Unbecoming (25 page)

The spoons she had rescued from the Upper East Side bachelorette estate—that was the kind of thing you should steal. They were rare enough to be worth something, but they would be easy to sell without raising any eyebrows. Without violence, resources, or experience, one could take only unguarded, underappreciated treasure. Silver. Small clocks. Prints that were signed but not numbered. One couldn’t steal them from a museum, with its deep records and security guards, or even a library. Not from someone’s house, where the missing family heirlooms would be wept over. Not from a store. You’d want to take them from somewhere like the Wynne House.

She looked for the flaw in her logic. There had to be one; otherwise the historic houses all across the country would be treated like ATMs. But she couldn’t find the tangle. Her pulse quickened.

Grace could probably get a job cleaning the place and slip one thing into her pocket at a time. But when something went missing, people always accused the cleaning woman or the poor kid. She could hardly see setting herself up as both.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Grace put on a flouncy skirt that had deep interior side pockets.

If she met one of the same docents, she would just take the tour again, pretend it was for school, and go.

She rode her bike there, propped it against a crabapple tree, and went up to the door. The old lady who opened it was a woman she recognized from the Grahams’ church. Grace didn’t know her name, and the woman didn’t recognize her.

She followed the docent through the rooms, nodding and smiling, taking notes in her small field book. The library was easily the room most crowded with stuff. Returning to these rooms after she’d studied them in photographs was eerie, like going back to a place you had lived years ago. Everything looked both better and worse in three dimensions. On the desk sat a bronze inkwell in the shape of a lion. Grace imagined how it would feel in her pocket.

The docent gestured outside toward the peony garden. “They bloom in May and June,” she said. “But it’s been a warm winter this year, and I’m just worried it’ll—” She then leaned forward, her nose almost touching the glass, and Grace’s right hand darted from her body to the bronze inkwell, which was far heavier than she’d expected it to be. The docent turned around and smiled. “Sorry, I thought I saw a rabbit. They do terrible damage to the little spring shoots, and sometimes right in the middle of the day. Just brazen!”

The bronze was heavy on Grace’s thigh, and she worried it would drag down the waistline of her skirt. She still had her notebook in her left hand. She crossed one arm over the other and told the docent that the rabbits in her parents’ yard would practically eat out of your hand. Together, they shook their heads.

Outside, Grace mounted her bicycle and positioned the pocket of her dress to hang between her thighs instead of on the outside, and she rode home slowly, the cold, heavy weight swinging beneath her, her ears pounding with the thrill of what she’d just done.

Alls was home, eating cereal on the couch and watching a
Seinfeld
rerun.

“Hey,” he said without looking up.

“Hi,” Grace said, too brightly.

“What you got there?” He nodded at one side of her skirt, which hung a good three inches lower than the other. Next time, she’d need a better receptacle. She took out the inkwell. She felt better than she had in months—good enough, even, to look him in the eye.

“I got it at Lamb’s,” she said. “Sixty percent off.” She set the inkwell down on the coffee table. The lion had an oversize head atop a tiny, cublike body on a square marble base. She lifted the lid, the top of the lion’s mane, and looked into the bottle. “See, that’s where you pour the ink.”

“What ink?”

“
The
ink,” she said. “I’ll have to put something else in it.”

“Weed,” he said, chewing toward the TV screen. Whenever they found themselves alone together, he was resolutely stupid toward her.

The inkwell was sitting on an open bill. Grace reached for it. “You’re never home right now,” she said. It was Alls’s car insurance bill.

“I need another job,” he said.

“Are they cutting down your hours? Is that why you’re home in the middle of the day?”

He nodded. “I need eighteen hours a week, and I can only get twelve with my practice schedule. They pay me sixteen an hour, though, and I’m not going to do better than that around here.”

“Do you have time for a second job?”

“Fencing is thirty-six hours per week plus travel. Class is sixteen plus the actual work. It’s true that I’m sleeping a luxurious forty-two hours per week. Maybe there’s some fat to cut there.” He rubbed his eyes.

