The Objects of Her Affection (16 page)

“He’s FAKE!” Lucy screamed at the children.

“Thank you, Lucy, I think they got it,” said Sophie, depositing her into the stroller. Debbie and Dan looked stricken; the twins were laughing, showing each other the video they’d just taken on their phones.

“That was
excellent
,” said Kylynn.

Sophie caught Brian’s eye; he couldn’t have looked happier if someone had just handed him a gift-wrapped piece of Saint-Porchaire. “Truth to power,” he said, patting Lucy’s head. She looked up at him, her fingers in her mouth.

“He was fake,” she said, and resumed sucking on her fingers. Sophie studied her for signs of emotional distress, but Lucy seemed content. Her disappointment, after the long journey to the front of the line, had apparently been quelled by the satisfaction of arriving at the truth. Sophie shook her head, amazed, as always, by her children’s ability to navigate the ever-shifting landscape of true and false, yes and no, possible and impossible, here and gone. It was something to be learned from them, she decided: the ability—not to mention the willingness—to face the beardless, hairless truth, accept its implications, and move on.

She leaned on the stroller handle, pushing it forward, and they all headed downstairs for Christmas Eve dinner at Ruby Tuesday.

***

The day after Christmas, Sophie lay on the sectional watching the gray sky through the high, arched window that loomed over the great room. The kids were busy with their new toys, whose molded plastic packaging was scattered around the room like cast-off cicada husks. Dan and Brian were watching football while Debbie filled lawn and leaf bags with crumpled wads of wrapping paper. Sophie cradled her Christmas stocking against her belly. The floor next to her was confettied with foil wrappers of mini chocolate bars, each one neatly creased into a small, shiny square. She opened another bar and slowly chewed the waxy chocolate, molding it against the roof of her mouth. Her fingers worked the foil, lining up the edges.

The top of the window arch, she had discovered, framed a small portion of a commercial flight path. She’d spent the morning watching planes climb through the arch, trying to imagine the people inside. It really was extraordinary that hundreds of fleshy, unruly bodies could be so neatly contained in a sleek package whose red, white, and blue logo could actually be identified from a sectional in a cul-de-sac. She imagined each package scattered across the ground, torn open like a gift handed to an impatient two-year-old.

Debbie set a small wastepaper basket next to Sophie. “Can I get you anything, sweetie?” she asked.

Sophie turned her head, struggling to focus on Debbie’s pale, worried face. “No, I’m perfect.”

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

Sophie blinked. People walked here?

“I don’t know about you,” Debbie continued, “but I could use a little fresh air.”

So against her better judgment, Sophie squeezed into a pair of jeans and put on her coat and set out with Debbie. The neighborhood had sidewalks, but they walked down the middle of the street, Debbie walking fast, pumping her arms, her breath coming out in little puffs. Sophie stuffed her hands in her pockets and kept up by inserting occasional jogs into her stride.

Debbie talked for a while, telling stories about the twins’ school, where she volunteered three days a week. She was in charge of obtaining donated school supplies. She described how, at the beginning of the school year, they had assembled the crayons and glue and chalk into six-foot-tall tiered wedding cakes decorated with ribbons and paper flowers.

“But why?” Sophie asked, confounded.

“Why what?”

“Why cakes?”

“Why not? It was pretty—you should’ve seen the teachers’ faces.”

“Oh.”

Debbie linked her arm through Sophie’s. “It feels good, you know. Making people happy. Doing something good for the world. It helps.”

Sophie groaned inwardly. Debbie’s very personality was a cul-de-sac. How did she avoid getting fat, living on Pepperoni Stix and platitudes? Sophie found herself suddenly longing for her cracked marble stoop and crazed porcelain doorknobs, and streets that actually went somewhere.

But now, with Debbie’s arm through hers, cold air slapping her cheeks, her smugness felt empty and unsatisfying. Was her life in Philadelphia really so special? The pine floors and the lead abatement and the high utility bills—weren’t they just an expensive form of vanity? And her neighborhood—in truth, it was exactly like this: a numbingly predictable housing development, with its mass-produced moldings and identical marble mantels. Hers was just older and less convenient. Why was she risking everything for that?

“Did I ever tell you about the time I let thieves into my house?” Sophie asked, knowing that she hadn’t.

“What? No. When?”

