As the Crow Flies, page 4
“Oh, don’t ever lose it. It’s very subtle…very sweet.”
Samantha grinned. “Why, thank you,” she said, unable to remember what she was saying before Dr. Laraway interrupted her.
“So…?” Dr. Laraway waited. “You were saying?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Something about cascading tangles of Persian-rose flowers.”
“Right…” Samantha hesitated. “Is this description helping at all?”
“Absolutely. Your observations are quite astute.”
“I’m trying my best.”
“Your effort is quite commendable, Ms. Weller.”
Samantha suddenly felt like a college student taking an oral exam with a professor. In fact, Ms. Laraway sounded like a professor. Her manner was eloquent yet very relaxed, self-assured. It was sexy, too, in a scholarly sort of way. “Would a description of the rook itself help?”
“Oh, by all means.”
Samantha tilted her head this way and that way, inspecting the rook as Bertha had inspected the mussel shells.
“Its body is facing into the book, but its head is turned so that it’s gazing back.”
“Gazing? At whom is it gazing?”
“At the observer.”
“Are you observing it right now?”
“Yes. It’s right in front of me…looking back at me.”
“Hmm…and what of its countenance?”
“It’s count—? Geez, I don’t know.” Samantha cradled the phone again, studying the rook closely. “I guess I’d say its countenance is one of omniscience, if you want to know the truth.”
“Nothing but the truth.”
“It almost seems like a sentinel,” Samantha said.
“A sentinel!” Dr. Laraway said, a note of surprise in her voice. “As though it’s guarding, what, the book on which it is perched?”
“Yes. Or more precisely, the knowledge contained in the book.”
“Guarding knowledge…” She paused, evidently pondering Samantha’s assessment. “I like the way you think, Ms. Weller. I’ve never quite considered—”
“Don’t get me wrong, Dr. Laraway. It’s not a malevolent bird. It’s definitely a sentinel, but in a peaceful, affable sort of way.”
“Affable?” Her tone rose with amused disbelief. “I dare say, Ms. Weller, have its eyes blinked yet?”
Samantha chuckled. “Dr. Laraway, if this sculpture blinks it will spend the night on the front lawn. It’s dark and I’m all alone. If you spook me, I might not be able to sleep with it in the house,” she said, poking fun at herself.
With that, Dr. Laraway broke into a soft and sultry laughter that seemed to signal the end of her game. “Two-two-seven-four,” she said with resignation.
“What?”
“Turn the bookend over, Ms. Weller. You’ll find an identification number incised beneath the Rookwood mark.”
Samantha turned the piece upside down and grimaced. There it was, two-two-seven-four, incised below the Rookwood mark. Dr. Laraway had let her ramble on and on about cascading Persian-rose flowers and sentinels with affable countenances, when all she needed to do was instruct Samantha to flip the bookend over. “You could have spared yourself, Dr. Laraway.”
“I didn’t have the heart…or the inclination, particularly. I’m thoroughly enjoying your enthusiasm, and as long as we’re telling the truth, I must say I’ve never listened to a more beautifully detailed description—critique, I should say—of that particular rook. It’s a commercial piece from the nineteen twenties, inexpensive by comparison to other Rookwood pottery, but it’s always been one of my favorites. In hearing you describe it, I find myself falling in love with it all over again.”
Samantha didn’t respond. She held the receiver and waited.
“I take it you’re not a dealer,” Dr. Laraway said, her words more a statement than a question.
“Me? No. Not a dealer. Just a writer.”
“Given your descriptive narrative, I should have guessed. And what kind of just-a-writer might you be?”
“Mysteries”
“Ah, a mystery writer. There’s nothing like a good mystery…except for a good romance.”
“Is there a difference?” Samantha joked.
“Between mysteries and romances?” She chuckled. “Is that to say matters of the heart mystify the mystery writer?”
Samantha could almost feel Dr. Laraway smiling. “Thoroughly,” she admitted.
