All You Desire (25 page)

The deliveryman left without closing the door, and Haven heard someone humming the theme song from a Disney movie outside her room. A little girl no more than seven or eight was skipping down the dark hall. She wore a wide smile on her pretty face and held a cluster of daffodils in one hand. She stopped in front of Haven and thrust the tiny bouquet at her.

“Are you Haven?”

“That's me.”

“Then these are for you,” the child said.

“For me?” Haven asked. “Did you pick them?”

“No, they're from a
boy
. He said to tell you . . .” The little girl closed her eyes and tried to remember her lines. “He said they remind him of Rome. He said he misses you. But he's almost got everything fixed, and he will come see you soon.”

Iain.

“Where did you talk to him?” she asked the little girl.

“In the park,” the child said, skipping down the hall.

“Georgia!” A woman's voice called from a room around the corner. The little girl offered Haven a wave, and then she was gone.

 

HAVEN FOUND A glass in the bathroom and placed the daffodils inside. The flowers' heavy heads hung over the side of the cup. During the single spring she and Iain had spent in Rome, Haven's apartment had been filled with yellow blooms. Every time Iain ran an errand, he'd come back clutching a fistful of daffodils. By April, all the apartment's vases were in use, and flowers spilled out of tumblers, pencil holders, and empty cans, brightening every room like patches of sunlight.

Haven placed the daffodils beside her bed and prayed that Iain really had everything fixed. She was more desperate now than she'd ever been. She wanted Iain to be the hero, but if he couldn't come through, Haven would no longer hesitate to turn to Adam.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“HELLO?” HAVEN MUMBLED into the telephone.

“I'm here with Calum.” It was Alex Harbridge. “We're in the lobby. You have exactly ten minutes to brush your hair and get your ass down here.”

“Don't tell her to brush her hair,” Haven heard Calum moan in the background. “That could take
hours
.”

“I can't hang out right now,” Haven said. “I just got up from a nap, and I have a million things to do.”

“What ‘things'?” Alex asked. “I know for a fact that you don't have any more dress orders to fill at the moment. I got a call from Lucy Fredericks this morning saying how thrilled she was with your work. I just hope her dress isn't nicer than mine. So you're done. Enjoy it. Now let's spend some of the points you've made.”

Haven frowned. She had twenty points sitting in the Ouroboros Society account that Lucy Fredericks had opened without her permission.

“I told you I'm not a member, Alex,” Haven said. “And I never will be.”

“Fine with me,” Alex said. “But that doesn't mean the points you have should go to waste. Come on. You can find some way to thank me for turning you into a rock-star fashion designer.”

“I really can't.”

“Yes, you
can
, Haven,” Alex chided her. “Lucy told me that when she picked up her dress this morning, you were wearing the exact same thing you had on yesterday. She said you looked like you were starting to go all bag lady on us. I had to assure her that you bathe regularly.”

Haven glanced around at the room she had barely left in two days. Lucy was right. She hadn't bathed in a while. She hadn't wanted to risk missing a call. But the phone hadn't rung. Beau was still missing. Neither Adam nor Iain had made good on their promises, and Haven was starting to wonder if she'd made a terrible mistake by breaking off contact with the Horae.

“You're down to eight minutes,” Alex informed her. “You don't want to see what kind of scene I'm capable of making.”

“All right,” Haven said with a huff. “But give me twenty. I need to take a shower.”

 

SHE FOUND ALEX and Calum huddled together on one of the love seats in the hotel lobby. They made such a beautiful pair that it was hard to imagine they were real. Perfect, porcelain features, and hair that gleamed like copper and gold. Alex wore a coat in a deep shade of purple that perfectly complemented the lavender scarf tucked into the collar of Calum's jacket. They looked like they'd stepped out of a Fitzgerald book or off the cover of some vintage fashion magazine. Haven wondered if their matching ensembles could have been a coincidence.

“Oh baby, you
are
looking a little rough,” Calum announced as soon as he saw Haven. “Maybe you should have brushed your hair after all.”

“I gotta go with Calum on this one,” Alex agreed. “What do you say we dump our male escort and pamper ourselves a little? I know this spa on Morton Street—”

“No!” Haven blurted out with a little too much force.

“See? She can't bear to be away from me.” Calum stood and flung an arm around Haven's shoulders. He gave Alex a smug little grin. “It's not just the gentlemen. All the ladies love me too.”

“If not the spa, then how about a little culture?” Alex asked.

“That sounds splendid,” Calum replied in a perfectly posh English accent. “I believe some culture may be just what this young lady needs.” It was clear they had a plan. They both linked arms with Haven and virtually dragged her through the lobby to the sidewalk. A black SUV was waiting for the trio.

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Alex told the driver.

“It's Monday,” Haven said. “Aren't most museums in New York closed on Mondays?”

Calum and Alex both laughed. “Not for
us
they're not,” Calum said.

 

A WOMAN MET them inside the front doors of the museum. Dressed in a white shirt and a shapeless gray suit, she was clearly a Society drone. They had even infiltrated the venerable Met.

