Gary was paling again.
“I’m going to leave you to think things over. In an hour or so I want you to call me and tell me honestly whether you think you can do this. If you can’t, I want you to suggest someone you’d like to work with, and I’ll make sure you get a nice consideration for all your help. It’ll be good experience and no one will think any less of you.”
“I can do it.”
“Take some time.”
“No. I can. I think. I mean, I can. Definitely. If I can work with an attorney. With Ms. Corning I set up all the preliminary arrangements, and sat in on a lot of meetings.” He blushed again. His capillaries were certainly getting a workout. “The hard part will be, well, it’ll be having people take me seriously. I’m young, you see.”
I nodded gravely.
“So I’ll need lots of proof of your intent, and ability to do as you promise.”
“And what do you think is the best way to do that?”
“Well”—he doodled in the margin—“you could transfer a hunk of cash into the bank Ms. Corning usually uses. Set up an account. All those guys know each other. They’ll make phone calls. Gossip.”
“All right,” I said. “Set up an appointment for me with the right person at that bank, and pick another bank, too, that you think would be good.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know the banks in Seattle. That’s why I’m asking you.”
It started to dawn on him that to earn his commission meant making decisions, taking responsibility, running risk. I stood. I wanted to think about happier things than risk. “Think it over. Make those appointments. Call me. Oh, and, Gary, where would I go to buy a wedding present? A nice wedding present.”
“Nordstrom,” he said. “I’ll give you directions.”
NORDSTROM STRETCHED along Pine Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It was huge. Inside the door, I paused. Shoes, handbags, scarves. I identified the elevators and stairwells. The center of the store was a vast, atrium-like space, lit from above, designed for customers to float down from floor to floor. The Gift Gallery was on the fourth floor.
I wandered around the blown glass, the pottery, the tasteful metal wall sculpture and wondered what one bought for a mother and new stepfather. Something for their official residence? I didn’t know where they were spending their time, or what their rooms might look like. Cartoons on the wall? Sixteenth-century Dutch oils? French furniture in the aesthetic style? Julia would have known what to buy. I had no idea whether Kick would.
I paused by a tapestry cushion. The colors were luxuriant: gold and crimson and moss, sapphire and ruby. A young woman in flawless makeup, her hands clasped carefully in front of her, nodded and smiled warmly at me, but was smart enough to wait for me to raise my eyebrows before approaching.
We discussed the philosophy of wedding presents. “Something timeless, ” she said, and I was about to sigh at the platitude, when she smiled again. “An object that will last at least as long as a lifetime, and look as beautiful in ninety years as it does today.” Nothing fashionable, she said. Nothing perishable. “Perhaps if you give me some information about the couple you’re buying for, and your budget?”
“It’s for my mother.” Whom I had no idea how to describe in two sentences or less. “And there is no budget.”
She nodded, as though that were usual, and suggested that she might know just the thing, if I would follow her?
Just the thing turned out to be a beautiful, fat-bellied incised black-on-black San Ildefonso bowl by Maria Martinez. Early twentieth century. It was valuable, and breakable, but she took it out of the glass case and handed it to me without apparent hesitation. It was heavy and cold and very smooth. I wrapped both hands around it, and hefted it.
It was simple, almost plain, but fascinating in the way all good art is. Casual elegance. And, as she might say, black goes with everything.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
Carefully boxed bowl under one arm, I floated down the escalator and got off at the ground floor. I walked through the jewelry department and amused myself by trying to spot security.
In Seattle, very few people wore gold or pearls, and there were no padded shoulders or wingtips. Bizarre behavior was not necessarily a sign of mental illness. Security personnel probably had recurring nightmares about apprehending a suspected shoplifter with an awful haircut, cheap glasses, and dorky lunch-stained clothes only to find out he was a software billionaire.
In the end, she was easy to spot: neither young, like the two teenage girls giggling and trying on costume jewelry near the Sixth and Pine entrance, nor rushed, like the thirtysomething women selecting hose on their lunch hour. She was wearing a tasteful hunter green jacket and a red slash of lipstick, and despite the early lunch hour rush, managed never to stand next to a customer or meet anyone’s eye.
My attention was caught by a four-strand pearl choker lying fat and snug around a dark blue velvet form. Julia had loved that particular shade of blue. Before I could stop myself, I imagined the pearls around Julia’s neck, imagined fastening it there, the way the strands would move as she breathed. I rested my hand on the counter, thought I saw her face reflected next to mine in the glass, only it was a curiously two-dimensional image, and colorless. A dream, a memory.
“Ma’am? Can I help you?” A middle-aged man, smelling of cologne.
I shook my head, then changed my mind. “Do you have something similar in black pearls?”
He thought he did. He produced a key with a flourish and moved to the display case on the opposite side, but as he started to open it, I heard Kick saying, Where the hell would I ever go to wear pearls? “No,” I said. “Don’t bother. Another time.”
It was a pity. The bluish-grey of black pearls would heighten the mysterious soft blue-grey of Kick’s eyes. And her finely muscled neck would—
The floor rippled. With a grinding crack, the mirrored pillar by my head splintered. That, I thought, is not normal. Glass rained down in slow motion, glittering like fairy dust, or the ray of sunlight piercing a forest dell in some fantasy painting.
I put my box on the counter. Everything tilted sideways and people began flying about, like the snowflakes in a shaken snow globe. Well, I thought, I hope the bowl is well packed. Somewhere in the distance, a roar grew. Herds of bison? A train? And then I got it.
“Earthquake!” I bellowed. “Everyone out on the street.” I grabbed the man behind the counter under his tailored armpits and lifted him bodily over the counter and away from the glass.
And then everything was silent and still, and a woman in a green jacket was standing too close, and there was no glass on the floor, no crack in the column.
I turned and surveyed the store. Everyone was staring at me. In the shoe department a man with one shoe on and one shoe off had grabbed his toddler and pushed her behind him protectively.
“Ma’am,” the green-jacketed woman said.
My boxed bowl stood exactly where I’d put it. The jewelry clerk was white-faced and swallowing over and over. His tie was askew.
“Ma’am,” Green Jacket said again. “Are you ill?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. It was quiet enough to hear the teenagers in the lingerie department giggle. They were giggling at me.
“Perhaps you would like to come with me, someplace quiet, and sit for a moment.”
She put her hand on my arm. I considered it. The skin between her wrist and knuckles crinkled, just beginning to get crepey. Late forties, then. Not old enough for there to be much danger of her bones being brittle from osteoporosis. A swift wrist lock wouldn’t hurt her. There again, she was only doing her job. I remembered the sound of breaking bone just three weeks ago, and I hesitated. “A glass of water would be nice,” I said.