Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
C atherine woke up the following morning at her traditional time and ran longer than usual around Central Park and its surrounding neighborhoods. A part of her hoped to run into Rainer or April by accident, if only to pester them with more questions about Dee and Gionnocaro and the potential that Gionnocaro’s death wasn’t fate. But all she saw were the typical park runners and mothers and babysitters; the birdwatchers and the baseball players trying to cram a game in before work.
Catherine called Quentin when she got back to the hotel that morning. They’d spoken on the phone every other day or so since she’d arrived. Quentin knew how immersed she was. He got the same way about his projects. There were no hard feelings.
Quentin’s voice was warm and loving. She wanted to cuddle up against him and tell him everything.
“How are you, my love?” Quentin asked.
“It’s all much harder than anticipated,” Catherine said, laughing at herself. It was a laugh she didn’t truly feel.
“Isn’t it always?”
Catherine splayed across her hotel bed. It was a different room than the initial one she’d rented, as she’d downsized after Scarlet left spontaneously.
“Have you seen our girl?” Catherine asked.
“I did. She had a boy with her.”
Catherine smiled into the phone. “I wondered if something like that had happened. What was he like?”
“He was very kind. Patient with my mother’s endless questions. Good dresser. Funny. Ate all the food on his plate and even ate a second portion when my mother pushed it on him.”
Catherine giggled. “Sounds like he’s Greta-approved.”
“Rumor has it she wants him at The Copperfield House soon,” Quentin said.
“Wow. So she really likes him.”
“Seems like it.”
Catherine smiled. All she’d wanted was for Scarlet to get over Owen. All she’d wanted was for her daughter to see the light at the end of the horrific tunnel that was being in your mid-twenties.
“I have another interview this afternoon,” Catherine said.
“Who’s it with?” Quentin asked.
“Complicated question. Complicated answer.”
Quentin laughed. “You know you can run through this with me whenever you want.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Catherine decided to take it easy that morning. She grabbed breakfast at a diner down the road and read the New York Times cover to cover, then walked through a few shopping districts and imagined a future in which her book was a bestseller, and she truly understood who it was her grandfather and grandmother had been.
Were they really con artists who’d killed the original Gionnocaro Fellini? She’d deal with that when she came to it.
Of course, that reality would sell books. But it would also break her mother’s heart.
It was already starting to break hers. It tainted her memories of her beloved grandfather. Hearing her own grandfather’s stories from Rainer and Stephan had been exhilarating and terrifying and heartbreaking.
Whose stories belong to whom?
Catherine entered the chill of the Upper East Side Elder Care Home at five minutes to three that afternoon. She knew Dee Fellini expected her. April had arranged it.
The fact that Dee was still so whip-smart and spry spoke to a theme within this story. All the women involved were quite intellectual, including her own mother. Including herself. Women are truly something else.
The only one missing is Gwen.
A nurse in red scrubs walked Catherine to the back hall of the home to a large apartment with FELLINI written on the door. The nurse knocked and said, “Dee? You have a visitor!” in an overly bright and false voice. Catherine wondered what it was like to get old like that; to have such knowledge about the world and get treated like a child.
Dee was dressed immaculately in a powder-blue sweater and a pair of linen slacks. Her makeup was precise and powerful, and she wore a color of lipstick that evoked sophistication. The way she looked at Catherine now reminded Catherine of regal cats.
It wasn’t so hard to peer beyond this old woman’s face and find the young woman beneath—the young woman from the photos of the wedding and the baby showers. The young academic who’d had it all before her husband had died.
His death must have broken her heart, Catherine thought. She never remarried.
“Good afternoon,” Catherine said. She wanted to sound demure.
“Hello.” Dee remained seated.
“You’ll let me know if you need anything, won’t you, Dee?” the nurse asked.
“Yes. As always.” Dee waved her hand.
The nurse left Catherine alone with Dee. Catherine had never been so nervous in her life—and she’d interviewed numerous celebrities and politicians.
“Have a seat,” Dee ordered.
“Thank you.” Catherine sat across from her and pulled out her notebook.
“My daughter-in-law tells me you’re writing a book about academics at NYU,” Dee said.
“That’s right.”
“Tell me. What led you to Gionnocaro?” Dee asked.
The way she said his name was beautiful. She pronounced it in perfect Italian.
Catherine repeated what she’d told Rainer and April. “Of course, I’m well aware that you’re an academic in your own right. I’m pleased to include both you and your husband in the book. Maybe you were one of the first intellectual married couples in the city.”
Dee slid her tongue over her false teeth. “Nobody ever recorded what a miserable academic Gionnocaro was, I suppose.”
