Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte
The security department of the Met reeked of perfume, aftershave, and cigarettes. The perfume came from the wiry figure of Mrs. Vreeland, and the other odors from the dozen or so security officers squeezed into Mr. Fantoni’s office. Annie was crouched in a wooden chair surrounded by interrogators, her pretty dress wrinkled and dirty and her face blotchy and tearstained.
Charlotte glared at the assembled crew. “I was there, I saw how she reacted. We were in fear for our lives. She somehow got her hands on a seventeenth-century Indian dagger from the storage bin—you might want to check and make sure the other caged artifacts aren’t as easy to gain access to while you’re at it—and scared him away. If it wasn’t for her bravery, I don’t know what might have happened.”
“Are you all right, Charlotte?” asked Mr. Fantoni. “You weren’t hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Her palms still stung from landing face-down, but that was the only lingering effect. She’d told the medical staff that she was slightly bruised from the fall. They’d shone lights in her eyes and checked her pulse before letting her go. She’d come upon Frederick in the Great Hall, where lines of exiting partygoers snaked all the way around the information desk as security guards painstakingly inspected each guest and their belongings on their way out.
Mrs. Vreeland excused herself. “I must see to my remaining guests. Apology letters must go out first thing in the morning, and it appears that I will be writing them all myself.” She frowned at Annie.
Annie squeaked out “I’m sorry” before the woman stepped out of the room like a Russian tsarina heading to the firing squad.
Mr. Fantoni turned back to Charlotte. “Charlotte, can you tell us what the man looked like?”
Charlotte’s mind went blank. She could envision his hulking figure, but when she tried to imagine his face, it was all a haze. “I didn’t get a good look at him, unfortunately. He pushed me from behind and then I fell to the ground.”
“He was tall,” said Annie, “with dark eyes and thick brown hair, cut short. He wore a dark suit, no tie, the collar open. There was a funny silver necklace around his neck. Like a cross, but with a small circle at the top.”
Charlotte recognized the shape immediately. “An ankh. The Egyptian symbol of eternal life. Which means he might be Egyptian.”
Charlotte caught Annie’s eye. It was all connected: the missing file, the missing statue, and the broad collar—she was sure of it.
If only she had a way to prove it.
Charlotte stood at the top of the steps to the Met, looking out into the black night. Around her, party attendees were still filing out, chattering to each other about what had happened, looking shocked and slightly weary.
“Charlotte.”
Mark was halfway up the steps, his tux peeking out from beneath his trench coat. She let him fold her into his arms and buried her head in his chest. Her stupidity—leaving her file on her desk where it could be easily snatched up, allowing the Cerulean Queen to be plucked from under her nose, going after the thief and putting not only herself but also Annie in danger—flooded back. It had been a disastrous evening.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “And why is everyone leaving? I thought this thing carried on late into the night. I was hoping to surprise you.”
She brushed away her tears and looked up at him. “It was a nightmare. A thief stole one of our most important pieces, and when I confronted him with another employee, he went after us.”
“What? Are you all right? Did you get hurt?” Mark held her arms and looked into her face, then glared up at the building as if he were going to run inside and punch someone.
“I’m fine. We’re both fine.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“A young girl who works for the Met Gala.” She blinked back tears. “And my Hathorkare folder was stolen. Three years of research. Gone.”
“Stolen? By who?” A vein in Mark’s forehead pulsed.
“The same thief, I’m guessing, took the file and left a threatening note for me to stay out of his business.”
“What business is that?”
“I was looking into the provenance of a new piece that’s on display. A loan. I believe it was stolen.”
“Are the police involved?”
“The security team is working on it, along with the director.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
His questions were becoming overwhelming. All Charlotte wanted was to go home, get out of her dress and into sweatpants, and curl up on the sofa. She needed time to think about what had just happened and what she should do next. Tonight, in the basement, it was as if the Hathorkare curse had arisen once again to punish her for being part of the discovery of the broad collar, for having held it in her hands. For having loved the man who tried to take it away from the land of its origin. Her head spun with long-lost memories.
Mark sighed. “I’m sorry for not being here. I should’ve been.”
Charlotte stayed silent for an extra beat. “How is Lori doing?”
“We worked on the audition, and she was excellent, a natural. I think she has a chance at this, believe it or not.”
“Great.” The word came out flat, bordering on sarcastic, even though she hadn’t meant to say it that way.
“Look, I understand it’s been a tough week,” said Mark. “But I assure you, Lori is a good kid. I’m willing to give her a little slack and I hope you will as well.”
“It seems to me you’re giving her a lot of slack.”
“How do you mean?”
Charlotte’s rage from the events of the past hour funneled into her resentment of Lori, the words tumbling out as if of their own accord. “She’s not accountable to anyone. She throws her laundry in the washing machine and leaves it there for two days. She’s rude to me and her mother, but then gets super sweet when you’re around.”
“It’s hard to explain, Charlotte, but she needs some room to express herself right now, even if it’s not in a way that we approve of.” He was speaking in his professorial voice, as if she were one of his Theater Arts 101 students. “Maybe because you aren’t a parent, you don’t understand what it’s like.”
If she’d been a dog, she would’ve snarled. “Be careful, Mark.”
“What? I’m doing everything I can to make peace between these two women I love very much. I know this isn’t what we expected when you moved in with me, but Lori is my daughter, she is part of the package, which maybe you don’t understand having never had a child of your own. I’m just asking you to ease up a little.”
