But sometimes I found it hard to reconcile the incongruous halves of myself.
“Who is this bracelet for?” I asked my sister.
“It is Sybil van Allen’s fortieth birthday at the end of the week. Were you invited?”
“I was.”
“Are you going?”
“I am.”
I certainly would be going. Sybil van Allen was in the midst of a very ugly court case with her stepfather over her deceased mother’s art collection. The party was sure to offer up fodder for Silk, Satin and Scandals.
“What are you bringing as a gift?”
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about it at all.”
“Well, you can give her this with me.”
“Thank you, Letty.”
“To repay me, I want you to come with me after lunch to Cartier’s. Jack is having earrings made for me for our anniversary. I’m not sure about the design, and you’re better at that than I am.”
“Visiting a jewelry store is anything but a chore for me,” I said, and we both laughed.
As we ate our perfectly cooked and browned Welsh rarebit, we talked about other upcoming parties that we’d both been invited to and gossiped about their hosts and hostesses.
Once the plates were removed and we were having coffee, she leaned across the table and took my hand.
“Jack said he’ll be by on Saturday morning to help you clear Father’s things out of the apartment,” she said in an even softer version of her usually dulcet tone.
Our family home was in Riverdale in the Bronx. Most days, my father commuted via train to the store on Fifth Avenue and back. But some nights, he stayed in the city proper in the penthouse apartment he’d had built at the top of Garland’s Emporium. It saved him from traveling when he worked too late or there was inclement weather.
When he died, the Riverdale estate was transferred to my mother. The store and the land it sat on were left to my sister and me equally, with the stipulation that her husband run the emporium and that I be allowed to live in the penthouse indefinitely.
Almost nothing about it had changed in the months since. I’d moved into the second bedroom while Father was alive and remained there still. I’d left all his things in his room and hadn’t touched his desk in the library.
Father had a housekeeper, Margery Tuttle, who came in each day to clean and keep the kitchen stocked. He’d never liked having the help around when he was there, so Margery would arrive in the morning after my father went down to his office and was always out by lunchtime. I’d kept her on, but I didn’t need as much looking after and so had reduced her to twice a week while keeping her pay the same, as I knew my father would have wanted.
“You’ll see,” Letty was saying. “With Jack helping you empty the closets and drawers, it will be easier living there without it looking as if he’s about to walk in the door any minute.” At the thought, my sister’s eyes filled, and the violet color for which she was named became more intense.
My father had been gone for almost ten months, but we both still missed him so much. I bit the inside of my mouth to keep my own eyes dry. “Jack is a godsend,” I said. “It’s so good of him to help.”
“I am lucky,” she said, and sighed. “Most men are difficult and quite full of themselves and must be endured. But Jack makes it easier than most.”
I smiled at her. “You chose well.”
She seemed about to say something, and I guessed it was about my unmarried state, but she must have thought twice, because she returned to the subject at hand.
“Do you think you’ll come across anything special, hidden away? Any surprises?” she asked.
I examined her face. Did she know something? Sometimes she was more observant than I gave her credit for. Or was she just being her usual inquisitive self? Or was she a bit greedy? As much as I hated to admit it, she could be. Somehow, for all the money our family and her husband’s family had and how well the store was doing, my sister never acted as if she had enough. My father had sometimes apologized for her, saying it was because she was the second child and all second children think they’ve missed out.
When I’d scoffed at this, he’d said, “It’s true, Vera. Parents dote more on the first baby. With the first, everything is amazing and new. With the second, the love is every bit as strong, but the wonder is tempered. It was that way with you and Letty, and she senses it.”
Now I asked Letty, “What kinds of surprises could Father have hidden away?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Her eyes lit up. “Presents he’d meant to give one of us at Christmas. Love letters from Mother from when they were courting. Or maybe there was someone before Mother whom he never told us about? Photographs of himself in college that we never saw. Maybe even a diary.” She laughed. “Though I can’t imagine anyone less likely to keep a diary than Father. Perhaps there is a painting he bought without telling Mother because it was too racy or avant-garde, and it’s hidden in the closet?”
The waitress interrupted with our bill. There was no charge, of course, but we had to sign the receipt and leave a generous tip.
“I’ll be sure to tell you if I find anything curious,” I said as we got up to leave. “I never imagined our father as someone to keep secrets. Why do you think he did?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
We strolled out of the Birdcage, across the main floor, and out onto Fifth Avenue. We turned left out of Garland’s and headed south.
“You’re the one I’d expect to be on the lookout for secrets. What else is it you do as a reporter but search out the things people hide and expose them?” my sister asked.
“You’re right,” I said, a bit surprised at her insight.
Two blocks later, we reached 712 Fifth Avenue, where Mr. Cartier’s shop was located on the fourth floor.
The original Cartier store had been founded in 1847 by Pierre’s grandfather, Louis-François Cartier, in Paris and was now run by Pierre’s brother, Louis. Jean-Jacques Cartier had opened the second store in London in 1902. Then, two years ago, the Fifth Avenue location had opened, the third in the Cartier crown. “A shop for each brother,” the New York Times had reported upon its opening.
“Speaking of secrets, maybe Mr. Cartier will show us the mysterious Hope Diamond while we are here,” Letty said as we walked into the building and approached the elevator. “Everyone is talking about it. It’s cursed. Surely you’ve read about that.”
“Who hasn’t?” I asked. “But that’s a silly rumor.”
We entered the elevator. Letty requested Cartier’s, and the operator pulled the doors closed with a metal clang. We rose jerkily upward.
“Father said it was quite controversial for Cartier to choose a fourth-floor shop instead of one on street level, but I think it was rather clever,” my sister said. “There are never any crowds or people ogling through the window. The privacy is quite soothing. Not like our Jewel Box,” she added.
“But Garland’s doesn’t sell the types of extravagant jewels Mr. Cartier does,” I said.
“I wasn’t criticizing Father’s decision,” she snapped.