D. Michael Beil Read online

  Margaret leads us deeper into the abyss. “There must be another passage directly above us.”

  “Or a crypt,” says Rebecca, reinforcing my fear that we're about to stumble onto a bunch of final resting places.

  And suddenly there it is—an incredibly dark, low-ceilinged, twisting, narrow, scary staircase.

  “Do you think—” Rebecca starts, but by the time she gets to “think,” Margaret's feet are the only part of her still in sight.

  Up and up and round and round we go till we find ourselves standing at the end of another long passageway, lighted—barely—by two porthole-size, grime-covered windows set into the two-foot-thick walls. I wipe away some of the schmutz from the one closest to me and take a peek outside. I am looking straight at my desk in Mr. Eliot's room! When I move to the other window, I see that it has recently been wiped clean.

  “Regarde!” I say.

  “Holy crap!” says Rebecca.

  “Practically proof positive,” says Margaret.

  Then, from the end of the hall, a door hinge squeaks one short errkkkk. We stare at the shaft of light coming from inside the heavy wooden door as an enormous orange cat squeezes through the opening. Roughly the size of a small car, the cat takes a few steps down the hall before it sees us. Then it arches its back, every hair on its body standing straight up—kind of like the ones on the back of my neck are doing—and then makes a god-awful hissing, spitting, growling yowl.

  “Go 'way hellcat! Shoo. Shoo,” says Rebecca, backing up. “I don't think it likes us.” She turns and runs for the stairs.

  Margaret and I are on her heels, but then I hear it—a woman's voice, with an accent that sounds a lot like Margaret's mom's. Polish? Russian?

  I freeze. “Listen!” We all strain to hear the voice coming from behind that door.

  “… I don't know where she found it, but it's definitely something from him. She said something about a card or a letter, and needing to get into the school library. This could be what we've been waiting for, after all these years. And it's about time. I don't know how much more of that old dingbat I can take.”

  Margaret and I look at each other. The school library?

  “Hold on a second,” the voice continues, sounding harried. “She's looking for that damned cat. He must have gotten out again. I have to go—she's coming up the stairs.” I hear her set the phone down. We are trapped between that open door, whoever—or whatever—is coming up the stairs, and the demon feline.

  And that's when I hear the second voice, this one belonging to a much older woman.

  “Can you help me catch my kitty? He likes to go down those old stairs.”

  I slowly turn to face the voice—is it an elderly female Quasimodo, freshly sharpened edge of her ax glistening inches above my head? Nah. Standing before me is a tiny old lady. She has long, straight hair that appears to be nearly pure white in that dark hallway, but her skin is remarkably smooth and unwrinkled, making it difficult to tell how old she is. Fifty? Seventy? Clothing-wise, she looks like some kind of sixties flower child—a floor-length, tie-dyed tunic with six or seven strands of different-colored beads paired with Birkenstocks. It is the woman from the window. No doubt about it.

  I must have a frightened look on my face, because she smiles reassuringly at me. “It's all right, dear. I'm not going to hurt you. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could.”

  Hellcat, halfway between us, roars as if to add, “But I could.”

  “Oh, don't worry about him,” she says as I back away. “He's a darling old fuddy-duddy. All hiss and no bite. I must not have latched the door, and he just lets himself out. That was you I saw a little while ago, wasn't it? I'm sorry if I spooked you. But how nice of you to come looking for me.”

  “I wasn't scared,” I lie. “Just a little … surprised.”

  “Well, Teazle just knew you were coming. He's been carrying on all morning. This is the second time I've found him out here in the hallway—why, we might never have met if not for him. You know, I've always suspected he's a bit psychic—perhaps the reincarnation of my dear old great-aunt Maysie. Now she was gifted. Predicted the stock market crash in twenty-nine. Her father never forgave her for not telling him.”

  Eyes wild, Margaret's face finally appears around the bend in the staircase, with Rebecca an inch behind.

  “Well, hello to you all. I'm Elizabeth Harriman, and this big ol' monster is Teazle.” She hoists him off the ground, holding him the way I used to hold my dolls, his feet hanging down almost to her knees. Still shaking a bit, and wary of the cat, I sort of grope her hand as we introduce ourselves.

  “Won't you girls come in for a cup of tea?”

