The Dollhouse

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

New York City, 2016

The evening after the talk with Malcolm, Rose opened a bottle of wine and worked her way through Darby’s bebop collection. The recklessness of the music matched her mood. She rummaged through the drawers of Darby’s desk while a Sarah Vaughan record played in the background.

The top drawer contained receipts and ancient office supplies, including a pad of carbon paper. Nothing to provide any inkling of where Darby had run off to. The red light on her answering machine stayed unblinking, no new messages.

Before Stella had gone into the hospital, she’d implied that Darby rarely traveled anywhere. So why had she left in such a rush now? She’d left behind no clues at all.

Rose yawned, the wine kicking in. She grabbed the top issue of The New Yorker magazine from a stack piled up under the desk and carried it to the couch. She’d find a story she’d never usually read, a profile of a sports hero or something like that, and drift off to sleep. But the corner of one page, near the front of the magazine, had been turned over. The jazz listings. In fact, Darby had circled several of the week’s events, and placed a couple of exclamation marks by two. Both were tributes to old bebop heroes. Rose worked her way through the rest of the issues and every one was similarly marked. Circles, exclamation points, and short notations in the margin. Darby had certainly stayed on top of the latest performances. Which explained her late-night forays.

The ladies would make excellent subjects, but she needed Darby’s contribution to make it sing. Darby would open up to her, she was sure of it. Even Bird had warmed up to her presence. She looked down at him now, wheezing into her armpit, and a wave of melancholy washed over her. What she was doing was wrong, stalking the back stairways of the Barbizon like a crazy woman. She wasn’t hanging around the building because of the research or the dog.

She couldn’t bear to sever the last tie with the man who’d broken her heart.

But enough was enough. The next day at work, Rose spent most of the morning scouring the real estate listings for a reasonable rental. The prices were a shock, a reminder of how long ago she’d moved into her apartment in the Village, and how quickly the cost of living had risen. Even apartments out in the farthest corners of Brooklyn were unreasonable, considering the fact that she would be paying for her father’s room and board at the same time.

She’d stopped by a couple of days ago and been alarmed by the change in him. He tried to get up and open a window three times, waiting until her gaze was averted to the book she was reading aloud from. He jumped up with the swiftness of one of those dancers in the old movies, but when he couldn’t manage the lock, he pounded on the glass and tried to roar. The sound came out strangled.

Rose quickly called for the nurses and they resettled him in the chair, but in her heart she knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to leap out the window, replace the antiseptic environment with freedom and the feel of the wind. It was what she would have wanted to do as well.

“How’s the Barbizon project going?”

Tyler stood at the doorway to his office.

Rose minimized her browser, hiding the apartment listings from view. “Fine. We’ve got some footage and started in on the interviews.”

“Make sure it’s not depressing.”

“Sure thing.”

After he’d slammed his door shut with more emphasis than necessary, Rose turned back to her monitor.

Two of the real estate listings up in Washington Heights might work. The photos were nice enough. The rent was high, but if she took some extra freelance work, she could manage it, just barely. Something to ask Jason about.

She made calls to the real estate agents and left messages. Good. She was on her way.

After transcribing Malcolm’s interview, she looked up at the clock. Early afternoon. The best part of being a journalist was you could always use the excuse of research when sitting at a desk became unbearable. And if walking Bird in the park on a glorious summer day, thinking about the ladies of the fourth floor, counted as research, so be it.

Bird seemed pleasantly surprised when she showed up at the apartment and took him off to the park. During this time of day, the river of motion on the park’s main road was constant, with cyclists weaving around horse-drawn carriages, pedicabs, and spandex-clad joggers. Somehow, all the different speeds and methods of conveyance managed to work together. Every so often, a family of tourists on clunky rental bikes broke the trend by going clockwise, the mother looking panicked, the father grimacing, kids ducking their heads in embarrassment. The cyclists on road bikes, who considered themselves the top tier of park users, hollered out in annoyance as they whizzed by.

Today the park seemed to be filled with couples walking hand in hand. Before Griff, she’d dated several men, boys really. Some were charismatic at first, then grew tiresome. Or grew tired of her. But Griff was an adult, successful in his career and respected by the maître d’s of the fancy restaurants he took her to.

One evening early in their relationship, they’d taken a leisurely stroll together past the Boathouse, the restaurant perched over the lake in the middle of Central Park. Griff admired the building out loud, and she admitted she’d never been inside. “Too many tourists,” she said, laughing. “Who else would be willing to pay so much for a tired piece of steak?”

“We are,” he answered, a boyish smile lighting his face. And with that, he dragged her through the double doors, and they drank two bottles of wine while watching the rowboats idling on the pond. A terrible thunderstorm sprang up, as if on cue, while they shared profiteroles for dessert. While the thunder roared and rain poured against the glass walls, he kissed her and told her he loved her.

He’d been the driving force in their relationship, and she was only too happy to enjoy his attention. Slowly, she gave up her identity, leaving her apartment and her job for what she assumed was the next step in her life. Marriage, supporting a husband who had political aspirations. Then he blew it all to bits.

