The Last Little Blue Envelope (3 page)

“So, I’m off home for the next day and a half,” he said.

“Where is that again?” Ginny said. She was trying to sound casual and unbothered, but her voice was dry.

“Reading. Just doing the Christmas thing. I’ll be back on Boxing Day and we should . . . we’ll do something.”

“Cool,” she said. “I’ll be here. Thanks for the . . .”

She waved her hand to indicate the general miracle of automotive transportation.

“No sweat,” he said.

She was halfway up the cracked steps when she heard the car door open. He was leaning sideways across the front seats and waving to her to come back. She returned and leaned down into the opening.

“Thank you for the book,” he said. “Merry Christmas, yeah?”

“Merry Christmas,” she replied. And then she turned and skipped up the steps so he couldn’t see the tears that fell freely down her face.

Pairs of Shocks

The next morning, Ginny woke up in a cold room. She stared straight up the wall, at the strange landscape Aunt Peg left behind—the wall of trash she had collected up and collaged, a jarring vista of different materials, some wrinkled, some smooth, some reflective, all different colors and words and shapes and materials. It was probably supposed to look like something, but from this angle, it was all confusion.

She was not going to mope. She was going to get up. Today she had to do what she really came here to do. She was in London. It was Christmas. She had a letter to get.

In the kitchen, Richard had left a cheerful note against a mug about how happy he was to have her here, and how she should think of this house as her own. She opened up her computer, half-expecting a long message from Keith, with an excruciating explanation of the day before, but there was nothing from him. He was on his way to his grandmother’s now. There was one from Oliver, confirming that he would be at the café above Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road at two
P.M.
That was what she needed to focus on. Getting the last little blue envelope, and getting on with her life.

She arrived at Charing Cross a full two hours early and wandered down the street of book and music shops. Foyles was a massive place, with a large, urban-folksy coffee bar—heavy wood tables and real cups and wine and cookies and indie newspapers. It was very crowded, so she waited in the corner until a table was free, then claimed it and sat.

At exactly two o’clock, a tall guy stepped into the café. That’s probably what Ginny noticed first—his extreme height. He was well over six foot. Ginny wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but he turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. He had an angular face and almost jet-black short hair. He wore a long black wool coat, which looked very well-made and expensive, and under that, a gray dress shirt and slightly loose black pinstripe pants. He had a well-worn leather bag with him, strapped over his chest. His face was pale, and he was thin, with dark, intense eyes. Though he had to be somewhere around her age, the effect made him look older and placed him in some unknown territory between stockbroker and rock star. He was, without question, the most
English
-looking guy Ginny had ever seen. She wasn’t even sure what that meant, really. She only knew that from now on, when calling up an image of an English guy in her mind, this would be the picture.

Oliver surveyed the room from his natural vantage point and quickly focused on her. He strode over to the table in about four steps and pulled out the chair opposite Ginny. As he sat, he adjusted his coat, revealing a flash of rose-colored silk lining and a fancy embroidered label just on the inside. And yet, for all the weird formality of his clothes, there were three tiny pins on the lapel of his coat—one said Bowie, one was a small lightning bolt, and the other had a picture of a skull and writing that was too small to read. He pulled his bag onto his lap.

“Virginia?”

His accent was much crisper than Keith’s, and he was more polite, hesitant. He was
fancier
.

“Ginny,” she said. “Hi, I’m . . .”

She always did that, introduce herself twice.

They sat staring at each other for a moment. He put his hands on the table and knotted his fingers together. When he reached forward, Ginny could see that though the coat was custom-made for
someone
, it clearly wasn’t Oliver. The arms were too short by several inches, exposing his arm with every move.

“Did you want a coffee?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

He nodded, looking oddly relieved.

“So,” she said. “How did you get the letters?”

“I was backpacking in Greece. My bag broke on the way to Corfu. I met some guys in town who were selling things out of the boot of their car. The things were used—it was perfectly clear that they had to be stolen, but they were cheap, you know? And I was kind of desperate. Anyway, I bought your backpack. If you want it back . . .”

“It’s okay,” Ginny said. It was fine with her if she never saw that thing again. It was green and pink and hideous and oversized—the physical embodiment of embarrassment.

