One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [67]
Back in his apartment, Billy set the box down on his coffee table. He opened the lid and extracted a long string of plastic pearls. Even as a penniless young girl, Louise had had style, sewing her own clothes from scraps of material and adorning herself with glass beads, cheap metals, and feathers. She was one of those rare women who could take the tackiest item and, by wearing it with confidence, make it look expensive. Of course, after she took New York by storm, she didn’t need to wear costume jewelry and acquired a legendary collection of jewelry that she kept in a safe in her apartment. But she never forgot her roots, and the box of costume jewelry was always on display. On afternoons when they sat in her bedroom, where Louise felt it was safe to gossip, she and Billy would sometimes engage in a silly game of dress-up, decorating themselves in various pieces of costume jewelry and pretending they were other people. Now Billy stood up, and staring into the mirror over the mantelpiece, he wrapped the pearls around his neck and made a face. “No, no,” Louise would have said, laughing. “You look like that awful Flossie Davis. Pearls aren’t for you, darling. How about a feather?”
Billy went back to the couch and began carefully laying out each piece on the coffee table. Some of the pieces were ninety years old and falling apart; Billy decided he would wrap each piece in tissue paper and bubble wrap to keep them from suffering further injury. Then he picked up the box, meaning to put it on his own bureau, where it would be the last thing he saw before he went to sleep and the first thing he saw in the morning; in that way, he might keep Louise and her memory close to him. As he lifted the box, the top slammed shut on his finger. Billy opened the lid and glanced inside. He had never examined the box empty, and now he saw a small latch tucked into the back. No wonder Louise had always kept the box, he thought. She would have found it romantic—a box with a hidden compartment. It would have been a magical piece for a bright fourteen-year-old girl who had only fairy tales to nourish her dreams.
It was a small, simple latch made of bronze, a tongue held in place by a tiny knob. Billy unhooked the latch and, using a nail file for leverage, lifted out the wooden shelf. There was indeed something in the hidden compartment, something wrapped in a soft, gray pouch fastened with a, black cord. Billy warned himself not to get too excited: Knowing Louise, it was probably a rabbit’s foot.
He untied the cord and peeked inside.
What he saw made him immediately want to tie the cord again and pretend he’d never seen it. But a perverse curiosity prevailed, and slowly, he inched off the pouch. There was old gold, rough-cut emeralds and rubies, and in the center, an enormous crudely faceted diamond. The piece was as big as his hand. Billy began to shake with excitement, to which was quickly added fear and confusion. He picked up the piece and carried it over to the window, where he could examine it more closely in the light. But he was quite sure of what he held in his hand. It was the Cross of Bloody Mary.
Act Two
8
Enid Merle liked to say she could never stay angry at anyone for long. There were exceptions, of course, such as Mindy Gooch. Now, when Enid saw Mindy in the lobby, she cut her, deliberately turning her head away, as though she literally didn’t see her. Nevertheless, she kept up with Mindy’s comings and goings through Roberto, the doorman, who knew everything about everyone in the building. She found out that Mindy had purchased a dog—a miniature cocker spaniel—and that the Rices were hoping to install through-the-wall air-conditioning units in their apartment, a request that Mindy planned to turn down. Why was it, Enid wondered, that