“When I was a kid.” Sophie pulled her arm away from Debbie’s on the pretext of zipping her coat up to her chin. “I was eight. We’d just moved into a new house, and we had the usual people coming in and out—the telephone company, the water company. I was always the one who let them in ’cause my parents were gone all the time.”

“They left you alone when you were eight?”

Sophie’s laugh came out in a white puff. “Of course. They always said I was responsible enough to be treated like an adult, which—yeah. Anyway, I was at home one afternoon when these two guys came to the door saying they were from the electric company.” In jeans and T-shirts. Knowing, somehow, how stupid she was. “They said they had to do something with the meter, but they didn’t want me around. Said it was dangerous. Told me to take a walk or something, so I went out back.” There was a tire swing in the backyard; it always had a murky puddle of water in it. Sophie remembered pouring the water out, then sitting in the middle of the tire and using her feet to push herself around and around until the rope began to kink. Then she let go and pulled up her knees and spun crazily, hugging her cheek against the cool black rubber, struggling to keep herself from being flung backward into the air.

“After a while I started to wonder if they were ever going to come tell me they were finished, so I went to the back door and peeked in.” She remembered seeing all the way to the front door, and through it to the front yard, because it was standing wide open. “They were gone. So was half our stuff.”

“Oh, no!” Debbie’s mittens flew to her mouth.

“Mostly my dad’s stuff. All the electronics he was supposed to write about, plus his Commodore, his Selectric, everything. Most of it still in moving boxes.”

“Oh, how awful.”

“Yeah.” Sophie felt the crush of realization and guilt now, just as heavy as it had been that day in 1978. “I felt like the world’s biggest idiot.”

“But you were a child!” Debbie took Sophie’s arm again. “How could you be responsible for something like that?”

“I was in charge.”

“You were eight!”

“Well, anyway.” Sophie took a deep, bracing breath. “I couldn’t handle telling my parents what I’d done. So I took a rock and broke the window in the back door, then I locked the front door, got on my bike, and went for a long ride.” Whipping through the suburban streets as fast as she could, losing herself in the unfamiliar neighborhoods, daring the universe to try to scare her now. “When I got back that night, everything was cleaned up and they’d already filed a police report.”

Debbie didn’t seem to know what to say to this.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever told about that.”

“Well! You were awfully…resourceful. I guess you had to be.”

Sophie suddenly felt embarrassed.

Debbie asked, “Have you heard from your mother lately?”

“Not in a couple of years.” There had been two postcards after Randall’s funeral, from New Mexico, then nothing. Sophie had tried sending letters through family friends, then through Maeve’s cousins in Texas, but nobody knew where she’d gone. Sophie remembered the way Maeve had looked at the funeral, stony and tall in her tailored black pants and gray jacket. She had squeezed Sophie’s hand in a way that said, “You can do this,” but not in a way that said good-bye.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve tried to be different,” Sophie said. “From her. But you know the saying—one day you put your arm into your sleeve and your mother’s hand comes out.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s always true,” Debbie said. “You’re not about to run off and disappear. You’re just not like that.”

Oh, but I am, Sophie thought, horrified. I’m about to pull my own kind of disappearing act: as devastating as a plane crash, as careless as running away. Her throat began to ache. “I’m trying….” She tucked her chin and mouth down inside her parka.

“What?” Debbie asked, with a nervous laugh.

Sophie breathed deeply through her nose, forcing cold air through her clenched throat. “I think I just came up with my New Year’s resolution.”

“Oh! What is it?”

“To grow up.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t need to—”

“I just mean I’m going to stop doing some stuff that was bad for me.”

“Smoking?” Debbie whispered.

“Something like that.”

When they got back to the house, Sophie pulled off her coat and tried to remember where she’d left her laptop. She wanted to start redesigning her website; she also needed to send belated holiday greetings to her old clients.

Brian came into the foyer. “I have to go back.”

She smiled at him. She knew he couldn’t stay away from the museum this long. “Fine with me.”

“Something’s missing.”

“I know the feeling.”

“From a period room. A Dutch tazza.”

Sophie stared at him.

“A footed bowl. It’s silver. Michael’s freaking out. He always wanted to put it in a case.”

Sophie’s hands crept to her stomach. “Why do you have to go back?”

“For questioning.” Brian rolled his eyes. “Michael brought in the FBI, for Christ’s sake.”