“The bag has a lot of very strange hidden pockets,” he went on. “I didn’t even find them all until I got home and was emptying everything out. The letters were in one of them, along with some receipts, and a few coins. . . .”

He opened his bag. First, he presented her with a small stack of crumpled receipts and a small handful of Euro coins. Ginny took one of the receipts and stared at it. It was an artifact, a long-forgotten fragment of the summer. She’d spent eight Euros fifty somewhere in Germany. She hadn’t stayed in Germany at all, just moved from one train to the next in order to go south to Greece. But somewhere along the way, she bought a Coke and a small pizza in a train station.

“I brought it all,” he explained. “But these are probably the only things you’re interested in.”

Oliver reached into his bag again and produced a clear plastic bag full of very familiar-looking blue paper and airmail envelopes. Ginny’s heart beat faster as she reached for it and removed the contents, all the hand-painted envelopes Aunt Peg had created with such care. These were her paintings. The girl walking toward the castle on a hill from letter #4. The tiny pictures of cakes from letter #6. Here was her picture on letter #9, a girl with two long braids, her shadow cast all the way across the envelope. The strange picture from envelope #12 that had puzzled her at first, because it looked like a purple dragon coming out of the water. It wasn’t until she reached Greece that she realized it was a picture of an island. And now . . .

She shuffled right back to letter #1. There was no #13.

“The last one,” she said, holding up the letters apologetically. “Um . . . the last one isn’t here.”

Oliver gave himself a thoughtful chin-pinch before answering.

“When I found the letters,” he said, “I did a bit of research, just out of curiosity. I read about the auction of your aunt’s paintings. I take it you found them even without the last letter. You got a lot of money from the last sale. But what mattered to you more, doing the things in the letters, or getting money?”

It was an odd question, but not one that Ginny minded answering.

“Doing the things in the letters,” she replied. “The money was nice, but it didn’t matter.”

“So the experience was the valuable part? If you had a choice between the experience and the money, you’d choose the experience?”

Ginny nodded. Oliver’s gaze had drifted to a spot just over her shoulder. The questions felt a bit odd. The letters were so personal. Only a few people knew about them in detail. Here she was, talking about them with a total stranger—albeit a total stranger who had brought them back to her. It was fair enough. If she had found these letters, she would be curious too.

“I guess? Yes. I . . . yeah. I would.”

Oliver nodded and leaned in, putting his forearms on the table and getting closer to Ginny.

“There’s something in the last letter—well, there are several things in the last letter—but the most important thing is that there’s another work of art. It’s in three pieces. They’re all in different locations out in the world, so that they can get exposed to different elements. It’s based on a piece done by Mari Adams. You know Mari Adams, right?”

Ginny definitely knew Mari Adams. She was a famous artist, much loved by Aunt Peg. Aunt Peg had met and befriended her, and sent Ginny up to Edinburgh to meet her. Once you saw Mari, you never forgot her mane of orange-red hair or the tattoos on her feet that bore the names of her pet foxes, or her tattooed face.

He reached into his pocket and set a card down on the table—a familiar dove gray card. It read:
CECIL GAGE-RATHBONE, JERRLYN AND WISE, ART AUCTIONS.
This was also a name Ginny knew well.

“This is the man who handled the sale,” he said. It wasn’t a question. She couldn’t figure out why, but for some reason, this comment put her on edge.

“Right,” she said slowly. “He did.”

Oliver looked at her intently.

“A finder’s fee doesn’t seem out of line,” he said. “I suggest that we split the proceeds from the final piece of art. I made us an appointment. We’re due in forty-five minutes.”

Ginny simply didn’t know how to process this. She grabbed for her braids, but, of course, they were gone. So she laughed—a weird, gurgling laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“We should go.” Oliver plucked up the card and put it back in his pocket.

“You seriously can’t be . . . serious.”

“I’m completely serious. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t know about this at all. In return, I will help you collect the art. Besides, you told me you don’t care about the money. So what’s the problem?”

“What if I said no?” she asked.

“Then I go home,” he said.

“And the letter?”

“Remains lost. Your choice.”

“I need to think about this,” she said, hooking her ankles around the legs of the chair to support herself. “Can we talk about . . .”