She reached the terrace that overlooked the boat pond, with the restaurant off to the right, and the enormous angel sculpture spurting white water into Bethesda Fountain in the plaza below. A group of teenagers splashed each other with water and shrieked, the girls covering their heads, all black fingernails and long legs. One of the teens was louder than the others, more physical with the boys. Rose stared hard before she recognized the girl. One of Griff’s daughters.

Miranda had stared out at her every morning upon Rose’s waking, from the photo on top of their bedroom bureau. In it, taken several years ago, Miranda wore a salmon-colored silk dress with ruffles along the top. Rose had admired it for its retro feel, like the disco dresses from the seventies.

But today Miranda sported a T-shirt cut in horizontal strips, revealing a black bra underneath. Rose pulled her sun hat down low and moved along the balustrade until she could see the girl’s face. Her skin was pale and smooth and her hair cascaded down her back in thick curls, like a damsel in a romance novel. Even from this distance, Rose could tell her makeup was heavy, with thick black lines around her eyes and lips the color of blood. Griff must hate it. He’d never liked when Rose came home from work wearing pancake makeup from the broadcast. After a while, she’d been sure to take it off in her dressing room instead of waiting until she got home.

A couple holding hands wandered into the frame of her vision and it took a moment for her to realize it was Griff and Connie, coming from the direction of the Boathouse. She knelt down fast, under the pretense of petting Bird. He was panting and needed to be in the shade. She’d forgotten how close his tiny body was to the waves of heat emanating off the concrete sidewalk.

She crossed the street with the intention of heading south along Literary Walk, which was lined with shady elms. Anything to get away from the sight of Griff and Connie together. But as she passed the stairway that led to the tunnel underneath the Seventy-Second Street tranverse, she paused. Scooping up Bird, she took the stairs quickly, clutching the handrail. The tunnel had an arched ceiling, and was a coveted spot for street musicians who took advantage of its excellent acoustics, the sound reverberating around the tiled walls.

Today, the area was empty and dark, a perfect hiding spot. The column and the contrast in light kept Rose hidden from view.

Griff and Connie stopped in their tracks when they spotted Miranda. From Rose’s vantage point, the tension in their faces was palpable. They murmured to each other like spies working undercover, and then Connie called out to Miranda in a high, sharp voice. The girl turned her head in their direction and all animation fell from her face. Rage briefly crossed over her pretty features before disappearing. Griff’s low baritone carried across the plaza but not clearly enough for Rose to catch what he was saying. He let go of Connie’s hand and surreptitiously rubbed his palm on a pant leg.

Once Miranda stood before them, Connie put her hands on her hips and thrust her neck forward. She seemed to be berating Miranda, before Griff interrupted her with a dismissive motion of his hands.

Rose tried to tamp down the elation building up inside her. He’d only returned home out of guilt. And his attempt at reconciliation looked rather rocky.

They were coming undone, and Rose was embarrassed for all of them. For the daughter, who was probably confused by the coming and going of the adults in her life, and for Griff, who was a loving dad but unequipped to handle a daughter with a strong agenda of her own.

Without warning, Miranda threw her phone at Griff’s feet. It clattered to the ground, bouncing twice. She stared down at it for a second, stricken at what she’d done, then ran off. Connie’s face contorted with anguish, and Griff put a hand on her back, but the gesture was automatic, not driven by a need to comfort.

For the first time since Griff had given Rose the terrible news, hope glimmered, followed by a wash of shame. The family was hurtling toward disaster. But the sooner he figured out that being with Connie wouldn’t help their daughter any more than being apart, the better. If anything, they seemed to be botching the reconciliation completely.

For the past week, she’d imagined Connie had transformed the apartment into a warm, comfy respite. But a brilliant interior design would never make it a happy home for Griff’s family.

What if his misguided attempt at patching things up failed? She imagined him begging her to come back to him, promising the moon.

Could she ever again trust a man who had turned her life upside down?

Stella’s grandniece lived in an imposing brick house in Fort Lee just off the highway. Rose could hear the endless whoosh of cars on I-95 as she and Jason got out of the cab.

Stella guided them into the toy-strewn living room.

“It’s a pigsty, but I can’t say anything because I’m the grateful aunt, happy to be taken in.” She eased herself into a recliner and gestured for them to take a seat on the sofa. The only sign of her illness was a hollowness in her cheeks and a slight wheezing. “Mind you don’t sit on a Lego. You’ll get a bruise for days.”

“I take it you’re eager to get back to the Barbizon,” Rose ventured.

“You bet. They say another few weeks and I’ll be good as new.”

Rose briefly ran through the various interviews she and Jason had lined up, and Stella’s eyes widened with astonishment. “I’m surprised you reached so many of us. You must be very persuasive.”

“I think they agree with me that the history of the Barbizon makes a great story.”

“Right. Well, what do you want to know? We only have an hour until Susan and her kids get back from ballet lessons or welding class or wherever the hell they are.”

