Chapter 19 #2
She made it back to the shop with time to spare. As she unlocked the door, she noticed that the throwaway box was still outside.
She let herself in and found Daphne waiting at the cashier’s counter.
“Where were you?”
Celia held up the knitting bag, and since it only contained bacon, bread, and the daily newspaper, she handed it over. “Want
to take the bacon and bread upstairs?”
Daphne made a face, but curiosity must have won out. She took it by the handle and, holding it at arm’s length, she carried
it to the elevator and upstairs.
“Don’t forget to bring my paper back.”
When she was gone, Celia pushed the first cart outside and, seeing that Yannis was doing the same, walked over to say a quick
hello, warned him that Daphne was suspicious, and asked if he could print a hundred more vitamin flyers and leave them in
the trash bin in the back courtyard.
He agreed, and they parted with friendly waves, a sense of duty accomplished with the least bit of danger, except for Yannis,
of course.
By the time Daphne returned with the empty—but for the yarn—knitting bag, Celia had finished taking out the second cart, and the throwaway box was sitting on the counter.
“Sorry I didn’t have time to get to it yet,” Celia said. “I’ll do it now.”
As expected, Daphne had already lost interest. And Celia once again breathed a sigh of relief.
The first appointment of the day was with Mr. Delereux, and there couldn’t have been a bigger contrast between him and Max
Lienhardt from the day before. Celia knew Daphne was thinking the same thing as Olivia showed him into the elevator without
even looking at her sisters, and took him upstairs.
“I thought she said she was never going to sell to him again,” Daphne said.
“She did. I hope we don’t need the money so badly that she’ll give in to his demands.”
“Things can’t be that bad,” Daphne said. “She sold several collector’s editions this week, she had at least two restoration
jobs, and we’ve done okay down here.” She cast a proud look over at the new sitting area, where Jane Addams had taken up residence
on one of the upholstered chairs. “And we’ll start doing better once the word gets out that the Arcadia is a welcoming place
with a fine selection of books for ladies and gentleman of distinction.”
Celia couldn’t help but look around on that boast. She had to admit that already the retail room was looking a lot nicer.
But it would take a lot more than Daphne’s “presentation” for the shop to look like anything other than a secondhand-book
shop. It might be pretty, but would it sell more books?
When they heard the clank of the elevator presaging the trip down to the first floor, Celia and Daphne both hurried to the front of the store to pretend they were busy when Olivia and Mr. Delereux appeared.
A couple of furtive glances told the story. He wasn’t smiling, but he was carrying a heavy, rectangular item wrapped in brown
paper and tied with cord. The Decameron.
They smiled as he passed on his way to the door, waited long enough to be certain he was gone, and turned expectant faces
to their sister.
She had a very satisfied smile on her face. “That will teach him to try to nickel and dime me.”
“What will?” asked Daphne.
“What did you do?” coaxed Celia.
“Told him someone else was also interested in it and I would have to ask an additional ten percent, payment due immediately.”
“And he agreed?”
“Indeed he did.”
“And was there someone else interested? The gentleman who came in yesterday?”
“What gentleman?”
“The one you took up to the office?”
“Max?” exclaimed Olivia. “Good heavens, no. I just told Mr. Delereux a little fib to push him off the fence. No harm. Now
I must run out for a minute. I promised to look in on Mr. Henderson. He has some ideas about the bail-relief situation.”
As soon as Olivia was out the door, Daphne and Celia exchanged looks.
“Max? Oh heavens, no,” mimicked Daphne. “Celia, she called him Max.”
“Because it’s his name.”
“But she calls everyone ‘Mr.’ Even Mr. Henderson and Mr. Krause and people she’s known for years. Do you think she’s really
going to Mr. Henderson’s?”
“Where else would she go?” asked Celia.
“Maybe she’s meeting him.”
“Who?”
“Max.”
“And what if she is?” Celia snapped, at the end of her patience. “You’ve got romance on your mind. Why don’t you go back to
your shop-decoration project? Something that actually does some good, instead of wasting time speculating about other people’s
love lives?”
Instead of looking crushed, Daphne’s eyes lit up at that. She thought Celia had just slipped up. Of course, after a year of
working for women’s rights, she’d learned to lie and mislead with a certain amount of skill. Even to her own family.
That realization gave her pause. She brushed it away.
A thump outside made them both jump.
“Sounds like a delivery,” Celia said. “Olivia didn’t mention ordering anything. Did she say something to you?”
The door opened. The delivery boy stepped in. “Package for Miss Applebaum.”
Celia stepped forward, but Daphne beat her to it.
“It’s for me,” she announced and signed the clipboard the delivery boy managed to hold steady while smiling idiotically at
the top of Daphne’s head.
He left, then returned lugging a substantial-size box, then hoisted it to the counter.
“What is this?” Celia asked, catching the name of the Century Company stamped on the outside. A publishing company, recently a part of Scribner’s Publishing.
“I’ll show you.” Daphne hurried into the office and came back seconds later with a box cutter.
“Do be careful, Daphne,” Celia warned.
Daphne didn’t bother to respond or make a face but sliced through the seam of the box. Moments later she’d dropped the box
cutter—which Celia slid out of the way—and was tearing the cardboard away.
“Oh, they’re beautiful,” she said, lifting out a book with a yellow dust jacket and turning it for Celia to see.
“The Lost Prince. Did Olivia order these?”
Daphne shook her curls. “No, she did not. She told me I could order what I thought the store needed. So I did,” she added,
unable to contain her excitement.
Celia studied the cover: a fictional heraldic arms gracing most of the page, with “by Frances Hodgson Burnett” at the bottom.
