With a curious smile, she returned to the armchair and withdrew from the nest of tissue paper the items he’d purchased last week. A white scarf, long and wide. A broad-brimmed hat, lightweight but sturdy enough to protect from the sun. A long, tan linen duster.
She hugged it to her chest.
“What’s this?” Mama asked, looking confused yet delighted. “Are you going motoring, my dear?”
Laughing, Lauren stood, pulled on the duster and buttoned it over her dress, and settled the hat on her hair. Then she wrapped the scarf over the hat and around her face so only her eyes were visible. Those shimmering blue eyes looked straight at him.
“No, Mama,” Joe said. “Dr. Westlake is going to Egypt.”
“Ah!” Pop clapped, and Mama and Doreen joined in. “Brava!”
Lauren laughed again, turned to show off her expedition fashion, then returned the scarf and hat to the box with more care than they deserved. “Someday,” she said. “Maybe.”
“One day,” Joe countered. “For sure. You’ll get there, Lauren. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Thank you.” Reluctantly, it seemed, she unbuttoned the duster and took that off, too. “I have something for you, too.” She pulled a card from her pocket and gave it to Joe.
With no idea what to expect, Joe opened it. Inside were four tickets to the Metropolitan Opera. The performance wasDie Walküreby Wagner, for this upcoming spring. He looked up, holding the tickets aloft. “It’s the opera,” he said.
“It’s for all of you,” Lauren said, “if you’d like to go. It isn’t Verdi’sLa Traviata, but I figured you might still like it.”
She remembered.
“The opera,” Pop said reverently. “Petrosino loved the opera.”
“Wagner!” Mama added. “It’s perfect, Lauren, but too generous!”
“Nonsense. It’s been a long time coming.”
Doreen looked between them all. “There’s a story here, isn’t there? Is it a secret?”
Joe chuckled. “No, it’s no secret. I was fourteen years old, and full of admiration for police detective Joseph Petrosino. It was common knowledge that he loved the opera and Verdi and the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. So when I learned that Caruso was the lead inLa Traviataat the Metropolitan Opera, I hailed a cab and told the driver to take me to the Met. I ought to have been more specific in my directions. The driver took me to the other Met. The museum on Fifth Avenue. That’s where I met Lauren for the first time.” He smiled at her, remembering her as a precocious twelve-year-old child in need of his supervision. Or so he had believed. “Needless to say, I did not make it to the opera that day.”
Or any other. Not long after, his family’s financial situation began to crumble. He delivered flowers for Doreen when he wasn’t in school, but any tips he made went to his parents, not to cultural events.
“Well, you can go now,” Lauren said. “I hope you all enjoy it.”
Pop pushed out of his chair, bent to Lauren, and kissed both her cheeks. “Grazie. We will.” Straightening, he began belting out a few lines fromLa Traviata. He took Mama’s hand, lifted her to her feet, and spun her around before pulling her near and dancing with her among discarded bows and wrapping paper.
Mama laughed, eyes glittering. She eventually pulled away from his overtures as though she weren’t charmed. Pop kissed her hand before releasing her.
Lauren watched them with something akin to wonder. Joe figured her own parents had never freely displayed affection like that. And Beryl and Julian Reisner? Forget it.
“Ach.” Mama shook her head in a mock scold that no one believed. “This is what I get for marrying an Italian,” she teased.
“This Italian isn’t done yet,” Pop announced, presenting a gift to his wife.
She untied the green ribbon and lifted the lid, then withdrew awooden carving of a horse and rider. The details were painted in bright colors. “It’s lovely, dear. What is it?”
He pointed to the box. “There should be documentation inside to explain.” But his patience clearly could not withstand her riffling through the tissue paper. “That right there is a genuine Egyptian antiquity. For months, you’ve been talking about how interested you are in Joe’s work, and Dr. Westlake’s, but that you don’t have time to go to the Met and look at the displays the way you’d like to. So when the opportunity came for you to own one yourself, that you can enjoy every day, I couldn’t pass it up. You are holding a piece of history, Greta, and it’s all yours.”
Joe’s stomach dropped. How much had his father paid for that piece? And how was he so confident it was real? Joe didn’t share details of his cases, but his parents knew what he and Lauren were trying to do. He glanced at Lauren, whose cautious smile hinted at similar misgivings.
Mama gasped. “It says here that this comes from either the fifteenth or sixteenth dynasty.” If she was half as suspicious as Joe was, she hid it well. On the other hand, maybe she really did find Egyptology fascinating. Maybe this was the best gift she didn’t even know she wanted.
Doreen’s eyes rounded. “How old does that make it?”
“Those dynasties lasted from 1640 BC until 1550 BC,” Joe supplied. He’d studied the dynasties so much these last few months it shouldn’t surprise anyone he had that memorized.