“Well, I can’t very well argue your point. Love is its own existential mystery.”
“Spoken like a philosopher.”
Dr. Laraway laughed. “I am a philosopher.”
Samantha hesitated, not sure if she was being teased again. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I taught metaphysics for twenty-five years.”
“I had that feeling,” Samantha said.
“That I was a philosopher?”
“That you were a professor. You sound like one.”
“So we both have a good ear—me for accents, you for professions.” She paused for a second and then spoke again. “So what interest does a mystery writer mystified by love have in American art pottery?”
“I don’t. I mean, I didn’t until now. The bookend caught my eye at a yard sale because it looked like my pet crow.”
“A crow? How fitting. Every mystery writer should have a crow.”
“Except that I didn’t get a crow because I’m a mystery writer. I’m a mystery writer because of the crow. It’s a long story—a long metaphysical story.”
“Well then, I will look forward to enjoying that long story when we meet.”
Samantha hesitated. “Meet…?”
“At the wedding.”
“The wed—?”
“I thought you wanted to marry off your single bookend?”
Samantha couldn’t help but smile. “You mean…you can make a match?”
“Presently, I have five bookends from that particular mold, one pair in solid matte turquoise, the other solid brown. The fifth, my odd one, is a mate to yours. Some fifteen years ago, its mate was accidentally knocked over during an indoor Frisbee game between my dog and my niece. Many bookends were made from that one mold—as I said, it’s a commercial piece from the twenties—but I’ve never seen an unpaired one surface, at auction or otherwise.”
“And you’re willing to sell?”
“When you reach my age, Ms. Weller, collections become clutter, and the impulse is to subtract rather than add to the clutter. Culling one’s possessions creates the illusion of freedom.”
Samantha remembered her grandparents saying something like that years ago when she had wanted to give them a kitten. Of course, they hadn’t phrased it quite as eloquently as Dr. Laraway. No more pets to tie us down was what they’d said. We don’t want anything. We’re getting rid of everything. So we can travel! Not that they ever went anywhere.
“In answer to your question,” Dr. Laraway said, “I’m willing to part with my rook…as long as you promise to cherish it as I have.”
“I do. I will love and cherish it…to death do us part.”
“Then I think we can do business and arrange a marriage,” Dr. Laraway said with satisfaction.”
“As I said,” Samantha added, intent on proving her worthiness, “the fact that I own a real crow makes having the bookends extra special.”
“I’m quite familiar with crows and ravens. I once had the privilege of raising two orphans. And if there’s anything I learned, it’s that they cannot be owned. Dogs allow themselves to be owned, but crows are like cats. You never own them. You simply live with them.”
Bertha came running out of the kitchen just then, heading for the staircase with a mussel in her beak. Samantha cupped her hand over the receiver. “Bertha? Drop it! I said drop that right now,” she demanded in a hushed whisper. The crow regarded her with a mixture of defiance and indifference, then turned and dashed up the stairs with the mussel, half hopping, half flying. A second later came the pitter-patter of long-nailed feet running across the bedroom floor. “I’m sorry, Dr. Laraway. Let me retract that last statement and say that I cohabitate with a crow.”
Dr. Laraway was silent for a moment, and then she asked, “Does your husband mind a crow in the house?”
Something about that question, something about the way Dr. Laraway asked it, gave Samantha the feeling she was fishing for personal information. They seemed to have an immediate chemistry, and unless Samantha was completely misinterpreting their exchange, Dr. Laraway was flirting.
Samantha decided to take the bait. “I almost had a wife once, but never a husband.”
“Huh! I might have had a wife, too,” she offered, “if a woman could have legally had one fifteen years ago. In retrospect, it’s better we couldn’t marry, because it would only have ended in divorce.”
“Mine, too,” Samantha answered. “In fact, I’m curious to see what the divorce statistics will be over the next couple of years.”
