Rare Objects

I walked past the statues of the mythical brothers Kleobis and Biton, frozen in rigid perfection, and paused by the vase and plate by the Harrow Painter, the archaic red-figure master. I even read the plaque beneath them, although I already knew what it said.

I remembered the first time I’d seen them, and the thrilling, slightly terrifying anticipation came flooding back, like déjà vu. Among the finest aesthetic accomplishments of their age, they’d been entrusted to my care one strange, ill-fated evening.

How young I’d been! How desperate and frightened and arrogant, all at the same time!

I continued, moving from case to case.

And then there it was, in one of the cabinets along the far wall: the black agate ring. I wasn’t sure it would be there; I just had a feeling.

Even after all these years the sight of it made my skin go cold.

“Excuse me, madam?”

The voice startled me. I turned.

A young guard was hovering tentatively by the entrance as if he didn’t dare disobey the sign.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, madam, but this gallery is closed.”

I feigned surprise. “Really?”

He nodded. “Can I help you? Are you lost?”

I didn’t answer right away. Instead I looked round one last time. The thread of my past unspooled before me—memories, dreams, and regrets.

“Do you need some help?” he repeated, louder this time.

I shook my head. “No, thank you.” And lifting my chin, I pulled myself up to my full height, tucked my handbag under my arm, and marched past him. It’s a trick I learned from my mother—when in doubt, act like you know what you’re doing, and you’ll be treated like you do.

And of course, if you can convince others, there’s a chance that someday you might just be able to convince yourself.

Part One (#ulink_231b598c-fe44-5d83-965f-5f9e8eac783a)

BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1932 (#ulink_c3b166e0-a11e-524a-b30a-dc00d75b3fec)

I opened my eyes.

It was still dark out, maybe a little after six in the morning. Lying on my back in bed, I stared at the ceiling. I could just make out the wet patch in the corner where the roof leaked last spring and the wallpaper had begun to peel away—pale-green wallpaper with pink cabbage roses my mother had put up when we first moved in, over twenty years ago. At the time, it seemed the epitome of feminine sophistication. Outside, the rumble of garbage trucks drew closer as they made their way slowly down the street, and I could hear the faint cooing of the pigeons Mr. Marrelli kept on the roof next door; all familiar sounds of the city coming to life. They should’ve been reassuring. After all, here I was, back in my own room; home again in Boston. But all I felt was a dull, gnawing dread in the pit of my stomach.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Not even Dickens’s Great Expectations could still my racing mind. When I did finally drift off, my dreams were disjointed and draining—full of panic and chaos, running down endless alleys from some black and terrible thing, never fully seen but always felt.

I hauled myself out of bed and put on my old woolen robe and slippers, navigating the narrow gap between the end of the bed and the stacks of books—I collected secondhand editions with broken spines bought from street stalls or selectively “borrowed” from the library: Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Dickens, Thackeray, Collins. Great heavy editions of Shakespeare and Milton, Yeats, Shelley, Keats. “You’ve read them already, why do you need to keep them? All they do is take up space!” my mother complained. She was right—there was no room for anything, not even a chair. But where Ma saw only old books gathering dust and smelling of mildew, I found comfort and possibility. Other worlds were within my grasp—better worlds full of rewarded ambition, refinement, and eloquence. I clung to them as a pilgrim whose faith is proportional to the extremity of their need clings to a relic or a prayer.

Shuffling into the bathroom, I paused to press my hand against the radiator in the hallway. Stone cold as usual. I don’t know why I kept checking. The triumph of optimism over experience. Or good old-fashioned stubbornness, as my mother would say.

Turning on the bathroom light, I blinked at my reflection. It was still a shock. I used to have long hair—thick, copper red, and uncontrollable, a dubious gift from my Irish heritage. Now it was cropped short, growing back at least two shades darker in deep auburn waves. It made my skin look even paler than usual. I put my finger on the small cleft in my chin, as if covering it up would make it disappear entirely. It always struck me as a bit mannish. But I couldn’t hold my finger there forever. Bluish-gray shadows ringed my eyes, the same color as the irises. My eyes looked huge—too large, too round. Like a madwoman’s, I thought.

I splashed my face with cold water and headed into the kitchen.

