Two of a Kind (32 page)

“No, I'm fine,” said Ida. “I just had a jolt, that's all.”

“From this?” Christina gestured to the candlestick.

Ida nodded. “May I?” she asked.

Christina handed it back to her.

Ida turned it over and pointed to the engraved letters and what appeared to be a date. “You see?”

“I see, but I don't understand,” Christina said.

“This candlestick. It's one of a pair that belonged to my mother. I thought it looked familiar, but when I saw the engraving, I was sure.”

“That's astonishing.” Christina went to the drawer for a magnifying glass so she could see more clearly.

“Where did you get it?” Ida asked again.

“In an auction. With the rest of those.” She gestured to the group by the sink. “I think they threw it in because it had lost its mate; that compromises the value, at least for some people.”

“Not for me,” Ida said, fingers reverently following the curves of the thing.

Christina was silent. She had always understood the secret language of objects—they could be totems, evidence, idols, or talismans. This candlestick was something else, though; it was a witness to the past. “I want you to have it,” she said when they were both seated at the table. “It's yours.” She nudged the candlestick in Ida's direction.

Ida shook her head. “No. Keep it and marry my son. I would have given it to him anyway.” When Christina didn't reply, Ida continued. “He's heartbroken that you turned him down.”

“I still love him,” said Christina when she finally spoke. “But we wouldn't be happy. And didn't you tell Andy to break up with me? Because I'm not Jewish?”

“I did.” Ida folded her hands in front of her on the table. Her nails were lacquered crimson. “But that was before I knew about the baby.” She paused. “A baby changed everything for me. And it will for you.”

“What are you talking about?” Christina asked.

“Years and years ago, I had a baby, a baby that was supposed to save me. His father was my best friend and playmate; our parents were told that people with children weren't being deported, so they saw to it that we had . . . a child.”

“And you did?”

“Yes,” said Ida. “We did. But that was a lie. We were deported anyway.”

“What about the baby?” Christina asked. She didn't know if she could stand to hear the answer.

“No, not the baby. He was . . . killed. There. I've never said it out loud. For so many years I believed he was somewhere else, somewhere safe. But there
was
nowhere that was safe—at least not for him.”

“Andy doesn't know this, does he?”

Ida looked deep into her eyes. “No. Why should he?” When Christina didn't reply, she added, “
He
was my miracle baby, not the other one. God gave him to me when I had abandoned hope; he saved me. Now you have a chance for a miracle too, don't you see? Have this baby; it will give you a new life: a husband, a family.”

“I'm going to keep the baby,” said Christina. She'd known that all along but hadn't been brave enough to admit it to herself.

“And what about Andy?”

Christina shook her head no. “But he can see the baby if he wants. And you too. I won't shut you out.”

“Thank you,” Ida said. “Thank you very much.” She stood, clutching her pocketbook to her chest.

If Christina had thought Ida would cajole or beg, she was wrong. “Take the candlestick.” She stood as well. “Please.”

“No,” Ida said. “It's for the baby. Something you can give him or her after I'm gone.”

After Ida left, Christina polished the remainder of the candlestick. What an extraordinary coincidence that it had come all the way from Lithuania to her kitchen in Brooklyn, only to be recognized by its original owner—an owner who then refused to take it back. She would never sell it, not at auction and not to the client whose mantelpiece she was looking to adorn. No, she would do what Ida said, and keep it for the baby. The
baby
. Her heart clattered. It would be hard raising a child by herself. But she'd have the money from the sale of the house, though her throat burned at the thought of it. Jordan would be here to help. Stephen and Misha too—at least she hoped so.

The rest of the brass candlesticks still stood by the sink. Christina polished every last one of them, wiping away the years of dirt and neglect. But after that, her sense of purpose dissolved. She had no appointments for the rest of the day, though there were plenty of things she had to do: call Amy, check in with the Realtor, call the lawyer who was handling the sale, and begin the monumental task of packing. She did none of them.

