Catoctin, Maryland— September 1908
“Ora, wait!” Johncalled out, then stopped short, nearly knocking her over as he realized she was no longer storming off. “Please. Whatever it is you want me to do, I’ll—”
She shushed him sharply.
“Really, anything—”
“John. Shut. Up.” Ora pointed toward the geese and said quietly, “Look. Do you see that? The white one among them?”
“You mean Albus?”
“Albus?” she asked, brows raising.
“That’s his name. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always called him, since I first spotted him two years ago. It’s not as if he would respond to it or anything. If he even is a he.” John paused. “It’s of interest to you?”
“Of interest? Yes, of course it’s of interest to me! It’s an extremely rare leucistic variation. I’ve only read about this genetic color mutation in books. Many ornithologists will never come across one in their entire life.”
“And you’ve found one,” he said, understanding dawning.
“Yes. I have.” Ora’s glee was sharp enough to cut through her fury, and she grinned, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet in excitement. She swatted John on the chest with the back of her hand. “You sent me so many illustrations of the most average cardinals and blue jays and wrens. Why on earth didn’t you send me one of Albus?”
“I honestly never thought of it,” he said. “I always assumed he was another type of goose who had joined in with the closest thing he could find to his own kind after getting lost. Or a hybrid, like the hummingbirds you study. I had no idea it was a notable specimen. Besides, Ledford hadn’t asked me to lure you out here yet, so I wasn’t looking to send you something that might intrigue you to that degree. And about that, Ora—”
“Yes, yes, I’m still furious with you. But that will wait. Because you may have conspired with Ledford to harm my career, but I think you have also given me the very thing that will send it soaring.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Annie
I spend the nightwith Cal again after we close the shop on Sunday, and in the morning I return briefly to Harold’s to shower and change before Virtu opens for the day. Clean and dressed, I start the walk back, savoring each tiny twinge in my deliciously sore body, the sensations summoning delightful memories of the activities that caused them, while “Jingle Bells” acts as extremely incongruent background music, stuck in my head off and on for days now, thanks to the sound of the store’s front door opening and closing.
I’m so distracted by my weirdly festive fantasies that I overshoot Virtu by two blocks, winding up farther down the avenue. When I notice, I come to a stop, and find myself surrounded by folding tables covered with a plethora of stuff. A white woman who might be anywhere between forty and seventy sits on the steps nearby with a cigarette smoldering between her leathery fingers. She uses it to point at one of the tables.
“That’s all new, hon,” she tells me. “Just got it all over the weekend.”
“Oh. Awesome.” I decide to take a quick look through the open Tupperware containers full of jumbled old costume jewelry, silverware, and porcelain figurines. There’s nothing that’s worth much monetarily; it probably wouldn’t interest Cal. But to me it’s an absolute treasure trove.
“This isamazing,” I say.
“That’s all between fifty cents and five bucks,” the woman says. “Except the earrings, which are a quarter each, mix ’n’ match. And the stuff on the ground is priced as marked.”
Once I’ve raked my fingers through each of the containers on the table, putting aside a few baubles that bring me joy, I crouch down to check out the larger items sitting on a worn gingham oilcloth spread on the sidewalk. My eyes are immediately drawn to a landscape featuring a quaint red-roofed cottage surrounded by bright flowers and fluffy pines, swans swimming in a cerulean pond in the foreground. It’s painted directly onto what appears to be an old aluminum-framed window screen.
“You’re prolly too young to remember when those were all over the place,” the woman says, noticing my interest. “Used to be in near every rowhouse window when I was a little girl growing up here. A real Ballmer tradition, them painted screens. Such a shame that so many of those house flippers came along and took ’em out. Prolly where that one came from.”
I pick it up and take a closer look, evaluating its potential. A bright pink circle sticker has a 7 written on it in blue pen.
“Seven dollars for this?” If it’s that cheap, I’m more than happy to just buy it and figure out what to do with it later.
“I’ll give it to you for six if you’re also getting those other things,” the woman says, tapping ashes into the flowerpot beside her.
“Sounds good to me,” I say, gathering the Bakelite necklace, wooden parrot brooch, and porcelain figurine of a blue-and-gold dolphin holding some sort of horn.
She stands with a groan and moves toward me, cigarette dangling from her mouth. With great care, she wraps the dolphin in tissue paper and places it into an organza drawstring bag, then puts it and the rest of my smaller purchases into a brown paper lunch bag. “Twelve,” she says.
Thankfully I happen to have exactly that much cash on me. I pay the woman, take the bag and painted screen, and turn back toward Virtu.
—
