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  They were silent for a few moments.

  Sam cleared his throat. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Why not? I’m glad you’re honest with me.”

  “I guess all I’m saying is that I’m sorry I brought it up today, with everything else you had to deal with.”

  “It’s okay. It was going to come up eventually, don’t you think?” Violet asked.

  “Yeah, it always does,” said Sam. “I really like you. I think—no, I’m positive I’m falling in love with you. I understand if this changes things, though.”

  Violet grew quiet. The joy of Sam’s saying he loved her was tempered by the shock of his admission that he didn’t want to have children. She wished she didn’t feel this way. After all, she wasn’t even sure she ever wanted to get married again. She loved the freedom of being on her own and wasn’t sure she’d be willing to give it up, even for someone as special as Sam. It seemed premature to be talking about a family. Still, she couldn’t help feeling like something precious was being taken away from her. She knew it was silly. She knew that, at her age, it probably wouldn’t be easy, if it were even possible, for her to have children of her own.

  “I probably should have brought this up sooner,” Sam said. “But I guess I was enjoying getting to know you too much, and I was afraid I’d lose the chance to continue getting to know you. Plus, I didn’t want to bring up such a serious topic so soon.”

  “It’s still soon,” Violet said. “We’ve been dating less than two months.”

  “Yeah, but I feel more for you than for people I’ve dated for years. I can see myself with you for a long time, you know?”

  “Yeah,” said Violet. “I do.”

  “So, is the kids thing a deal breaker for you?”

  Violet didn’t know. She loved babies, and she supposed she’d always imagined that children would be part of her life. But it had been a very long day, and she needed time to think.

  “Do I have to answer that?” Violet asked. “Because, to be honest, I don’t know what I’d say. In response to the other thing you said, though, it’s mutual. I’m falling in love with you, too. So can we just leave it at that for now, and revisit the kids topic some other time?”

  “Absolutely.” Sam leaned over and kissed her. “I just wanted to be fair and give you an easy out if you want one.”

  “I don’t want one,” Violet said.

  And that, at least, she was sure of.

  Chapter 18

  INVENTORY ITEM: lamp

  APPROXIMATE DATE: 1980

  CONDITION: good

  ITEM DESCRIPTION: Polychrome goose lamp manufactured by Kaplanheller Inc.

  SOURCE: estate of Katherine Morgan; not for sale

  April

  AFTER TWO WEEKS OF bed rest, April couldn’t wait to get out of the house, even if only to go to the doctor. Lane picked her up for her appointment, and when April got inside the Volvo station wagon, everything she touched felt sticky—the door handles, the dashboard, even the leather seats. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to touch as few surfaces as possible.

  “Thanks for coming to get me. I know it’s early,” April said.

  “Eight o’clock isn’t early for me. I’m up at six every morning so I can have half an hour of peace before my kids get up,” Lane said from behind the steering wheel. “And don’t think I don’t see you squirming over there. Just wait—your car will look like this someday, too. And your house. And pretty much anything your kids touch.”

  “Kids touch, kids touch,” said Lane’s youngest son from the backseat.

  “Whoa,” April said. “Who said anything about kids? When I had the ultrasounds, there was only one in there. That better still be the case.”

  “Don’t underestimate what just one can do,” Lane said.

  “Stop pinching me,” one of the boys cried from the backseat. “Mom!”

  “Pipe down. All three of you.” Lane made a stern face in the rearview mirror.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” April said. “My baby is going to be perfect. I showed you the ultrasound photo, right? Perfect.”

  “You’re right.” Lane smiled as she pulled into the clinic lot and drove up to the front door. “I’m just gonna take these guys to McDonald’s for some pancakes.”

  A chant started in the backseat. “PlayPlace! PlayPlace!”

  “Don’t tell my husband I’m feeding my kids fast food.” Lane winked. “He thinks they should be eating quinoa and organic carrots.”

  “I’ve never even met the elusive professor,” April said. “So I think your secret is safe.”

  “Mommy, she said a bad word,” said the oldest child.

  “‘Elusive’ is not a bad word, honey,” Lane said. She turned to April. “He thinks any word he hasn’t heard of is a bad word. So you’ll call me when you’re done? I’ll come pick you up.”

  “Yep.” April unbuckled her seat belt. “Thanks so much, Lane.”

  In Dr. Hong’s examining room, April’s heart raced as the nurse took her blood pressure. She knew she should relax to get the best chance of an accurate reading, but she couldn’t. Her freedom lay in what the blood pressure gauge said. The nurse left the room to get the doctor, and April waited for the verdict, thinking about how everything always seemed to come down to numbers.

  After the happy announcement that Dr. Hong was lifting her bed rest order, April went home and heaved open the barn-style doors of the unattached garage behind the house. Sunlight flooded into the space and shone on the dusty hood of the Toyota. She hadn’t gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle since before her mom’s accident. She was pretty sure that her fear of driving qualified as the kind of anxiety that Dr. Hong had warned her to watch for—the kind that interfered with her daily life. As if to prove to herself and to the doctor that she was perfectly fine, mental-health-wise, April got in and settled into the driver’s seat, taking slow breaths to keep panic from paralyzing her. The car still smelled the same inside as she remembered it, stuffy and slightly sweet from the air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.

