Page 77 of Still Me
I logged onto my bank, and then onto Facebook and found myself smiling, despite myself, at the endless pictures of Bernice’s daughter with her rubberized pout. I saw Mum’s pictures of our little garden, the new chairs she had bought from the garden center. Then, almost on a whim, I found myself flicking to Katie Ingram’s page. Almost immediately I wished I hadn’t. There, in glorious technicolor, were seven recently uploaded pictures of a paramedics’ night out, possibly the one they had been headed to when I had called.
Or, worse, possibly not.
There was Katie, in a dark pink shirt that looked like silk, her smile wide, her eyes knowing, leaning across the table to make a point, or her throat bared as she threw back her head in a laugh. There was Sam, in his battered jacket and a gray T-shirt, his big hand clasping a glass of what looked like lime cordial, a few inches taller than everyone else. In every picture the group was happy, laughing at shared jokes. Sam looked utterly relaxed and completely at home. And in every picture, Katie Ingram was pressed up next to him, nestled into his armpit as they sat around the pub table, or gazing up at him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
16
I have project for you.” I was seated in the corner at her super-trendy hairdresser’s, waiting while Agnes had her hair colored and blow-dried. I had been watching the local news reports of the library-closure protest, and switched my phone off hurriedly when she approached, her hair in carefully folded layers of tin foil. She sat down beside me, ignoring the colorist who clearly wanted her back in her seat.
“I want you to find me very small piano. To ship to Poland.”
She said this as if she was asking me to buy a packet of gum from Duane Reade.
“A very small piano.”
“A very special small piano for child to learn on. Is for my sister’s little girl,” she said. “It must be very good quality, though.”
“Are there no small pianos you can buy in Poland?”
“Not this good. I want it to come from Hossweiner and Jackson. These are best pianos in the world. And you must organize special shipping with climate control so it is not affected by cold or moisture as this will alter the tone. But the shop should be able to help with this.”
“How old is your sister’s kid again?”
“She is four.”
“Uh... okay.”
“And it needs to be the best so she can hear the difference. There is huge difference, you know, between tones. Is like playing Stradivarius compared to cheap fiddle.”
“Sure.”
“But here is thing.” She turned away, ignoring the now frantic colorist, who was gesturing at her head from across the salon and tapping at a nonexistent watch. “I do not want this to appear on my credit card. So you must withdraw money every week to pay for this. Bit by bit. Okay? I have some cash already.”
“But... Mr. Gopnik wouldn’t mind, surely?”
“He thinks I spend too much on my niece. He doesn’t understand.And if Tabitha discovers this she twist everything to make me look like bad person. You know what she is like, Louisa. So you can do this?” She looked at me intently from under the layers of foil.
“Uh, okay.”
“You are wonderful. I am so happy to have friend like you.” She hugged me abruptly so that the foils crushed against my ear and the colorist immediately ran over to see what damage my face had done.
—
I called the shop and got them to send me the costs for two varieties of miniature piano plus shipping. Once I’d finished blinking, I printed out the relevant quotes and showed them to Agnes in her dressing room.
“That’s quite a present,” I said.
She waved a hand.
I swallowed. “And the shipping is another two and a half thousand dollars on top.”
I blinked. Agnes didn’t. She walked over to her dresser and unlocked it with a key she kept in her jeans. As I watched, she pulled out an untidy wedge of fifty-dollar bills as fat as her arm. “Here. This is eight thousand five hundred. I need you to go every morning and get the rest from the ATM. Five hundred a time. Okay?”
I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the idea of extracting so much money without Mr. Gopnik’s knowledge. But I knew that Agnes’s links to her Polish family were intense, and I also knew better than most how you could long to feel close to those who were far away. Who was I to question how she was spending her money? I was pretty sure she owned dresses that cost more than that little piano, after all.
For the next ten days, at some point during daylight hours, I dutifully walked to the ATM on Lexington Avenue and collected the money, stuffing the notes deep into my bra before walking back, braced to fight off muggers who never materialized. I would give the money to Agnes when we were alone, and she would add it to the stash in the dresser, then lock it again. Eventually I took the whole lot to the piano store, signed the requisite form and counted it out in front of a bemused shop assistant. The piano would arrive in Poland in time for Christmas.
It was the only thing that seemed to give Agnes any joy. Every week we drove over to Steven Lipkott’s studio for her art lesson, and Garry and I would silently overdose on caffeine and sugar in the BestDoughnut Place, or I would murmur agreement with his views on ungrateful adult children, and caramel sprinkle doughnuts. We would pick up Agnes a couple of hours later and try to ignore the fact that she had no drawings with her.
