I was reading the newspaper the next morning in Jacob’s room when I heard the question.
“Where am I?”
I rushed to his bed.
“Oh, Jacob, thank God.”
“Where am I?”
“The hospital.”
He looked at me. Closed his eyes. And then opened them again.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“The doctors said you might have some memory loss.” I stood up. “Don’t move. Let me get them.”
I started for the door, a sob escaping my mouth.
“Vera?”
I turned.
“Why are you crying?”
“It’s been seven days.”
“I’ve been here for seven days?”
“Yes, unconscious. We didn’t know—” I broke off and went back to the bed, sat by his side, and took his hands. “I was so frightened,” I whispered. “This was all because of me.”
“What was?” he asked.
“Do you remember the break-in at the shop?”
He looked confused at first, but seconds later, I watched his eyes widen as he remembered.
“Yes, yes, the break-in. But that wasn’t your fault. It shouldn’t have happened at all. You weren’t supposed to be there.”
I lifted his hand and kissed the top of it. “If I wasn’t there, you wouldn’t have needed to protect me and wouldn’t have been hurt…”
He paused, thought. Then: “My head aches.”
“I would expect it does. Let me go get the doctor.”
“Wait, please. Just a minute more. Have you been here the whole time? I was dreaming—or thought I was dreaming, now I’m not sure—but I kept hearing your voice, as if you were on the other side of a waterfall, and I kept trying to swim through it to find you.”
I smiled. “Yes, I did a lot of talking to you. The nurse suggested it, on the off chance you could hear me. She said it would be helpful.”
“It was. So you have been here the whole time?”
“Of course not. But I stopped in as often as I could.”
“Why?”
It was a good question. A logical question. We’d spent only a little time together and had made no pledges to each other. I wondered why I’d been so drawn to his bedside and insistent on spending almost every waking minute here. Would I have done the same if it had been Mr. Cartier who’d protected me from harm? Was I there because I had taken Jacob as my lover or because I considered him a key figure in taking down Mr. Oxley? I had been lonely, and Jacob had touched me in a way no one had in a long time. And I was an intrepid reporter following a lead. I felt instantly guilty, because there would be nothing wrong with any of those reasons coming into play if Jacob knew the whole truth. If he knew that I cared for him. And that I was a reporter. And that I needed his help and why.
But he didn’t even know the half of it. I was hiding so very much from him.
I stood and went out into the hallway, found the nurse, and gave her the news. Then I went back inside his room, and while we waited for the doctor, I told him that the Hope had been stolen but recovered.
“Wait, are you saying the diamond was taken?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The doctors had told me and Mr. Cartier that Jacob might be confused when he regained consciousness, so I didn’t question his odd response. It didn’t occur to me to wonder if he was lying.
“The thieves who took the stone sent Mr. Cartier a ransom note the following day. He paid it, and now the stone is back on Fifth Avenue with Pinkerton men guarding it night and day.”
Jacob looked as if he was still processing this information when the nurse arrived a few seconds later. She made quite a fuss about Jacob regaining consciousness and informed me that the doctors would be keeping the patient busy with tests for quite a while. “So now would be a good time for you to go home, Miss Garland,” she told me.
“I think I will,” I told her. “I could use a hot bath and a nap.” I looked at Jacob. “I’ll call Mr. Cartier and let him know you’re all right. He’s been worried sick about you, blaming himself as much as I have been blaming myself. We nearly argued over which of us was more to blame. He’s been here whenever he could spare time from the shop.”
“Will you—” Jacob started to say, and then broke off.
“Come back?” I asked.
“I don’t want to impose.”
I laughed. “You saved my life, Jacob. I’ll be back later this afternoon.”
“Vera,” he said when I reached the door.
I turned.
“If I had to save someone’s life, I’m very glad it was yours.”
The next morning, Mr. Cartier and I were visiting when Dr. Lipskar was making his rounds. After a thorough examination, he gave Jacob the go-ahead to leave the hospital.