  Come in where? Where did she come from?

  Rebecca speaks up. “Um, Sophie, the bell's in like two minutes.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Ms. Harriman. “Well, might you come back after school, mmm? I have something very important to ask you.”

  We all look at each other. “Are you guys in?” I ask.

  “Uh, sure,” says Rebecca.

  “Absolutely,” says Margaret.

  Really? What are we getting ourselves into?

  “Wonderful! Shall we say three o'clock?”

  “Should we come back here?” I look uncertainly at the dimly lit passageway.

  “Oh. No. Just come to my front door on Sixty-fifth Street. Right next door to the school. My home is the old convent, back when there were more nuns around. That's why it is connected to the church. It's the bright red door—just like your blazers. You've probably walked past it a thousand times. Ring the bell. Teazle and I will be waiting for you. Young ladies, I think karma has brought us to this fortuitous meeting. Our fates have become intertwined.”

  “Um, see you at three,” I say, and we hustle the heck out of there.

  In which I share a chair with a dead guy

  and listen to an amazing story

  The rest of that day flies by. What awaits us inside the home of Ms. Elizabeth Harriman? Rooms crammed full of lava lamps, beaded curtains, and paintings of Janis Joplin on black velvet? Jimi Hendrix music blasting on the hi-fi?

  Precisely at three o'clock, I press the doorbell at the red door of her town house. I put my ear to the brass mail slot. The door opens suddenly, and I tumble face-first into the chest of a granite block of a woman. Her hair—or is it a helmet?—is the color of an overcast November day, and she's wearing a plain white apron with the name “Winnie” embroidered on her formidable bosom.

  “Hello, misses. Ms. Harriman, she's waiting for you. Come in.”

  As she turns away, we shoot glances at one another. It was her voice we'd heard talking on the telephone earlier.

  “Thank you, Winifred,” says Ms. Harriman, who immediately starts asking questions—and answering them almost as quickly. “Come in, girls, please. Make yourselves at home. Would you like something to drink? Winifred, bring us some tea, would you, dear? A big pot of Flower Power seems appropriate.” Then, insisting that we call her Elizabeth and not Ms. Harriman (something I just can't bring myself to do), she leads us into the biggest living room I've ever seen, full of tasteful leather and dark wood furniture on Oriental rugs—not a bean bag chair or shag rug in sight.

  Wandering around a bit, I start to get a sense of the sheer ginormosity of the place. I am in immediate awe of the staircase's curved, carved banister.

  “Jeez, this place is huge. How many floors are there?” I ask.

  “The house has five floors, but I rarely use the top three these days. My room is on the second floor, and Winifred uses the third for ironing and some other chores. The top floor, where Teazle snuck out the door earlier, is the old servants' quarters; it's badly in need of renovating, I'm afraid. The house has been in my family for three generations.”

  Man, to have a few extra floors. In my family's apartment, we'd all love to have an extra drawer.

  These walls are covered with modern paintings—I recognize a Picasso, a Matisse, and two Warhols—and I'm p
retty sure they are the real thing. Jeez, who is this lady?

  “I see you're admiring the paintings,” she says. “Are you an art lover, Sophie?”

  “Me? Uh, yeah, I guess I am. But Rebecca's the real artist; you should see her sketchbook—”

  “Sophie, please,” Rebecca interrupts, and then blushes fourteen shades of pink—all the way to fuchsia.

  “What? You're an amazing artist. Go on, show her your book. It's great.”

  Ms. Harriman comes to Rebecca's rescue. “I would love to see it sometime, Rebecca. Maybe after we get to know each other a little better, mmm?”

  “Fine.” Rebecca exhales and her face returns to a more natural color. “But I'm really not that great. Not compared to …” She waves her hand around the room.

  “Pshaw,” says Ms. Harriman. “All these artists started out just like you.”

  This makes my friend smile. I don't think she's ever thought of famous artists in that way.