  She’d driven the car hundreds of times before. It had been the car her mom let her use to drive to school.

  You can do this, she thought.

  She turned the key in the ignition and adjusted the mirrors before easing out of the garage and, very cautiously, backing onto the street. Since it was the middle of the day, there wasn’t much traffic as she crawled along, gripping the steering wheel with sweaty hands.

  She stopped at the light at the end of her block. As she waited at the intersection watching cars whiz by, her heart pounded. Being stopped made her think about everything that could go wrong, and she considered going back.

  Then the light turned and, reflexively, she put her foot on the gas. She felt nothing less than triumphant when she cleared the intersection and parked in the lot behind Hourglass Vintage on the next block. She got out of the car and opened the hatchback. The plastic goose lamp she’d brought from her mom’s house sat patiently on a nest of blankets in the trunk.

  As she carried the lamp toward the store, April couldn’t help laughing at herself. She must have looked ridiculous, waddling across the parking lot with a giant goose.

  A middle-aged woman called out from the coffee shop parking lot next door. “That looks awfully big. Do you need some help with that?”

  “I know it looks heavy, but it’s just hollow plastic,” April said.

  “But you can hardly see over the top of it,” the woman said. “Please, let me do it.”

  April thought about the weeks she’d spent on bed rest and realized she needed to get better at accepting help. “Okay,” she said. “That would be great.”

  The woman hurried over and took the lamp. “You shouldn’t be lifting large things.”

  The woman eyed the lamp with a curious expression. “What an interesting piece. Are you going to sell it to the shop? Because I’m not sure they’re open yet.”


  “No. It’s a gift.”

  April figured the woman probably thought she was crazy, but for once that didn’t bother her. Violet had taken a risk by taking her on as an intern. Now it was April’s turn to risk something—her pride, by apologizing.

  “Where do you want to put it?” the woman asked.

  “Let’s go around to the front door. The owner always checks the mailbox out front in the morning. This way, she’ll be sure to see it.”

  They walked around to the street side of the building, and as soon as they rounded the corner, April clapped her hand to her mouth.

  The store’s display window was shattered, and glass littered the sidewalk. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. Across the building’s beautiful brick façade, someone had spray-painted “CUNT” in fluorescent orange letters.

  “Oh, dear,” the woman said.

  April dug in her purse for her phone and dialed.

  “Violet?” she said. “You need to come down here right away.”

  Chapter 19

  INVENTORY ITEM: corset

  APPROXIMATE DATE: 2009

  CONDITION: excellent

  ITEM DESCRIPTION: New strapless corset in black spandex with lace-up back, for wear under vintage garments.

  SOURCE: eBay

  Violet

  SAM PULLED UP IN front of the store. The car hadn’t even come to a complete stop when Violet jumped out and ran over to April, who was standing on the sidewalk surrounded by broken glass.

  “I’ll pull around back to park,” Sam called out the window. “I’ll be right there.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Violet said. She hugged April and then let go and held her by both shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” April said. “I’m glad you’re okay. The first thing I thought when I saw the damage was that I hoped you weren’t inside.”

  “I stayed at Sam’s,” Violet said. “My ex showed up last night.”

  “Do you think it was him that did this?” April asked.

  “It was definitely him,” Sam said, coming up next to them. “We should probably call your landlord, Violet. And your insurance company . . .”

  Violet didn’t hear the rest of what Sam said because she’d already unlocked the door and flicked on the overhead lights inside the shop.

  “Violet, no,” Sam said, following her. “The police said to wait for them.”

  She held her breath as she surveyed her store. The size-six mannequin had tipped over, and its head and one arm had fallen off. Its 1940s sundress lay askew and covered with glass. A brick lay on the wood floor next to a shelf full of tableware, and several pieces of china lay shattered on the floor.

  Seeing the damage to her store, the only achievement she’d ever really been proud of, sent rage racing through Violet’s body. She crouched on the floor and started picking up pieces of a Wedgwood tureen with shaking hands.

  “Hey, let’s wait until the police get here, so they can see everything exactly as we found it and get it all in their report,” Sam said. He helped Violet up and put his arms around her. “They should be here any minute. They’re sending someone over to the motel, too, to look for Jed. If he’s still there, they’ll take him in for questioning.”

  “This can’t be happening,” Violet said. “The revue is in three days. We’ve got the rehearsal tonight. How am I supposed to pull off the show and get the store put back together?”

  “I’ll help,” Sam said.

  “Me too,” April said, peeking through the open door. “I mean, if you’ll let me after the way I acted the last time I was here.”

  Violet gave both of them a grateful look. “Okay, so what do we do first?”

  “I’ll need to get a tarp to tape up that window for now,” Sam said. “And I’m gonna call around about renting a power washer to get that spray paint off the building.”

  “Good thinking. I need all the good PR I can muster, with the show coming up, and I’m pretty sure having an obscenity sprayed on the front of the store is not good PR.” She put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe Jed went this far.”

