Woman in Black (19 page)

“That's it,” she said, stacking the last of the boxes atop the pile on the living room floor. “I'll say one thing, this sure was a lot easier than my last move. That one took four moving vans.”

“When I arrived in this country, I had only one suitcase.”

She turned to find Karim regarding the boxes with a small, ironic smile.

“Where are you from originally?” she asked.

“Afghanistan.” He hastened to add, “Not the Afghanistan you Americans know. There were no bombed-out buildings and rifle-toting
mujahideen
back then. It was beautiful, with trees and flowers, and people who smiled at each other on the streets.” His expression turned wistful. As he gazed out the window, momentarily lost in thought, she studied his face in the light of the setting sun, which had temporarily anointed the modestly appointed room with a gilded glow that rendered it almost inviting. With high cheekbones and hawklike nose, his profile was like those carved on ancient bronze coins.

“Have you been in this country long?” she asked.

“Long enough.”

He brought his gaze back to her, and she saw written on his face a story that would probably have taken all night to tell. But she had no wish to coax it out of him; she was tired and hungry and wanted only to unpack her things before she called it a day. “Well, thank you again,” she said, seeing him to the door. “You've been a big help.”

“Let me know if there's anything else you need,” he said as he was turning to go. “I'll be around a little while longer. I don't get off until six.”

Not wanting to impose, she hesitated before replying, “There is one thing. Do you have a hammer I could borrow? There's a painting I'd like to hang.” She indicated the framed watercolor, a seascape, propped against the sofa. It could easily have waited until tomorrow, but she knew it would bring her comfort to see it hanging on the wall—a small touch of home in an otherwise cheerless space. She remembered when she'd first seen it, in a gallery in Carmel, where she and Gordon had been vacationing at the time. She'd instantly fallen in love with it, but Gordon had been less enthusiastic. It wasn't until he'd surprised her with it on their anniversary, a month later, that she'd realized he'd only pretended not to like it. The memory brought a familiar tug of longing. Her husband might have fooled a lot of people, including her, but he'd loved her—
that
had been genuine.

Karim nodded and took off, returning several minutes later with a hammer and a box of picture hooks. “Please. I would be honored if you would allow me,” he said, bending to pick up the painting. “Just show me where you would like it to go.” His courtly manner was oddly endearing, bringing to mind knights in armor and gentlemen of yore.

Lila felt herself blushing. “Oh, I didn't mean—I wouldn't want you to go to any more trouble—”

He waved aside her objection. “I'm happy to be of service.”

To have sent him on his way would've been rude, so she smiled graciously and said, “In that case, how can I refuse?”

She chose a spot on the wall where the painting would be displayed to its best advantage, and while Karim was hammering the hook into the wall, she returned to the carton she'd been in the midst of unpacking when he'd showed up. She was leafing through an old photo album she'd pulled out of the carton when she glanced up to find him peering over her shoulder.

“Your family?” he asked, pointing out a photo of her and Gordon posing on a beach, Gordon with their sandy-haired toddler in his arms.

She nodded, swallowing against the lump forming in her throat. “That was taken in Sag Harbor. We used to go there every year for the Fourth of July. It was our tradition,” she mused aloud, using her thumb to smooth a torn edge of the photo. In it, she and Gordon were grinning into the camera, their hair windblown, and their faces aglow. Neal must have been around three, still chubby with the baby fat that had melted off by the following summer.

“You look happy,” Karim observed.

“We were.” If ignorance was bliss, she'd been among the happiest people on the planet. She paused before adding in a soft voice, “My husband passed away a couple of months ago.”

Karim gave a solemn nod. “I'm sorry to hear that. Was it sudden?”

“Yes, very.” She was quick to change the subject, not wanting to get into a long, painful discussion. “What about your family? Did they come over to this country with you?”

