Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 4

Claire Robinson’s anger hung even more heavily in the shop than the thick curtains that concealed the bare brick walls. Even as the tinkling door chime faded away, Caroline could feel her employer’s angry eyes boring into her, and the set of her jaw — which wasn’t soft even when she was in the best of moods — warned Caroline not even to attempt an explanation for the fifteen minutes that had passed since the time she had promised to appear. Not that the explanation would have meant anything to Claire anyway, since the importance of the home run that Ryan had hit in the bottom half of the ninth inning of his softball game would be utterly lost on her. To Claire, children were an alien species that she could sometimes enjoy at a distance, but had no tolerance for in close quarters. “The idea of being pregnant is bad enough,” she’d once told Caroline. “But the eighteen years that follow are utterly unthinkable. There has to be a better way to propagate the species than that — it’s barbaric!” Since Claire wouldn’t care how hard it had been for her to leave her kids home by themselves, Caroline held her words to a simple apology, which Claire acknowledged with a terse nod.

“Let’s both just hope I’m not too late for Estelle Hollinan’s demilune,” she said as she pulled on the worn trench coat that was her stylistic trademark. No matter what the weather, if Claire was outside her trench coat was on, and there had been a time when Caroline wondered not only how the trench coat held together under such constant use, but also how Claire made do with a single wrap, no matter what the elements might be dealing out. It was Kevin Barnes who finally explained the trick: “She has at least a dozen of them. I think she has some poor Filipino woman locked away in Brooklyn or The Bronx, or one of those terrible places, doing nothing but sewing them up and putting all the same wear marks on them. But all the linings are different — cotton batiste for summer, flannel for fall. Mark swears she even has a mink-lined one she wears to the opera, but I think he’s just being bitchy.” Caroline hadn’t quite believed him until she’d started surreptitiously checking the linings of the trench coats, and sure enough, she found four different ones, all sewn in.

Cinching the belt of the current coat tight, Claire started out the door, but suddenly paused, eyed a large oriental vase critically, then turned back to Caroline. “Add a zero to the price of this thing. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Without another word, Claire stepped through the door, and a moment later vanished down Madison Avenue.

“And a very nice afternoon to you, too,” Caroline said to the empty shop. Hanging her own worn coat — that somehow managed to have none of the style of Claire’s — on the hook in the back room, she found a black marking pen in Claire’s desk, and went to the large vase sitting by the door. It had been sitting there since the day Caroline had begun working at the shop almost a year ago, and so far no one had shown the least bit of interest in it. It was nearly three feet tall, celadon green with a pattern reminiscent of bamboo leaves done in a mustardy yellow that Caroline found faintly nauseating. The price tag on it was $90.00, which Caroline thought was fair, but it would still take exactly the right person to want it, even at that price. But to mark it up to nine hundred? Surely Claire must have meant something else. But when she looked around, the only other items Claire could possibly have been referring to were an umbrella stand that was already marked at two hundred, and a coat tree at two hundred fifty. Another zero on either of them would put them so far out of reason that no one in their right mind would ever buy them.

Hoping she was doing the right thing, Caroline carefully changed the price of the vase, then began moving through the shop, rearranging the collection of porcelain figurines that stood on a Victorian sideboard, polishing a smudge off a silver teapot that bore the mark of Paul Revere himself, and tidying the display cases that were filled with a variety of flatware, snuff boxes, and a mélange of other items that may have been useful in another century, but seemed utterly useless to Caroline.

“Darling, it doesn’t matter if they’re useful! They’re pretty!” Kevin had explained, but to Caroline the contents of the cases were still nothing more than clutter. It was the big pieces she liked — the Chippendale cabinets and Queen Anne chairs and Duncan Phyfe drop leaf tables, and huge desks with cubbyholes for everything and hidden compartments tucked away in their deepest recesses. She was examining a partner’s desk that had just come in last week, hoping to discover some long-lost treasure behind one of its drawers, when she heard the bell tinkle. She looked up to see Irene Delamond come through the door, raise her hand as if to wave to Caroline, then suddenly stop short, her attention obviously diverted by something. “Why, this is perfect!” she declared, gazing downward. “Wherever did it come from?” Caroline moved closer and saw that it was the celadon-and-mustard yellow vase that Ms. Delamond was admiring.

In her mind, Caroline could hear Claire Robinson spinning some tale of the vase’s provenance, made up on the spot but told convincingly enough that whoever she was talking to might well wind up believing the vase was worth the price on the tag. And while Irene Delamond was obviously not a poverty case, there was an openness about her admiration of the vase that made it impossible for Caroline to give her the Claire Robinson treatment. “I’m not sure what it is,” Caroline admitted. “I think it’s supposed to look like Chinese Import from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, but I’m sure it’s a reproduction.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Irene Delamond pronounced. “I think I must have it!”

“At nine hundred dollars?” Caroline blurted out before she could catch herself.

Irene uttered a peal of laughter that was almost musical. “Should I offer you half the price, and then argue all afternoon?” Before Caroline could say a word, she answered her own question. “Well, I won’t do it. I don’t really care where the vase came from, but I already know it’s worth nine hundred dollars to me. If we started bargaining, I’d always wonder whether I’d wound up paying too much, or whether I’d struck such a good bargain that you got in trouble with your boss. And I certainly wouldn’t want to do that!”