  “I can,” Sam said. “I’m just pissed I didn’t teach that asshole a lesson last night when I had the chance.”

  Five years since I left him, Violet thought as she stared at the brick lying on the floor. And still Jed manages to destroy anything that’s important to me.

  “Come on, let’s go back outside,” Sam said, putting a hand on Violet’s shoulder and leading her toward the door. “The cops are gonna be here any minute.”

  As Violet stepped outside, she noticed the goose lamp standing next to the front door.

  She looked at April, bewildered. “Was that here before? Or am I so stressed out I’m seeing things?”

  April’s face flushed. “That’s why I came this morning. I meant to bring it for you as an apology—a sort of peace offering.”

  “I love it.” Violet put a hand to her chest. “And thank you for the way you handled things today.”

  “I know you’ll probably need to give it some thought, and you’ve got a lot on your mind right now,” April said. “But I was hoping you’d at least consider letting me have my position at the store back.”

  Violet was truly touched by April’s gift, and impressed by how calm she’d kept in discovering the vandalism. But April was right. Violet had a lot on her mind, and she wasn’t sure she needed the added worry of taking an intern back on at the moment.

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised.

  April nodded. “Okay, but in the meantime I’m gonna help you guys clean all this up.”

  Despite all that she’d been through, Violet still had to run the dress rehearsal for the revue that evening. April and Sam stayed behind at the shop, putting things back into as good of a shape as was possible with a tarp and pieces of plywood covering the window.

  From the front row of seats at the Majestic Theatre, Violet clapped her hands to try to get the attention of the models, who seemed to be more interested in talking than rehearsing.

  “Everyone, please,” Violet yelled with her last ounce of energy. She’d been on the phone off and on all day with the police. They still hadn’t found Jed. By the time they arrived at the motel, he had already checked out. Local police radioed the state patrol near Bent Creek to be on the lookout, but so far no one had spotted him. It didn’t help that Violet wasn’t sure what vehicle he was driving. In the meantime, the officer who’d shown up at the store had helped Violet fill out a restraining order.

  Violet had also spoken with Ted Mortensen, who had been surprisingly friendly about the whole thing. He informed her that she’d need to use her renter’s insurance to cover her losses for what was damaged inside the shop, but that Mortensen & Son would work with its own insurer to deal with the damage to the building itself.

  “Don’t you worry,” Ted had said. “We’ll handle the claims for the structural damage and so forth. You just focus on running your business. Don’t you have some big production coming up? I’ve seen the posters all over town.”

  “Yeah,” Violet had told him. “I know about your plans to sell my building to the condo developer, and all I’ve got to say is, don’t sign any contracts in blood just yet. I’m doing everything I can to come up with the money.”

  Ted had laughed, which irritated Violet. She knew the chance that she’d be able to raise enough funds to exercise her option to purchase the building was slim to none. But she didn’t need to be reminded of that fact by Ted.

  Now, in the theater, the chatter of the models got louder, and Violet shot Amithi and Lane a desperate look. Lane stood up, blew on her fingers, and whistled. The shrill sound shocked everybody onstage into silence.

  “Thanks,” said Violet.

  Lane shrugged. “I’m glad to see someone listens to me. My kids certainly don’t.”

  “Okay, so we’re going to do a full run-through,” Violet said. “Does everyone know what they’re supposed to wear? There should be a lis
t on your hanger of everything you’ll need for your outfit—all of your accessories and everything.”

  “I didn’t see a list,” said one of the younger models.

  “I’m gonna speak for myself here,” said the man—Violet’s hairdresser, in fact—who’d soon be transforming into the vivacious Ivanna Martini and would be emceeing the show. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll need some things that aren’t on that list that I don’t really want to discuss in mixed company, if you know what I mean.”

  The other men onstage piped up. Some of them wore street clothes and some had shown up at the rehearsal already in drag.

  Violet held up her hands. “Okay, okay. What I meant was that the list has everything on it from the store that we want you to wear. But obviously you need to bring your own undergarments and nylons and what have you. You are welcome to add whatever, um, enhancements you need to make yourself look beautiful on the big day.”

  This seemed to clarify things, because several of the models onstage nodded.

  One of the curvier women, a thirtysomething burlesque dancer, said, “Thank God, because I need my corset and my Spanx.”

  “Oh, I’ll give you Spanx, honey, don’t you worry,” said the man next to her. He was wearing what Violet thought of as “half drag”—false eyelashes and a wig, but jeans and a button-down oxford with the sleeves rolled up. He whacked the burlesque dancer on her round backside and she giggled.

  “Where did you find a corset?” one of the other girls asked. “I’ve been looking for one, too.”

  “We have some in the shop if anyone needs one,” Violet said. “And don’t worry, they’re new, not used, but they’re made specially to go under vintage garments. Does anyone have any more questions on wardrobe?” When no one spoke up, she continued. “All right, so you all have about half an hour to get backstage and get in costume, and then we’ll do the run-through. Ready? Go.”

  The models scattered off the stage.

  Amithi turned to Violet and said, “Did I tell you my daughter and her husband are coming to the revue? I’ve been staying with them for the past few weeks.”