Instead, she slipped into her inventory mode, moving around her house as if looking at it from the outside. She had said she did not want the kind of life she'd have with Andy. Then what kind of life
did
she want? She walked around the home that she'd created to see whether it held the answer. Here were the things she loved, the velvet love seat, the small but exquisite Persian rug that lay in front of it. In the dining room, her pine sideboard, her ample table, her assortment of mismatched but, to her eye, perfectly coordinated chairs. Her prints, her plates, her odd bits of silver, of crystal, porcelain, wood, and brass. Totems, idols, talismans, evidence, fossils. What would become of all these things when she had to leave? Some she would take, but others she would have to leave behind. How to choose? The thought was crushing, as if all those things she had accumulated, restored, and loved suddenly began to rise up, and start swirling—crazily, dangerously—around her. She had to lie down. Immediately. Retreating to her bedroom, she stretched out and closed her eyes. Sleep, like a drug, came almost at once.

When she woke, her panic subsided. She had made her decision to sell; wallowing in regret would get her nowhere. She picked up the phone to call the lawyer. The sooner the sale was completed, the better off she would be. Christina then spent the remainder of the afternoon in the basement, bundling back issues of the many shelter magazines to which she'd subscribed; it was still light when she hauled two of the bundles outside to the curb. Her neighbor Charlotte Bickford was on her stoop. Charlotte scowled when she caught sight of Christina and, just like the last time, practically slammed the door in her hurry to get back inside.
There's
one
good thing that will come out of this,
Christina reflected.
When I move, I will never, ever have to see Charlotte Bickford's miserable face again.

J
ord
an noticed the woman first. She wore a beautiful sari in a deep shade of greenish blue; the edges were trimmed in gold. She was so busy looking at her—she moved like a dancer, really she did—that Jordan did not notice the people she was with right away. But as soon as she did, she remembered the guy with the slicked-back hair and the other one with the turban—she had seen them here before. There was another guy with them too. He was short, with nerdy-cool black glasses and sandy hair that spilled over his forehead into his eyes. He was waving his hands as he talked; the other two men were just nodding. Only the woman seemed apart from them all, lost in a strange kind of trance as she stared at the house. Jordan's house. What was she doing here? What were
all
of them doing here? Hitching her bag up more securely on her shoulder, she marched over to find out.

“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Hello,” said the guy with the slicked-back hair. “Do you live here?”

“I do.” Did her mom know about these people? They didn't
look
dangerous, but you never could tell.

“Ah, you must be the daughter. Your mother spoke of you.” He had an English accent, all snobby and proper sounding.

“You mean you talked to my mom? She knows you're here?” Jordan decided she did not like him.

“Oh yes,” said the man. “She knows all of us.” He gestured toward the little group.

“Well, anyway, if she knows you're here, I guess it's okay.” She shifted her bag again.

“Considering she's in the process of selling the house to my clients—”

“Selling!” The word was a slap. “What do you mean selling?”

The man looked uncomfortable. “Oh, excuse me. I assumed she would have discussed her plans with you; so sorry.” He was backing away now; they all were.

Jordan didn't answer. Instead, she ran up the stairs and burst into the house. She had to run up and down before she found her mother sitting in the garden. She was alone, and she did not appear to be doing anything—not weeding, pruning, planting, or any one of the million other things she did when she was out here.

“Are you selling the house?” she demanded. “To those people I met outside? Mr. Turban and Ms. Sari?”

Christina turned slowly. “I am,” she said quietly.

“Mom!” Jordan wailed. “Oh, Mom!” She dumped her bag on the ground and then she flopped down beside it. “It's because of the baby, isn't it?”

“Yes.” Christina seemed older and more worn-out than Jordan could ever remember.

“Why didn't you tell me? And how can you sell the house? You promised me you wouldn't!” She flung herself into a chair and began to cry.

Up above, a window opened. Stephen stuck his head out and called down, “Is everything all right?”

Christina turned her face upward. “No, actually it's not,” she said. “Maybe you could come down and we could talk?”

Jordan, whose own face was now covered by her hands, did not look up. But she was glad Stephen was coming down to talk to her mom. Maybe he'd help make sense of things. Because right now, nothing made any sense at all.

•   •   •

Telling
Jordan that they were selling the house was the hardest thing Christina had to do since telling her daughter that Daddy had died in the fire. But once it was done, she felt a massive sense of relief. Stephen was understanding, if hurt—
I just wish you
would have told me sooner,
was what he said—and she prayed her failure to have done so would not cause a permanent rift between them. Now that everything was out in the open, she felt galvanized, and sprang into action. There were spaces, both personal and professional, to be seen. And a call to Amy, to tell her that she was going ahead with the pregnancy. “I'll want to see you in a month,” Amy had said.