Karim shook his head, his face clouding over briefly. “Both my brothers had died in the war by then, and my father was killed by the Taliban. When they confiscated our house, my mother took my sisters and fled to the countryside. The only reason I was able to get out was because I had a friend, a former student, who worked in the ministry.” He explained that he'd been a professor at the university in Kabul. When the Taliban had banned all books except religious ones, it had been the end of Karim's teaching career. To have continued, even in secret, would have gotten him thrown into jail. Or worse. “They murdered my father,” he told her, his expression turning grim. “They shot him in cold blood, simply for daring to speak out against their insane policies.”

Abruptly, he turned away, but not before she caught the flash of some deep, banked emotion in his eyes.

So he was a victim of harsh circumstance, the same as she. They might be from different cultures, she thought, but they had that in common at least. “It's terrible what they did to your country,” she said. She'd watched in shock, along with the rest of the country, the news coverage of the stone Buddhas at Bamiyan being dynamited. And from what Karim was telling her, that hadn't been the worst of it.

“It wasn't just the Taliban,” he said. “It was the Soviets, the British, the Turks, the Arabs, and the Mongols before that. Now it's the warring sects killing each other off. Our young people can't recall a time when the country hasn't been at war. They have no memory of Kabul as it once was, when it was a place of culture and learning.”

“Maybe it's better that they don't,” she said. “Some things are too painful to remember.”

“You asked about my family,” he said. “What I regret most is that I didn't have the chance to say good-bye. My mother and sisters were gone by then, and I had to move quickly or I would have been arrested. We write to each other and speak on the phone, but it's not the same.”

“How long has it been since you've seen them?”

“Eight years.” He pondered this, as if digesting an improbable fact.

“Do you think you'll ever go back?”

“One day, perhaps.” The wistful expression on his face made her wonder if he'd left more than his mother and sisters behind. Was there a wife? She noticed that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, so perhaps it was a sweetheart for whom he pined. Before she could delve into it, he gave a small, contrite smile, saying, “Forgive me. We've only just met, and here I am burdening you with my sorrows. You must think I'm very rude.”

“Not at all,” she assured him. “Anyway, I can certainly relate. I lost my husband and pretty much everything I owned, all in the space of a year. In case you were wondering, that's how I ended up here.” Her mouth thinned in a mirthless smile. “Ironic, isn't it? Me, with my Park Avenue digs and my full-time housekeeper, cleaning up after other people.” She felt safe confiding in Karim for some reason, though, as he'd pointed out, they had only just met.

“It's honest work, at least,” he said. “And I can think of worse places to be.”

Yeah
, she thought,
like Afghanistan under the Taliban's rule
. “You sound just like my brother,” she told him. “He keeps reminding me that it won't be forever, that I have options. I just wish I had a clue what those options were.”

Karim gave her a gently encouraging smile. “It's only your first day. You don't have to decide overnight.”

Her first day. Lila realized, to her amazement, that she'd gotten through it somehow and that it hadn't been a complete disaster. Plus, she'd made at least one friend. Two, if you counted Abigail's husband. She had yet to win over Abigail's daughter, and there was Abigail herself, who would be an even tougher challenge. But all in all, however backbreaking, it wasn't shaping up to be the total exercise in humiliation that she'd imagined it would be.

Maybe … just maybe … there was hope for her yet.

7

“No, no, no!” Abigail swooped down to snatch up the centerpiece. “I specifically told you
no poinsettias!
” Never mind that it was that time of year, Christmas just three weeks away, Abigail loathed poinsettias. At her mother's funeral, the church had been awash in them. She thrust the flowers at the hapless production assistant, snapping, “Next time, pay attention when I give instructions!”

“Of course. I'm so sorry,” the young woman apologized as she hurried off, red-faced, to find something to replace the offending flowers.

Abigail frowned as she rearranged the table, where the beauty shot—the dessert she was preparing for this morning's broadcast of
A.M. America
—would be displayed at the end of her segment. Damn it, where was the stylist? What did the network pay these people for, if not to be on top of such things?