“It’s a children’s book.”
“For children and adults. It just became available. Wanamaker’s has a big display of it.”
“Not to rain on your picnic, but we are not Wanamaker’s.” Though Celia had to admit the entry area looked more modern and
inviting. Daphne had already informed them that she planned to move several bookshelves in order to give it a more “open”
feeling.
“And I’m expecting more inventory in the next few days.”
Inventory? When had her I just want to get married and not run a bookshop sister lost her mind? “And who is going to pay for these?”
“The shop. Olivia said so.” Daphne jutted out her chin.
At this stage Celia usually snapped back, and they invariably ended up calling each other names. But in this case, Celia held her tongue. A new interest in books could be beneficial to both of them. It might keep Daphne’s mind off men and Celia’s private life.
The Arcadia began to transform under Daphne’s attention. The uncomfortable wooden chairs, crammed into any unused space, were
pulled out, polished, and endowed with colorful cushions.
Celia had to admit they added much brightness to the surroundings, although several of “the regulars” complained. Especially
Mr. Estes, who took umbrage that his uncomfortable, uneven spindle chair had been pulled from its niche and replaced with
a sturdy chair with a soft cushion.
Most of them took it in stride, and Mr. Rutkowski even commented that it was wonderful. That he found three books on fly-fishing
he’d been looking for, for several weeks. “And there they were, in order, right above the ‘Out of Doors’ sign.”
With Olivia entertaining Max Lienhardt for whatever reason upstairs, and Daphne flitting around adding “presence” to the bookshop,
Celia was feeling very much like a third wheel.
Then the news came that Margaret’s Family Limitations had been printed and a hundred thousand copies had been distributed by Margaret’s husband, Bill, and Celia’s sense of worth
plummeted. As far as she knew, no one in her downtown team had received any copies to distribute. If Celia had felt despondent
before, the number that had been printed gave her more reason to doubt the importance of her measly hundred copies of the
vitamins flyer, and even fewer copies of how to use a pessary. According to the papers, Family Limitations covered several aids to birth control in blunt language and provided directions on how to use each.
They were relieved at the newsstand. “That should keep Comstock busy for a while. They’re taking Bill Sanger to trial. If
he doesn’t slip through their fingers like his wife did.”
“Well, at least we can rest easy until the next round.”
“Good thing we decided to pad the bail account. Sure to be a doozy, when it does come.”
Depressed, Celia might be; feeling unneeded, definitely. And out of the loop. It got even worse when Yannis stopped her on
her way from the newsstand to tell her the printer was still giving him trouble; he promised the additional flyers in the
next day or two. She thanked him but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm.
She held her disappointment in check until the next morning when she retrieved the throwaway box, only to find Daphne breathing
over her shoulder as she went through the castoffs.
“Stop crowding me. I’m not keeping any books that might interfere with your presentation, which, I might add, has not brought in scores of new customers.”
“I’ve sold four copies of The Lost Prince.”
“Great.”
“You’re just jealous. You’re always running off to do things you want to do, see people you want to see—whoever they are—and
I have to stay and run the store.”
Celia resisted rolling her eyes. She did her share, but Daphne was the one who was good with customers. It was left to Celia
to run out to the butcher’s and bakery and grocery so Daphne could sleep later and take longer to primp every morning. That
suited both of them.
And she did the daily sales tallies, so Olivia wouldn’t have to.
“Why would I be jealous? I’m busy enough without trying to reinvent the wheel.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Celia threw up her hands. “We own a secondhand bookstore, on a street with almost every other used-book store in Manhattan.”
“So?”
She wanted to say it would never be Wanamaker’s. But as annoying as her sister could be, she didn’t want to kill her newfound
enthusiasm. Maybe a miracle would happen. Daphne would fall in love with the store, and Celia could get an education outside
of books and be a real help to the cause.
“So nothing. I’m just cranky today.”
“I’ll say.” Evidently feeling she’d won that argument, Daphne flounced away.
Daphne was not the only one acting out of character. Celia noticed that Olivia was spending fewer and fewer nights in her
workroom, and when Max showed up for the third day in a row, she had to admit that her sister had not only apprised him of
the Sappho and had shown it to him, but they were now translating it together instead of looking for the owner, which, as
an employee of the Met, Max would more likely be able to do. Especially if it was stolen, which it must be.
And when Olivia accompanied him when he left that evening after spending several hours together in Olivia’s workroom, and
didn’t return until well after Celia and Daphne had made themselves a dinner of eggs and toast, they began to suspect that
it might be more.
“I think he’s courting her,” Daphne said as they ate their uninspiring dinner.
“Or using her.”
Daphne looked shocked.
“How?”
“Maybe he wants the papyrus.”
“Nooo,” Daphne protested. “I know she’s not pretty, but he really seems to like her.”
“She’s pretty enough,” Celia countered. “It’s just she wears her hair pulled back so severely, and with her glasses . . .”
“Yeah, we could fix the hair, but the glasses are a shame. And speaking of glasses, that man was here again today.”
“What man? Joshua Starling?” Why, oh why, had Celia’s mind gone to him? She knew exactly why. As an agent of a secret book
collector, he would just as likely bid for the purloined papyrus—now that would be a good title for a mystery novel—as any other dishonest book dealer or employee at the Met.
“No, the other one.”
“Which other one?”
“The one with the glasses—you thought you saw him in the window the night the postcard man got arrested.”
“Oh, that one.” The face with its thin blond hair, the rimless eyeglasses, and bowler hat. He might just be another lonely
soul looking for a book, which was okay as long as it wasn’t ancient Greek poetry. But what if it was? . . . Oh, where was
Joshua Starling when you might need him?