The Gift of a Charm Page 9

  Greg swallowed uncomfortably – now was definitely not the moment to tell her the bad news about the Met Gala. She could only take one disappointment at a time.

  Thinking about it, though, maybe he had been too wrapped up in himself and his own needs lately; maybe he needed to bring the romance back to their relationship.

  He thought of his mother and father, of the way his dad brought Cristina sunflowers every Friday, no matter what and for no reason. Of how his mother loved to recount how he had come downtown to find her so many years ago.

  She’d been sitting outside her parents’ deli and, according to her, had been wearing her best blue dress the day that she and Greg’s father first met. She didn’t know why, but something told her to put it on that morning, as if something special was going to happen. She had taken her post on the chair next to the pickle barrel outside the deli and waited.

  ‘There he was, striding down the street,’ she would say, her eyes lighting up. ‘Can you imagine, in our little neighbourhood of small-boned people comes this tall, fair-haired giant. He walked right up to me, as if it were the only reason he had come downtown, and asked what was in the barrel.’ At this point, Greg’s mother would crack up laughing, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘Can you believe it? He had never seen a pickle barrel before!’ She would laugh and laugh, and his father would squeeze her arm, the two of them caught up in that moment, the moment they had met and changed each other’s lives for ever. Greg never tired of hearing the story even as an adult. But his mother hadn’t laughed at his father that day, but had daintily pulled a pickle out of the barrel and handed it to the ‘tall, fair-haired giant’ who would eventually become her husband.

  Every year his parents would celebrate their anniversary, not by going to Le Cirque, buying each other jewellery or going on a cruise, but by going downtown to Alphabet City to look for pickles. Since the city was always changing, they never knew if a deli was still going to be there or if it would close by the following year. So 17 May was their pickle-hunt day.

  They only seemed to get closer as the years progressed, especially after his father retired. Most men Jeff’s age – and who had been in the business he was in – suffered a heart attack after retirement, their bodies unused to the lack of excitement and stress, but not Jeff. Cristina had plans for him. Every month it was something new. ‘I signed us up for tango lessons!’ she would announce suddenly over the dining-room table.

  ‘What? What the hell are you thinking?’ he would bark at her, smiling the whole time.

  ‘Oh come on – we should try it.’

  And they would and they would love it. Two people who had worked hard their whole lives finally enjoying themselves and each other. After tango came watercolours, then organic cooking, and then a small, lively theatre class at the YMCA.

  For one year they were volunteer guides at the New York Historical Society, giving tours in tandem with each other, finishing each other’s sentences as they described a Hudson River Valley painting or gave a tour of the library.

  That’s what Greg wanted, he decided as he wheeled his bike along the streets beside Karen: he wanted Karen and him to finish each other’s sentences; he wanted a life full of love and laughter like his parents had.

  Forget careers and fancy galas. Love, laughter and great memories – wasn’t that what life was truly about?

  Chapter 7

  ‘This bracelet really is a pretty thing; it’s incredible just how much it’s like yours,’ commented Kate. She twirled the bracelet gently in her hands, inspecting the individual charms.

  ‘It’s kind of uncanny, isn’t it?’ Holly agreed.

  On her lunch break from the Secret Closet, she’d hustled across the street to Best Bagels to meet with Kate. Her friend was already sitting at a table when she arrived, flirting with the guy behind the counter.

  Leopards and their spots … Holly walked up to her, smiling. ‘Hey, I thought we talked about this!’

  Kate grinned sheepishly.

  ‘Well, as long as he’s quick on the job. I have to be back in—’

  Kate interrupted her: ‘Thirty minutes or less, I know. Maybe we should have gone to McDonald’s, then. But yep, I ordered for you already. Plain bagel with butter and black tea.’ She gave one last playful wave to the bagel guy and Holly rolled her eyes.

  ‘Thanks, sounds great.’ She peeled off her gloves and shrugged herself out of her coat.

  ‘So what do you want for Christmas?’ she asked her friend.

  Kate ogled the guy behind the counter again.

