Now, her mom lets go of Taylor as she runs ahead, toward thespitting sea. For a moment, Taylor’s heart stops. But then she’s back, dragging her away. Wind claps at them, attempting to thwart their retreat. Her mom’s jeans, rolled below the knees, and soaked through her thighs.
Back in the car, the door shut, the air still howling in their ears like an echo. Her mom fiddles with the car radio, the newscaster reporting in a loud, urgent tone. The taste of danger and fear in Taylor’s mouth, like a sour candy.
But her mom is laughing. Then she leans over, picks up Taylor’s hand and presses it against her damp windbreaker. In Taylor’s palm, her mom’s heart flutters, a staccato of emotions.
Don’t tell your dad, she says. As if her wildness is a secret he can’t know.
Vivian
February
Vivian keeps thinking about the mysterious note that arrived at her apartment.
Please stay away.
The “please” is what gets her. It just sounds like Xavier, the more she considers it. Xavier with his mild manners and sense of decorum, like his pocket watch and how he brings a bottle of wine even though he no longer drinks.Please.Yes, this note must be from him. He prefers to write letters, after all. And he’d told her tobe carefulat the masquerade ball. And then there was that weird way he acted when he saw the carousel horse in her shop. She’s pretty sure he’d seen it before—at the Knox. But the note doesn’t match his handwriting; perhaps he tried to disguise it?
It’s time Vivian has a chat with her friend.
The note tucked inside her pocket, she sets out for the Jewelers Exchange Building in downtown Boston where Xavier works on the fourth floor. She pulls her coat tightly as she hustles across the street. There’s an early-morning chill in the air, and she’s misjudged the weather; her coat is not warm enough. She tries toconjure Peter’s arms encircling her, but imagination only gets her so far.
It’s the day after Peter has left for Milan. And three days before he returns. Not like she’s counting or anything.
She snakes her way toward the building, passing the sporadic jewelry stores tucked amid retail shops. This is Boston’s jewelry district, located less than a mile away from Beacon Hill, but it feels like it belongs to a different city. Many jewelry shops have disappeared over the years, filled in with other retail stores, with nail salons, with a Walgreens and McDonald’s. Do people even call it the “jewelry district” anymore? Across the way is the Old South Meeting House—the site where the Boston Tea Party was organized. A bit of Boston charm in an otherwise unbeauteous terrain.
She feels a moment of gratitude that Beacon Hill, while no longer the “antiques mecca” it was decades earlier, has kept a small-neighborhood feel: the retail shops are boutiques, the pharmacy independent and family-run, the cafés and restaurants local. There’s a rather charming indie bookstore, Beacon Hill Books & Cafe, that’s recently opened. Funny enough, her own storefront, though not directly on Charles Street but around the corner, was once a bookstore, and before that an antiques store. The landlord, Anna, was only too happy for Vivian to restore the space to its original intention.
The gratitude is fleeting; a knot forms in Vivian’s chest. What if she needs to closebothher shops and fold Storied Antiques altogether? She wishes for the umpteenth time that she hadn’t opened that second store and undertaken the expensive buildout of the space; then she wouldn’t be in as much financial trouble.
Is this desperation similar to how Xavier felt during the pandemic? She knows his business was severely affected; despiteher urging him to build a website, Xavier—ever the dinosaur—refused, and people weren’t adding to their jewelry collections with quite the same fervor as they were redecorating their homes. Maybe Vivian should have checked in with him more during that time, made sure he was okay.
But she thinks he’ll be all right. If the expensive jewelry dripping from the women at the masquerade ball last week is any indication, society still likes pretty, shiny things. Plus, Xavier’s a fine artisan. She’s taken a few worn jewelry pieces to him over the years for “facelifts,” and when they are returned, he’s easily electroplated them to a shine that makes them appear brand-new.
She touches the wrinkles lining her forehead, the ones routinely in need of Botox. If only it were that easy.
When Vivian enters the Jewelers Exchange Building, a security guard at the far end of the lobby gives her a curt nod from behind his desk, then resumes reading his paper. She pushes the elevator button and steps into the cab. It’s one of those old-school ones with a metal accordion gate.
As the machine begins rising, with a bit of jerkiness, and a loud, prolonged squeak that brings to mind a rusty wheel attempting to rotate, Vivian wonders if she should have taken the stairs.
A conversation over the phone with Xavier would have been easier, but when she tried ringing his store, she found that the number was no longer in service. She still doesn’t know where he’s living now, so it’s not like she could have tried his landline.
She has no idea what her friend has been up to.
While she and Rachel like to complain that Xavier ditches them for various boyfriends, she’s now realizing that maybe they, too, have ditched Xavier. When was the last time she went by his store? Vivian can’t even remember. Pre-pandemic, maybe.
The hall is quiet and empty when she finally escapes from theelevator. At first, she’s not surprised she doesn’t see anyone. The whole building is a bit mysterious, comprised of wholesalers, manufacturers, and retail vendors. Most of the jewelers on this floor don’t have storefronts like the ones at a mall. Rather, they independently operate in small, confined spaces, some half the size of Vivian’s bedroom closet. Their jewelry displays are sparse; they have additional inventory—the real stash—secured in the back that they can pull from if you let them know what you’re looking for, and if they don’t have what you need, one of their friends down the hall will.
She claps along in her tall black riding boots, passing the darkened window of a skilled engraver to whom she’s referred customers looking for personalization on their antique pieces. Glancing at her watch, she notices it’s not even nine o’clock yet. Christ; it’s early. This is why barely anyone is around. The businesses in this building keep their own hours, and if Vivian recalls correctly, Xavier usually opens around ten.
His shop is around one more bend. Since she’s already here, she’ll check if he’s in, and if not, she can slip a note under his door. He might be, though; Xavier has been known to work odd hours creating his jewelry pieces, a bit like a mad artist.
When she reaches his shop, she frowns. A large, angry spiderweb of cracked glass suspends at eye level, as if someone has punched the partition. A chill runs through her. She takes a step back to ensure that, yes, this is indeed his shop. Or, at least, it used to be. When she gingerly cups her eyes against the glass to peer inside, it’s empty, and not in the way of how jewels are securely removed for off-hours. It’s ghostlike, abandoned.
“What happened next door? Where’s Xavier?” she asks an adjacent shop owner, who cracks open the door after her incessant knocking.
“I don’t know,” the man says, and immediately averts his eyes.
She gets the same curt response from other jewelers in the hall, their storefronts just beginning to stir.