For years, people had looked at Charlotte with a polite sympathy after asking if she had any children and learning she did not. As if they were the keepers of some secret that she would never be privy to, as if she were less than them because she didn’t have a son or daughter in her life. Or they’d make a patronizing show of being jealous of her independence and freedom, a cover for the fact that she did not fit into the world as they saw it. A single woman, especially back in the 1940s and 1950s, was an aberration, considered barren. With the onset of the ’70s, conventional wisdom had eased slightly, but that was mainly for the younger set. At the age of sixty, Charlotte was past redemption.
It was time. She was tired of keeping secrets from the people close to her, especially Mark. Mark, who only wanted the best for her and who didn’t give up when she pushed him away or closed down.
“You’re wrong there,” she said.
“I’m wrong about what?” asked Mark.
“I was a parent. For three months.”
Mark went white. “When was this?”
“In Egypt. I was married as well.”
She studied his face as he ran through the expected emotions: shock, then pity, then confusion. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
“I never told anyone. My parents knew, but they didn’t want it getting out, and so once I was home, we acted as if it never happened.” She paused, remembering Everett’s abandonment. “I did tell someone close to me, once, but it was the wrong thing to do. I learned from my mistakes, I guess.”
She wobbled slightly. Mark put his hands on her shoulders. “Let’s sit down.”
As the full moon slid behind the clouds, like it was seeking cover from the harsh stare of the earth, Charlotte told Mark about meeting Henry, their rushed marriage, and their delight at the birth of Layla. She glanced over at him once as she spoke, but the pain reflected in his face forced her to look away, keeping her eyes trained on the plaza in front of them. She spoke of Layla’s sweet nature and how she’d enjoyed being a mother, even if it came at the expense of her ambitions. How Layla’s mouth formed a surprised O whenever Henry sneezed. About how hot it was in the Valley of the Kings but how cool the interiors of the tombs were. She spoke of her last night as a mother and a wife, of the ship’s sinking, and the surprise she felt when the broad collar tumbled out of Leon’s suitcase. Of Layla crying for her in Henry’s arms.
“I never saw either of them again. Presumed drowned. I should’ve never gone to the Valley of the Kings, I should’ve stayed in Cairo. Or I should’ve gone back to New York earlier, for God’s sake. What on earth was I thinking?”
“You were in love. And you loved your work.”
“I put my baby in terrible danger.”
“You couldn’t have known. And it sounds like Henry put you both in danger, to be honest, that last night.”
“It didn’t make sense, our leaving in such a rush. I remember wondering why Henry was so anxious to get out. Looking back, I can see that he and Leon were up to something suspicious, and maybe they used the Polish withdrawal as an excuse to get out of the country themselves. Or perhaps he was covering for Leon. No matter what, inside one of Leon’s suitcases was the broad collar that was supposed to be in the Egyptian Museum. The same one that just turned up at the Met.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“How did you escape the ship?”
They were dancing around the true tragedy. But it was all connected.
“I was trapped, stuck under these heavy wooden deck chairs, and I insisted that Henry take the baby to the top deck. Leon had stayed to help free me when suddenly the ship tilted the other way and the chairs slid away, but at the same time the water came at us so fast I couldn’t grab on to anything.” She took a couple of deep breaths, steadying herself. “The next thing I knew I was enveloped by dark water. Without the life vest, I would’ve drowned for sure. I yelled for Henry, over and over, but the ship had disappeared, and after ages the captain of a nearby boat heard me and picked me up. My voice was almost gone by then, I didn’t want to leave the water in case they were still out there, but they dragged me back to land.”
“Thank God. What happened once you were at shore?”
“To be honest, I went mad. To the point where I did nothing but cry and sleep. They took me to a hospital and held me there. I tried to ask about Henry and Layla, but there were very few survivors. Their bodies were never found. They said the Nile is unforgiving, in that way.”
“I’m so sorry, Char.” Mark’s eyes were red. “I had no idea.”
“My parents insisted I not speak about it. It was easier that way.”
“But that’s terrible. You had a baby, you are a mother.”
“When I got back to New York, Mr. Zimmerman took me on at the Met part-time, I reenrolled at college, got my degree. It was easier to pretend none of it happened, that it was simply a nightmare I left behind when I left Egypt.”
“Yet the broad collar survived.”
“Yes. Which makes me wonder about everything else I was told. If Leon survived, maybe Henry did, too? What if…”
She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Who was the man on the phone earlier?” asked Mark.
“His name is Tenny Woods. I hired him to track down the current owner of the broad collar.”
Mark regarded Charlotte as if he were staring at a stranger. Which, in a way, she was.
“I’m sorry for not telling you,” she offered.
“No, that was your past, your history, to honor as you needed to. I’m not mad or upset that you didn’t tell me, I hope you understand that.”
“I do.” He was saying all the right things and handling the news quite well, so far. But Charlotte knew from experience that the initial response didn’t always stick.
He made a small sound and tapped his knee with his hand. “Lori’s baby picture. Of course.”
“Sorry?”
“The one on our bedroom bureau. You always angle it in a particular way, and then I adjust it back. But you move it so you can’t see it when you’re in bed, is that right?”
She’d just confided in Mark the biggest secret of her life, shocked him to no end, and broken his trust by withholding her past. And yet he’d recognized that she’d moved the silver frame ever so slightly so as to avoid seeing Lori as a three-month-old baby because it reminded her too much of Layla at that age.
He understood that the smallest act revealed the most.
With that, she began to sob. Whatever happened in a week or a month or a year was out of her control, but for now, she wept the tears of a newly grieving mother in his arms.