  ‘Besides a healthy relationship with a man,’ Holly added, groaning.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, nothing? A trip to Queens to see Eileen and her famous mince pies?’ Kate retorted.

  Holly’s mother believed God had made pre-cooked food for a reason and it certainly wasn’t her place to argue over it.

  Although, Holly recalled sadly, when Seamus was alive Eileen used to make Christmas pudding – an old Irish recipe that had apparently been handed down through generations. Holly still remembered how delicious it tasted, but after her father died, these family traditions had been abandoned over the years.

  Holly and Danny usually went to Eileen’s for Christmas dinner, and Kate had tagged along once or twice if she wasn’t going home to her family in Minnesota.

  ‘You do know she buys the mince pies at ShopRite and then plates them up?’

  ‘No!’ Kate pretended to be shocked. ‘And the turkey? You’re saying she doesn’t raise one herself on the fire escape and butcher it in the bathtub?’

  ‘Well, as long as it was raised in Queens…’ Holly laughed; she always joked that her mother never left Queens.

  ‘That’s not true,’ Eileen would protest. ‘I go to the opera, don’t I?’ Holly had to concede that yes, her mother managed to make it in on public transportation to see her beloved Wagner Circle every year. Holly and Danny would pick her up after the performance and take her to their apartment in a taxi, where she would spend the night and then travel home the next day by subway. Danny and Holly had a running joke. He would ask, ‘When is Nana coming over?’ And she would reply, ‘I don’t know; who’s playing at Lincoln Center?’

  It was then that Holly remembered the bracelet and yesterday’s failed attempt at tracking it down. With Carole’s permission, she’d taken it upon herself to locate the owner via any means she could, and now she pulled it out to show Kate, who was in the throes of admiration.

  ‘This looks a bit like Tiffany,’ her friend said, studying the bracelet.

  ‘Really?’ Although Holly was as familiar as any New Yorker with the famous jewellery store, she wasn’t familiar (or lucky) enough to be able to recognise one of its creations.

  ‘Well, maybe not the bracelet, but this charm is anyway,’ Kate indicated the heart-shaped key. ‘See the maker’s mark just there?’

  Holly followed her gaze. ‘Good spot.’

  ‘A little worn, but it definitely looks like a Tiffany mark.’ Kate continued examining the various charms. ‘Oh, and look at this – a Date to Remember charm! Thirty-first of December.’

  Holly reached out and pulled the bracelet back towards her. ‘I didn’t notice that either. Not the date anyway.’ But Kate was right: on the other side of the disc-shaped charm was inscribed: December 31 – Same Time, Same Place.

  She looked away into the distance, her thoughts racing.

  ‘Oh no,’ Kate chuckled. ‘I know that look. It’s the same look you had when you found that old couple’s photo. You dragged me all over the city to find them, remember? It took us weeks!’

  Holly smiled; she did indeed remember that photo. She had found it tucked inside a book she’d borrowed from the library. It was of a middle-aged man and woman sitting at a café in what looked like an exotic part of the world, beaming at each other. It had taken a while to find the owner, but with the library’s help, Holly had managed. Turned out he had lost his wife in 9/11 in the meantime and had moved out to Brooklyn. When Hol
ly and Kate managed to track him down and showed up at his door with the photo, he had broken down in tears. No one said a word; he just hugged her, and she hugged him back. The look on his face had been worth all the hours of searching.

  ‘I remember too,’ Kate sniffed, her voice filled with sudden emotion.

  ‘What?’ Holly looked up, startled, and then felt stupid, Of course, she thought. Justin.

  Kate had been in a serious relationship with a man who had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald who had also died on 9/11. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, I forgot for a second. I’m so sorry.’

  She had tried her best back then to comfort Kate, but it was hard. Watching her friend suffer was something Holly never wanted to experience again.