Catherine was taken aback yet terribly pleased. She hadn’t expected this. Vitriol was the only word for it.
Dee laughed wickedly. “Gionnocaro had no idea what he was doing when he arrived in America. He’d been a royal back in Italy. He’d eaten pastries and dated princesses and traveled all over. But he knew nothing about research. He knew nothing about academia.”
Catherine remembered his photo at Ellis Island. “Didn’t he list himself as an academic at Ellis Island?”
Dee’s eyes flickered with curiosity. “You’ve seen his portrait at Ellis Island?”
“I looked into all of the immigrants I want to feature in my book,” she lied.
“Yes, well. Like I said. Gionnocaro’s wealth allowed him to say whatever he wanted to be. When he started at NYU, he floundered around like a fool. He would have been a laughing stock if he hadn’t met me.” Dee smiled in a way that meant she was terribly pleased with herself.
“That’s fascinating. He got away with it, then?” Catherine said. “Like you said, I never saw any mention of him as a bad academic. ”
“A handsome man like that could get away with anything,” Dee said. “And the stories he told! He could captivate a room.”
“Your son and grandson might have mentioned a few of the stories,” Catherine said. Her throat felt tight.
“It's been so many years since he died, and his stories live on,” Dee said. “He was never meant to be an academic. Maybe he was never meant to be a husband or a father. But he was meant to tell stories.” Dee smiled to herself. “You know, a part of me wanted to go to Italy and actually look into those stories. Were they real? Probably half of them weren’t, but he had the wealth to back up the royalty claim, which was wonderful. I’d never really had much to my name. Suddenly, I was awash with wealth. Suddenly, I had a house in the Hamptons. Suddenly, I was one of those women. It terrified me.”
Catherine could relate, although she decided not to say so.
How was she going to broach the topic of Gwen?
That was when it occurred to her.
If Dee had grown up without money, was it possible she’d known Gwen during that pre-Gionnocaro time?
Was that how Gwen had come into her life in the first place?
But Catherine didn’t have time to ask. Suddenly, a nurse entered the room and said, “Dee? It’s time for poker.”
Dee waved her hand. “Those people don’t know how to play poker.”
It was clear she meant the other people in elder care.
“I know. But they rely on you to remind them of the rules,” the nurse said with a funny smile.
“Don’t coddle me,” Dee scolded.
Catherine had to fight not to smile. But it seemed this had convinced Dee, for now. She rose grandly, then took a walker and led Catherine down the hall to the poker tournament. “We have it once a week,” she explained. “It’s true that most of them forget the rules week to week. Alzheimer’s, dementia, they have just about everything under the sun. I’ll never know why I was spared. Genetics, I suppose. My mother and grandmother both lived till they were one hundred and one and were present every day of their lives.”
“That’s incredible.”
“What about your family?” Dee asked.
Catherine was surprised by the question. She was the one looking into Dee’s family, not the other way around.
“My mother is as smart as they come,” Catherine said. “She’s an academic, too.”
“And you’re a journalist.”
“Yes.” Catherine smiled.
“And your husband?” Dee asked.
Catherine felt embarrassed. She didn’t want to say who he was. “He’s a
journalist, too. That’s how we met.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Good. It’s good to marry someone who matches your intellect,” Dee said.
In marrying Gionnocaro, Dee had not.
They reached the community room, where nurses dressed in faux-bartender outfits had set up poker games. Dee went to the first table and sat down, gesturing for the seat beside her. It was meant for Catherine. Catherine felt floaty and strange. She was probably at least forty years younger than everyone else in the room besides the nurses. A woman with a walker came toward their table, stopped, and looked at Dee. She clicked her jaw.
“Are you going to sit down, Winnie?” Dee asked. She sounded exasperated.
Winnie took the seat on the opposite side of Dee. She remained quiet.
“Do you remember the rules this week, Winnie?” Dee asked. Her tone was softer than it had been.
Winnie took a breath. “It’s coming back to me. Slowly but surely.”
Dee shifted to look at Catherine. “Winnie was diagnosed with something nasty earlier this year. We’re doing our best to fight it. Keep the brain active.” She clicked the tip of her finger against her forehead. “But time only marches forward.”
Winnie stared at the cards as they flicked out across the table.
“We used to run this joint,” Dee said. “Winnie and me. We had an epic rivalry. Lots of trash talk across the table.” Dee winked.
Catherine sensed that, for all of Dee’s hardness, she truly loved the woman beside her. Perhaps they’d lived here at the Elder Care Home for a number of years, gossiping and remembering and squeezing the last gorgeous moments of their lives out of what they had left.