  Winifred, who has been hovering nearby, serves tea with a plate of unmemorable cookies (being the daughter of a French chef, I am a bit of a cookie snob) and Ms. Harriman starts to ask all about us—our families, how we do in school, what we do for fun, the whole enchilada. She is fascinated by Margaret's stories of growing up in Poland and how her family picked up their lives and moved to New York. Then it's Rebecca's turn. Ms. Harriman's eyes water as Rebecca tells her about her dad dying when she was seven, leaving her mom with three little kids. I am a little surprised, because it is something Rebecca never talks about. My own story isn't as interesting, but I tell her all about my dad, who grew up in France and is now the sous chef at a très chic restaurant in Midtown (a place that seems a bit obsessed with goose livers, if you ask me), and my mom—a “real” New Yorker, born and raised in Queens—who teaches violin at a very famous music school on the West Side and also plays in a string quartet that has performed at Carnegie Hall and recorded two CDs.

  And right when I'm beginning to think that she's just a lonely old lady looking for someone to talk to, she says, “So, I suppose you're wondering if I'm ever going to tell you why I asked you to come. You've been very patient, and I appreciate your indulging an old woman.” She takes a deep breath, sits back in her chair, and tells us her story.

  “To begin, my father, Everett Harriman, was a well-known archaeologist. He taught at Columbia for over forty years and traveled all over the world, especially to Europe and the Middle East. Even though I was not trained or formally educated as an archaeologist, he took me along on many of his expeditions because he trusted me—and I was the only one who could decipher his notes from the field. We had a wonderful relationship. The time we spent in dusty old tents, reading poetry and talking about art, and literature, and politics—those were the happiest days of my life. Father was one of the leading authorities on Christianity during the second and third centuries, and wrote several books on the subject. The Metropolitan Museum has many of the pieces that he collected.”

  She stops while Winnie refills our cups with the oddly appealing Flower Power tea, and then she carries on.

  “With all the travel and the fieldwork and the research and writing, the years seemed to fly past. Before I knew it, I was thirty and unmarried, but I didn't mind—I had a great life. And then I met Malcolm. Malcolm Chance. He was a young colleague of Father's at Columbia, one of the ‘new breed’ of archaeologists. A little too sloppy with his research, a little lazy. More interested in fame and glory than meticulous scholarship. I didn't care—he was gorgeous. You girls know the type: tall, dark, handsome—like someone out of a romance novel. We were married, and a few years later, I had a beautiful little girl, my Caroline. You girls remind me so much of her—so bright, so full of life. Caroline read everything she could get her hands on. She could have gone to any school in the city, but she wanted to be close to home, so we chose St. Veronica's. I remember how proud she was the day she received her red blazer, how she stood in front of the mirror admiring herself in it.”

  Margaret and I smile sheepishly at each other; we'd both done the exact same thing.

  Suddenly Ms. Harriman springs to her feet. “Let me show you Father's study. I think it will help you understand the next part of the story a little better.”

  We follow her down the hall and into a dark, musty room. A pair of narrow stained glass windows (from a chapel in Rocamadour, France, I discover later) provide just enough light for me to see walls lined from floor to ceiling with shelves so jam-packed with books that there isn't enough room to slip in a comic book—or even a brochure. The furniture seems just right for an old archaeology professor—an impressive cherry desk and chairs with those creepy legs that look like a vulture's foot wrapped around a ball. Next to that is one of those overstuffed couches, the tuffet upon which Teazle sleeps soundly.

  “This place is great,” I say, running my hands reverently over the spines of the books.

  Another confession: call me a geek if you must, but I just love books. I am absolutely obsessed with them. Go on, name any kids' book or series of books, and I probably have it. I spend so much of my allowance at the local bookstore that Margaret thinks I have some kind of a compulsive shopping disorder. Every time we get to the checkout line, me with an armful of books, she takes out her library card. Doesn't say a word, just holds it up right in front of my face and shakes her head sadly. Nothing against the library, but there's something different about having the book within reach when, say, I absolutely need to go back and reread that part in Anne of Green Gables that makes me cry every time I read it. (And speaking of books: if you're the person who borrowed my well-worn but much-loved hardcover copy of The Secret Garden, please return it—no questions asked.)

  “Thank you,” says Ms. Harriman. “His office at Columbia was even worse—or better, I suppose, depending on how you feel about books.” She sits on the sofa next to Teazle and motions for us to sit, too. Winnie follows us into the study and sets another plate of blah cookies on a side table.

  “Just in case,” she says without a hint of a smile. And then she just kind of stands there.

