“We just went for a walk around Stanley Park on the seawall.”
Angela had a dreadful premonition.
Aggie walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head.
“Hi Dad, Mary,” she called as she went into the bedroom.
“It’s six miles,” their father continued.
“That’s a long walk,” Angela commented, wanting to hurry Aggie back into the room.
“We met up with…” Mary paused. “Oh, hello Andrew.”
The young man had been standing by the window and hadn’t turned when the older pair entered the suite. Mary must have just noticed him. He turned at her words and their greetings took enough time for Aggie to enter from the bedroom.
“Anyway,” Mary continued. “We met up with that nice man, Jimmy Buko.”
“He talked us into walking around the seawall with him,” their father added, oblivious to the looks the twins exchanged.
Aggie’s said, I told you so.
Angela’s acknowledged, You’re right. He knows.
“We invited him to come up and meet you,” Mary added. “But he said he had a meeting to get to. He…”
“Mary,” their father cautioned.
“That’s right,” she agreed. “It’s nothing. Let’s see. What would you girls like to do today?”
“We’ve both been invited out for dinner tonight,” Angela announced. She threw caution out the window. If he knew, what was the harm in being seen together? “Maybe we can go shopping for some new clothes.”
Their father groaned. “That’s women’s stuff. Do you want to show me around Science World, Andrew?”
The younger man readily agreed and the males were dispatched. The females took longer to exit, but eventually made their way across to Robson Strasse, the European-looking street they had noticed earlier. The strasse lived up to its appearance, and the three passed a happy day poking into arty shops and spending more money than they should have.
By four o’clock everyone had returned to the hotel. Their father and Mary departed for an evening alone together. Angela left Aggie in the living room trying one more time to break up with Andrew. She went into the bedroom and plopped onto the bed. The afternoon had firmed her resolve. She was a crook. She had been a prostitute; she had tried to be a swindler for a hundred-twenty thousand dollars; now she was going to become an art thief. The contract was void. Richard would never want her when he found out she had been a hooker; he probably didn’t want her anyway. She refused to go back to turning tricks. The Giacometti was her only remaining option. Surely Jimmy wouldn’t blame Aggie for her sister’s larceny.
Angela sat up and opened her shopping bags. She had found a pair of harem pants with a deep hidden pocket. She was sure the Giacometti would fit. She pulled on the pants and a thin silk blouse and twirled in front of the mirror. Nice. If Richard could see her now… No, she banished the thought. She tucked a silk scarf into the pocket and smoothed it out so it didn’t bulge. She would wrap the delicate statue in the scarf to protect it. Flat shoes and a streak of carefully applied red lipstick completed the outfit. If Jimmy wanted to meet the real Angela, here she was.
Angela found Aggie and Andrew at opposite ends of the small living room, glaring. She shooed Aggie into the bedroom to dress and turned on the erstwhile boyfriend.
“Andrew,” she began.
“You look terrific,” he interrupted. “You know, I don’t like you, but you do know how to dress.”
“You don’t,” Angela told Andrew bluntly. “Go home.”
“I’m not giving up my woman without a fight.”
“Aggie is not and never was your woman,” Angela pointed out. Maybe rudeness would work. “You are in the way here. We both want you to go back to Cincinnati.”
For answer, Andrew sat on the couch and opened the newspaper.
“I’m ready,” Aggie announced. She looked nice in an Aggie-way. Slim pants and a long tunic. Casually elegant if you liked simple.
“Enjoy your evening,” Andrew called from the sofa as they walked to the door.
“You’re right,” Angela admitted to her twin. “He won’t budge.”
Angela found she almost looked forward to confronting Jimmy as two people. At least the one deception would be done. He and Aggie could get on with their obvious love affair. She would disappear with the statue and never bother them again. She thought of never seeing her twin and her eyes glazed. Maybe Jimmy would eventually forgive her. She could pawn the statue, invest the money, make a mint, redeem the statue and return it to him. She smiled at her foolishness. Maybe by the end of the evening, she’d have thought of an alternative to larceny.
Jimmy greeted the two women with a huge smile at the door to the apartment building. He walked unerringly up to Aggie and kissed her hard.
“How can you tell?” Angela asked.
Jimmy shrugged. “I just know. I always did. Aggie, introduce your sister.”
Angela wondered why he continued the charade. He must know they knew that he knew their father. Whew. What a tangle.
“Jimmy, this is my twin sister, Angela,” Aggie obeyed Jimmy’s superfluous instruction.
“The evil twin,” Angela reminded Jimmy with a smile as she held out her hand.
“What?” Aggie asked.
“Jimmy thinks I’m the evil twin,” Angela explained. And tonight I’ll prove him right.
“Only when you pretended to be Aggie,” Jimmy amended. “Come upstairs. I’ve ordered in from the Four Seasons.”
“Ever heard of Chinese?” Aggie teased.
Upstairs the trio toasted their newfound understanding with champagne. Then Jimmy unveiled a many course meal with enough food for ten sets of twins. By the time they finished the quails in aspic, they had also consumed several glasses of wine. The tarte aux framboises found them all tipsy and in good humor. Angela had to struggle to hang onto her resolve to become a criminal. Jimmy was nice, really nice, when he was with Aggie.
At last the meal was over and Jimmy suggested they take their coffee into the library. He handed Angela into a seat with a direct view of the Giacometti. Could he possibly know? She dragged her eyes away from the statue. She and Aggie continued to regale him with tales of growing up in rural Alabama. Decorating the yard all out for Halloween and Christmas. Auburn football games and the steady stream of blue and orange festooned cars carrying eighty-five thousand rabid fans from all over the south to Jordan-Hare Stadium.
He told them in turn of growing up in Vancouver. Of pick-up ice hockey games at the local rink. A quiet Thanksgiving in October, laughing at all the fuss the Yankees made in November. To Canadians, everyone who lived in the U.S., even in Alabama, was a Yankee. The Canucks liked their southern neighbors, but found them rather strange. They couldn’t even spell. Kept dropping the u’s. And what about that ‘eh’, eh?
Suddenly the mellow evening turned on Angela. The conversation was too easy, the smiles too pleasant. Life was basically tough, and Jimmy and Aggie didn’t seem to know that. She couldn’t stand to be around their happiness any longer.
“I’m going to leave you two lovebirds,” she stood up and announced.
Aggie and Jimmy exchanged a glance. Angela realized they had been waiting for her to go and she flushed. They walked with her out to the lobby and Jimmy pushed the elevator button. Now or never. Angela pulled one glove out of her pocket.
“Oops,” she announced. “I think the other glove must have fallen out of my pocket in the library.”
She turned back to the door and sighed in relief when neither followed. They were probably too absorbed in each other to notice her absence. She slipped into the library but was afraid to close the door. She walked straight up to the statue, stood sideways to the door, put it in her pocket and wrapped it as best she could in the scarf. It fit. The folds of the full pants hid the bulge. It was done. Angela wondered if she looked as pale as she felt. She definitely was not cut out for a life of crime. She picked up the glove she had dropped in her chair.