“Other than the scar on your forehead, there doesn’t seem to be any damage,” the doctor said.
“Despite being unconscious for so long?” Mr. Cartier asked.
“It’s not usual. But Mr. Asher, you might very well suffer intermittent headaches. You should spend a couple of days resting up before you go back to work.”
Mr. Cartier insisted that Jacob rest for the remainder of the week and not worry about the workshop.
And so, an hour later, ten days after Jacob had first been admitted, the three of us left the hospital together. Mr. Cartier’s carriage was downstairs waiting, and we all got in. When the driver pulled up in front of Jacob’s apartment, I offered to go upstairs with him to see what kind of foodstuffs he had and then go out and bring some things in.
Mr. Cartier said no, he would do that. I was, after all, a client. But I insisted.
“As a woman who keeps an apartment myself, I would bet I’m better equipped than you are in that capacity, Mr. Cartier. Don’t you think?”
He laughed and said he did. “But I don’t want you to be put out.”
“For the man who saved my life?” I asked. And who was my lover? I thought.
Jacob’s Greenwich Village building faced Washington Square Park. His second-floor, light-filled apartment consisted of a bedroom, a water closet, a kitchen, a parlor, and a dining room, which he’d converted into a workshop.
“Don’t you work hard enough at Mr. Cartier’s?” I asked as he gave me a tour.
“I do, but I have projects of my own as well.”
“Can I see?”
“Maybe later.”
“You’re right. You need to get into bed, and I need to go get some groceries,” I said.
“Are you always so efficient?”
“I am.”
“Well, if I need to get into bed, I need company.” The light I remembered but hadn’t seen for days glinted in his eye.
“You need rest.”
“Vera, come sit with me a minute.” He sat down on the couch opposite the long work table.
I sat beside him. He took my hand and pulled me toward him. For a few moments, we just sat there together quietly, not speaking. I closed my eyes and felt relief flood through me. He really was all right. The worst of the ordeal was truly behind us.
With his fingers laced in mine, he said, “I am so sorry for what you’ve been through. And I can’t thank you enough for your vigil at the hospital.”
“You saved my life.”
“You should never have been there.”
He’d said that before. “I have questions about what happened,” I said, finally willing to broach the subject.
“I would imagine.”
“But I think I should go out and buy supplies first. We’ll talk after.”
He nodded.
“In the meantime, why don’t you be a good patient and do as the doctor ordered? Rest.”
I went into the kitchen and inspected the larder. It was so well stocked that for a moment, I just stared at it. There were rows of spices and staples, shelves of pots and pans. So different from any kitchen I’d ever kept. When I’d lived in Chelsea, I was never around at regular hours, because I spent so much time in the newsroom and uptown at my father’s penthouse. Margery Tuttle brought in what she intended to cook and cleaned up afterward. Or I ordered up one meal at a time from the Birdcage. But I rarely went shopping for supplies. From what I could see, Jacob’s kitchen had been stocked with fresh food, but the loaf of bread was rock hard. The lemons, oranges, and apples sitting in a bowl on the counter had shriveled. The jar of coffee beans beside the grinder would be fine, but the milk in the icebox had turned, and the water pan underneath it was full. Since Jacob had been in the hospital for more than a week, he’d obviously missed the ice delivery. I found moldy cheese and rancid butter.
“Where is the closest shop?”
I had walked from the kitchen back out into the parlor, but Jacob wasn’t there. Hearing noises, I followed the sounds to the workshop. Jacob was leaning over a large box on his desk. As soon as I took a step into the room, he quickly closed it. I thought I heard the slight noise of turning a key in the lock.
What odd behavior, I thought.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jacob asked as he stood up.
“Where is the closest shop?” I repeated the question.
“I really don’t want you to go to any trouble,” he said, turning around to face me. His hand was in his pocket now. “I can ask the superintendent’s wife to run out.”
