in front of her, her chin propped on her hand.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Bridget asked, crossing the room to take the teapot off the stove.

  “Didn’t dare. It’s already ten o’clock in London.”

  “Oh,” Bridget said wistfully. “You’re working.” She added water to the teakettle. “I’ll be out of your way in a couple of minutes.”

  “No need. What I’m doing doesn’t require concentration.”

  Bridget turned on the burner and came to stand behind Carrie. “Do you mind?”

  Carrie shook her head and moved the computer so Bridget could see it more easily.

  Bridget stared at the screen for several seconds. “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Trying to educate myself about the quality of ruyi scepters and their uses in feng shui. It’s the hot new thing for up-and-coming business types to put them in their offices, both here and in China.” Carrie moved the cursor to show Bridget another view of the green-and-white jadeite scepter.

  “What do you know about them?” Bridget asked.

  “One version has it that they originated as scratching tools for Buddhist monks—the where and how not being specified—but that’s not universally accepted. What is known is that they evolved from something relatively common to objects of great value exchanged between rulers and used as gifts for imperial birthdays and weddings.”

  “It eventually became a symbol of power,” Bridget said, moving the cursor to get a closer look at the sides and back of the scepter. The S-shaped handle was about a foot long, intricately carved with polychrome inlays of precious and semiprecious stones. The head with matching carving held a large emerald.

  “I’m impressed,” Carrie said. “Very few people outside of collectors know what they are.”

  “I had a lot of time on my hands when I lived in Hong Kong.”

  “Christie’s London has one in an upcoming auction that’s bamboo and is estimated to go for half a million pounds. I’m watching to see if the market is nearing its peak or if the Chinese are still using their new wealth to bring home the artwork that’s been leaving the country for the past century.”

  “And you’re doing this because . . .”

  Carrie frowned and then smiled. “Sorry—I forgot you and Angie were outside when I was telling Danielle about my new job.”

  The teakettle started hissing. Bridget jumped up to turn the fire off to keep the hiss from becoming a whistle. “Tea?” she asked Carrie.

  “Decaf?”

  “Herb. Rooibos actually.”

  “Sure. As long as it doesn’t put me to sleep.”

  Bridget left the teabags in the mugs and brought two spoons and a plate. “So tell me how you went from brokering real estate to studying Chinese art.”

  Carrie began to tell her. She had reached the part in her story about feeling profoundly underqualified in her new position when her phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen. “It’s the London agent reporting on the sale.”

  “Do you want me to go into the other room?”

  Carrie shook her head. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Bridget made a motion asking Carrie if it would be all right for her to use the computer. Carrie turned it toward her and sat back in her chair.

  Opening a second search window, Bridget brought up a Chinese antiquities site, then opened two more windows to bring up two similar sites. She smiled at a photograph of a grim-faced Feng Kai, the owner of her favorite antiquities shop in Hong Kong and someone she considered a friend.

  Carrie finished her call and put the phone on the table again. She yawned and ran her hands over her face.

  Bridget turned the computer back toward Carrie, quickly scrolling through the sites. “Do you know any of these shops or the men who own them?”

  Carrie took several minutes to study the unimpressive, poorly laid out websites before shaking her head. “Should I?”

  “They’re considered the go-to experts in Chinese art in Hong Kong. I spent a year following their auctions and listening to them speak at private gatherings before I approached Liu Yang about volunteering at his gallery.”

  “Doing what?” Carrie asked.

  “Interpreting for his American customers. In exchange, I told him I wanted to learn how to spot what to him would be obvious forgeries.”

  “You speak Cantonese?” Carrie asked, incredulous. “Isn’t that supposed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn?”

  “What I know is very, very basic—on a level with a preschooler, but enough to get by. Some Arabic too. That was actually harder for me to pick up. Turns out I have an ‘ear’ for languages. Wish I’d known that in college. I just thought Spanish was easy.”

  “How could I not know this about you? Can you read and write it too?” Carrie’s eyes danced with excitement.

  Bridget laughed. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. I know enough not to order cow offal off a menu, but that’s about it.”

  “You’re a heaving stomach farther away from that kind of mistake than I am.” Carrie leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and stared at the computer, a place to focus while her mind cataloged this new information. “What prompted you to get involved in Chinese collectibles?”

  “For my thirty-fifth birthday, I bought what was supposed to be a rare porcelain vase from someone I was told had a top-tier reputation and then discovered a couple of months later that the vase was a knockoff—and not a very good one. When the dealer refused to let me return it, I had it encased in glass and put on my desk as a reminder.

  Carrie pointed to the computer screen. “Tell me about this.”

  Bri
dget smiled. “They’re the experts who taught me that the only way I can tell an exceptional fake from the real thing is to turn it over to one of them.”

  “How do you know they can be trusted?”

  “They’re the men the auction houses go to for authentication on anything that lacks credible provenance.”

  Carrie picked up her cup and put it down again. “Why hide behind such cheesy-looking websites?”

  “I don’t know. When I told Feng Kai that I’d rework his, I think I offended him. I never mentioned it again, to any of them.”

  “Have you kept in contact?”

  “Not so much this past year.”

  “Would you mind introducing me?”

  Carrie wouldn’t need caffeine to keep her awake the rest of the night. It was as if Bridget had dropped an entire roll of quarters into her adrenaline coin slot.

  Bridget picked up her cup and looked at Carrie over the rim. “By phone—or in person?”

  Carrie blinked. “You’d do that—go with me to Hong Kong?”

  A smile radiated from Bridget’s eyes. “I’d even pay my own way.”

  Carrie worked to control her excitement. “Are you sure? When my aunt had chemo, it took her over a year before she had any energy. All she wanted to do was sleep.”

  Bridget intently focused on Carrie, forcing her to make eye contact. “Listen closely, or read my lips, or do whatever it takes to hear me. I need a reason to get up in the morning, not a reason to take a nap. I’m going to sound a little full of myself here, but you’re not going to find anyone better to do what you need done than me. And I can’t think of anyone I would want to work with more than you. I’ll give you some time to think it over, but—”

  “I don’t need time. You’re hired.”

  Bridget sat back in her chair. “I promise you won’t be sorry.”

  “We were roommates for four years. There’s not much about you that I don’t know.”

  Tears pooled in Bridget’s eyes, then spilled down her cheeks. In less than thirty seconds, she’d gone from smiling to crying. Carrie reached over to wipe the tears away with her napkin. “I have a seriously important question for you,” Carrie said. “Listen closely. Okay?”