Mystery

“I meant everything I said to you today,” she said. “I’m not Moonie Firestone or Posy Tuttle. My idea of paradise isn’t a rich husband and a lodge at Eagle Lake and a trip to Europe every other year. We really did see the Tuaregs and the lascars, and I saw places I’d never seen before in my life, and I really found out some things, and I met two amazing women who haven’t seen you in seven years and still think you’re wonderful.” She floored the Mercedes to pass a carriage on the right. “Every time Hattie Bascombe said ‘Mr. Rembrandt’ I wanted to hug her.”

She cut in front of the carriage, and its driver shouted a string of four-letter words. Sarah flipped her hand up in a mocking wave and tore off through the traffic again.

“Oh, well,” she said when they skirted Weasel Hollow, and when they passed the St. Alwyn Hotel on Calle Drosselmayer, “She is really beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Every now and then I thought she looked sort of like her stuffed hawk,” Tom said.

“Her stuffed hawk?” Sarah turned to him with her mouth open and an expression in her eyes that convicted him of a profoundly irritating idiocy.

“Inside that big cage.”

She snapped her head forward. “I don’t mean Hattie. I mean that Nancy Vetiver is really beautiful. She is, isn’t she?”

“Well, maybe. I was sort of surprised by her. She turned out to be another kind of person than I thought she was. My mother used to say she was hard, and she certainly isn’t, but I can see what she meant. Nancy’s tough.”

“And she’s beautiful besides.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” Tom said. “You should have seen yourself in that cape.”

“I’m pretty,” Sarah said. “I own a mirror, I know that much. People have been telling me I was pretty all my life. I was just lucky enough to be born with good hair and good teeth and visible cheekbones. If you want to know the truth, my mouth is too big and my eyes are too far apart. I look at my face and I see my baby pictures. I see a perfect Brooks-Lowood girl. I hate prettiness. It means you’re supposed to spend half your time thinking about how you look, and most other people think you’re a sort of toy who will do whatever they want. I bet Nancy Vetiver hardly ever looks in the mirror, I bet she cut her hair short because she could wash it in the shower and dry it with a towel, I bet it’s a big deal for her to buy a new lipstick—and she’s beautiful. Every good thing in her, every feeling she ever had, is in her face. When I was in that little room, I even envied her those little lines on her face—you can tell she doesn’t let other people make her do things. In fact the whole idea of being like me would strike her as ridiculous!”

“I think you ought to marry her,” Tom said. “We could all live together in Maxwell’s Heaven, Nancy and you and me. And Bill.”

She punched him in the shoulder, hard. “You forgot Bingo.”

“Actually, Bingo and Percy seemed made for each other.”

She smiled at last.

“What’s all that stuff about being a toy, and doing what other people want?”

“Oh, never mind,” she said. “I got carried away.”

“I don’t think your eyes are too far apart. Posy Tuttle’s eyes are actually on opposite sides of her head, and she sees different things out of each of them, like a lizard.”

Sarah had turned from Calle Berlinstrasse into Edgewater Trail, and coming toward them from the opposite direction, smiling and raising his homburg from the seat of his trap, was Dr. Bonaventure Milton. “Sarah! Tom!” he called out. “A word, please!”

She pulled up alongside the pony trap, and the doctor looked earnestly down at them, removed his homburg, and wiped his sweaty head with a handkerchief. “I have an apology for you, Sarah. I saw your little dog running loose around the hospital earlier this afternoon, and took him up here with me—thought I’d drop him off at your place when I was through with my calls. The little fellow got away from me somehow, I’m sorry to say, but I’m sure he’ll come back as soon as he gets hungry.”

“No problem,” she said. “In fact, Bingo’s been with us all afternoon.”

Hearing his name, Bingo popped his head out of the well. He barked at the doctor, whose horse twitched sideways in his traces.

“Well,” said the doctor. “Well, well, well. Hah! Seems I was in error. Hah!”

“But you’re so sweet to worry about him, Dr. Milton. You’re the nicest doctor on the whole island.”

“And you’re looking remarkably pretty today, my dear,” the doctor said, smiling and bowing in a ghastly attempt at gallantry.

“You’re so complimentary, Doctor.”

“Not at all.” He raised his hat again, and shook his reins. His trap rolled away toward the hospital.

“I’m going home,” Sarah declared. “The Redwings are coming over in a little while, to discuss airplane etiquette or something, and I have to take a bath. I want to look just like my baby pictures.”