  Justin and Kate had seemed like the perfect couple: engaged and blissfully happy. Holly had first met them both in Washington Square Park, not far from her apartment. She had been around six months pregnant with Danny at the time, and Kate’s dog, Lily, had jumped up on her as they passed. Kate was appalled, and while Holly had insisted she was fine, Kate had in turn insisted on making her rest on a park bench and they had all got talking. Kate and Holly’s friendship grew quickly, and the first time Justin visited Holly at home, he had surveyed her tiny apartment and immediately walked over to her window facing the courtyard.

  ‘Wow, you are so lucky,’ he’d said. ‘If I had this place, I would park myself in front of this window with a telescope all the time, Rear Window style.’

  Holly adored him from that moment on.

  After 9/11 she had gone to the site with Kate, posting his photo everywhere they could. Kate could not believe it.

  ‘He’s a rock climber, Holly,’ she would say tearfully, as they roamed the streets. ‘A jogger. He’s strong and fit: he could survive anything.’

  Holly would nod, hoping against hope that she was right, but after seeing the wreckage, she knew in her heart it was impossible.

  After that, the two women became inseparable. In the months that followed, Holly gave birth to Danny and very quickly realised that she and Nick had no future, and Kate finally accepted that it was impossible for someone to face down such destruction and survive.

  Then, a few years back, after the city officials had sifted through much of the rubble that used to be the towers, they had sent Justin’s mother his ID badge from the office. It was all that was ever found of him.

  His mother had sent it to Kate with a note. I can’t bear to keep it but I can’t throw it away. Kate wasn’t sure what to do with it either, but Holly knew exactly what. She tucked it in the space between the frame and windowpane in her apartment, facing out to the courtyard. Justin would have his wish after all: a front-row seat to life that would continue on without him.

  ‘Anyway,’ Kate said, determinedly turning her attention back to the bracelet, ‘if you’re taking the UPS girl’s idea seriously – that is, to try and find the owner by way of the charms – where do you plan to start?’

  Holly picked up the bracelet from where Kate had placed it on the table and looked through the charms again.

  ‘I’m not exactly sure; there are so many, aren’t there? Is there anything that looks familiar to you? Other than the Tiffany key.’

  The two women huddled over the bracelet, both studying the charms.

  ‘Well,’ Kate said, looking up, ‘the Eiffel Tower one would suggest she’s been to Paris.’

  Holly laughed. ‘Well, thanks, Captain Obvious, I appreciate that. Doesn’t tell us anything other than that, though, does it?’

  ‘She’s lucky. I’d love to go to Paris … be whisked away by someone special.’ She eyed the guy behind the counter again.

  Holly smiled and shook her head. ‘Erm, I think Paris, Texas is about as far as you’d get with that guy.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Kate laughed, and put her head back down, considering the charms.

  She looked at Holly. ‘Of course, the pink ribbon could suggest—’

  ‘I know.’ The pink ribbon, a now universally recognisable symbol for breast cancer, had been one of the first charms that had stood out for Holly. ‘But she could be a big supporter of the charity – or have a friend or family member who—’

  ‘Actually…’ Kate picked the bracelet up again to look more closely at the heart-shaped key charm. ‘This one from Tiffany…’ She held up the key for Holly to see. You know the way they stamp ‘Return to Tiffany’ on their key rings and stuff?’

  Holly nodded. ‘Yes, I know there’s a reason behind that, but I can’t remember what.’

  ‘Well, when someone buys something from Tiffany with one of those “Return to Tiffany” stamps on it, supposedly they’re given the key ring’s registration number on a separate card. If the key ring is lost and returned to the store, Tiffany contacts the customer and arranges to get it back to the owner. Isn’t it romantic?’ She shook her head dreamily. ‘So maybe it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s nothing like that on the bracelet,’ Holly pointed out.

  ‘But there is a Tiffany charm. Maybe they keep records of this kind of stuff anyway?’

  ‘You could be on to something there,’ she agreed, the wheels in her brain turning.

  Maybe Tiffany did keep records of some sort. At the Secret Closet, even though they weren’t anywhere near the size or scale of Tiffany & Co., they kept records of all their best and returning customers, so as to contact them when something they thought might interest them came in.