“Oh. Wow.” She’d worn gloves, right? But what about fibers from her coat…skin cells…a hair. She’d seen the TV shows. She knew what maniacs those people were.

“Hey,” Brian said, reaching out to touch her face. “Don’t worry. We’ll all go back together. I’ll change our tickets.”

“Oh, good,” she said, hugging herself. “I mean, I love it here. But I have so much to do back home.”

2007

She made a point of getting the phone at a store in West Philly, on Baltimore Avenue, where she didn’t know a soul. She paid cash and threw away the receipt. The store was sandwiched between two abandoned houses, the sidewalk littered with hair extensions, a dead tree out front garlanded with plastic bags. Sophie, now part of the neighborhood’s criminal element, stood out front trying to get the phone to work. It was kind of pointless, really—she’d called Harry on her other phone just after taking the bowl. It was in the phone records. Still, she’d decided to start acting more responsibly. Or if responsibly wasn’t the right word, less recklessly.

She didn’t know Harry’s number, of course, because it was programmed into the other phone. She took it out of her bag and looked it up, clumsily dialing the number on the prepaid phone with her left hand. A tall man in a black leather jacket ambled by, then stopped and cocked his head at her. She turned and hurried to her car.

“Harry McGeorge speaking.”

“It’s me. Sophie.”

“Sophie? That’s odd. It says Daneel Brown…”

“New phone. Listen. I need to talk to you. Is it a good time?” She got into her car and locked the doors.

“For you, always! What is it, Sophie? Why so out of breath?”

“Listen, Harry. There’s something we haven’t talked about that, ah, we need to talk about.”

“Go on.”

“Okay. So. The stuff I’ve been bringing you. You know I didn’t buy it from a sidewalk sale. You know I didn’t buy it…at all.”

“And I know who your husband is and where he works. Yes. And now the thing I’d like to know is, why are you calling me from Daneel Brown’s phone, and how much am I going to dislike the answer?”

“How long have you known?”

“Since you brought me the mirror. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Huh. Okay, well…” Sophie fiddled with the gearshift, absorbing this news. “Are you back?”

“I got in last night. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Sophie’s mind whirled, doubt and terror chasing their tails.

“It’s all right, you know,” Harry said softly. “We’re in this together.”

She took a deep breath. “Well, until now I’ve been taking things out of storage—things nobody cares about. It was all being moved to a warehouse somewhere, never to be seen again. So…”

“So it was a rescue mission.”

“I’m not deluded, Harry. I know there was nothing right about it. I know. But it was…safe. Safer.”

“Than?”

“Than what I did before Christmas. Which was to take… somethingfromthegalleries.”

“Sorry? Take what?”

“I took something from the galleries. A silver bowl. Dutch. Apparently it’s, I don’t know, kind of important.”

“Go on.”

“So the museum noticed, and now the FBI’s involved, and they questioned Brian yesterday and now they’re going to question me.” She closed her eyes and massaged her forehead.

“I see. And why do you think they want to do that?”

“Brian said they asked him who else would have had access to the galleries while the museum was closed, and he told them about me coming on a Monday. He didn’t mention that I let myself out, but this woman from Asian Art saw me…”

“Hold on, back up. I’m a bit lost here.”

Sophie told him about sneaking into the galleries, the cooler, Tammy Brewer, the tazza in her basement. “I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I? I’m so sorry, Harry. I don’t want to get you in trouble.” Her breath hitched in her chest. “I don’t want to get in trouble, either. I’m, oh
God
, Harry, I’m freaking out.”

“All right, all right. Now listen. None of this is going to touch me, so you can stop worrying about that. My ass is covered. It’s yours that’s hanging out in the wind at the moment, but I think we can fix that. Now, obviously they’ve got nothing on camera or you’d be in jail by now. And unless you fuck up the interview they won’t be searching your house.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“But just in case, I think you need to get rid of the piece.”

“Throw it away?”

“God no, please don’t do that. I’ll take care of it. Can you meet me this afternoon? I’ll drive down. Then we can talk some more.”

“Really? I…I’ll have the kids.”

“I’d love to meet them. Now, bring the piece with you, but for heaven’s sake try to be subtle about it.”

“Of course. Thank you, Harry.”

***

She met him in the parking lot of a strip mall down on Delaware Avenue, the kids strapped into the backseat. Harry got in the front seat, twisted around, and gave them a broad smile. “Hello, Lucy. Hello, Elliot. I’m Harry. Lovely to meet you.”

