The Book of Someday Part 28

Yet she doesn't move out of his embrace.

The boards beneath the soles of her shoes are numbing her feet with cold. An icy night wind is beginning to slip over her coat collar and bite at the back of her neck.

And Livvi is continuing to hold on to David.

Deliberately postponing-for as long as possible-the moment of letting go.

On this second night spent tucked in the four-poster bed, with Grace beside her, the hours have pa.s.sed slowly for Livvi.

There were long s.p.a.ces in which she wanted to linger forever in the quiet of Evelyn's sleeping house-and the newfound bliss of David's love. There were other places in the night where she was frantic for daylight to come. For noon to arrive. For the door to the shop in Oyster Bay to open, and solve the riddle of the woman in the pearl-b.u.t.ton shoes.

Now the hands of the clock in front of the real estate office on Main Street are clicking together-right beneath the twelve.

And Andrew is on the phone, saying: "I'll be at the airport when you and Grace get back. I can't wait to see you. Can't wait to hold you."

Livvi is walking toward the store window where the portrait is-her pulse racing.

While at the other end of the phone Andrew is insisting: "I need you. You're my life, Olivia."

Livvi can't take her eyes off the painting, the image from her nightmare. And as she's looking at it, Livvi is also seeing the image of the cluttered tabletop she swept clean last night, in her father's New Jersey apartment.

She switches her phone from one ear to the other and tells Andrew: "Don't do it again-ever."

"What are you talking about?"

Livvi's gaze is still on the portrait. "Don't call me Olivia. Olivia is from a place that's gone. I don't live there anymore."

"What's going on with you?" Andrew asks. "For Christ's sake, talk to me, Olivia."

Livvi is seeing that the Closed sign has disappeared from the door of the shop. "Andrew, I need to go."

"I'm sorry, Olivia. It was a slip. I meant to call you Livvi. From now on I'll try to remember. It'll just take some time-"

"Andrew, I need to go."

"No, wait. Listen to me." His tone is insistent, determined. "I love you. I intend to do whatever it takes. Stand up to whoever I need to. I will put an end to the craziness."

Livvi knows how far the distance between Andrew's intentions and his accomplishments can be-she knows, in spite of how much he wants to, that he probably won't be able to keep the promise he just made.

She also knows that, no matter what happens, or where she goes from here, there are places in her heart that will belong always, and exclusively, to Andrew. The "first" places. Places that will never exist again.

The series of places where only Andrew went.

Where, piece by piece, he opened the world to Livvi.

The place where Livvi received the gift of her first birthday party. The place where she was first shown the power and beauty of s.e.x. The place where, while sailing skyward in a hot-air balloon, she was introduced to unbridled excitement for the first time.

And most important of all-the sacred s.h.i.+ning place where she first found Grace.

"Livvi, talk to me," Andrew is demanding. "Tell me what's going on."

Her heart is too full-her nerves too raw. All she can tell him is: "I have to go now."

Livvi has opened the shop's wide, green door. And she is stepping inside.

The store's interior is chic, with walls lacquered in cinnabar red and edged in black. In the center of the room, there's a Buddha carved from translucent green stone. And the Asian woman who is coming toward Livvi is slim. In her mid-forties, ethereally beautiful. She's saying: "I'm Rebecca w.a.n.g. How can I help you?"

Livvi's mouth is dry and the pulse in her temple is pounding as she answers: "I need to know about the painting in the window."

"Oh, a lot of people come in and ask about it. The woman in the picture was the daughter of a wealthy family in the Hamptons. Her name was Miriam Moran and the painting was done in 1922, shortly before her twenty-first birthday. But I'm sorry, it isn't for sale."

"I don't want to buy it," Livvi explains. "I need to know where it came from."

Rebecca w.a.n.g smiles apologetically. "All I can tell you is that it belonged to a friend of my grandmother's-I don't recall the woman's name-but my grandmother acquired the painting when her friend's house was being sold. I keep the portrait in the window because my grandmother loved it and this store used to be hers."

Livvi feels like Alice cartwheeling down the rabbit hole. "Please. There must be somebody who knows."

Rebecca w.a.n.g stays silent-for several long, agonizing moments. Then says: "Wait. Yes. There is someone."

And Livvi can breathe again.

Rebecca w.a.n.g is pulling a faded address book from a desk drawer, quickly paging through it, then using an ebony pen to enter information onto one of her store's small note cards.