“Look,” he cut in, “by working together, we can both get what we want. But I assure you, I will leave in a minute, and you won’t see me again. You’ll never see the letter, and you’ll never know what was out there. This is your time to decide. Right now.”

He pushed back his chair and stood, waiting. From her seated position, he looked ridiculously tall, and aside from a little twitch above his left eye, utterly composed and serious. Ginny looked around at the many people in the coffee shop, all busy with their shopping bags and their strollers and their phones and computers. She wanted to scream out, to tell them all what was going on, tell them the whole story. They would be outraged. They would cluster around him and shake him down for the letter. He would be thrown out into the street, probably without his coat, and forced to run, coffee mugs flying after him and shattering at his heels. But that is not the way the world works. She had no doubt that he meant what he said. If she walked away from this now, he would go away, and that would be it. Forever.

She stood up.

The Devil’s Bargain

“It’s an absolute pleasure to see you, of course,” Cecil Gage-Rathbone said. “
So
happy that you got in touch. Do come through. Coffee? Tea? Something else?”

The offices of Jerrlyn and Wise were richly but tastefully decorated for the holiday. A large tree decked in silver and gold horns and sugared fruit sat in the corner, and various holiday-oriented antiques dotted the room. Cecil looked exactly the same as before, and like everything else around this building, he had been expensively decorated. There was the artfully arranged and unmoving hair, another flawlessly tailored suit, silver cufflinks gleaming at his wrists.

“I’ll have a cup of tea,” Oliver said.

Ginny shook her head tersely. She felt like she was being kidnapped and was afraid to speak, to say the wrong word.

“Could you bring us some tea, James?” Cecil said, to a man sitting at a desk in the hall.

The Jerrlyn and Wise building looked like it was an old house built sometime around the 1800s. Cecil’s office was a small room, probably an old pantry, with an entire wall of built-in shelving for cups and plates. This had been reappropriated to display antique silver spoons and a collection of auction catalogs. The walls had been hung with massive gilt-framed pictures of things like shipwrecks and drooling dogs and pale children, bringing disaster, rabies, and anemia to every inch of the space. There was just enough room in between these disasters for his massive mahogany desk and two wingback chairs.

“Please,” he said, ushering them into the room. “Please, have a seat. And I don’t think we’ve properly met, though we spoke on the telephone.”

He extended his hand to Oliver, who shook it confidently. Ginny began to understand why he was so dressed up. He had been prepared for this meeting.

“Virginia, I hope you’ve been keeping well.”

“I’m great,” Ginny said. The words caught her in throat a bit. She sank into the chair closest to the door.

Cecil settled into his chair and assumed his version of a casual position. “You’ve come about another piece of Margaret’s? I’m delighted to hear about this, of course. The success of the previous sale combined with the obviously limited availability of the artwork . . .”

This was a polite way of saying, “Your aunt is dead, so she can’t paint anymore, and that makes the price go up.”

“And Mr. Davies . . . were you involved with Margaret’s work in some way, or are you . . .”

“I’m a friend of Ginny’s,” Oliver said. “I’m helping.”

Ginny dug her nails into the arms of the chair.

“I see,” Cecil said. “So, have you come here today with the new work?”

“The piece can be delivered just after the New Year,” Oliver said. “Say, on the second? And we’d like to sell it immediately. The next day if possible.”

For just an instant, Cecil looked surprised. There was a flicker of movement in the eyebrow region, which Ginny suspected was highly Botoxed.

“That doesn’t leave us much time to photograph it and show it to the interested parties. It would be better if we could wait a few weeks.”

“We’d prefer to do it quickly,” Oliver said.

“Well,” he said slowly, “of course, we can do things that way, if you wish. The element of surprise might work in our favor. And this is what you want, Virginia?”

This was her chance to tell him exactly what was going on. But Oliver would simply get up and walk away, along with her letter.

“Yes,” she lied. “That’s what I want.”

“Well.” Cecil adjusted the position of a notepad on his desk. “In that case, please tell me all about the piece. I have to know what I’m selling.”

“I think it’s best if you see it,” Oliver said. “It’s a bit hard to describe.”

