The Objects of Her Affection (17 page)

“Did you see anyone on the balcony?”

“No. But at the bottom of the stairs I ran into Tammy Brewer, and we chatted a minute.”

“Did you see Brian coming after you? Did you hear him calling?”

“No. I was probably already on my way out at that point.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I’m sure I didn’t see him or hear him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Go on.”

“After talking to Tammy, I went directly to the mail room area, I waved to the guard at the key desk, and left through the employee entrance.”

Agent Chandler pulled off his reading glasses and looked at Sophie for a moment, tapping them against his upper lip. Agent Richardson glanced at him, then said, “Thank you, Mrs. Porter. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

Agent Chandler handed her a card that read, “Agent James Chandler, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Art Crime Unit.”

“Call me if you think of anything else you want to tell us,” he said, just like on TV.

Sophie assured him that she would.

It snowed for a whole day and a whole night—big, downy flakes that accumulated in puffy mounds on every surface. Lucy and Elliot ran from window to window, laughing at the sight: a trash can wearing a tall white hat, a car with a hi-top fade. Schools were closed, but Brian pulled a pair of rain boots over his suit and hiked through the drifts to the museum.

After breakfast Sophie dug the kids’ snowsuits out of the third-floor closet and arranged them by the front door along with their gloves, hats, and boots. It was important, when the time came, to get the gear on quickly; otherwise the kids would begin to heat up, which meant that while she was trying to thread each of Lucy’s fingers into a glove, Elliot would be pulling off his boots, and while she was retrieving his boots, Lucy would tear off her hat, and the whole operation would quickly devolve into an exercise in sweaty frustration.

This time, though, she managed to get them into their puffy, noisy outfits without any tears—on their part or hers. She snapped a quick picture to send to Brian, then released them into the snowy hush. The trees lining the street were bent into a glittering tunnel, each bowing branch thickly painted with white crystals. The street signs, the lampposts, the porch railings—every hard edge had turned vague and innocent. Lucy and Elliot shrieked with delight, throwing handfuls of snow into the air, their high-pitched voices sinking quickly into the cottony surroundings. Sophie showed them how to make snowballs, and soon they were all spattered with snow and breathless with laughter.

“Let’s make snow angels,” Sophie said, leading them into the middle of the street. The kids followed hesitantly, gazing around themselves with wonder, and she realized that even though they were within a few feet of their house, it was a place they’d never been. “No cars!” she said, throwing out her arms. “We’re safe!”

She lay on her back and showed them how to scissor their arms and legs to make angels. Elliot got stuck on his back, impeded by his Michelin Man outfit, but Lucy pulled him up and helped him draw a face on his angel. Sophie stayed on the ground, staring up at the branches laced across a bright blue sky. The cold was seeping through her nylon cocoon, but it felt clean and bright instead of damp and chilly. Suddenly, a dark shape eclipsed her view of the sky; it was a face, with glasses.

“Keith!” She sat up, brushing snow out of her hair. Keith, Amy, and Mathilda had glided up on cross-country skis, their faces glowing. Sophie stood up and marveled at Mathilda’s tiny skis; the kids showed off their angels; everyone exclaimed about the beautiful day. Then the little family glided off again, looking as weightless as a flock of birds. Watching them turn down Twenty-Second Street, Sophie decided, in a fit of good humor, that she would call Carly. As long as she was putting everything else right in the world.

First, though, she wanted to spend some time working on her newest project. The idea had come to her early one morning, when she was just waking up, her mind lazily rolling around in its sheets. The museum needed new database software. The system they were using wasn’t designed for museums, and it was so slow none of the curators ever bothered to make the transition from object cards. Sophie knew she could easily create something better; something more organized and efficient, that would centralize all of the information for each object and, eventually, render filing cabinets and card catalogs obsolete. She had time; she could work on it pro bono. Maybe someday she’d even be able to sell the system to other museums.

She brought Lucy and Elliot back inside, stripped off their snowsuits, sat them down to lunch, and mopped up the puddles of melted snow by the front door. Once the kids were warm, fed, and snoring under their blankets, Sophie retreated to her quiet office and began sketching out the database architecture. As she brainstormed functionalities and worked through the navigation structure, she found herself losing track of time. It seemed like years since she’d been able to unhook herself from the hands of the clock. Ever since going into labor with Lucy, when she and Brian had carefully written down the amount of time between each contraction, her life had been measured in rigorous increments of minutes and hours. Time between feedings. Duration of naps. Hours of babysitting. Now, slowly, time was regaining its elasticity, and Sophie’s mind was rediscovering the habits of work.

