A Dress to Die For (18 page)

They sat in three chairs around a low coffee table and pulled them closer so they could speak quietly. Laura told them about the non-coup, the box of files, the Brunican entourage, and Soso Oseigh’s defection, if one could call it that, after the murder of his sister, Henrietta.

“And Dad?” Ruby asked. “Alive?”

“Apparently. We got those notes, and Mom wouldn’t make something up about the handwriting.”

Jimmy leaned forward. “It’s been twenty years. She could be getting it wrong. People are the worst witnesses.”

“He’s here,” Laura said. “In the city. And he’s watching the news for me.”

“Aren’t you special?” Ruby groused.

Jimmy smirked. “Go ahead.”

“You pointed out that twenty years is a nice, round number. What if he was in prison for his part in the coup, or whatever it was that happened? The petty, silly thing that got all of them in trouble and shut down the island for two weeks? And what if he came back here and left us the notes, and now he somehow found out the dress was going up at the Met—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Jimmy said, holding up his hands. “You’re making connections, and you got nothing in your hands. We talked about this.”

Laura leaned back in her chair, bending her neck right, then left. At first, it was to calm her annoyance at him, then it was to listen because he was right. “The notes appeared the day the dress switch appeared in the news. We know he’s watching us because he said so.”

“Watching
you
,” Ruby said.

Laura caught a hint of the jealousy she’d felt about Ruby and Mom, that one child was slightly preferred in a parent’s heart. “We also know he’s watching because the notes had no contact information.”

“Meaning?” Jimmy prompted.

“Meaning he knows he can find us when he needs us. He doesn’t want to be found. But he wants us to know he’s there.” There was something else about the notes, something she’d smelled when she opened the letter but had been too emotionally distraught to parse. Cangemi hadn’t taken them, so she pulled them out of her bag and opened hers. The paper had been ripped from a perforated pad. She held it out to Jimmy. “Smell this.”

He took a whiff. “Mothballs.”

“What do you think of that?” Laura asked.

Ruby gave it a sniff and shrugged.

Laura tested Mom’s letter. It had the same smell. “The pad was kept with wool things?” Laura suggested, but that didn’t make any sense. “You only use mothballs if you’re storing something, and you only store stuff in an apartment you’ve been in a while, so the whole twenty years in prison idea is shot.”

“Said the New Yorker who grew up in a rent-controlled apartment,” Jimmy said. “Lotta people keep stuff in storage when they’re going away. When they get back, they go get it.”

“So my theory’s holding up?” she asked hopefully.

“Good God, Laura. You want a cookie?” Ruby sniped.

“Did you fly coach or something?”

“Yes, actually, and thanks for asking.”

Laura took a look at her sister, whose only stitch of makeup was a black smudge under her left eye, and her hair looked smushed on one side. She put her arm around Ruby’s shoulders. “You look like a rag doll, but I love you.”

Ruby pushed her away.

“So,” Jimmy interjected. “Storage space.”

“What? Oh, storage space. We find wherever he’s storing his things and look in it.” She looked to him for a hint of what he was thinking, but his face revealed nothing.

The doctor walked over, her ponytail scraggly under her chalk-blue cap. “She’s in Post-Op. Looking good. We had a moment there, but she’s going to be fine. Give us half an hour to get her in a room.”

The three of them were so relieved, they didn’t talk about anything for the next thirty minutes but the location of the bathroom, the color of the upholstery, and the position of the setting sun.

**

Uncle Graham and his daughters, Donna and Diane, showed up with flowers and balloons. He looked sharp, as usual, and the girls were dressed in combinations of Target and Proenza Schouler. Laura introduced Jimmy as Mom’s friend, and they all tried to get into her room when the nurse came out to find them. The nurse called an attending doctor who couldn’t have been older than Laura.

The doctor kiboshed half the crowd. “Four at a time, please,” she said, all smiles and comforting, authoritative bedside manner.

“Me and Ruby and Jimmy will run in and say hello, then she’s all yours,” Laura said.

When they got there, Mom was lying down, her head turned away from them. Laura wondered if it would have killed her and Ruby to keep Jimmy outside for fifteen minutes while they cleaned her up. Not for Jimmy’s sake—he seemed like a nice enough guy—but for Mom, who would want to be seen at her best.