“I like how you talk,” said Lucy.

“You’re too kind. I like your dress.”

“What do you say?” said Sophie automatically.

“Thank you.”

“Now, your mother and I are going to talk about some grown-up things, so just try to ignore us,” said Harry. Lucy raised her eyebrows, and Harry looked at Sophie. “On second thought, maybe we’ll just talk outside the car. That all right?”

In the cold air, Sophie reached out and touched Harry’s arm. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course. Come here, you.” Harry took her in his arms and Sophie sank into his warmth, burying her face in his cashmere coat. Then she willed herself to straighten and take a step back. She couldn’t afford to be seen embracing a strange man in a Delaware Avenue parking lot, even if he was carrying an extremely gay looking satchel. Plus it was making her want to cry.

“Oh, darling, you’ll be all right,” said Harry. “You’ll see. Just keep it simple, and don’t volunteer anything. All right? Lie as little as possible, isn’t that what they always say? They don’t have anything on you, and they won’t get anything unless you give it to them. You’re in control. Try to remember that.”

“Right.”

“Now what about the other pieces—has anyone noticed those missing?”

“No—well, Brian and his colleagues think some things
could
be missing, but they’re keeping quiet about that because they don’t want anyone to know how messed up the storage situation is. They could get fired.”

“All right, good. So let’s have a look at this thing.”

Sophie opened the trunk and showed Harry the cooler, which he opened. He lifted out the footed bowl, leaning awkwardly in order to keep it concealed inside the trunk.

“Well! This is more like it. It’s beautiful.”

“I know.” Sophie frowned.

He turned it over. “It’s a tazza. Definitely seventeenth century.” He straightened up. “Nicely done, Sophie. I’ve got some cash in my car—I’d like to give you a bit of an advance. Let me just go fetch it.”

“Oh, well—” Sophie backed away from the trunk. “I didn’t—I mean, you don’t have to do that. I just want you to make it go away.”

“Sorry?”

“Just take it.”

Harry cracked his knuckles inside his leather driving gloves. “What’s this—scruples? Come on, be a sport. Let me give you some cash for your trouble.”

“No.” She wondered how much he’d been planning to give her. It didn’t matter. Even if she would have to miss another mortgage payment. Even if the tickets to Cincinnati had been ridiculously expensive, and the car was coming up on its inspection.

“Hang on, hang on,” Harry said. “Just let me—” He took the cooler over to his BMW and lowered it into his trunk. Sophie shut her trunk, peeked in to the back window, and waved to the kids. When she turned around, Harry thrust a manila envelope into her hands. “Take it,” he said. “I’ll give you the rest next time you’re in New York.”

Sophie wasn’t wearing gloves; the envelope felt warm. She pressed it against her belly, trying to gauge the thickness of the stacks inside. Above their heads, seagulls sailed from light post to light post.

“Call me after you talk to the FBI,” Harry said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. It was a soft kiss, a moment longer than a peck. “Bye, love.”

“Bye.” As Harry turned and walked toward his car, Sophie called to him. He swung around just in time to see the envelope arching toward him. With the grace of instinct, he reached out one elegantly gloved hand and snatched the envelope out of the air.

“You forgot that,” Sophie said, and got into her car and drove away.

***

That night, Brian made a
blanquette
de
veau
while Sophie sat with a glass of wine and kept him company. She tried making banal conversation, but they were both too preoccupied and eventually fell into silence. Lucy sat at Sophie’s feet playing with her dolls. Snow White was driving her Polly Pocket kids around in a shoe box.

“Where’s the daddy?” asked Sophie.

“In Europe,” said Lucy. “Working.”

“Oh.”

“Come on, kids, let’s drive over here now. Oh, look who it is.” A plastic turtle waddled over to the car. “Hello, Cindy. Hello, Janey. I’m Mr. Turtle. So lovely to meet you.” Sophie’s eyes widened. Mr. Turtle had a British accent. “I like your dress.” Brian turned around.

“Lucy, where’d you learn that accent?” he asked. “It’s great!”

“One of the dads at school is British,” said Sophie.

Lucy ignored them. Mr. Turtle continued, “Now, Cindy and Janey, your mother and I are going to talk about some grown-up things, so just try to ignore us. On second thought, maybe we’ll just talk outside the car. That all right?” Snow White got out of the shoe box and hugged Mr. Turtle.