Her email chimed; there was a message from Brian. She opened it to find no words, only a photograph of a tall, fantastically decorated ceramic piece that looked more like a wedding cake than a candlestick. At its base, four lion heads surrounded a fluted urn, above which marched a succession of columns, balustrades, cherubs, garlands, plinths, shields, sphinxes, and mermaids. The entire assemblage, rendered in creamy porcelain, was crawling with arabesque patterns and flourishes in red, blue, and pale green. It appeared to be sitting on a Formica kitchen counter.

Sophie shook her head at the sight. Magnificent and absurd at the same time, the candlestick was the Renaissance equivalent of a big-budget Hollywood movie, with every possible special effect applied to a glossy surface of starlets and plot twists. Still, its shape was, as a whole, harmonious, and in a way reminded her of the intricate sculptures she’d seen in the museum’s Indian Art galleries.

“Congratulations,” she said when Brian picked up his phone.

“Can you believe it? Sandrine’s great-grandson’s ex-wife has it in her apartment in Strasbourg.”

“All those college French classes finally paid off.”

“Oh, man. It’s too bad no one came in to work today. I can’t wait to see Ted’s face.”

“Does she know what she has?”

“Who knows. Her email says nobody in the family ever really liked it; it spent years packed in a crate. She said she got it in the divorce because her husband took the pressure cooker.” He laughed. “So no, I guess she doesn’t know. Although she’s probably down at the local antique shop right now, having it appraised. So, ticktock.”

Sophie knew this meant that Brian would have to fly back to France, verify the authenticity, take dozens of photographs, then return to Philadelphia to convene his committee, present his case, and campaign for purchase funds. He would overnight packages to trustees at their Wyoming ranches and Palm Beach villas, fax letters to their assistants, and gently try to provoke a competition for the right to put one’s name on this momentous, collection-defining purchase. She knew he wanted to act fast, before a dealer caught a whiff of something entering the market, or the Met or the Getty heard a rumor and sent their curators scurrying to Strasbourg. The big museums had purchase funds that could be used to snap something up quickly; Brian needed to raise his own money, and that took time.

“Send me a copy of your travel itinerary,” she said, before hanging up and turning back to her sketches.

***

On the day she and Carly had agreed to meet, Sophie got to the café too early and drank a double espresso, which compounded her jitters and gave her a sour stomach. She bought a bagel to try to soak up the caffeine and the acid, even though she’d sworn off carbs. She smeared it with too much cream cheese and ate it too fast, then berated herself for her lack of self control. Did women’s bodies have some kind of guilt-excreting gland that was activated by the digestive system? Could someone invent a drug to turn it on
before
the food was ingested—when it would actually be useful?

When Carly walked in, twenty minutes late, Sophie saw her eyes go to her midriff, where she’d arranged her spring jacket.

“I got fat,” Sophie said, looking up into Carly’s blond stratosphere. Carly’s tense face released a smile, and she sank down on the couch.

“You look great,” she said.

“No, I don’t. Thanks. Sorry.”

“I’m happy to see you,” Carly said shyly. “It’s been weird.”

“I know.” Sophie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I freaked out on you like that.”

“Forget about it.” Carly waved her long hand. “Water under the bridge.”

Sophie waited a moment, as Carly pulled off her jacket and set her bag on the floor. She considered prompting Carly, maybe reminding her that she’d done something that hurt Sophie’s feelings, but the prospect of rehashing the whole argument was exhausting. She tried to remember what, exactly, Carly had thrown in her face that long ago day. Something about control issues. Maybe she did need to loosen up; learn to accept people the way they were. Learn to enjoy the refuge of friendship, no matter how flawed.

Carly settled back into the couch and raised her eyebrows at Sophie. “So...how’s work?”

Sophie wanted a cappuccino. “I think I’m going to get a cappuccino.”

“Seriously,” Carly said. “I know the Whirlygig thing didn’t work out. Are you working on something else?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Sophie drew in her breath. “If you really want to know, I haven’t worked since we first moved into the house.”

“
What
?”

“Everything just dried up. And after a while I kind of stopped trying.” She looked down at her hands, then gave Carly a wry smile. “See? I’m sharing.”

“But what are you doing for money?”

“You know. We cut back on a lot of stuff.”