Jimmy stayed by the door while Laura and Ruby presented themselves with hugs and kisses. Mom, who was groggy and cranky, shooed them off, complaining of exhaustion and pain.

As they slunk away, Mom whispered, “Did Jimmy come?”

“He’s right behind you,” Ruby said. “And Uncle Graham and the girls are in the hall.”

Mom turned onto her back. “Can he come alone first?”

Laura pulled Jimmy in, and Ruby got up to leave.

“One thing,” Laura said. “Did Dad have a storage space?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because.” She acted as though that was an actual answer, rich with content and meaning, a beginning, middle, and end that transmitted the fact that she expected a response without explanation.

“In that case, he kept stuff in his grandfather’s garage. It got moved to storage.” She shrugged and winced from the effort.

Laura looped her hand into the crook of Ruby’s arm. “We’ll be back after dinner.” With that, she pulled her sister out into the hallway.

“How was that helpful?” Ruby asked.

“Dad’s grandfather was Dale Carnegie. He died in Forest Hills, Queens. We find the nearest storage facility, and we just have to get in.”

“It’s not the same as getting into a restaurant.”

Laura pulled her into the elevator.

**

They took the train to Forest Hills, which was easy, and caught a cab at the station, which was also easy. They located Dale Carnegie’s residence with a simple Internet search and triangulated the nearest storage facility. Then things got harder.

The closest place looked like a dump. There was no way the Carnegie family would have anything to do with a place like that. Besides, the office was closed. The cab took them to two other places that looked rat-infested and filthy. Ruby complained the whole way of aches, pains, and overall exhaustion.

“We can get you coffee,” Laura said.

“I came back to see Mom.”

“She wants to be with Jimmy for a bit, which you never told me they were together, but okay. We’ll go back after and watch a little TV, then we go home and start again in the morning.” She’d barely finished her sentence before the fourth facility in their range appeared like a fortress. Spotlit to accentuate the stone carvings, the former warehouse looked like a castle on a hill, except that it was a block from the BQE.

“Stop!” Laura shouted, and the cab came to a screeching halt.

“Can you wait?” Laura asked.

“Meter’s running.” The cabbie pulled a fat book out of the glove compartment. It was well loved and had a musket on the cover. Laura thought it must be nice to have a few minutes to read a book.

She turned to her sister. “Come on. It’ll keep you awake. We might find something cool.”

Ruby looked back with eyes baggy and bloodshot. For once, she didn’t look like a centerfold. “I’m not curious like you are.”

“But Mom is. She’ll pretend she doesn’t want to know, but it’ll be like a Christmas present if we come back with anything at all.”

Ruby sighed and got out of the car. They laid out their story on the way to the door.

**

The office was well lit with warm lamps and burgundy carpeting. Laura dropped her keys on the glossy wood of the counter, and the woman behind it looked up from her solitaire game with a smile. She had stiff black hair and wore too much blush.

“Hi,” Laura said. “We’re looking for Joseph Carnegie’s space? He’s our father.”

“Do you have the combination?” Solitaire tapped keys as if she were playing piano.

“Yes, but Ruby here lost the compartment number.”

“I did not. You borrowed my bag and lost it because of… what’s his name again?”

“Shut
up
.”

Ruby turned her exhausted face to Solitaire. “Dad gave her the compartment number and me the code, so we’d have to come together because he has this thing that we have to be buddies, and this way, she couldn’t ditch me for... what was his name again? Right. Nobody cares. And then she loses the number, and I still have to show up because she’s the one that needs Mom’s wedding gown because she’s marrying this—”

“That’ll be enough of that.” Solitaire stopped liking Ruby right on time, looking at her as if she needed a spanking or a good talking to or both. “I do not care about your personal problems, Miss. Now, can I see some ID?”

Laura didn’t have a driver’s license or passport, which never affected her until she needed to prove something. Ruby slapped her passport onto the desk, and Laura rubbed her cheek.

“And you, Miss?” Solitaire asked Laura.

“My ID was in the bag with the compartment number.” She tried to look appropriately mortified.

Solitaire looked at Ruby’s passport, then her face. “Our policy allows access to the code panel for relatives. Same name. So I’ll let it go, but I do hope you remembered to bring the code.”

