The Stars Are Fire(40)

Grace removes a pile of papers from a drawer in Merle’s bedroom and sets them on the bed next to her as she sits up, her back to the headboard, to find out how the house is run and what the bills might be. The date, 1947, is affixed to the first page by a paper clip, and after that the papers have no obvious organization. She locates an invoice for shoe repair under an account for electricity, but there’s no indication as to whether either of these has been settled. No dunning notices, no checkbook. Did Merle pay only in cash, sending it through the mail? Grace unearths a breathtaking statement for a bracelet containing ten one-carat diamonds in gold. She hasn’t come across a bracelet of that description and imagines that Merle squirreled her best jewelry in a hiding place. Perhaps a safety-deposit box.

Several doctors’ bills are clipped together—first, those of Dr. Franklin, then of a cancer specialist, then from the hospital. Was Merle supposed to pay these as she lay dying? There has to have been a will, accounts with a bank. Gene would know about these. It’s odd he never mentioned anything but the house.

She comes up with an invoice from Best & Co. in Boston for four dresses with detailed descriptions. “Satin belt with paste clasp.” “Navy wool skirt cut on the bias.” “Blush pink silk Fortuny skirt with thirty-six pleats.” “Mink hat, turban style, lined with royal purple silk.” Where did Merle go in these clothes? Would she have worn the Fortuny silk to a cocktail party? The skirt cut on the bias to play bridge? The satin dress with paste clasp to a winter wedding?

At the bottom of the pile are three bills clipped together, each dated a subsequent month, for a case of Edgerton pink gin.


O’Neill’s words swim on the page. Across from her, Aidan has on a striped shirt and a black V-neck sweater. She notes onyx cuff links. She catches these details in quick glances.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cigarettes. She leans forward an inch to ask if he would like one, but then notes his pack, Camels, and a box of matches on the table next to him. She wishes she could read the name of the restaurant on the front cover. Is it from New York or St. Louis?

His shoe jiggles once. She takes a long drag. There’s so much she never noticed about this room. The Delft clock. An array of silver boxes atop a desk. A darkened portrait of an important man. No, a self-important man. But then, it was for the painter to say, wasn’t it? The man in the picture might have been told to stand with his chin elevated, his fingers inside his buttoned coat. In his other hand, he holds a book, a fact that changes her idea of both the man and the painter. A book, not a Bible, suggests learning as opposed to commerce. When she glances down from the portrait, Aidan is staring at her. She smiles slightly.

“Have you had a good day?” he asks.

“Yes. At least I think so. I can hardly remember it.”

“You’re a busy woman.”

“I suppose I am. I was looking at that painting and trying to decide what the man did for a living.”

He turns to examine the picture. “A reader, certainly. Perhaps a teacher who thinks a lot of himself. I suppose your husband must be related to the man.”

“What era do you think it’s from?”

“Judging from the clothes and mustache, mid-to late nineteenth century. He could have been your husband’s grandfather.”

“You’ll have your portrait done,” she says.

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ll be an important musician, and someone will want to do a painting of you.”

“A photograph for a poster, maybe.”

“I was thinking that there’s so much talent in your hands.” She has seen his fingers move so fast they created a blur as she watched.

“There has to be dexterity,” he concedes, “but they’re only producing what’s in the brain.”

“All that music in the brain. It must be full up.”

He laughs. “There’s room for plenty more.”

Grace tries her book again, but reads the same sentence three times. “Have you ever been married?” she asks, pulling a piece of lint from her powder blue sweater.

“No, my work doesn’t lend itself to marriage. I travel too much, work nights.”

Her hand trembles as she turns another page. She lays her fingers hard against the open book. Does she only imagine the connection between them? Not that of landlady and lodger, though they are that. Not that of mutual refugees from a catastrophe, though they are that, too. And not merely friends, or even friends, as she and Rosie are to each other. Grace is married. Why does she keep forgetting that?

She thinks that her body, if it could, might speak. Touch my hand. Let me touch your hand. Put your hand at the back of my neck. Nothing more. Her body can’t ask for more.

Her mother called him handsome. The straight brow and the eyes, a soft brown. His hair curls slightly and then doesn’t, as if it can’t make up its mind. His mouth is straight and hard, not cruel in any way, but…serious. Yes, she would say he has a serious mouth.

“I like this house,” he says.

“You do?”

“I’m a man of hotel rooms. This is grand, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so. It housed a woman who hated me, but I’ve come to appreciate it without having to think about her.”

“Even children couldn’t break the ice?”