Dr. Laraway laughed. “I’m glad you bring that up, because I keep wondering the same thing. With gay marriage legalized, I think many couples are joyously running out to marry simply because they can…and with little regard for true love and compatibility.”
“I wholeheartedly agree. Having been denied the right to marry for so long, we’re easily swept away by the romantic notion of proposing, marrying, playing house…but it hasn’t yet sunk in that if the marriage fails, we can’t pack our bags and leave like we used to.”
Dr. Laraway chuckled. “It’s so nice to discuss the subject with another pessimist.”
“I think we’re more realists than pessimists. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the numbers play out.”
“I take it you’re not the marrying kind.”
Samantha laughed. “I actually am, but if it ever comes to that, I won’t make a frivolous decision.”
Regardless of Dr. Laraway’s unknown current status, she’d at least made it clear that she’d been with a woman. For argument’s sake, they’d just come out to each other, hadn’t they? Samantha wanted desperately to ask Dr. Laraway’s age, but she didn’t dare. If Dr. Laraway—Professor Laraway—had taught college for twenty-five years, that would make her, what, fifty-four, fifty-five? Not so bad. Age differences were commonplace in the gay community.
“Where are you, Ms. Weller?”
“I’m sorry, I was just thinking…”
“I was referring to your location. Where do you live?”
“Oh. I’m in New York. Westchester County.”
“I’m in the Berkshires, in Stockbridge…probably a hundred miles or so from you. We could arrange to meet next time I’m in the city, possibly next week…unless I can interest you in coming here. If you do, I’ll give you a crash course in American art pottery. I have a substantial collection.”
“I’d love that. My schedule is flexible and I don’t mind driving.”
“Well, then…how about here, the day after tomorrow?”
“Thursday’s fine. Would you mind if I brought along my sister-in-law, Liz?”
“The antiquarian who found me? I’d be delighted to meet her, and so would my niece. Isabel is a collector of ephemera, books mostly. In fact, why don’t the two of you join me for a late lunch.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“No imposition. One o’clock, say? That way Isabel can arrange to be here.”
Samantha grabbed a pen and paper to jot down the address.
“And bring the bird, why don’t you,” Dr. Laraway added.
“I will.”
“I’ll see you Thursday, then.”
“Uh…” Samantha hesitated, “not that it matters, but…what’s your asking price on the bookend?”
“My asking price? Hmm…that all depends.”
“On?”
“On how much I like you, Ms. Weller.”
Samantha opened her mouth to speak, but when nothing came out, she closed it. She could only hope Dr. Laraway would like her as much as she was liking her right now.
With a simple good-bye, and before Samantha could even think to speak, Dr. Laraway hung up, leaving her mentally suspended for the moment.
She sat there, lost in thought, although it wasn’t exactly a thought she was having. It was more a feeling, that rare and inexplicable sense of intrigue that follows a stimulating conversation with a new acquaintance. All of it, all of Dr. Laraway, left her somehow affected, enough, at least, that she was oblivious to the fact of holding the receiver in her hand until the recording sounded: If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again…if you need help, hang up and dial the operator…
“I need help,” she mumbled, “but it’s not an operator I need.”
Chapter Five
Library walls covered half the interior of the Laraway gallery. Several shelves held Gwen’s books, but mostly they belonged to her niece: rare books, out-of-print books, favorites, first editions. By the age of four, Isabel went about opening a new book the way a connoisseur tastes wine. Child eyes wide as plums, she inspected every detail of a new book—cover, binding, title page—before pulling the book to the tip of her nose and inhaling deeply as she thumbed through the pages. Gwen suspected it was the scent of fresh ink and new paper that appealed to little Isabel’s olfactory sense.
“What do you smell?” Gwen would always ask.
Considering the Laraways had made their fortune in the paper business, Isabel knew at an early age that paper comes from trees. Gwen had repeatedly explained the steps involved in making paper, never mind that she had added the part about elves having a hand in the process.