The poker game began. Catherine wanted to prove herself to Dee; to prove she at least had a mind for cards. She was pleased when she won the first round. Dee’s eyes shimmered.
“Not bad,” Dee said. “You’ve played before.”
Catherine didn’t answer. Dee seemed to like that, too.
The game went on. Catherine got swept up in it, noting that she, Dee, and a guy in his late eighties at their table were the only ones really in it. Dee shot trash talk to the guy, who whipped it right back. It was almost as though they were flirting. Catherine hoped so. Dee had lost her husband seventy years ago, for crying out loud. She deserved a little male attention.
Thirty minutes into the game, the nurses announced a break with cookies and punch. Dee reached over to touch Winnie’s shoulder and say something soft and kind that Catherine couldn’t hear. Catherine took a cookie with white chocolate chips and nibbled at the edges. It was just as good as the cookies from a typical Upper East Side bakery; far better than anything taken from a plastic container. Upper-echelon of elder care.
When Dee turned her head back to Catherine, Catherine decided not to hesitate. It was time.
“By the way,” Catherine said, “do you remember a young woman who worked for you back in the early forties? Gwen?”
Dee stitched her eyebrows together. A beat passed. “Say that name again?”
“Gwen.” Catherine set down the rest of her cookie. Just as with Greta, she struggled to comprehend what was really going on behind Dee’s eyes. “She worked as a nanny for you after Stephan was born, I think.”
“Gosh, we had so many people working for us back then,” Dee said with a wave of her hand. “Like I said, wealth was a totally new concept for me. People milled in and out of our apartment. They knew more of what we owned than I did. What with my studies and the children, I barely kept myself above water.”
Catherine realized that Dee no longer looked her in the eye. Catherine’s throat tightened. Dee’s lying, she thought, but she wasn’t sure why she knew that so clearly.
Suddenly, Winnie piped up. “Gwen? Isn’t that the woman who tried to rob you?”
Dee twisted around to glare at Winnie. It was the first time Winnie had said anything coherent enough for Catherine to hear.
Dee looked mystified, then enraged. “No. Nobody tried to rob us, darling.” But there was a hard edge to her voice.
Catherine’s heartbeat quickened. She remembered the newspaper article stating that staff members had disappeared after Gionnocaro’s death.
What wasn’t Dee telling Catherine? What had Dee been hiding when she’d wanted Gionnocaro buried immediately?
Catherine had been doing this too long not to know there was a deep and powerful story behind these lies.
Suddenly, Dee’s mouth opened into a yawn. She closed her eyes and stretched her arms over her head.
What a great actress, Catherine thought.
“Catherine, it’s been wonderful chatting with you,” Dee said. “But I really must be getting back to my room. All this card-playing takes it right out of me.”
Catherine tried not to give herself away. She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. “I appreciate the time we spent together. I hope we can talk more about the book soon.”
Dee’s eyes flickered as though she no longer believed Catherine was writing a book about academia.
The question about Gwen gave the game away.
Catherine excused herself directly from the community room and headed for the lobby. She knew in her bones this wouldn’t be her final trip to visit Dee. But she wasn’t sure where to go from here.
Suddenly, Catherine’s phone lit up with a call from April Fellini, of all people. Was she checking up on Catherine? Or had Dee already contacted April to tell her don’t let that woman near me again ?
April’s voice warbled and was filled with tears. “Catherine?”
Catherine stopped at the exit with her hand on the metal door. “April. Is everything all right?”
April sniffled. “It’s just that… you’re a journalist, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you have children. You said you have children. You raised them in our neighborhood?” April said.
Catherine furrowed her brow and stepped into the sunlight outside the Elder Care Home. “That’s right. Just a few blocks away.”
April stuttered. “It’s just that we don’t want to alert the cops. We know Felicity left of her own volition. And we know we sent her money because we want to. We want to know she’s safe. But we really need her to come home, Catherine. We can’t handle it anymore. My health is failing. My husband can’t sleep. And you saw Stephan. Something like this might destroy him.”
Catherine understood. April wanted Catherine to use her journalistic instincts to find her daughter.
It was not lost on Catherine how easily this might have been Catherine and Quentin, instead. They’d raised daughters. They understood.
“I’d be happy to look for her,” Catherine agreed. “I’ll do everything I can.”
“We’re happy to pay whatever you want,” April assured her nervously.
“No,” Catherine assured her. “This isn’t about the money. It’s about bringing a young woman back home.”
In the back of her mind, Catherine understood that if she brought Felicity home, the family would be more apt to spill its secrets. Maybe Dee would even speak of Gwen—and what she’d hidden from the police seventy years ago.
But Catherine had to find Felicity first. It would be no easy feat.