Carly sat back and stared at Sophie. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, the whole Web 2.0 thing kind of happened without me. I had poorly timed babies.”

“God, why didn’t you say anything?” Carly plunged into her crocodile-size crocodile purse and pulled out her BlackBerry. She thumbed the keys. “I know of at least two projects I could bring you in on. Really straightforward. One’s just a refresh for a law firm, the design’s already done. The other is adding e-commerce to this beverage company’s corporate site. I already told them I don’t have the bandwidth; they’d be so happy if I brought you in. Here; I’m emailing you the briefs.”

“Oh, that’s all right. You don’t have to—”

“Hey!” Carly pointed a finger at her. “Let. Me. Help.”

“Jesus.”

“What else is going on?”

Sophie looked over the back of the couch toward the coffee counter. There was a line. “Well…”

“What.”

“Uuuuuhhhh.” Sophie rubbed her face with her hands. “I can’t—I haven’t told anybody this.”

“Spit it out.”

“Okay. All right. So, there’s kind of a situation with our mortgage.” She did her best to keep the story compact, but digressions kept springing loose: the absurd reliance on fax machines, the phone calls to nowhere, the grammatically tortured letters. Talking about it brought her frustration back to the surface, and seeing Carly’s shocked face made her want to hide her head under her jacket.

“But have you hired a lawyer?” Carly asked.

“With what money?”

“I don’t know. Legal Aid? You need one.”

“Why? It’s all my fault. I signed up for the stupid option ARM. I failed as a freelancer. A lawyer can’t change all that.”

“That’s not how it works. A lawyer can help you fight. They can help you get the upper hand. At the very least, they can force the bank to talk to you and work things out.”

Sophie fiddled with her jacket zipper. Hiring a lawyer meant talking to Brian. Talking to Brian meant admitting that she hadn’t been working. Admitting she hadn’t been working meant having to explain all those trips to New York. “I think I can handle it. They’re supposedly sending me loan modification forms. So…”

“What if I have my friend Joshua call you. I think he does real estate. He could give you some advice.”

“That’s okay.”

“Sophie.” Carly pointed her finger again. Sophie batted it away.

“Just get me working again. That’s what I really need. Work.”

“Done.”

“Thanks.” Sophie smiled wanly. “Still jealous of me?”

“In some ways,” Carly said. “I’m sorry it’s so hard to believe.”

“I didn’t know you wanted a family.”

Carly shrugged. “Obviously I don’t need two point five kids to be happy. But sometimes, yeah. The condo gets a little quiet.”

“You can have my kids.”

“Ha.” Carly picked at her sweater. “I’m sure you don’t take them for granted.”

“No. I mean, I don’t think I do. Sometimes it’s hard to see past the day-to-day. It’s not all continuous delight and amazement, you know?”

“I know.” Carly smiled wanly. “Nothing ever is.”

***

She’d almost forgotten about the prepaid phone, until it started ringing from the pocket of her winter coat, which had been put away for the season. Sophie dug through the closet of parkas, scarves, and sweaters, finally pulling the phone from the woolen depths; by the time she had it in her hand it had stopped ringing. She stared at it apprehensively, wanting to talk to her friend Harry, not wanting to think about why he was calling on this small, grimy phone. Then it rang again, making her jump.

“Hello?”

“Darling! How are you?”

“Wonderful, now that I’m hearing your voice.” She hurried back downstairs to the living room, where Elliot was stacking Tupperware containers into towers and driving toy cars through the streets of the plastic city. “How about you?”

“Can’t complain. No, I take that back. I can complain; I’m quite good at it, but I choose not to.”

“Oh, Harry. What’s wrong?”

“You know. The usual. I hate my customers and there aren’t enough of them. Also, Jeffrey’s been in a beastly mood ever since I quote-unquote abandoned him over the holidays. He thinks I’m having an affair, which is utter bullshit. I mean, I’ve barely got the energy to deal with his tantrums, why would I want to double my workload?”

“Oh, dear.”

“But that’s enough of me not complaining. How are you? How are those delightful children of yours?”

“Fine. We’re all fine. Sorry I didn’t call you after talking to the FBI…I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me.”

“I was a bit worried. But I’ve been keeping an eye on the
Inquirer
. There’s a reward, you know.”

“I heard that.”

“That means they haven’t got any leads. Won’t be long before everyone forgets all about it.”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t worry, love, everything will be fine.” His words felt like a warm bath; when was the last time anyone had told her everything would be fine? “So the interview went all right?”