Coming closer, I took in what he’d been fussing with—a medium-size box made of Moroccan leather with fine tooling on the top and sides, something old and precious.
“It’s no trouble.” I pointed to the box. “That’s beautiful.”
“It belonged to my father.”
I remembered the story he’d told me about his father’s death. “It must mean the world to you.”
“It does.”
There was an awkward silence while I waited for him to tell me more. But he didn’t.
“The market?” I asked.
“Right, there’s one just a block away on Bleecker…” He subtly moved me out of the room and toward the front hall. “And next door is a tea shop that sells sandwiches if you would rather not fuss with cooking.”
“I think you deserve me fussing. You saved my life.”
“You have to promise me one thing, or I won’t let you back inside.”
“What is that?”
“You’re to stop mentioning that I saved your life. Anyone in that situation would have done what I did.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Nonetheless. No more mentioning it.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, as I took my coat off the hook.
“No thinking about it. I won’t let you back in unless you promise.”
I moved in front of him, opened the front door, and stepped out.
“Vera?”
I turned.
“I will let you back in.”
“I figured.”
On the way to the store, I thought about how Jacob had so abruptly closed the lid on the box. He was obviously hiding something. His silent ways gave him a mysterious air that I wasn’t sure I trusted. Yet I’d probably been drawn to him precisely for how enigmatic he was. I was always, much to my detriment, attracted to people who had secrets. Only those who lived boring lives were open books.
I found the grocer, baker, fish market, and butcher within two blocks, and I returned with two bags of food. I’d bought basics—eggs, bread, butter, milk, cream, potatoes, cheese, apples—and some surprises, including shrimp and oysters. Then I stopped in at the tea shop and picked up sandwiches and chocolate doughnuts.
Back in the apartment, Jacob took the packages from me, and we unpacked them in the kitchen. Since the ice wouldn’t be delivered for another day, he said, we put the cold items on the window ledge—the November air would keep them fresh. The rest we put away in the cabinets.
Jacob took out plates for the sandwiches. I unwrapped them while he set the table in the corner with silverware, napkins, a pitcher of water, and two glasses.
“How long have you lived in this apartment?” I asked, once we were seated and had begun eating.
“Since arriving in America. Two years ago. I chose it for the neighborhood. I like that a lot of artists live here.”
I’d been distracted by the box but remembered then that there had been art supplies on the table in his workshop. “Do you paint?”
“Not really. I do sketches of my designs with pencils and gouache, but I don’t consider that really painting.”
“Do you have any of your designs here?”
“I do, and I’m going to guess your next question is to ask if you can see them. Am I right?” He laughed.
“I’m that predictable?”
“Well, your inquisitiveness knows no bounds. You ask so many questions it makes my head spin. It wasn’t hard to guess what you were going to ask next. Are you always so curious?”
“When I was sixteen, my father had a brooch made for me, a question mark set with tiny diamonds.”
Jacob laughed again. “Wear it the next time we meet. I’d love to see it.”
“I will.”
“Your father must have been a wonderful man.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to answer without cracking.
“What happens when you ask all those questions and get answers you don’t like?”
“I try to keep an open mind. To focus rather on the discovery and where that will lead.”
He cocked his head and stared at me for a moment. “You should be a reporter,” he said. Then he reached for another sandwich.
Instead of responding, I took a bite of my own sandwich and chewed.
“Have you ever thought of working?” he asked.
No one had ever asked me that. The people I met as Vera Garland rarely considered that a woman might have a calling besides motherhood.
I didn’t even consider telling him the truth, given how deep I was into the lie already. And I was good at lying. I’d been practicing for years. I’d lied my way through factories and tenements and abortion clinics, as well as other nefarious and hazardous places.
“I can’t imagine working that hard or doing anything that dangerous,” I said.
“No, I suppose that wouldn’t be typical for one of your set.”
