Beatriz Williams - The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“It looks as if it’s been forwarded,” I said.

“The plot thickens.”

“My mother’s handwriting.” I ran my finger over the jagged remains of Fifth Avenue . “My parents’ address, too.”

“That sounds reasonable.” He remained a few respectful feet away, arms crossed against his blue chest. “Someone must have sent it to your parents’ house.”

“Apparently. Someone from Zurich, Switzerland.”

“Switzerland?” He uncrossed his arms and stepped forward at last. “Really? You have friends in Switzerland?”

“Not that I can remember.” I was trying to read the original name, beneath my mother’s black scribble. V something something. “What do you think that is?”

“It’s not Vivian?”

“No, it ends with a t .”

An instant’s reflection. “Violet? Someone had your name wrong, I guess.”

For a man who’d just walked coatless through the dregs of an October rain, Doctor Paul was awfully warm. I wore a cashmere turtleneck sweater over my torso, ever so snug, and still I could feel the rampant excess wafting from his skin, an unconscionable waste of thermal energy. Up close, he smelled like a hospital, which bothered me not at all.

I sashayed to the kitchen drawer and withdrew a knife.

“Ah, now the truth comes out. Make it quick.”

“Silly.” I waved the knife in a friendly manner. “It’s just that I don’t have any scissors.”

“Scissors! You really are a professional.”

“Stand aside, if you will.” I examined the parcel before me. Every seam was sealed by multiple layers of Scotch tape, as if the contents were either alive or radioactive, or both. “I don’t know where to start.”

“You know, I am a trained surgeon.”

“So you say.” I sliced along one seam, and another. Rather expertly, if you must know; but then I had done the honors of the table at college since my sophomore year. Nobody at Bryn Mawr carved up a noble loin like Vivian Schuyler.

The paper shell gave way, and then the box itself. I stood on a chair and dug through the packing paper.

“Steady, there.” Doctor Paul’s helpful hands closed on the back of the chair, and it ceased its rickety-rocking obediently.

“It’s leather,” I said, from inside the box. “Leather and quite heavy.”

“Do you need any help? A flashlight? Map?”

“No, I’ve got it. Here we are. Head, shoulders, placenta.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Neither.” I grasped with both hands and yanked, propelling myself conveniently backward into Doctor Paul’s alert arms. We tumbled pleasantly, if rather ungracefully, to the disreputable rug. “It’s a suitcase.”

I CALLED my mother first. “What is this suitcase you sent me?”

“This is not how ladies greet one another on the telephone, darling.”

“ Each other, not one another. One another means three or more people. Chicago Manual of Style , chapter eight, verse eleven.”

A merry clink of ice cubes against glass. “You’re so droll, darling. Is that what you do at your magazine every day?”

“Tell me about the suitcase.”

“I don’t know about any suitcase.”

“You sent me a package.”

“Did I?” Another clink, prolonged, as of swirling. “Oh, that’s right. It arrived last week.”

“And you had no idea what was inside?”

“Not the faintest curiosity.”

“Who’s it from?”

“ From whom , darling.” Oh, the ring of triumph.

“From whom is the package, Mums?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Do you know anybody in Zurich, Switzerland?”

“Nobody to you. Vivian, I’m dreadfully bored by this conversation. Can’t you simply open the damned thing and find out yourself?”

“I already told you. It’s a suitcase. It was sent to Miss Violet Schuyler on Fifth Avenue from somebody in Zurich, Switzerland. If it’s not mine—”

“It is yours. I don’t know any Violet Schuyler.”

“ Violet is not nearly the same as Vivian . Doctor Paul agrees with me. There’s been a mistake.”

A gratifying pause, as Mums was set back on her vodka-drenched heels. “Who is Doctor Paul?”

I swiveled and fastened my eyes on the good doctor. He was leaning against the wall next to the window, smiling at the corner of his mouth, blue scrubs revealed as charmingly rumpled now that the full force of sunlight was upon them. “Oh, just the doctor I met in the post office. The one who carried the parcel back for me.”

“You met a doctor at the post office , Vivian?” As she might say, the gay bathhouse on Bleecker Street.

I leaned my hip against the table, right next to the battered brown valise, trusting the whole works wouldn’t give way beneath me. I was wearing slacks, unbelted, as befitted a dull Saturday morning, but Doctor Paul deserved to know that my waist-to-hip ratio wasn’t all that bad, really. I couldn’t have said that his expression changed, except that I imagined his eyes took on a deeper shade of blue. I treated him to a slow wink and wound the telephone cord around my fingers. “Oh, you’d adore Doctor Paul, Mums. He’s a surgeon, very handsome, taller than me, seems to have all his teeth. Perfectly eligible, really, unless he’s married.” I put the phone to my shoulder. “Doctor Paul, are you married?”

“Not yet.”

Phone back to ear. “Nope, not married, or so he claims. He’s your dream come true, Mums.”

“He’s not standing right there, is he?”

“Oh, but he is. Would you like to speak to Mums, Doctor Paul?”

He grinned, straightened from the wall, and held out his hand.

“Oh, Vivian, no …” But her last words escaped me as I placed the receiver in Doctor Paul’s palm. His palm: wide, firm, lightly lined. I liked it already.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Schuyler … Yes, she’s behaving herself … Yes, I carried the parcel all the way up those wretched stairs. That’s the sort of gentleman I am, Mrs. Schuyler.” He returned my wink. “As a matter of fact, I do think there’s been some mistake. Are you certain there’s no one named Violet in your family? … Quite certain? … Well, I am a doctor, Mrs. Schuyler. I’m accustomed to making a diagnosis based on the symptoms presented by the subject.” A hint of a blush began to climb up his neck. “Hard to say, Mrs. Schuyler, but—”

I snatched the receiver back. “That will be enough of that, Mums. I won’t have you embarrassing my Doctor Paul with your remarks. He isn’t used to them.”

“He is a dream, Vivian. My hat’s off to you.” Clink, clink, rattle. The glass must be almost empty. “Try not to sleep with him right away, will you? It scares them off.”

“You would know, Mums.”

A deep sigh. Swallowed by the familiar crash of empty vodka glass on bedside table. “You’re coming for lunch tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Good. We’ll see you at twelve sharp.” Click.

I set the receiver in the cradle. “Well, that’s Mums. I thought I should warn you from the get-go.”

“Duly warned.”

“But not scared?”

“Not a lick.”

I tapped my fingernails against the telephone. “You’re certain there’s a Violet Schuyler somewhere in this mess?”

“Well, no. Not absolutely certain. But the fact is, it’s not your suitcase, is it?”

I cast the old gaze suitcase-ward and shuddered. “Heavens, no.”

“A cousin, maybe? On your father’s side? Lost her suitcase in Switzerland?”

“You mean a century or so ago?”

“Stranger things have happened.”