The Charm Bracelet (13 page)

Billy put his hand on his back and steered him to the door. ‘At least no chance of broken teeth on this assignment, huh? Although, knowing Suzanne … ’

Next thing Greg knew, he was standing outside a senior editor’s door with an assignment and a
New York Times
staff directory in his hands. OK, so it was just a trial assignment but …

He grinned, suddenly understanding how those football players felt when they dumped Gatorade on each other, it all made sense now.

This was what getting your dream felt like.

Holly gazed absently out of the window at work, still thinking about everything she had learned (or not) about the charm bracelet over the weekend. She was so deep in thought that it took her a moment to register a woman on the other side motioning like a mime.

Oh no …
After lunch she had been so distracted she’d forgotten to switch the sign on the door to Open. Thank goodness Carole was away with her family for Hannukah today; she’d kill her …

Holly raced to the door and let the woman in. ‘I am so sorry … ’

‘It's OK,’ the customer laughed.. ‘’Tis the season to make you insane!’

She
was dressed beautifully and her long brown hair streaked with blonde was perfectly cut and framed her face well.

Holly felt her hand self-consciously creeping up to the nape of her own neck. She had cut her own usually longer hair much shorter earlier this year because she could not afford the upkeep of it.
No problem guessing which one of us works here and who shops here
,
she thought wryly.

‘Can I help you with anything?’ She gave the woman a huge smile and got straight into salesgirl mode.

‘Yes, my mother-in-law adores Gucci. I was wondering if you had anything in good condition – a bag or something? I want to really blow her away on Christmas morning.’ She gave Holly a knowing look. ‘My turn to be the favourite daughter-in-law, you know?’

Holly nodded as if she did know, which of course she didn't. She tried not to feel envious as she went about pulling bags off the shelves, and giving a little back-story to each. She could count her relatives on one hand (and she included Kate in this, who was like a sister). That was the hardest part about the holidays really. The people she had in her life were special, of course, but she had always yearned to go to one of those big family dinners, where everyone sat around the table, joking and laughing over big piles of food. What was it like, she wondered wistfully, looking at her customer as she inspected a gorgeous Gucci satchel from the eighties.

‘What’s what like?’ the woman asked, peering at Holly, who realised to her horror that she must have spoken out loud.

‘Well, this bag is like the one that Mia Farrow took to her in-laws for Christmas one time … ’ she blurted, winging it.

‘Mia Farrow has in-laws?’ The woman looked at her with disbelief.

‘She did – but way before she met Woody and adopted all those children, of course.’

‘OK … ’

‘She was still working for MGM at the time and had just married Frank,’ Holly continued, warming to her theme. ‘He took her to
Hoboken to meet his mother – his dad was long dead. I mean, how old was Frank when he married her? Like fifty or something … So she ran out and bought a full Jersey ensemble: you know, Jackie O glasses, Gucci bag, pink Chanel suit … She thought it would make a good impression on Mamma-in-law. And do you know what happened?’

The woman was staring,
her green eyes shining and her mouth agape with interest. ‘No.’

‘Mama Sinatra started yelling at Frank in Italian to get that transvestite out of her house, he wasn't fooling her.’

‘
No
… ’ The woman's eyebrows had crawled to her hairline.

‘Because she had just gotten that pixie cut? True story – or so I’ve heard.’

‘Wow, that was great!’ The woman picked up the bag with delight, and asked Holly to wrap it up for her. ‘I’m Alexandra by the way,’ she told her. ‘Alexandra Konecki.’

‘Holly. Nice to meet you Alexandra – and I hope your mother-in-law loves the bag.’

When the customer had left, Holly smiled, wondering how her mind managed to save all these stories she’d come across years ago, and then have her pop them out at will just like that. She just had one of those brains, she supposed.

Shortly after her most recent customer had departed, the doorbell chimed once again and Mona Sachs appeared.

‘So what the hell happened to my Halston?’ the stylist asked without preamble, and to her horror Holly realised she’d never sent over the garment as per Mona’s request from the other day. While her mind was great at storing useless information, clearly her attention to detail wasn’t up to the same level.

‘Oh Mona, I’m so sorry, things have been crazy! I have it ready out back and everything, it just completely slipped my mind … ’

She waved an arm. ‘It happens, don’t worry about it. My society queen just had to make do with Versace. Poor dear,’ she added sardonically.

Society queen
…

Holly paused, thinking of something.

‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise. But Mona,’ she asked, ‘have you ever heard of a woman called Margot Mead?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Sweetie, that’s like asking me if I ever heard of Rudy Giuliani. Of course; Margot Mead is royalty amongst the
Upper East Side set.’

Holly’s expression brightened. ‘Do you happen to know her personally?’

‘Are you kidding me? Nobody knows these women personally, not even their own damn husbands. I’ve come across her assistant a couple of times, though. Jessica, nice girl.’

Holly’s eyes widened. An assistant … She cleared her throat, deciding she should share the information about the bracelet with Mona. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about it before. It might even belong to one of her clients, although this was doubtful given that the box it was found in had been delivered directly to the store. And, as it was, Mona typically bought from them, and had never used them to sell anything.

When she’d finished outlining the details, as well as Samuel from Tiffany’s suggestion that Margot Mead might be the one to help identify the egg charm, Mona nodded slowly.

‘There’s a very good chance she would know who something like that belongs to – hell, it might even belong to Margot herself.’ The thought had crossed Holly’s mind too, but because she had no way of getting in touch with Margot, she thought she needed to explore avenues related to the other charms first.