“Why don’t you just get a loan?” she asked him.

“Never going to owe anybody anything,” he said.

“But you can’t possibly—”

He rolled his eyes. “If it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’d rather not go through the particulars.”

“Do you want to talk?”

“I just told you I didn’t.”

“I mean, about anything.” This was idiotic, this hand patting. He would think that was what she was doing. But she felt generous and daring.
Look!
She wanted to whisper.
I just stole this from the Wynne House! Nothing is as bad as it seems!

His eyes were blank with anger and blinking fast. “No, I don’t. You’re not my girlfriend, Grace.”

“I know I’m not, but I am your friend, and—”

“No,” he said, standing up. “Do me a favor, okay? Don’t try to make me feel better. Don’t even talk to me.” Alls then gave her a look of such withering disgust that she could not say a word.

He went into his bedroom and closed the door.

 • • • 

She told Riley that she’d paid only twelve dollars for the inkwell.

“I think it might be worth something,” she said.

He wiped some dark, gunky dust from the lion’s roaring mouth with his pinkie finger. Outside the historical context of the Wynne home, its value did seem dubious.

“If I’m wrong we can keep weed in it,” Grace said. “But I don’t think I’m wrong.”

She would sell the inkwell and help him out, and then he would see that she had not given up. She had merely redirected her ambitions and reclaimed her smarts, her grit, her allure. She would be not diminished by her return home, but transformed.

But after trawling the Internet and the Garland College fine arts library for information, she couldn’t value the inkwell. She found no identifying markings, and the materials didn’t tell her anything. Even the nailheads in the base were inconclusive. What if she’d stolen something stupid? What if the Wynne docents had peeled off the gold made-in-China sticker before they’d plunked it on the desk? She’d never come up empty before.

She called Craig Furst. She couldn’t call Donald; she’d have to explain too much. She knew Craig had a taste for “gentleman” things—desk blotters, shaving kits, valets, humidors.

“Grace!” he said. “How
are
you?”

“I’m well, thank you,” she said. “And you?”

“Oh fine, fine. Going to Boston to do a huge estate tomorrow, probably take me three days just to take photos of it all. Massive collection. The off-grid aristocracy, if you know what I mean. They’re so desperate to legitimize. What are you doing? Donald working you to the bone?” He chuckled.

“No, not really,” she said, relieved that he didn’t even know she had gone.

“Oh? Do you think he—and your school, of course—could spare you for a few days? You know I’d love an assistant with me.”

“I’d love to,” Grace said. “But I’m not in New York right now. I had a death in the family.”

“I’m so sorry! No one close to you, I hope.”

“My grandfather,” she lied. “He’d been sick for a long time.”

“Terribly sorry to hear that.” He sounded as though he meant it.

“This is going to sound so crass, but that’s sort of why I’m calling you. He left me a few things, and it’s been a lot of fun, actually, finding out what they are and where he got them and tracking them down and all.”

“Grace, are you appraising your inheritance?” He laughed conspiratorially. “It’s an addiction, I know.”

“Just for information,” she said quickly. “I just want to know where—”

“Uh-huh,” he said. No one ever admitted their desire to sell off the family heirlooms, not at first. There was a required series of dance steps to get to that point—mourning the dead, enjoying their memories, discovering their treasures, “learning about them,” feigning surprise or masking disappointment, and then and only then, quietly selling it all off.

“What do you have?” he asked.

“An inkwell. Totally unmarked, no stamps or anything. A bronze lion with a marble base, about five inches high. The lion has glass eyes, and you lift the top of his mane to get to the well.”

“A lion! How charming. Is the ink bottle glass or pottery?”

“Porcelain, I think. And very irregular—not by machine. I think it could be nineteenth century.”

“Sounds like it. Could be Austrian, or maybe French. Can you send me a picture?”

She said she would, and he asked her to have coffee when she returned. And then, just after she’d thanked him again and just before she hung up, he asked her why she had not asked Donald.

Of course he would wonder that. She could have said that she
had
asked Donald and he hadn’t known, but of course Craig would tease Donald about that.