My mother was already up, sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper and smoking her morning cigarette. Even in her curlers and dressing gown, she sat upright, straight back, head held high, at full attention. Regal. That was the best word for it. Apparently even as a young girl she was known as Her Majesty in the Irish seaside town she grew up in. It was a nickname that fit her in more ways than one.

The rich aroma of fresh coffee filled the air. It was a tiny room, mostly taken up by the black cast-iron stove recessed into the mantelpiece. On one side there was a built-in dresser and just enough room for a small wooden table and a couple of chairs. Two narrow windows looked out over the street below and a clothes airer was suspended from the ceiling, to be lowered with a pulley. The rest of the neighborhood used the public lines hanging between buildings, but not us. It was common, according to my mother, and that was the last thing we Fanning women wanted to be.

Ma frowned when I walked in—anything out of the ordinary was cause for suspicion. “What are you doing up this early?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” I checked the gas meter above the sink. It was off. “It’s cold,” I said, knowing that I was asking for trouble.

She shot a long stream of smoke at the ceiling, a combination of exhaling and a world-weary sigh. “When you get a job you can stuff the meter full of quarters. Now eat. You need something in your stomach, especially today.”

“I’m not hungry.” I poured myself a cup of strong black coffee and sat down.

The heat, or lack thereof, was always a sticking point between us. But since I came back it had become the central refrain of almost every encounter. It’s funny how some arguments are easier, more comforting, than real conversation.

I looked round the room. Nothing had changed except for the Roosevelt campaign leaflet pinned on the wall with the slogan “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Otherwise it was all just as I remembered it. Above the stove were three books—Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book: A Manual of Housekeeping, a copy of Modes and Manners: Decorum in Polite Society, and a small leather-bound Bible—our entire domestic library. Next to that, displayed on the dresser shelves, were my mother’s most precious possessions: a photograph of Pope Pius XI, a picture of Charles Stewart Parnell of the Irish Nationalist Party, and in the center of this unlikely partnership, a small wooden crucifix. Below, my framed diploma from the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School took up the entire shelf. And on the bottom a genuine blue-and-white Staffordshire willow-pattern teapot with four matching cups and saucers sat waiting for just the right occasion, a wedding gift brought all the way from Ireland.

“So”—Ma decided to get straight down to business—“what are you going to wear today?”

“My blue dress. Maybe with the red scarf.”

“Really.” She sounded distinctly underwhelmed. “That dress isn’t serious enough.”

“Serious enough for what? It’s only an employment agency.”

She ignored my tone, folding the newspaper neatly. It would be saved and used again—to line the shelves of the icebox or wash windows, maybe even to cut out patterns for clothing. I used to wonder what it felt like to waste something; as a child I couldn’t imagine anything more delicious or sinful than the extravagance of throwing things away. I’ve wasted a few things since then; it’s not as liberating as I imagined.

Ma made me an offer. “I’ll tell you what, Maeve. You can borrow my gray wool suit. I pressed it last night, just in case.”

She said it as if she were handing me the keys to the city.

And in her mind, she was.

Ma worked in a high-end department store called R. H. Stearns in downtown Boston. She’d been there years in the alterations department, working as a seamstress. But her real ambition was to be a saleswoman. More than anything she fancied herself a fashion adviser to wealthy women—the kind of society mavens with enough money to buy designer gowns and a different fur for every outfit. To this end she wasted precious quarters on copies of Vogue and McCall’s every month, poring over them, memorizing each page. She’d bought the gray suit years ago when she first began applying for a sales position, but they passed over her year after year. Perhaps it was because she was so skilled a seamstress, or perhaps because they thought she was too old, at forty-three, or maybe too Irish. But in any case the gray suit, the proud uniform of her future self, still hung in her wardrobe, outdated now.

“The blue dress fits better,” I told her.

“This is a job interview, not a date.” She was hurt. I could hear the wounded pride in her voice, as if she’d just proposed, been turned down, and now had to get up off her knees from the floor. “Also I fixed that hat of yours, the one with the torn net. I steamed it back into shape but in the end I had to take the net off.” She got up, went to the sink. “Where’d you get a hat like that anyway, Maeve? It’s a Lilly Daché! They cost a fortune!”

Trust her to notice the label.

“It was a gift,” I fibbed.

“Well, you certainly didn’t take care of it. And a ‘Thank you’ wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Cheers, Ma.”

She started to wash up.