In two days, Christina saw thirteen apartments and an equal number of professional spaces; on the third, she called Holly Shafrin, the real estate agent, to tell her she had settled on a two-bedroom rental on Plaza Street until she could figure out where—and if—she wanted to buy again. But the question of the business was left up in the air. “I just can't decide on everything so quickly,” she said. Holly understood, and even helped her find a local storage place where she could stash all the merchandise from her showroom.

Christina tried to be a booster about the new apartment. “It's about a three-minute walk to the subway station,” she told Jordan. “It will make your commute so easy!” Jordan glared but did not reply. She was still acting like the decision to sell the house was a personal betrayal. Christina just let it go. The subject of the new baby was even more verboten. Whenever Christina tried to bring it up, Jordan left the room. Who knew what she was thinking? But Christina could not speculate for long; she was too busy trying to get everything done. It was on one of those busy mornings that she heard from the detective at the Seventy-eighth Precinct.

“I just thought you'd want to know that we found Derrick Blascoe,” he said. “He's been in Florida for the last several weeks, moving from hotel to hotel; we found him in Key West and think he was on his way to Mexico.”

“Florida? And then Mexico?” asked Christina.

“It wasn't pretty,” said the detective. “He'd been on a very long bender—booze, coke, and girls—a couple of them underage.”

“I can't believe it,” she said, trying to avoid a pair of women pushing strollers and a small child on a scooter. But then she thought of that last night she'd spent with him, and she could.

“Good thing we caught him when we did. He was trying to sell that Sargent.”

“Please tell me that he didn't.” She was surprised at how much this mattered, how much she wanted that auburn-haired girl to go back where she belonged. To go home.

“No, the dealer he approached had been alerted and contacted Miami police; they contacted us. He's in custody now and he'll stand trial in New York.”

“Well, that's a relief. But the rest of it—what a terrible story.” Christina paused, letting the sadness of it sift through her. Poor Derrick. How had his life come to this sorry pass? She hoped she had not played a part in his unraveling.

“I just want you to know that you've been completely exonerated in all this; he was questioned thoroughly and you were in no way implicated.”

“Thank you very much for telling me.”

Christina walked back to her house thinking of Derrick. She was still thinking about him later that day when the bell rang and she found an unexpected visitor on her doorstep: Phoebe Haverstick. “I know I treated you very badly and I'm sorry,” Phoebe launched right in without even saying hello. “I wouldn't blame you if you didn't invite me in, but I'd be so grateful if you did.” Phoebe wasn't pregnant any longer; Mimi Farnsworth had told her she'd had the baby back in the winter. Christina wondered whether the nursery she designed was working out; the pleasure she'd taken in designing it was what made her step aside and let Phoebe in.

“I don't even know where to begin,” Phoebe said once she had settled into a chair in Christina's office. “I was just heartsick when the painting went missing and Ian, well, he had me convinced that you had something to do with it.”

“I would never have done that,” Christina said quietly. “And I wish you had taken even one of my calls to let me tell you that myself.”

“I was a coward,” Phoebe said, lacing her fingers together tightly.

“The painting is coming back to you; my good name is restored.”

“Yes, but now you have to move your business! And that's Ian's fault. He went to the zoning board; he knows people.”

“It's not just my business,” Christina said. “I'm selling my house too.”

“Oh no—does this have anything to do with the findings of the zoning board?”

Christina looked at her in disbelief. Was the woman really so insulated by her wealth as to not know the answer to that question? All she said was, “Yes.”

“Oh, I feel even worse now!” Phoebe said.

Can you imagine how I feel?
Christina endured some more useless breast-beating on Phoebe's part before she was able to get the woman out of her house—and her life. She never wanted to hear from either of the Haversticks again.

Later that night, the bell sounded. The pregnancy was making her tired and she was already in her bathrobe. She was not happy to find Phoebe standing there; this time she was
not
inviting her in.

“Please, I just had to see you again,” she said.

“I was just going to bed,” Christina said coldly. “Can't it wait?”

“No, actually, it can't. I'm begging you, Christina.”

The good girl in Christina won out. Stepping aside for the second time that day, she let Phoebe come in, but kept her standing in the hallway.