  When she explained this to Kate, her friend nodded excitedly. ‘Well then, there’s your starting point. Off to Tiffany you go.’

  * * *

  ‘Sweetheart, hold on a second … I know you’re excited, but really, you’ve also got me lugging all the bags!’

  I turned round and, seeing the love of my life struggling with some of the shopping bags, gave him a guilty look. I suppose I went a little overboard in the Oltrarno district, but then again, how often does a girl get to shop in Florence? However, I also supposed I could only use that line so many times …

  ‘You know, if I thought you were going to have problems keeping up with me, I would have brought a younger man.’

  ‘Watch it. Besides, the ink is surely dry on our marriage certificate. Too late – you are stuck with me for life.’

  I pulled him close and kissed him, truly amazed that such a wonderful man was now my husband.

  He put both arms around my waist and we looked out over the precipice in Piazzale Michelangelo, overlooking Florence’s famed Duomo. The setting sun highlighted and gave added mystique to the red dome of the structure, and I couldn’t help but sigh at the beauty spread out before me.

  ‘Isn’t that just the most gorgeous view? Florence really was a great idea for a honeymoon.’

  ‘It’s not nearly as gorgeous as you. And, sweetheart, this is just the beginning of our adventures.’

  Feeling happy, content and whole, we wandered on for a bit, while I kept snapping pictures with my Kodak Instamatic 30 of the places I had only ever read about or seen pictures of. I hoped all the pictures turned out well, as I definitely wanted to frame some for what would be our new home. It still tickled me that we were actually walking through the ancient streets of Florence. It all seemed too good to be true!

  ‘What do you think about stopping and getting a carafe of the homemade vino?’

  ‘Sounds magnifico,’ I said in my best Italian accent, the one that had been making my husband laugh since we stepped off the plane three days ago. ‘What about there?’ I pointed to a tiny little restaurant that had a few small tables on the street outside. ‘We can watch the world go by and I can consult the map.’

  Moments later, we sat at a small wicker table, a glass jug of the house red before us. I opened the guidebook that I had purchased weeks before at a used bookstore back home and looked over an illustration of the city.

  I looked up as he gave a snort of laughter.

  ‘Put that thing away. I think we have already determined that the map
in that book is wrong or out of date.’

  Indeed, we had. We’d got miserably lost the day before because of this map, but even so, I felt that there had to be some truth in what had been printed.

  ‘Stop it, I trust in maps. It’s how I will learn my way around Florence.’

  ‘You learn your way only if the map is right, though.’

  I peered across the table, marvelling again at those bright blue eyes, and the fair hair that flopped over the back of his shirt collar. I thought about running my hands through it right then and there, but decided it might be better to save that for the hotel room.

  ‘You know, if you behave right now, I might feel the urge to misbehave later, when we are alone.’ I said this as seductively as possible, and ran my tongue over my lips, until I couldn’t take it any longer and burst out laughing.

  ‘You minx,’ he laughed with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’m going to hold you to that.’

  ‘I hope you do, but in the meantime, what street are we on?’ I peered up at the corner of the building in which we sat. I had learned quickly that there were no street signs the way there were in New York, but rather that the street names were actually marked on the buildings. ‘Can you see what that says?’ I asked, pointing to where the name was inscribed in the marble of the building façade.

  ‘I think it says Viale Donato Giannotti.’

  I looked back down at the map. ‘OK, so if that’s right, that means we are on this street right here. And our hotel is there.’ I pointed to each place.

  ‘I trust you, you’re the navigator,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ll follow you anywhere.’

  I put the book down and reached across the table to take my new husband’s hand, the charm bracelet round my wrist jingling happily. ‘Likewise,’ I cooed. ‘Oh, this is all just so exciting, don’t you think? Doesn’t it feel magical, like all of our adventures are only just beginning? I feel like it’s a fairy tale, and that you are my knight in shining armour. I know it’s corny, but I can’t help but get caught up in the romance of this place. I feel as though our lives are just getting started.’