“Lucy,” Sophie said, “why don’t you help me set the table. Put your dolls away.”

“But Mommeeeee!”

Brian absently adjusted the apron that was tied over his work clothes. He frowned and turned back to his cooking.

***

Sophie was folding laundry in the living room when her doorbell rang the next afternoon. She peeked out the front window and saw a man and a woman in long coats standing on the front sidewalk. She groaned inwardly. Couldn’t they have called first? She was never prepared for the unannounced drop-in. There was always some kind of unseemly mess in the living room, and she was frequently braless. She scooped the stacks of bibs and socks off the couch, dumped them in the laundry basket, and opened the door, grateful to be wearing a heavy sweatshirt.

The man introduced himself as Agent Chandler, and his companion as Agent Richardson. “We’re with the FBI’s art crime team,” he said, showing her a badge. “Do you mind if we ask you some questions?” Sophie let them in and motioned toward the couch. Agent Chandler was lanky and middle-aged, with heavy folds between his nose and mouth, and eyelids that sliced off the upper curve of his eyes, giving him a doleful look. Agent Richardson was younger, with dark eyes, thick black hair, and assertive eyebrows. She wore an acrylic pantsuit and no makeup, and she was holding a stenography notebook. Sophie saw her notice the laundry basket.

Agent Chandler explained about the missing tazza, and Sophie nodded gravely. “Brian told me about that,” she said. The agent slid on a pair of reading glasses, then pulled a calendar out of his briefcase. He handed it to Sophie and asked what day she’d last been to the museum. He asked who had escorted her inside, how long she’d been in the department, what she’d done while she was there.

“Do you often bring lunch to your husband?”

“Not too often,” answered Sophie. “Technically, Brian’s not supposed to have food in his office.”

“But this time it was okay?”

“I thought it would be okay. I didn’t think the FBI would be asking me about it.” She snorted, but the two agents remained expressionless. “Brian told me not to do it again.”

“Tell us what happened after you had lunch.”

“Brian had to go talk to his boss, so I decided to just let myself out. I could tell he was having a crazy day, so…”

“What time did you leave?”

“I have no idea. Probably around…twelve forty-five? One o’clock? I can’t really remember.”

“Did you go anywhere else in the museum before exiting? To the bathroom, maybe?”

Sophie shook her head, pretending to give this question serious thought. “No…I just left.” She knew Tammy Brewer would say they had crossed paths around one o’clock. She also knew that, if asked, Brian’s colleagues would say she left their offices around twelve thirty. But half an hour of missing time could easily be explained away by poor memory, inattention to detail, a slow watch.

Agent Richardson consulted her notes and spoke for the first time. Her voice was low and impenetrable. “Mrs. Porter, the camera at the employee entrance shows you exiting the building at one oh three p.m. Your husband tells us you left his office around twelve thirty and that he looked for you shortly after, but you were nowhere to be found. Can you explain that?” Agent Richardson, Sophie observed, had a hairline that started halfway up her forehead. Sophie had always found this to be one of the ugliest possible traits for a woman.

“Brian has no concept of time,” she said. This was true. He rarely looked at his watch, and only knew it was time to leave at the end of the day when he saw his coworkers putting on their coats. “Tammy Brewer can tell you—she saw me leaving. She’ll probably tell you it was one o’clock.” It seemed like a good idea to appear helpful.

“We’re actually interested in what happened before you crossed paths with Mrs. Brewer,” Agent Chandler said conversationally. “Why don’t you tell us, in more detail this time, exactly what you did after your husband left you in his office.”

Sophie sat up straighter in her chair. If they wanted a story, fine, she would tell them a story. This was much simpler than the tales she concocted for the kids on a daily basis, persuading them, for example, that the car would break down if the passengers made too much noise, or that once a year a magical bunny distributed candy-filled eggs all over the world.

“All right, well, first I cleaned up what was left of our lunch. Then I exited Brian’s office into the hallway.”

“What did you bring the lunch in?”

“A cooler.”

“Did you take it with you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see anyone in the hallway?”

“No. Everyone was in their offices.” Agent Richardson was writing something in her notebook, but Sophie couldn’t see what it was. “Then I went out the door at the end of the hallway—the end opposite the freight elevator. I went out the department door, walked down the steps, walked through the Tapestry balcony, then went down the big staircase.”