Abigail had arrived at the studio with little time to spare before this morning's appearance, so she hadn't had a chance to go over everything well in advance, as she was in the habit of doing. She'd been late getting out of the house, thanks to Lila's having put the clean laundry away in all the wrong drawers, and then traffic on the Henry Hudson had been backed up due to construction. She'd hurried onto the set to find all in readiness, her prep laid out for the miniature cranberry-mascarpone tarts she was to prepare as part of a holiday entertaining segment, along with the finished tarts. The one false note had been the poinsettias.

Another person might have been willing to overlook it, but Abigail wasn't like other people. Being a stickler for detail was what had made her who she was. Whether it was catering an event, putting together a book, or doing a media appearance, she stayed focused on the small stuff as well as the big picture: remembering not to serve blueberries at a buffet where they were apt to roll onto the carpet when the guests helped themselves (a mistake she'd made once back when she was a novice), catching a typo in page proofs, or noticing when so much as a hair—or a flower—was out of place on a set.

Now, as she headed off toward hair and makeup, the last line from a nursery rhyme popped into her head:
All for the want of a horseshoe nail
…

It was the story of her life in reverse. She'd started with nothing and built her business inch by inch, nail by nail, thus winning the battle against those, like her uncle, who would have torn her down. From her mother, she'd learned that if you wanted to stand out, you had to work harder and do whatever it was you did that much better than everyone else. So Abigail had always looked for ways to distinguish herself. She'd launched her catering business during a time when miniquiches, which had been all the rage, were on the verge of becoming passé and had quickly developed a reputation for fresh, innovative hors d'oeuvres—Moroccan cigars of rolled phyllo pastry stuffed with asparagus and morels, hamachi with a sprinkling of bonito flakes set on a Chinese soup spoon, grilled octopus crostini, and miniature foie gras brûlées. The events Abigail had catered were like no others, and consequently, she'd been in great demand.

But occasionally, things happened that were beyond even her control. Like the fire in Las Cruces. As she settled into her chair in the makeup room, she felt her stomach clench at the thought. During the day, she was usually too consumed with work to agonize over it. It was mainly at night that she was haunted by thoughts of the poor girl who'd perished in the fire. As a result, she slept fitfully. While Kent slumbered maddeningly beside her, she would often slip from their bed and go downstairs to read or watch TV. Last night, she'd only had about four hours' sleep. If she was short-tempered, was it any wonder?

Still, that was no excuse for biting that young and clearly inexperienced PA's head off. Abigail had regretted it almost as soon as her outburst was over. Hadn't it been her cracking the whip that had led, if only indirectly, to the tragedy in Las Cruces? On the other hand, she thought, the trouble with young people these days was that everyone, from their parents on down, coddled them incessantly, constantly telling them they were special, showering them with praise even when they'd done nothing to deserve it. Sometimes a kick in the behind was just what was needed.
Welcome to the real world
.

Abigail's introduction to the real world had been more like a dive off a suspension bridge. Within days of her mother's death, she was on a bus to Connecticut, where she already had a job interview lined up. She'd been plotting her escape for some time, having spent countless hours in the public library scouring want ads in big-city newspapers. When she'd spotted the ad in the
New York Times
, for personal chef to a family in Greenwich, it had leaped out at her. Desperate to secure an interview, she'd lied about her age, saying she was twenty-one. Luckily she'd looked older than seventeen, and she knew her way around a kitchen, thanks to her mom's careful tutelage and the cakes Abigail had sold door to door. Her luck held, for when she arrived at the Henrys' Tudor-style mansion on the aptly named Gateway Drive, it was to find Mrs. Henry at her wits' end, the caterer she'd hired for a big party she was throwing that weekend having bailed on her due to some mix-up in scheduling. With a cool that surprised even herself, Abigail stepped right in, confidently assuring Mrs. Henry that she could handle it, though she'd never catered a party in her life. Her only experience in that area had been careful observation of the various parties hosted by the Meriwhethers during her mother's tenure with them. Mrs. Henry hired her on the spot.