I bristled and was suddenly sorry I’d answered the way I had. I sensed a bias that I hadn’t guessed at before. But of course, he would have some resentment toward high society and the fashionable set. He had to deal with the likes of them all day long in the shop. And I was certain that he’d endured more than his share of rude treatment.
“Do you have a secret?” I asked him.
He cocked his head. “What an odd question to come out of the blue.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.
“Is it a big secret or a small one?”
He hesitated this time, then sighed, as if debating whether to tell me the truth. “I have one very large secret with many compartments.”
“And have you ever told anyone?”
“No. In fact, I’ve never admitted to anyone but you that I even have a secret at all.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“You asked.”
“I doubt it is that simple,” I said.
“No, Vera. It’s not that simple. I don’t think anything about you or me is simple, do you?”
“No, I don’t suppose it is.”
He took another bite of his sandwich and then a sip of water. “Your turn now. Do you have many secrets?” he asked.
I hesitated.
“Ah, so you don’t like having the tables turned? You can ask all the questions you want but become shy as soon as I start asking them?”
I had a sudden memory and with it a realization. We were at the dinner table. My mother had asked my father something he hadn’t wanted to answer. I could distinctly remember my mother saying almost the same thing to him that Jacob had said to me just now. That it was fine for him to ask questions but not her, and was that fair? My mother asking my father if it was fair. How had I forgotten that after all these years?
“Vera?”
“Yes, sorry. I just remembered something. My father loved asking questions, too, but my mother complained that he didn’t like to answer them. Odd that you would say the same thing about me.”
“Not so odd. You probably take after him.”
It struck me then to wonder if I had become a reporter to deflect the questions being asked of me.
“Well, I do take after him much more than I do my mother.”
“So do you have any secrets? Answer me, or else you don’t get a doughnut,” he teased.
“Yes, then, I do. Quite a few.”
“And have you ever shared them?”
“Yes, I have. My father knew all but one of them.” I thought of my abortion. “But my mother and sister only know one.”
“Cryptic… and interesting.”
“My turn for another question. Have you told many lies?”
He paused, as if he were figuring out how to answer. “Yes, I suppose I have, but I hardly think that’s very unusual. Don’t you think in the course of a life one does? Many of them are kind. For instance, what am I supposed to say when a client asks, ‘Do you think these earrings flatter me?’ Or ‘Do you think I’m too old for these pearls?’ ”
“Are there any pearls a woman is too old for?”
Jacob laughed. “I supposed that wasn’t the best example.”
“What are other types of acceptable lies?”
“Well, there are the lies you tell yourself when dealing with various situations. Telling yourself that someone isn’t worth bothering with, even though you know in your heart they are, but maybe they’ve hurt you and you can’t get past it. Convincing yourself that sometimes it’s OK to do the wrong thing if it’s for the right reason. Or the kind of lie that gets you through dark nights, telling yourself that there is nothing to fear when you know there is.”
I was silent for a moment. I knew those kinds of lies. All too well.
“What other kinds of lies are there?” I finally asked.
“Vera, where is this all going?”
“I’m curious, that’s all.”
“I think it’s more than that. I think you are struggling with your secret and want to tell me but aren’t sure you can trust me.”
I shook my head. “I think the question is more likely if you can trust me.”
“That is a damnable habit, to keep turning my questions back at me.”
“I’m just full of damnable habits, or so my mother always tells me.”
I took another bite of my sandwich. Jacob finished his second.
“I’m going to make some coffee to go with those doughnuts,” he said. “And don’t try to stop me. I saw your kitchen. I know which of us will make the better brew.”
A few minutes later, he brought in a tray with the plate of doughnuts, two mugs of hot black coffee, a little pitcher of milk, and a pot of sugar. I watched him make his coffee sweet and very light. I drank mine black. Too many newsrooms ran out of milk and sugar over long nights, and I’d gotten used to going without.
“Now,” I said when we finished eating, “you need to take a nap. The doctor was quite clear about that. At least for the rest of the week, you need to do nothing but eat and sleep, read novels, and let your body get over the shock of the attack.”