Livvi is shaking as Rebecca w.a.n.g hands her the card and says: "If the person is still at this address, you should be able to find out everything you need to know."

Micah.

Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts ~ 2012.

Micah is drifting in and out of consciousness. Gliding through a parade of flickering images: A wonderful summer garden. Surrounded by soft green gra.s.s and a sea of coral-colored lilies.

Her mother. Stroking the fur of a smoke-colored cat while the light from a window is dancing across the rings on her fingers.

Jason. On the office steps of the Justice of the Peace. Mutely begging Micah, who is walking away, to stop. And come back.

A slant of sunlight. Painting a piece of copper wire with a fiery glow. Turning it into a trail of liquid light. While it's moving in Micah's hands. Smoothly and easily. Like embroidery silk.

A warm embrace. And AnnaLee's voice, sounding like music. Saying, "Believe that I love you...won't you please?"

Now the music of AnnaLee's voice is becoming the South Boston cadences of Micah's a.s.sistant Jillian, and Micah is opening her eyes.

Jillian is in the bedroom with Micah, leaning over Micah's chair. And Micah, for the first time, is noticing that Jillian is pretty-younger than Micah had always a.s.sumed.

Jillian is telling her: "Miss Lesser, there's someone-"

"Wait," Micah says. Now she's noticing the concern Jillian has for her, realizing that it has always been there, and she has never taken the time to see it.

"Miss Lesser, I need you to listen."

Micah is remembering the doctor's question, "Is there someone we can call, someone you're close to?" And she's begging Jillian, "Please. No more Miss Lesser. It's time that we-"

"Miss Lesser!" Jillian is startled, overcome with emotion. "You've never said 'please' to me before."

It takes Jillian a moment to pull herself together. Then she says: "There's someone here to see you."

Pain medication has Micah in a haze and she's confused by this other voice, not Jillian's, telling her: "Rebecca w.a.n.g sent me."

The mention of Rebecca w.a.n.g's name is carrying Micah back to that summer with AnnaLee. The image in Micah's mind is the image of a grave-and a length of copper wire being formed into the shape of a cross.

In the split second that it takes Micah to pull her thoughts away from the cross and the grave, Jillian is stepping aside. And a stranger-a quietly pretty young woman with luminous brown eyes and a cap of golden curls-is coming closer.

She seems tense, painfully nervous, as she's telling Micah: "My name is Livvi Gray and I need your help with this." She's holding out a cell phone.

There's a picture on the phone's screen but Micah isn't looking at it. She's staring at the young woman; trying to remember where she has seen her before.

The young woman is pointing to the cell phone-her voice trembling with emotion. "For as long as I can remember, I've had nightmares about the person in this painting. Her name is Miriam Moran. She lived in the Hamptons and the painting was done in 1922. I have to know how I could've grown up in California dreaming about somebody who lived on the opposite side of the country, and existed almost a century before I was born."

She holds the phone out to Micah, pleading: "Help me. Please. Rebecca w.a.n.g said you could tell me what this means."

When Micah looks at the phone, she sees that the photograph on the screen is of a portrait, in a store window. Micah recognizes it immediately. It's a painting that was in AnnaLee's house-the portrait that inspired AnnaLee's costume, the one she wore to Mrs. Jahn's gala.

And now Micah understands why the young woman's luminous eyes and golden curls were so instantly recognizable.

Micah is dizzy with guilt. And surprise. She can't take her eyes off that sweet face and those golden curls.

And with both trepidation and remembered fondness, Micah says: "Bella...?"

The young woman appears to be mystified-gives no response.

"Bella. That was your nickname when you were a baby," Micah tells her. "When you were born, your mother thought you looked like a fairy princess. They started out calling you Tinkerbelle, then Belle, then Bella."

"You're mistaken. I don't know you, we've never met." The young woman takes a cautious step backward, away from Micah-but continues to hold the phone so that Micah can see the screen. "Please, all I need is for you to tell me what you know about this painting. And then I'll go."

"No, don't go." Micah is leaning forward, reaching for the young woman, wanting her to understand. "You and I do know each other. Your father and mine are half-brothers, Bella. And one summer, when I was a teenager I lived in your house. In Glen Cove. On Long Island."

The young woman is glancing at the array of medications on the little table beside Micah's chair. "My name is Livvi. You have me confused with someone else."

"No," Micah insists. "You and I spent that summer together. When you were little. When you were Bella..."