“I asked him about another piece,” Grace said. “I don’t want to wear out my welcome asking for freebies.”

“Ha! Fair enough,” he said.

 • • • 

The lion was unmarked precisely because it was so special. Craig Furst said the inkwell was Austrian, 1860s; the porcelain interior was the giveaway, and he’d never seen a piece quite like it.
Usually
, he wrote,
the “power” animal motifs in inkwells are standing, looking predatory and masculine, etc. But your lion, sitting down, looks . . . cute. The glass eyes are really wild. Was your grandfather a big softie? (And not that you asked, but I’d say $800–$1,100 retail.)

Grace called an antiques store in Nashville, the first fancy-looking listing she found. She told them what she thought she had and asked if they were interested, and they were. Could she send a picture?

Sure
, she almost said. But then she realized that she’d already screwed up, taking a picture of it for Craig. Now there was a trail, however short, going right into her e-mail.

“I can just bring it in,” she said. “I’m in the area this weekend.”

The next day, she took a Greyhound bus to Nashville and sold the lion inkwell for $655. She told Riley the good news when she got home, insisting he take the money for his car payment or repair, whatever he was prioritizing. “We’re married,” she said. “Your problems are my problems too.”

If Grace could have relied on the docents’ poor eyesight and consistent amnesia, she would have robbed the Wynne House every day, one little
objet
at a time. She felt sharp and in control. She’d helped Riley, and she’d hurt no one. But she had already been there three times. She couldn’t go back again.

She hated that she’d lied to Riley about where she’d gotten the inkwell. How stupid and unnecessary—that lie chewed at her, another sin to atone for without his knowing. She never used to lie to him. There was
one
thing she would never tell him, but these little lies had to stop. She knew they made her lonelier, built the wall between her and Riley, or between what they had now and the love they used to have, a few bricks higher every time she told one. And Riley would have
loved
the idea of stealing desk accessories from the Wynne House. He would have eaten it up.

“I have to tell you something,” she said in bed the next night. “Don’t worry.”

“Uh-oh,” he said.

“I didn’t buy that inkwell from Lamb’s,” she smirked, rolling to face him in the dark.

“You didn’t?”

“I stole it,” she said. He looked at her, waiting, sure he hadn’t heard right. “I stole it from the Wynne House. I went on a tour—”

“Again? Another tour?”

“Another tour, and I took it. The docent wasn’t looking, and I just—took it.”

“Christ,” he said. “Why?”

“So you could make your car payment. And to see if I could, I guess. To see what would happen.” She tried to sound sassy, playful, but it sounded wrong. She’d said it all wrong.

He sat up and turned on the light.

“That stuff is all just sitting there, and nobody gives a shit about it, and—what? I thought you would—” she faltered. Would what? Congratulate her?

“Would what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t say it right.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

She swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“Lately, you’re just—not yourself. Really weird, actually. Irresponsible.”

“Sorry, Riley, but there’s not much to be responsible for. I get up, have nothing to do, read, run, look at the jobs, wait for you—”

“I mean, I figured you were depressed about school, but you won’t tell me what went so wrong up there—”

“I flunked out,” she said angrily. “I failed three of my four classes and the fourth gave me a B, but I have no idea why.” She shut her eyes.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What the fuck would I say? There’s no good reason. There’s no excuse. It just happened. I got that job, and I got way too involved, and I forgot that school was, you know.” She shrugged, awkwardly, since she was still lying down. “The reason I was there.” The truth was even more humiliating once she said it out loud. She had loved her job’s proximity to precious objects—being trusted with them, in a way. For as long as she could remember, she’d studied how she appeared to others, but to become the appraiser? To wield the power of evaluation, approval, dismissal? Knocking an old chair down a few hundred dollars had given her pleasure. All for Donald, at thirteen dollars an hour, ostensibly to help her pay for a college that was costing her $302 each day, many of which she had skipped to work.

She started to cry and tried to keep talking through her seizing throat. “I couldn’t tell anyone. It’s just too pathetic.”