  “Thank you, Winifred. That's all for now.” Ms. Harriman turns back to us. “I knew the second I met you that you could help me. And just seeing how you look at Father's book collection makes me even more certain.”

  Margaret gets right to the point. “Ms. Harriman, er, Elizabeth, I'm a little confused. We're just kids—how can we possibly help you?”

  “By helping me find something.” From a cream-colored envelope she takes out an ordinary-looking birthday card—the kind your grandparents send you, along with a check for ten dollars.

  “Twenty years ago, Father bought this card for my daughter Caroline's fourteenth birthday. He wrote a short note inside, sealed the envelope, and then stuck it inside The Complete Poems of Tennyson, where it remained until yesterday, when I discovered it. He must have bought it a few days before her birthday and then hidden it from her—she was always snooping around his study—and then, to make a long story short, if that's still possible, he died.”

  “Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry,” says Margaret.

  “Oh, no, dear. Don't feel bad. It was a long time ago, and my father really had a long, wonderful life. But, you see, inside this card there's a message for Caroline that I don't quite understand.” She hands the card to Margaret. “Here, read what he said aloud so Sophie and Rebecca can hear.”

  Margaret reads:

  Margaret stares at the card for a few moments, smiling and shaking her head, and then hands it back to Ms. Harriman. “And you just found this?”

  “That's right. He never gave it to her. He died on December 8, the day before her birthday. He was in that very chair when I found him.” She points at the chair where I am sitting.

  I squirm uncomfortably and try not to be too obvious as I remove my hands from the arms of the chair and set them in my lap, telling myself over and over not to freak out just because I am sitting where a guy died. Deep breaths, Sophie. Deep
breaths.

  “You think the other note might still be in that book at the school, don't you?” Margaret asks.

  Ms. Harriman nods. “Not just the note. Every thing.”

  “Everything?” Margaret says. “You mean, all the parts of the puzzle and the gift, too?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did he ever tell you what the gift is?” Rebecca asks.

  She shakes her head. “I haven't the foggiest idea, but if he said it was—how did he put it—‘rare and precious,’ I'm inclined to think it may be something worth finding. Remember, he was an archaeologist. His business was finding rare and valuable old things.”

  “And this was hidden away in a book for twenty years,” I marvel, pointing at the card.

  “Serves me right for not being a fan of Tennyson,” says Ms. Harriman with a sad smile. “I've always preferred Byron and Shelley.”

  “But a book in the school library is different. That's a long time for somebody to not stumble across it. And that's assuming the book is even still there,” I say.

  Margaret looks directly at me. “Well, we'll never know if we don't at least look.”

  That brings a satisfied smile to Ms. Harriman's red-as-my-blazer lips. “Do you really think you could look for it for me?”

  “Wait, what about your daughter? Wouldn't she want to be involved in this? After all, it was her birthday, and it's her gift we would be looking for,” Margaret says.

  Ms. Harriman sighs deeply and sadly. “That's another story, and for that, I think we need more tea.”

  Winnie seems to materialize the second the word “tea” is mentioned.

  “We'll take it in the living room,” Ms. Harriman tells her.

  I leap at the chance to get out of the dead-guy chair and return to the living room, where, over more tea and more cookies, Ms. Harriman tells us the story of her divorce from Malcolm and about her relationship—or actually, her complete lack of a relationship—with her daughter.

  “After Father died, Malcolm and I began to drift apart. He continued the work Father started, traveling more and more, on long expeditions to the same places I had once spent so much time with Father. Malcolm never asked me to go along. But when Caroline started college, majoring in archaeology, she began to travel with him. I told myself that I didn't mind; by then I was very involved in the arts community here in the city, and I was certainly busy. But it did hurt, watching Caroline and Malcolm go off together—I felt like an outsider in my own family. By the time she started graduate school, Malcolm and I were divorced. I hardly ever saw Caroline; she spent two years outside of Istanbul, seeing Malcolm almost constantly and not once coming to New York to see me. The final straw came when I got a postcard from somewhere in Turkey informing me that she had married one of Malcolm's protégés—a British graduate student named Roger. Not that they were getting married, mind you. They were married. To add insult to injury, Malcolm had been there to give her away and act as best man in the wedding. I was so hurt and mad that I vowed never to speak to her again. About a year later, she had Caitlin, my granddaughter, whom I've never even seen.”