On What Grounds

“The police?” Darla Hart’s face looked stricken. I made a significant note of that. “Why would the police have it?”

Why would you look stricken at the mention of the police? I wanted to ask, but saved that question and instead asked—

“Why do you think the police think Anabelle’s fall wasn’t just a workplace accident?” I asked. (Okay, so I fudged the facts—the police did think it was a simple accident. But the Petty-Cash Queen here didn’t know that.)

Darla’s mouth turned down, her eyes widened, then shifted to stare out the open window. She took a long drag. The white of the cigarette paper against the blood-red polish of the woman’s manicured nails reminded me of a line from Clare Booth Luce’s play The Women: “Looks like you’ve been tearing at somebody’s throat.”

“What do they think?” she asked, still staring into the afternoon rain clouds. Her fingers were slightly trembling.

“Well, the police called it a ‘crime scene,’” I said. “They took fingerprints, collected evidence, that sort of thing. Seems like she could have been pushed.”

Darla turned back, stared hard into my face. “Who do they think would have pushed her?”

I didn’t know, of course. So my instinct was to turn away, but I didn’t. I forced myself to hold her gaze. “Whoever they suspect. They wouldn’t tell me.”

Darla frowned again. Abruptly, she rose to her feet, almost spilling her untouched green tea. “I have to go.”

“Where can I reach you?”

“The Waldorf.”

She searched the table a moment and, after finding no ashtray, carelessly dropped the burning butt into her teacup. I grimaced, watching the pale rolled paper rise to the top of the green liquid and float there, dead and cold.

“I want you to know—and you can let all the owners of this place know—I’m hiring a lawyer,” she said. “I don’t care if all Anabelle’s hospital bills are covered by insurance. My stepdaughter deserves some money for her pain and suffering, and I’m gonna see she gets it.”

With that, Darla shoved the short handles of her fashionable Coach bag onto her shoulder, turned on her Gucci boot heel, and headed for the exit.

I watched her go, noting that her movements were as graceful as her stepdaughter’s. A former dancer, no doubt.

I leaned back, averted my eyes from the cold, dead butt floating in the green tea, sipped my house blend, and considered the fact that Darla was staying at the Waldorf yet snatching up a worn ten and five like she was down to her last dime. And I remembered Esther had said something about Darla showing up a few days ago to take care of some sort of “business.” I needed to find out what exactly that “business” was.

As I cleared the table, I quietly thanked my Grandma Cosi. I guess her method (not to mention Socrates’s and Abe’s) was really the best way to go—at least when you were trying to gather information from an angry source. Hostility handled and channeled through reason and strategy—

“Clare? Are you up here? It’s dire I speak with you!”

It was Matteo. Back from god knows where, doing god knows what. And using the dreaded D word again.

I sighed, wishing my grandmother were still alive—then maybe she could tell me why, when it came to my ex-husband, I almost always wanted to use the more straightforward conflict resolution strategy my father employed—and (need I add) preferred two to one in my old neighborhood.

Fourteen

A few hours later, I was heading up the back stairs to my new second-floor apartment. Everything was under control downstairs. Tucker was on duty as assistant manager, and our evening barista, one of our many part-time workers, had just arrived.

After the events of the day, I really needed a few hours off. Joy was coming for dinner, and I wanted the time to clean up, set a nice table, and listen to some Frank Sinatra.

When I unlocked the door to the duplex, Java greeted me with her usual ear-piercing jaguar yowl. She wasn’t used to her new surroundings. Well, neither was I. But at least Java’s problem could be solved by a scratch or two behind the ears and a can of Fancy Feast Chopped Grill Platter. My dilemmas weren’t so easily solved.

After I presented Java with the attention and the food, the little ball of coffee-bean-brown fur chowed down, then contentedly sprawled across Madame’s living room Persian and began to groom.

I decided to groom as well. My first shower of the day was a dim memory—back in my former New Jersey home. It felt like another decade. I entered the bathroom (small but tastefully designed with a terra cotta floor, Mediterranean-aqua tiles, a marble sink, luxuriously large tub, and two watercolor originals from a student of twentieth-century American Realist painter Edward Hopper—“Boats in Brooklyn Harbor” and “Long Island Sea Foam”).

I dropped my clothes in a heap and jumped into the marble tub. The shower nozzle above had a spa-quality massage head. No time for that, unfortunately, just a hot spray and a quick soaping. After drying my hair, I stood before the closet pondering my wardrobe. I’d moved most of it in batches over the last few weeks. I’d done some shopping recently, too. What to wear suddenly had me stumped. I considered my ex-husband, remember he liked me in skirts—

Oh, god, what am I doing!

Disgusted with myself for giving Matt’s preferences even one moment’s consideration, I quickly grabbed the first clothes I saw—a pair of black slacks and a red blouse.

I finished dressing and set the table in the dining room. I pulled out the handmade lace tablecloth Madame had bought in Florence and put tapers in the crystal holders. Madame’s finest china was displayed in an antique cabinet in her Fifth Avenue dining room. Her second best was stacked in her Fifth Avenue kitchen. Here she kept a set of her third best dishware. But to be honest, I liked it the most: Spode Imperialware’s “Blue Italian” pattern, which has been in continuous production since 1816. I think I liked it best because it felt so cozy and homey, and the blue Northern Italian scenes set against the white earthenware matched the cheerful blue color in the marble of the Village Blend’s main counter.

I set three places.

Next I headed for the kitchen, complete with finished oak cabinets and brass fixtures. The dishwasher was small, but the refrigerator/freezer was large, and the stove was huge, with six burners and a double oven—all with shiny stainless steel finishes.

I’d stocked the tall wall cabinet last week with essentials like sugar, flour, oils and assorted can goods— everything I needed for the dessert I had in mind, Clare’s Cappuccino Walnut Cheesecake, one of Joy’s favorites.

I had phoned Madame earlier and invited her to join us for dinner. She loved to spend time with Joy, and my daughter loved Madame, too. But Madame had declined, claiming she was feeling tired.

The way she had said it—hesitating between “feeling” and “tired”—made me want to cry. It sounded like an excuse, like she’d wanted to say “ill” instead of “tired” but had caught herself. After seeing her in a wheelchair at St. Vincent’s cancer ward, I wasn’t going to press her. I’d wait until she chose to reveal the truth. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her a thing about our problems at the Blend.

Earlier today, I’d told Matt my worries about his mother’s health. I felt bad doing it, but he might have otherwise burdened Madame with the Blend’s problems, and his mother had enough troubles. She didn’t need to know about Anabelle’s fall, the threats made by Anabelle’s stepmother to sue, or the highly disturbing news Matteo had brought to my attention a few hours ago.

There would be other dinners, I told myself, even if Madame was ill and even if, God forbid, she wouldn’t be