Micah's voice has trailed away and, for an instant, she is in a late August afternoon...sitting beside AnnaLee in the garden swing. With her head bent low over the piece of copper wire that she's shaping and reshaping. And Bella, a toddler with a rag doll, is hovering at Micah's knee, fascinated.

Micah's voice is blurring with tears as she's trying to explain the past to this beautiful golden-haired girl. "It was the most wonderful summer of my life. Your mother let me be who I wanted to be...she let me be Persephone...and to her I was somebody special. She showed me I had talent, and loved me in a way I'd never been loved before."

Now Micah's visitor is glancing at Jillian: asking an unspoken question-is Micah insane?

"I'm not crazy. I know you," Micah says. "Your given name is Olivia. Your middle name is Lee. Your mother's name was AnnaLee. Your father's name is Jack. And your parents were devoted to you."

Micah is watching, helplessly. As this girl, Livvi, is going deathly pale. And falling. Like she has been body-slammed by a ghost.

Jillian is intercepting Livvi's fall-helping her into a chair.

While Livvi is murmuring: "How can it be possible...?"

And Micah is realizing this is the moment of truth.

The moment she was searching for. And couldn't find-in Kansas. Or the Laundromat in Louisville. Or her mother's house in Newport.

Which is why Micah is slowly opening the collar of her silk robe. Exposing the flesh just above her breast and just below her shoulder. Revealing the ghoulish snake tattoo-directing Livvi's attention to it. And telling her: "It's a picture of who I was at the beginning of that summer."

This is the moment in which Micah will discover if she has any hope of absolution. Livvi-Bella-is the person who holds the greatest debt on Micah's sin. She's the one who has the right to decide what should become of Micah.

As she begins to tell her story, to describe the events that led to the disaster, Micah is laying it out so that Livvi can see everything clearly. Everything that happened in those few, unforgettable weeks. When Micah was Persephone.

...In the first week of the summer, Persephone has purple hair and is exploding with anger. Saying to AnnaLee, "That stuff you were telling your kid-that stuff about how much you love her. It made me hate you. And her."

...In midsummer, Persephone is on Main Street in Oyster Bay. In the company of Hayden Truitt. Hungry for her approval. Plotting a crime. Then telling AnnaLee, "It's nothing. I'm just helping Tru think up an idea for a horror movie."

...At the end of August, Persephone is in AnnaLee's kitchen. And she fiercely loves AnnaLee. She's rus.h.i.+ng to make a phone call. She's wearing a Ziegfeld costume the same coral color as the lilies in AnnaLee's garden. Persephone is working at keeping her voice low so AnnaLee won't hear. While she's whispering about the crime, and about AnnaLee. She's nervously leaving a message. Saying, "Forget the plan we decided on. When I told you I'd do it, I was still making up my mind. Things are different now..."

"But it was too late," Micah is explaining. "The plan was already in motion." Micah gazes down at her snake tattoo-momentarily lost in thought. Then she says: "Hayden and her boyfriend Marco were always needing money. For drugs."

Micah's visitor, Livvi, seems utterly confounded. "But how do those people have any connection to me?"

"You'll understand. Just let me finish." Micah tells her. "That day when I said I was thinking up an idea for a horror movie, what I was really doing was letting Hayden know about your parents going to Mrs. Jahn's party. I promised Hayden I'd leave the back door unlocked so she and Marco could come in and rob the place-"

"But I still don't see why you're telling me all of this." Livvi is leaning forward. Her eyes full of apprehension. "What you're saying doesn't-"

"Wait, just listen. I need to tell you everything exactly the way it took place; otherwise, it won't make any sense." Micah is plunging ahead, not wanting Livvi to stop her. "At first I hated AnnaLee, but by the time the party happened, everything was different. I loved her. It wasn't until I was walking out the door, with my new friend Rebecca, that the plan I'd made with Hayden came back into my head. I called Hayden a dozen times but she never answered. I kept leaving messages. Hayden and Marco...and the guy who was with them...all of them were high when they got to your parents' house. They were angry about the back door not being unlocked. They had a gun. And-"

"And what?" The mention of a gun has brought Livvi to the edge of her chair.

"They shot your mother. They murdered her. She was still in her costume from the party, the costume I copied from the portrait-the silver dress and the pearl-b.u.t.ton shoes."

Livvi sways. Ever so slightly. As if she's about to faint.

Micah feels dirty. Coated with shame. As she tells Livvi: "I killed your mother...I killed AnnaLee. She died because of what I did."

Micah's throat is tightening and closing-while she waits for Livvi's wrath.