I shivered without realizing it.
“What about you? Are you over the shock of the attack?”
“I don’t think so. I couldn’t get past it while you were lying there in that hospital bed, worried if you were ever…” I couldn’t finish the thought.
“Tell you what: I’ll take a nap if you take one with me. The nurse told me how much time you spent at the hospital. More than you told me. Every night, Vera?”
He took my hand and ran his thumb across my knuckles, sending shivers up my arm.
What was I doing? Jacob might be the key to unlocking the story I was chasing. What would he say if he knew I was pretending to be interested in purchasing jewelry, all so I could gather information about Cartier? And I was on the verge of getting the sordid facts I needed. But at the same time, I was honestly and truly attracted to Jacob. Not just because of who he was but because of who I was with him, and I could imagine spending more time with him. Much more time, and it had been so long since I’d thought that about any man.
Was I taking advantage of my attraction to him and risking it all for a story? Except it wasn’t just a story. This was about my father’s life. My uncle’s life. It was about right and wrong.
“Come on,” Jacob cajoled, as he took my hand and led me toward the bedroom. And I, responding to his touch, shut down my thoughts and followed.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and, still holding my hand, pulled me with him. He took off his shoes and then leaned down and took off mine. He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me back onto the pillows with him.
We were both still fully dressed, lying on top of the bed. He rolled toward me, got up on one elbow, looked down at me, and then with his forefinger traced the lines of my face—eyebrows, nose, cheekbones, chin, and finally my mouth. Leaning down, he pressed his lips against mine, softly, then more firmly.
All the questions still swirling around in my mind came to roost like birds settling on the grass. As we undressed each other I forgot about my confusion and guilt, my duplicity and guile. I just wanted to feel all the sensations Jacob roused. I just wanted to revel in his touch, in his presence, in his scent, in his attention.
One kiss led to more. I leaned so far into him that we were pressed together without any space between us. I wasn’t playing at anything with him. I was as attracted to him as to any man I’d ever met. I wanted him, the flesh and blood of him. I wanted the man who was touching me, and now undressing me, and now caressing me. But when he raised himself up and looked down at me, with his secret smile on his lips, as he lowered his naked body onto mine and slipped inside me and I felt the first shudder, I knew that I also wanted what he might be able to give me: his help, his secrets, and Mr. Cartier’s.
And wasn’t that part of what made being with him so desirable? So decadent and dangerous? This was far more complicated than just passion. Someone like Vera Garland, a member of the 400, was not supposed to mix and mingle with a Russian Jewish jeweler. Someone like Vee Swann, a female journalist trying to make her way in a male-dominated profession, was not supposed to enter into a personal relationship with a source. This was far worse than befriending a seven-year-old schoolgirl. I was on new ground, and it kept shifting beneath me.
But as Jacob moved inside me, I lost focus on my duplicity and ethics. Our two rhythms synchronized into one. Our breaths coming at the same time. Our hearts hitting the same beats.
I felt both lost and found. He was letting me float in the great wide-open space of sensation and then pulling me back. I was tethered to him by the places where our flesh touched, where he moved, where his fingers explored, where his tongue teased, where his heat warmed me, and where I absorbed his fire.
I’d never experienced anything at this level of feeling before. Was it because I had so recently faced my mortality? Was it because staring down that gun barrel had made me understand that no single moment in life should ever be taken for granted? Was it because this man I was with, this man who my mother would remind me was nothing but a working man, and a foreigner at that, had stepped in front of that gun and taken a blow for me? Almost died for me. For me.
Every single tingle and flutter and wave and throb I was experiencing was a gift. But none so great that if not for him I might be able to receive any of them. The enormity of that suddenly overwhelmed me. As I angled my hips to take him further and deeper, so that he could reach my core, I kept thinking that this man had saved me and was saving me again and again and again, and it became a song in my head as the explosions came, followed all too soon by my tears.