Rose looked over at Jason, who nodded. The camera was rolling. “So many different kinds of women stayed at the hotel. How did they all get along? Or did they all get along?”

“God, no. It was a strict class system. Models were on top, then the guest editors for Mademoiselle and the others who were in publishing. The bottom tier was for the Gibbs girls.”

“Why is that?”

“The goal was to catch a man as soon as possible. Sure, we all paid lip service to the idea of working and making our own money. But it was just pocket money. Our parents took care of the bills until we were handed off to Prince Charming.”

“The competition must’ve been fierce.”

“You bet. The boys were tiered as well, handsome and rich was a top catch. The Ford girls expected the full package, but as you moved down the food chain, you might settle for an egghead with cash, or get swept off your feet by a dashing poet.”

“Where did you go on a typical date?”

Stella clapped her hands together. “Oh, the choices were endless. Dinner at the Drake, where the roast duck was to die for, or Café de la Paix at the Hotel St. Moritz. Dancing at the El Morocco until late. Broadway shows, the ballet.”

“Did you ever head downtown to the jazz clubs?”

“Downtown? Not so much. We tended to stick to the ones on Fifty-Second Street. Those downtown ones, as well as the ones way up in Harlem, were off-limits for the Ford girls. They were considered seedy and full of dangerous elements.”

Too bad. She would have loved Stella’s take on the Flatted Fifth. “I assume you were pursued by a number of suitors.”

“Got that right. But I made a huge mistake. Decided to have a ball, enjoy myself, play around. By the time I was twenty-three, I was no longer a good girl and no longer young. Can you believe that? Twenty-three. That’s a baby these days. Still, I don’t regret a thing.”

“What about the Gibbs girls? Weren’t they there to find good jobs?”

“Secretaries fell into two categories: the dowdy type who wouldn’t threaten the wife, and the bombshell who looked good behind a desk or, even better, on top of it.”

Rose stifled a laugh so as not to screw up the audio. “What category would Miss McLaughlin fall into?”

“Dowdy, for sure. At least at first. But she began to blossom. Who knows how far she might have gone.” Her voice trailed off.

The opening was exactly what Rose had been hoping for. “If she hadn’t had the accident?”

Stella nodded.

“Do you remember when it happened?”

“Halloween 1952. Some things you never forget.” She shifted in her chair and changed the subject, and Rose didn’t press. She bided her time, asking questions about the characters Stella had met over the years.

“I had a friend, Charlotte Foster, who was strangely beautiful, though not about to get on the cover of Vogue. Charlotte did well for herself. She didn’t mess about with any marriage nonsense, and I have to say I think she was right. Focus on your job, do what you love, and get on with your life.”

The words resonated. Rose had done so early on, getting a coveted internship out of college and plowing through the office politics. But somewhere along the way, she’d reverted to a 1950s paradigm: Griff had become the center of her world.

She snapped back to the interview. “What happened to Charlotte Foster?”

“Ended up working at The New Yorker. She never married, from what I heard, never wanted to. Died in her sixties, while hang gliding in the Alps. What a way to go.”

Stella’s sharp memory and deadpan delivery made the time fly by. Exactly an hour after they started, the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway signaled the end of the interview.

As they began packing up, Rose broached the subject of Darby again. “Did Miss McLaughlin ever have a young friend who visited? A girl?”

Stella eyed her uneasily. “Yup. I saw them meet up a few times outside the building. Darby never bothered to introduce me, but that was her way. Most of the other women think she’s a bitch, but I like it. She doesn’t waste my time, and I don’t waste hers.”

“So you don’t know the girl’s name?”

“No.” She cocked her head. “But once I heard the girl call Darby something odd. Christina, Tina, something like that. I said to Darby later, ‘What, you got a new name?’ Darby told me it was a private joke.”

On the way back to the city, Jason chuckled.

“What’s that for?” asked Rose.

“I can’t help but wish I’d been born back in the day. Stella was one hell of a firecracker. She must’ve driven the boys wild.”

An unpleasant twinge ran through Rose. Jealousy. Of an eightysomething-year-old lady? No way.

She shook it off. “The more we dig into Darby’s story, the stranger it becomes. What’s with the girl calling her Christina?”

“Maybe that’s her alter ego, a crazy, martini-swilling lady of the night.”

“I wouldn’t rule it out at this point. I wish we could get Stella to dish out more details on the day Esme fell. She knows more than she’s saying.”

“You saw how she closed down. She’s not going to go there.”

“Ditto with Malcolm on Sam. I’ve tried to reach him a couple of times since our interview. Radio silence.”

Jason sighed. “So far, all we know is Darby was planning an escape with Sam, Esme fell, and Darby ended up living at the hotel for decades.”

“Maybe Esme was in love with Sam and they battled it out on the roof?”

“Does that make the mystery girl the love child of Darby and Sam?”

“More like the love grandchild.” Her head spun with possibilities. “Lots of questions.”

“And no one is willing to talk.”

“Not yet.” Rose stared out at the Hudson River as their taxi cruised over the bridge back to the city.