The Address(48)

Tucked in one corner was a delicate glass bottle the color of the sea, with a label on the outside that read DR. WALKER’S VINEGAR BITTERS. She put it aside. It was far from valuable, and she would smile whenever she saw it on her windowsill.

Underneath everything was a traveling booklet for a Sara Jane Smythe, from Fishbourne, England. The date she came to New York was stamped on her booklet: September, 1884. As Bailey leafed through it—there were no other markings—a photograph came loose.

A woman with thick, dark hair and a wry smile stood in front of two girls and a boy, holding in her arms a baby wearing the exact sailor suit from the trunk. The baby’s head had moved during the photo, as had one of the girls’, so they were blurry and ghostlike. She could make out what looked like a sailboat behind them.

A typical late-nineteenth-century photo. No sense of laughter or animation. But she liked this better than the false, toothy smiles that slid out of Polaroid instant cameras, because to Bailey they offered a truer sense of the subjects, not their flashy masks.

The door to the storage room slammed shut, the sound reverberating around the cement walls like a gunshot. Bailey leaped to her feet, still holding the photo. She stood, frozen in place, wondering what had just happened.

“Hello?”

No answer. Kenneth had given her a rundown of the Dakota’s ghosts over tea as the wallpaper hanger took measurements in the bathroom. One was a creepy little girl, bouncing a red ball, who was considered a bad omen, a harbinger of death. An electrician working in the basement in the 1930s had seen a phantom wearing a frock coat, winged collar, and glasses. Rumor had it he was Edward Clark, the man who built the Dakota but died before he could see it completed.

Bailey didn’t believe in ghosts or Kenneth’s tales of ghostly wanderers. The door couldn’t have slammed shut on its own, just like that. Someone had to have walked by it and done so, not knowing she was inside.

She tucked the photo into her back pocket and walked over to reopen the door, but as she reached for the knob, she heard footsteps coming closer. Whoever had shut it was returning.

The door handle turned. She backed away, uncertain.

“What the hell?”

Renzo stood in the doorway. He stared at her for a moment before bursting out laughing. “You look like you’re ready for a fight.”

Without thinking, she’d put up her dukes, like an idiot. Kenneth’s ghost stories had gotten her worked up. She dropped her hands to her sides, standing stiffly. “You scared me. The door slammed shut.”

“Huh. That’s weird. Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Bailey shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “It was just loud.”

“What are you doing in the basement?”

“Clearing a space for the workers, seeing what you have down here.”

He didn’t seem angry at her nosing about. “Find anything interesting?”

She pointed to the trunks. “I think the two black ones belonged to Theodore Camden and his wife. The one marked S.J.S. belonged to a woman named Sara Jane Smythe, who came here in 1884. That one even has her official papers in it, an immigration booklet.”

Renzo wore faded Levi’s that fell low on his waist, and a maroon T-shirt. He ran his hand through his hair. “Right. Sara Smythe. That was the year the Dakota opened.”

“Have you heard of her?”

“Sure, I’ve heard of her. She lived here for about a year.”

“Then what happened?”

“You don’t know?”

Bailey shook her head.

“Follow me.”

Renzo led her down the hall to his office, where he rummaged around on a high bookshelf and took down an ancient photo album, the kind with black paper and tiny triangles for tucking the corners of the photos into. It was covered with a fine layer of dust, and he took a rag out of his back pocket and wiped it down before opening it up.

“This is a book of clippings about the Dakota from the time it was built, passed down from super to super.”

He started to flip through it, but Bailey stopped him. “Do you mind? I’d love to see the whole thing.”

“Suit yourself.” He moved out of the way and let her go through it, page by page.

The first page held a yellowed article from the Daily Graphic. Bailey read out loud. “‘A Description of One of the Most Perfect Apartment Houses in the World.’ You can’t do better than that, can you?”

“I guess not.”

She sat down in a chair and scanned through it. The Dakota had made quite a splash when it first opened. How strange to think that the rooms had been filled with people wearing petticoats and top hats, the sound of horses’ hooves clopping in the courtyard. Someone had actually worn that corset and pair of shoes from the trunk. They weren’t just artifacts in a museum.

Later in the book were cutouts from magazines. One showed off the bedroom of Rudolf Nureyev, decorated in a riot of textures and patterns, including an Elizabethan canopy bed.

“Not one for subtlety.” Renzo stood behind her now, his hand resting on the back of her chair.

She hurried through the rest of the scrapbook, mainly 1960s shots of apartments with minimal, contemporary furniture.

“Not to your taste?” Renzo asked.

“No. Maybe in an East Side high-rise, but not here.” She shut the book.