“I want you to know I feel sick about what's happened. Just sick!” Gripping the doorknob tightly, Christina said nothing. “And I want to make it up to you.”

“I don't think that's possible,” Christina said. “This is the house I grew up in. And because of your husband, I'm forced to sell it.” She was gratified to see the stricken look on Phoebe's face. Even worse, she suddenly imagined doing harm, not to Phoebe, but to Ian. He had sabotaged her, taken away what she loved most. She could have responded in kind, looked for something that would wound him. An eye for an eye, as the Bible counseled. Why had she backed off so meekly from the fight? But when she looked at Phoebe, standing there with tears trickling slowly down her face, she knew why. Despite everything, she actually felt sorry for this woman. Instead of revenge, she had turned the other cheek—contradictory wisdom from the same source. Awkwardly, she reached over to pat Phoebe's shoulder. “It's all right,” she said. “I'll be all right.”

“Oh God, I just feel terrible!” Phoebe was crying in earnest now. But at the same time, she was fumbling in her bag, like she was trying to locate something. “Here!” she said, thrusting a thin, flat package at Christina. “This is for you.” Puzzled, Christina opened it. Inside was a small oil sketch, done on paper. The pose was different, but Christina recognized the redheaded girl immediately. “Victoria!” she said, looking from the portrait to Phoebe. “Where did this come from?”

“I found a bunch of pieces like this in a folder,” said Phoebe, sniffling but no longer crying. “This one was the best. Or at least that's what I thought. And I wanted you to have it.”

“You did?” She was incredulous.

Phoebe nodded. “It seems like the least I could do, after the way Ian treated you.”

“Does he know you're doing this?”

“No,” she said. “But there's a
lot
that Ian doesn't know.”

Christina nodded, looking back down at the sketch. Although the background was a mere blur of color, the face was beautifully rendered.

“. . . It's not worth as much as the painting, obviously, but it's worth quite a bit,” Phoebe was saying.

“Oh, I don't want to sell it!” Christina said.

Phoebe smiled. “No,” she said. “You wouldn't, would you?”

Christina thanked Phoebe and then submitted to a hug, which was as bone crushing as her handshakes had been. When she was gone, Christina took the sketch into her office and propped it on her desk, so she could enjoy it before packing it up. She only wished that Ian Haverstick had been here; how she would have
loved
to witness the expression on his smug, infuriating face when he saw it.

•   •   •

Christina
heard the echo of her footsteps as she took her final walk through the Carroll Street house. It was a sultry June morning and banks of gray clouds hovered ominously overhead. Though sticky and uncomfortable, she didn't want to open the windows because she'd be leaving soon, and would only have to close them all again. Jordan had said her mournful good-byes the night before and was staying with Alexis; she couldn't bear to witness the final exodus. Stephen and Misha had also decamped to their new place in Fort Greene. That they were not angry about having to move was just one more small but precious thing for which Christina could feel grateful.

She walked up the stairs, running her hand along the smooth banister down which she once used to slide. The boxes were all on the parlor floor and the rooms above and below were empty. But even empty, they were crammed with memories, recent ones mingling freely with those from the past. The parlor window in front of which she and Will had put their first Christmas tree as a married couple was the same window she'd hung the paper snowflakes she'd cut out with Aunt Barb. The apartment where Stephen and Misha had hosted their soigné dinner parties had once housed her beer-drinking, ever-boisterous aunt.

If there had been a chair left in the house, Christina would have sat down. But there was no chair and so she continued her solitary meandering. The papers were signed, and the money—all 3.3 million astonishing dollars of it—was in her possession. For the first time since Will had died, she would have no more financial worries. She could buy an apartment or even a house—or not. She could run her business, send Jordan to college—if she elected to go—hire a nanny to help with the baby, and, if she was prudent, even start planning for her retirement. So why was she feeling so bereft?

Christina heard the groan and wheeze of a truck outside—the movers were here. She hurried downstairs and out the door to check. But the red lettering emblazoned across the side said
HANDLE WITH CARE
; that was not the name of the company she had hired—she was sure of it. Maybe they were using another company's truck? At just that moment, Charlotte Bickford stepped out onto her stoop. “Right on time,” she called to the driver of the truck, who had poked his head out of the open window. “Everything's ready; you can start whenever you want.”