“I smell the trees,” Isabel would say, her smile tiny, her nose upturned, so that she herself resembled an elf. “I can smell the whole forest. Here, Aunt Gwen, you smell!”
On cue, Gwen would open the book, take an exaggerated whiff, and agree that, yes, she could indeed smell the bark and blossoms of the trees from which the elves had made the paper.
Accepting her aunt’s agreement as a confirmation of magical workings in the paper forest, Isabel would then giggle and scrunch her shoulders as though overcome by the sudden chill that magic brings. After she handed Gwen the book, she’d climb into her lap, and together they’d open to the first, crisp page and begin a new story.
So many, many stories ago.
To this day, her niece would never begin reading a new book without first poking her nose in the pages. Only twenty-eight years old, Isabel already had expertise in ephemera. If it was made of paper, she could tell you everything about it, whether it was printed yesterday or during the seventeenth century. But when she wasn’t poking her nose in a book, managing her feral-cat colony, or helping her father run the company, she was busy poking her nose in Gwen’s business.
Isabel was kind and loving, but her caretaking, worrywart ways annoyed Gwen. Knowing her niece meant well, Gwen managed to mask her annoyance, but she did often wonder where those worrywart genes came from—certainly not from the carefree Laraway side of the family.
Gwen only wished that Isabel would fall in love one day soon and have someone else to worry about. Of course, Isabel hadn’t had a date since her high school prom.
Throughout college and graduate school, Gwen had never observed her taking an interest in anyone of the opposite sex. When Isabel was born, Gwen had been with Jean, and it wasn’t until Isabel was fourteen that they split up. During those years they’d never hidden their relationship from Isabel, and Isabel had grown up perfectly comfortable with same-sex couples. Still, Isabel obviously wasn’t comfortable with herself. Not once had she ever hinted at being straight or gay, and Gwen never pushed the subject. She could only hope that an appropriate suitor would happen along in the near future, male or female, to awaken desire in this sleeping beauty and sweep her off her feet.
Gwen flipped a switch on the wall, adjusted the dimmers, which controlled the showcases, and folded her arms beneath a white sweater draped loosely over her shoulders. Lighted showcases stood everywhere, the warm glow accentuating the artful treasures they contained. Strolling through the cool gallery, she made her way around the mahogany table and opposing love seat in the center of the room, and then over to a lit wall unit containing her prized Rookwood pieces.
“Aunt Gwen?” A voice echoed in the hallway.
Gwen heard approaching footsteps and the jingling of dog collars. She rolled her eyes. “In here, Isabel.”
With a five-bedroom house, two guest cottages, and six acres of land, the Laraway estate was large enough that, theoretically, the two of them—more, if you counted Rosa, the resident housekeeper, and the indoor pets—should have gone about their respective business without seeing each other for days at a time. But wherever Gwen was, there was Isabel, nearly bumping into her at every turn. And wherever Isabel was, the animals weren’t far behind so that, all in all, they lived in relatively cramped conditions. Even Rosa, who occupied a cottage in back, had become so much like a sister that she’d lost all boundaries and didn’t think twice about dusting right across Gwen’s face when the urge to clean struck. Only late at night did Gwen find the solitude she so enjoyed.
“You’re off the phone?” Isabel asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Gwen said, peering into the showcase with her back to her niece.
“Were you able to help her?”
“I was. Would you believe she has my blue seated rook?”
“Really? Wherever did she find one?”
“A yard sale, of all places. She wants to make a match.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Aunt Gwen. It’s always been one of your favorite pieces.”
“True,” she said, turning to face her niece, “but perhaps it’s time someone else enjoyed it.”
Despite her small stature, Isabel had a commanding presence. Her dark hair was straight, parted on the side and cropped stylishly above her shoulders to frame perfect features and light-brown, almond-shaped eyes—another gene that didn’t come from the tall, blond, blue-eyed Laraways, but from a Latina mother born in Brazil.
