“It’s fine,” Taylor says. But it’s not. Nothing’s fine.
Aunt Gigi sighs and types her response into the phone. Then her phone rings, but she puts it through to voicemail. “Jesus, Phil, figure it out,” she cries. She stuffs her phone back into her pocket. “Look, I gotta go, but I just wanted to say that I love you. I’ll check back in with you in a week or so, see if you change your mind about the nursing. I…” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
Taylor nods wordlessly.
She stays for a long time on that bench after Aunt Gigi leaves. She watches a boy steal one of the LEGO bricks, pocketing it in his sweatpants. Another boy riding in a red car. Two girls playing with rocks and dolls in equal parts. Life hums all around her, but the only time Taylor herself can sense it, the only time her own body pulses with a vibrational whir, is when she closes her eyes and thinks of Vivian.
She remembers hearing a story once about a young woman who traveled the world in search of the most beautiful artwork.The woman visited more than thirty countries. She went to France to see theMona Lisa, Vienna forThe Kiss, Germany to see theSistine Madonna, Egypt for King Tut’s golden death mask. She stopped in South Africa to stand in person in front of theButcher Boyssculpture and passed through Hungary to view theLonely Cedarpainting. She traveled and traveled, taking in artistic genius through her eyes. And when she returned, back home to her parents’ farm in Pennsylvania, money all dried up, she promptly hanged herself. Taylor didn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing; wouldn’t so much artistic brilliance, not to mention international travel, fill you up like a reserve, or at the very least, provide a buffer?
But now Taylor knows: You can’t unsee the beautiful.
Vivian
Early February
On Saturday, the day after the masquerade ball, Peter sends a dozen single roses to Vivian’s apartment, each one arriving precisely an hour after the last. Each containing a single line that together spells out a complete note:
Dear Vivian,
Thank you for being my date last night.
I’m sorry I got caught up in that scuffle.
I should have paid attention to you.
I’m sorry (and regretful).
I’m new at this.
I want to see you again.
I’m leaving for London this morning for work, but I will be back on Tuesday.
Please be my date on Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. at the restaurant 1928 Beacon Hill.
Till then, I’ll be thinking of you.
Yours sincerely, Peter
P.S. You’re beautiful.
She’s usually not one for flowers. They are the exact opposite of antiques, dying much too quickly. Vivian has trouble seeing the value of springing for them. But she’s never been wooed in such a manner before, and the roses couldn’t feel more perfect. As Vivian collects the final note and arranges them in order, she has the thought:I should save these. Like they are an important memento—or will be, one day. This thought terrifies her, edging her toward a vulnerability she has yet to experience in past relationships. She knows the importance of antiques; it’s what she does for a living, after all. But items ofpersonalimportance are another thing.
Vivian recalls when it was that she fell in love with antiques. She grew up around them, of course, but her professional interest didn’t bloom until she went backpacking in Europe after graduating college. Kat couldn’t afford to go, so Vivian decided to bring a little of Europe to her. She collected small vintage objects during her travels that she mailed to Kat in Philadelphia. She felt like she was speaking to her friend through these antiques, like they were handwritten letters. She hoped Kat would also findthem valuable, but the mere act of forwarding them to her ensured a continuation of their provenance. Antiques, Vivian then determined, are migrating relics of time and place.
As Vivian collected oxidized brass candlesticks from London flea markets and tarnished silver jewelry boxes from the back stalls of Turkish bazaars, she considered that there might be a future in this. It was an old doorknob she found at a street fair in the outskirts of Prague that solidified it for her. The knob felt symbolic. Representative of an opening, a possibility. If she found these objects valuable, if there were markets and stalls and shops across the world carrying these types of things, then Vivian, too, could create a space to sell them. Suddenly, she could picture in her mind the antiques shop where all these precious items would sit, and this place—Storied Antiques—would be back in her hometown of Boston, specifically in Beacon Hill, home of the original antiques row.
Now, she gathers Peter’s notes and delicately tucks them into a vintage tin container that holds the Prague doorknob. It’s been a long time since she’s assigned personal importance to an item, antique or otherwise.
On Sunday morning, Vivian visits the hospital, where her mother has been transferred from the nursing home due to aspiration pneumonia. As the nurse explains, it’s pneumonia that occurs when you forget how to eat and then you choke on your food. Vivian stands at her mother’s bedside, watching the antibiotics infuse into her mother’s arm, bruised purple like a water stain from blood draws. Suddenly, there’s a flicker of recognition in her mother’s eyes, and Vivian grows hopeful.
But it’s not for her daughter.
“Hilda! I told you to iron these sheets!” her mother admonishes.
Hilda was her mother’s maid for years. This reminds Vivian; she needs to cancel her biweekly cleaning service. Her own—not her mother’s.
Vivian stays a few minutes longer, growing increasingly angry as her mother continues her delirious rant.