“And I certainly wouldn’t want you to,” Caroline agreed. “What on earth are you doing over here? I thought you lived on the West Side.”

Irene’s laugh pealed again. “I do. But I’m killing three birds with one stone: I love to walk, and I adore shopping. And I quite liked you and your children this morning, so I decided to drop by.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you.” She eyed the vase balefully. “May I assume you don’t really want the vase?”

“Of course I want it!” Irene exclaimed. “I think it’s positively wonderful.” Rummaging in her bag — a huge, satchel-like object that was entirely covered with an intricate needlepoint pattern and looked to Caroline as if it might well be an antique itself — she extracted a gold money clip whose ornate engraving was almost worn away with age. “Is there a charge for delivery?”

“Of course not,” Caroline assured her, calculating the immense profit Claire would be making on the hideous vase even as she made out the sales slip. “I’m sure we can get it to you on Monday. Or if you’d like, I could even bring it to you this afternoon, when I get off.”

“Oh, no, Monday will be fine,” Irene assured her. “Bad enough that you have to be away from your children all afternoon.” Unfolding the bills the clip held, she carefully counted out the money, recounted it, then handed it to Caroline. “Just send it along to 10 °Central Park West.”

Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “The Rockwell?” she asked as if she could scarcely believe what she was hearing. “You’re kidding!”

One of Irene’s thin, penciled eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “You know the building?” she inquired, her voice cooling a couple of degrees.

Caroline felt herself coloring. “Oh, I’m sorry — I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that I was walking by your building this morning and my son—” She faltered, suddenly realizing she was digging herself in even deeper than she already was. But now Irene was smiling again, and she leaned a little closer.

“Did he tell you it’s where the witches live?” she asked, dropping her voice to an exaggerated whisper and peering around the shop as if searching for hidden eavesdroppers. As Caroline’s blush deepened, Irene’s laugh pealed forth once more. “Believe me, we’ve heard all the stories. My personal favorite is that our doorman is a troll who sleeps under one of the bridges in the park at night. Poor Rodney,” Irene chuckled. “True, he’s not the handsomest man in the world, but I don’t think he quite qualifies as an ogre.”

“I’m afraid I hadn’t heard any of them until this morning,” Caroline replied, her embarrassment fading away in the face of the elderly woman’s good humor. “What is it they call that? When you hear about something for the first time, and then hear it again right away?”

“ ‘Synchronicity,’ I believe.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s a fabulous old building, and I certainly haven’t heard a word about your doorman being a troll. In fact, I think you’re the first person I’ve ever met who actually lives there. It’s supposed to be even harder to get into than The Dakota!”

Irene smiled contentedly. “We do love it, and that’s exactly the way we like it, stories and all. Perhaps someday you’ll come and see me.”

“I’d like that,” Caroline replied. “I’ve always wanted to see the inside of it.”

“Well, then, that’s settled, isn’t it? If you deliver the vase yourself, I shall be most happy to show you my apartment.” Her eyes wandered over the contents of the shop. “And if you like the things in here, you’ll love the things I can show you.” She glanced at an antique watch that was hanging from a heavily jeweled pin on her dress. “Oh, dear, I must run.”

A moment later she was gone, but even after she left, her laughter seemed to hang in the air for a few seconds before fading away, leaving Caroline alone once more.

Four and a half hours later, when Claire Robinson finally walked back into the shop, the first thing she noticed was the sold sticker on the Chinese vase. “I was right!” she exclaimed. “I just had a feeling it was priced far too low, and you see?” Her fingers snapped. “Voilá!” Then: “When are they picking it up?”

“It’s an elderly lady,” Caroline told her. “I promised her we’d deliver it.”

Claire’s smile faltered. “Deliver it?” she echoed. “I trust she’s paying.”

Caroline shook her head. “I thought there was enough profit that we could afford it. I’ll take a cab home on Monday — it’s right on my way.”

“If that’s what you want to do,” Claire said, shrugging dismissively. “As long as you take the cab fare out of your commission.” By now she was at her desk, and she picked up the sales book, flipping it open. “That’s all?” she asked, her eyes fixing on Caroline. “All afternoon, and you sold just the one vase?”

“It’s a beautiful day,” Caroline said. “I guess most people preferred to be outside.”

Claire seemed barely to hear her, her expression hardening as she gazed at the meager result of Caroline’s afternoon in the store. “I don’t know,” she said, almost to herself. “I hope I didn’t make a mistake with you.”

Caroline knew what she would have done six months ago, when Brad was alive. She would have said something like, “You did make a mistake with me: you didn’t bother to thank me for working on my day off,” and quit on the spot. But Brad was no longer alive, and Caroline could not afford to lose this job, no matter how difficult Claire could be. “I’m sorry,” she said, putting as much contrition into her voice as she could muster. “I’ll do better. I promise I will.”

Claire smiled coolly at her. “Let’s hope so,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll be looking for another job.”

Leaving the shop, Caroline pulled her coat close around her, but the thin poplin couldn’t protect her from the coldness of Claire’s last words.