There was a subtle knock, and James entered from the hallway with a silver tray bearing a small china tea seat and two cups. Cecil poured a cup and offered it to Ginny. She shook her head tersely. Oliver took a cup, topped it heavily with cream, and relaxed in his chair like he owned the place. Cecil put a lump of brown sugar in his tea and stirred it slowly.

“This is a bit unusual,” he said, “but the last collection also had a bit of an unusual story. The buyers may appreciate that. I certainly look forward to seeing it. Is there anything you can tell me?”

“We’ll be splitting the proceeds of the last sale, fifty-fifty,” Oliver said.

“This an agreement you’ve reached?” Cecil asked. “I have nothing to reflect this in my notes.”

“That’s right,” she mumbled.

Cecil paused for a moment, then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a notepad.

“Of course,” he said. “We can arrange that. I’ll have legal draw something up and it will be ready for signature when you bring the piece in. Will that be acceptable?”

“If it’s all the same . . .” Oliver reached into his leather bag once again, this time producing a few pieces of paper. “I’ve already had something drawn up. Very simple. We could just sign it now.”

Cecil drew one of the papers closer to himself with just the tips of his fingers, then spun it around to read it.

“It is, as you say, very simple,” he confirmed.

“Just a moment.”

Cecil took the contract and slipped around his desk and past Ginny’s chair. He was gone for over ten minutes, during which Oliver and Ginny ignored each other’s existence entirely. Oliver did something with his phone. Ginny shifted around, trying to turn away from him as much as she could in her chair. She read the spines of every catalog on the wall. She counted the spoons. Maybe Cecil would come back with the police. Or a gun. They had to have some old guns around here. Instead, he returned with some photocopies and a resigned expression.

“This appears to be in order,” he said. “Basic, but acceptable. I have four copies here. If you’ll just sign them all where indicated . . .”

Ginny scrawled her name as quickly as possible and pushed the papers away. Oliver wrote slowly, in small, steady script.

“Well,” Cecil said, taking the copies, “as I work for the seller, I’ll abide by your wishes. I’ll arrange for the sale on that day and do what I can to get the previous buyers back in the room. You will have the piece on the first, yes?”

“That’s right,” Oliver said.

“Then I’ll arrange for one of our teams to come for it. First of the year . . . normally we wouldn’t do that, but we work with the circumstances. Unless there’s something else I can help you with?”

“No,” Oliver said, standing. “We should be on our way.”

“Then James will show you out. Thank you so much for coming in.”

Outside, the sky was the same color as the sidewalk and the stone walls in front of the houses. Oliver strode away from Jerrlyn and Wise with a long, easy step, stopping in front of one of the many small mansions that lined the street and sitting down on the low wall that surrounded its front garden. He pulled a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter from his pocket with a sweeping gesture that Ginny suspected had been rehearsed in front of a mirror. She stood directly in front of him and folded her arms.

“I want my letter,” she said.

“I can’t give that to you just yet. The letter is the key to getting the art. If I give you the letter, you can just go and get the art. Don’t worry, though. The letter is of no other value to me, so the minute we’re done, you’ll get it back.”

“The minute we’re done with what, exactly? How is this supposed to work?”

“We go to Paris. That’s where the first piece is.”

“Paris?”

“Nothing’s properly open on Christmas or Boxing Day, so we’ll start nice and early on the twenty-seventh. I got us two train tickets. Don’t worry—they were cheap. Only fifty pounds. I figured I could contribute that to the cause.”

“You think I’m going to travel with you?” she said. “To Paris. You and me. You’re insane.”

“Look,” he said, sticking a cigarette in his mouth, “it’s probably hard for you to trust me when I say you’ll be perfectly safe with me. My interests are your interests. And I didn’t steal a thing. I found the letters, and I’m giving them back. You’re going to make money you couldn’t have made otherwise. You have no reason to complain.”

A small orange cat slunk along one of the walls on the opposite side of the street. It sat and stared across at them haughtily, as if asking what they were doing in its neighborhood.

“We’re both needed for this,” Oliver said. “There are things in the letter that only you will understand. I have the letter, and you have the knowledge. All I want is for us to go and get the pieces. That’s it.”

Oliver calmly lit his cigarette and took a long draw, waiting for her reply.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

He nodded and pushed off the wall. “You know where to reach me.”