However, it seemed Mona might well be able to short-circuit the search. She scrolled through her trusty BlackBerry. ‘Here you go,’ she said, finding the details for Jessica, the assistant she’d mentioned before. ‘Give her a call. I’m sure she’ll be able to help.’

Holly couldn’t believe her luck. ‘That’s fantastic, Mona, thank you. I so appreciate it.’

‘Don’t mention it. But if you still happen to have that Halston lying around, I have another use for it … ’

‘Oh of course.’ Holly duly retrieved the shirt and wrapped it up.

She was still buzzing with anticipation when, after Mona left, she quickly picked up the phone and dialled Jessica Edwards’ number. That buzz was soon deflated when she got voicemail.

She left a garbled message about how she urgently needed to get in touch with Margot Mead, with a mention that Tiffany’s had suggested Margot might be able to help with a query – figuring that the mention of the store might be enough to pique the assistant’s interest enough to return her call.

Then she looked at the clock. It was almost closing time.

Having waited a few more moments for any late evening stragglers, Holly eventually grabbed her coat and turned the sign to Closed. She had a whole rack of clothes to take over to Thuma for dry-cleaning, and a box of donations to take over to Sacred Heart, as per Carole’s instructions.

Having dropped off the dry-cleaning, she popped back to the shop to collect the donations and, lifting the heavy cardboard box to her chest, went back out and made her way slowly down the street.

Pausing in front of Encore, she noticed how quiet it was inside. When she walked in, Frank the owner was waving at her from the register.

‘So slow over there that you've decided to come over and help me?’ he teased.

He was a slender man, with thinning reddish hair and a large moustache. He, like Carole, had been downtown for years, holding on to his little thrift store with all his might, except his shop had not so much evolved like The Secret Closet had, but had simply become more overcrowded. Frank’s checkout counter was up on a platform as they were in the old days, so he could have full view of the store to see if there were any shoplifters. As a result, his customers would have to strain to reach the counter in order to check out. The effect was amusing.

Holly smiled at him, ‘Nope.’ She indicated the box she was holding. ‘Just popping down to Father Mike with a couple of things, if you wanted to add to them. It's pretty cold out these days, you know,’ she added pointedly.

Frank waved his hands in feigned annoyance. ‘Well I don't have time now. I’m just about to close up.’

Holly smiled inwardly; she knew he would try and get out of it somehow. ‘It's OK; I'll just go through the racks and pick out a few things myself. Unlike you, I'm a pro at this.’

Frank practically flew down from his perch behind the register. He sighed. ‘OK. Just nothing with too good a label – that’s all I ask.’

The two of them slowly made their way along the racks, and Frank started to get into it, checking coats for tears and stains and actually picking out the best ones (though the labels weren't fancy) to serve as donations.

‘So you have a heart after all,’ Holly teased.

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Nah, I already told you, Max took it when he left me.’

Frank’s partner had left him over a year ago, having hot-tailed it to
Florida with a much younger man. The only good thing, claimed Frank, was that he had left behind everything he owned, which he immediately put up for sale in his shop.

‘You haven't found anyone since?’ Holly asked.

‘Oh, I have found plenty of anyones!’ he laughed. ‘Just not
the
one.’

Holly nodded and the two of them continued to work through the racks in silence. She shook her head to herself. Here they were in the biggest, busiest city in the world, where you would have to think you’d easily bump into the person of your dreams. They could be passing through, or visiting, working nearby or even taking in a Broadway show. But it seemed everyone Holly knew was single, lonely and searching. Of course, she herself was not searching; she had too much going on with Danny. But it would be nice to have someone special in her life sometime.

‘What about you, Holly?’ Frank asked, as if reading her mind. They had reached the end of the rack and the box was now full to bursting. ‘Any dates recently?’

She laughed. ‘I have a date every night, remember? His name is Danny.’

‘Oh please! How old is he now? Give it a few short years and he'll be out on dates himself – then what will you do?’

Holly paused. She hadn't really given it that much thought, but Frank did have a point. The last ten years had flown by. It seemed only yesterday that she was rocking Danny as an infant, and now he had just turned ten. It seemed unfathomable.

Frank smiled at her thoughtful expression and added some more fuel to the fire. ‘And of course men age so much more gracefully than women. Let's see … fifteen is the age of staying out in this city. So that's just five years from now – which would bring you to the ripe old age of … what, forty?’

‘Frank – enough!’ Holly exclaimed. ‘If that's the case, all I'll need to do is to come and hang out with you on a Saturday night, seeing as you’re telling me you don’t go anywhere.’

But his words had struck a chord with her. Danny was growing up so fast, and already she could see him pulling away. What would she do when he did?

Holly closed up the box and thanked Jack again, who gave her a dry peck on the cheek as she left.

Carefully making her way down the already slippery path, she headed up to Sixth Street. Sacred Heart was one of the oldest churches in the city, and Holly loved dropping off donations there. There was something very peaceful about walking into a dusty, empty church. She wasn't a terribly religious person these days – the family used to attend Mass back in Queens when she was younger, but her dad always said that all you needed for a church was a few people hanging around talking about good things. Which she figured was as good a description as any.

Holly frowned as she walked up the steps. Had she failed spiritually with Danny? She was concentrating so hard on keeping it all together, with providing for him and making sure his life was steady, it was all too easy to overlook that side of things. He had asked about his grandfather a couple of times, and Holly had told him that Seamus was in heaven, which seemed to satisfy him.

She heaved open the door and her boots clicked as she walked down the centre aisle towards the altar. Holly wasn't sure about heaven herself, and she remembered being so angry when her father died – at least until the arrival of her beloved bracelet.