“Everything has been arranged as usual, Miss Harbridge,” the woman informed them. “Do you remember how to get to the gallery?”

“Of course!” Alex swept past the woman with barely a second glance. Calum and Haven trailed behind her as she made her way through the vacant maze of the museum's first floor and down a set of stairs. At last Alex arrived at her destination. Outside a gallery stood a small table. On top of the table sat three crystal glasses and a bottle of champagne. Alex popped the cork and poured.

“Thank you,” Haven said, accepting a glass, though it was barely noon and a little too early for underage drinking.

“Here's to Haven.” Alex lifted her champagne flute. “May her designs be displayed in this museum one day.” She drained her wine and poured herself another glass. “Let's go explore.”

Haven stepped into the gallery and found herself surrounded by pale, thin mannequins whose soulless eyes peered out from glass cages. Each wore the costume of a distant era. There were Spanish court dresses embroidered with gold looted from Aztec temples, and nineteenth-century gowns with bustles that would have rendered a lady unable to sit. A few of the mannequins posed for invisible cameras while others hid their faces behind hand-painted fans. Haven found the effect unnerving. The museum's perfect white wraiths had no business impersonating the flesh-and-blood women who'd died and left their belongings behind.

“What is this place?” Haven asked.

“It's the Costume Institute,” Alex explained. “I come here all the time. I try to imagine myself in other lives, wearing something like that.” She stopped in front of a scarlet dress adorned with pearls and garnets. “I wonder what it was like,” she said wistfully before moving on.

“Alex doesn't remember much about her past lives,” Calum confided in a whisper. “Her parents never kept track of the things she said when she was little. They thought she was bonkers, and I have a hunch they still do. I met Ma and Pa Harbridge over Christmas. Don't tell Alex I said so, but they're the dullest people on earth. They get fidgety if you talk about anything other than football or the weather. But sweet little Alex thinks they're
fabulous
.”

“Alex
must
remember a few things,” Haven said. “She told me she's been an actress for her last seven lives.”

“All she knows is what the Pythia has told her. By the way, did Alex happen to mention she was Marilyn Monroe?”

“You really believe that?” It had to be one of Phoebe's lies. “Alex seems smart. Wasn't Marilyn Monroe a bit dim?”

“Not in the slightest. She had a wicked sense of humor. The critics might have noticed she was a pretty good actress too, if they hadn't been so focused on her ta-tas.”

“And you?” Haven asked. “How much do you remember?”

“Me? Not much anymore. I'm lucky my mother brought me to the OS when I was still very young. Back then, I used to talk about three different lives. I claimed I was a famous thespian in the seventeenth century. In fact, Shakespeare may have written the role of Hamlet for me. A century or two later I was a well-known child actor, but I died of some horrible wasting disease. And in my last life I was Wallace Reid.”

“Who?” Haven asked.

Calum frowned. “Wallace Reid was a silent film star. ‘The screen's most perfect lover.' Anyway, it all goes to show that my mother was convinced I was bound for great things.”

“She must be very proud,” Haven said. “You've done so well for yourself.”

“Everything's relative,” Calum replied with none of his usual snarkiness. “We don't talk much anymore.”

“Hey, you two. Want to see something amazing?” Alex called back to them. “Let me show you what I spotted a couple of weeks ago. It must be new, 'cause I'm sure I'd have noticed it before.” She was standing in front of a shimmering flapper dress covered in thousands and thousands of golden beads. There were 10,725 beads to be exact, and each was pure twenty-four-carat gold. Haven knew this for a fact because the dress had been hers when her name was Constance Whitman. Feeling light-headed, she used the plaque placed near the mannequin's toe as an excuse to crouch down for a moment and catch her breath.

“What are you doing down there?” Alex asked.

“Reading the description,” Haven answered.

“Well, stand up and take a look at the mannequin's arm.”

Haven still felt a little dizzy when she pulled herself up, and her knees nearly gave when she spied the golden band on the ghost-white arm. It was a snake with two ruby eyes, its tail clamped inside its jaws. An ouroboros.

“Do you think it belonged to one of us?” Alex asked.

“I don't know,” Calum said. “When was the Society founded?”

“Nineteen twenty-three,” Haven answered, and they both swiveled to stare at her.

“How do
you
know?” Calum inquired. “You're not even a member.”

“I was back then,” Haven said. “I made this dress, and that was my jewelry.”

“No shit!” Alex exclaimed. “I
knew
there was a reason I was supposed to bring you here. Do you think I might be psychic or something?”

“Stop congratulating yourself and let the girl talk!” Calum demanded. “I'm
dying
here.”

“No, no, wait!” Alex insisted. “This is too good to discuss standing up. Let's go have lunch and Haven can tell us all about it.”

“Excellent suggestion,” Calum trilled as they both set off up the stairs to the first floor.

“Hey,” Haven called when they headed into the Egyptian art gallery. “I don't think the exit's that way.”

“Of course it isn't,” Alex said. “We just got here. Why would we want to leave?”