Ruby smiled stiffly, as if there were a wedding gown in there she wanted to retrieve as much as she wanted to retrieve a wet rag from behind the toilet.

Solitaire made a copy of Ruby’s passport, wrote a number on a yellow square of paper, and sent them to the elevator.

When the doors closed, Ruby said, “Why do I always have to be the bitch?”

“The shoe fits, and I don’t wear an eight and a half.”

“I’ve seen you at work with your bitch boots on.”

“I have big shoes to fill there.”

The elevator doors opened on four. For a second, only darkness greeted them, then the light above the doors went on with a
click
.

Ruby looked at her yellow square and then at the brass engraved signs on the wall’s corner. “This way,” she said.

The hallway was dark. When she took a step forward, another light went on with a
click
. “Motion sensitive lights,” Laura said. “Creepy.”

“Come on.” Ruby linked her arm in Laura’s. “I want to get back and see Mom.” She pulled her forward, and Laura followed, lights above them clicking and clacking, leaving them visual reference ten feet in front of them, doors on each side and a window at the end of the hall. They could already see it had a terrific view of the BQE.

“This is it,” Laura said. The keypad had little red and green lights, both of which were flashing.

“Do you even know how many digits it is?”

“Nope. He wasn’t around to ask. Same as always.”

Ruby crossed her arms and leaned on the doorjamb. Laura started with Mom’s birthday. Then her own. Then Dad’s. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Ruby’s birthday. Nothing. She did the date of the Fortnight Coup, even though it likely happened after the code was set. Nothing. She put in Mom and Dad’s anniversary. Nothing.

“What about the address in Hell’s Kitchen?” Ruby asked.

Laura tried it. Nothing. They were getting nowhere, and answers were right there, right behind that door. Just a solid core of metal stood between her and some warmer, more personal knowledge of her father.

“God, the princess’s birthday was right in that folder, and I didn’t even look at it.” How could she have missed it? How could she have not scanned the whole thing and memorized it? Why didn’t she pay attention? That was exactly what Jimmy had meant—all guesswork going nowhere because she couldn’t open her eyes.

“What?” Ruby asked.

“Forget it. Let’s go. I can’t figure it out.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to get in here again.”

Laura stalked back to the elevators, lights clicking above her. She felt sour and heavy, with a heart weighted by her failures. She hit the elevator button as if it had hit her first, her eyes filling with tears of frustration.

Ruby caught up and put an arm around her shoulders. “Tough couple of days, Lala.”

“Shut up,” Laura whispered. She went into her bag for a tissue. The smell of mothballs hit her full in the face, and instead of rooting around for the tissue wadded in the bottom, she reached for her letter and ripped it out of the envelope.

The date was at the top, and she’d noticed an odd notation the other night but had dismissed it in favor of all the other junk in her heart. “He puts the year first, four digits, then the month, then the day. It’s the way you do it in spreadsheets.”

She ran back to the compartment so fast the lights couldn’t keep up with her. She punched the keys. Dad’s birthday. No. Ruby’s. No. Then she tried the one she knew was right. Lala’s birthday, November first, twenty-six years ago.

The green light went solid, and the door clicked.

“Wow,” Ruby said. “I’m impressed.”

Laura put her fingers on the handle and drew it down but couldn’t find the strength to push open the door.

“What?” Ruby asked.

“I’m scared.”

“Get over it.” Ruby shouldered the door, and it swung open. The motion-sensitive light inside flickered on.

The room was empty.

Corner to corner, wall to wall. Nothing.

Laura grabbed Ruby’s forearm to keep her from walking deeper into the ten-by-ten foot square. “Look.” She pointed at the floor. The dust had brush marks. “It was swept recently. And I can smell mothballs.” She examined the walls. A brown sheen fell across the top part of the wall in some places, and once she saw them, she saw the shapes they made against the bottom, cleaner part of the wall. “Boxes went high. Lotta stuff, and there were garment racks here and here. High bar racks for pants and suits.”

“I think you’re glad it’s empty.” Ruby’s arms were crossed over her chest.

Laura felt bad for dragging her out. Her sister was tired and anxious and being a very good sport. “We should go.”