“I knew everybody,” she laughed. “They’re just people, dear.”
“But really rich and famous people. Wasn’t Peter Lawford trying to go out with you? And, like, the Duke of Liechtenstein or something? I mean, I loved Grandpa, and he was the greatest guy ever, but how could you give up the life you had to marry a construction worker?”
Nan smiled a faraway smile and glanced over at the old black-and-white photo of her and Grandpa Frank snuggled together in a beach blanket by the ocean, way before I was born, way before my mother was born, even. They looked so content together. So totally at ease in each other’s arms. I knew that I’d never felt that way ever.
She looked at me with watery blue eyes and said, “Lisbeth, my sweet, when you truly fall in love, you’ll understand.” She stifled a tiny sigh.
“I’m sorry,” I said, hugging her tightly. “You miss him, don’t you?”
“Every day.” A bittersweet expression came over her face. “You said it yourself: Grandpa was the greatest guy ever. Something special, that man. Someone to change your life for.”
“Can we look at the scrapbook again?” I asked, sliding it out from the side table cabinet before she had a chance to answer.
Flipping through Nan’s scrapbook was one of my favorite things to do. Nan’s photos were like a drug to me; they made all the darkness go away—all the ingenues and dashing young men, their faces golden with hope and possibility. I didn’t know anyone in my family who believed in hope besides Nan.
“Hope is a kick in the teeth,” Mom always said. Maybe that was why she never visited. It was just so weird how troubled Mom was, when her parents seemed so perfect and loving.
“Someday, Lisbeth, I expect your own memories will be as exciting to you as mine,” said Nan.
“As if,” I said, flipping the page. “Now tell me again about the time you fell in love with the jazz drummer at your first debutante ball…”
We plunged. The beginning pages were all photos and society-column clippings from before Nan met my granddad. I loved those photos. Nan dressed in pearls and white chiffon for her debutante ball or poised and elegant on the arm of a dapper young man or gracefully posing with my great-grandparents in a crystal ballroom.
And so many dresses.
“You had to have five ball gowns, at least four cocktail dresses, and all the accessories to lunch in and to wear to tea, cute little hats and several pairs of matching gloves,” Nan said. “It was really quite something.”
“I wish I could see you in just one of these dresses,” I said. “You were so beautiful.”
“They still fit, you know,” she said, “every one.”
“You don’t still have them, do you?” I’d been in Nan’s little apartment a million times, and I’d never seen any of these dresses. “Are they here?”
“Not here—there’s not enough room. I know it’s extravagant, but I couldn’t bear to give all of them away. I always thought I’d give the ones I kept to your mother, but she had no interest.”
“Where are they?” I realized how urgent I sounded. She laughed, and I did, too.
“I haven’t been out there in years. They’re packed away in one of those big concrete storage places by the Holland Tunnel entrance. Pay the bill every month.”
No way. My heart was racing.
“Oh Nan! Can I please see them?” I begged. “Please, please?”
“Of course! You can have them.” She laughed. “Or what’s left of them. They’re all yours if the moths haven’t gotten there first. I haven’t visited that place in almost twenty years. Dearest, bring me that little music box over there, would you please?”
I crossed the room, fetching a little heart-shaped music box with a crystal lid, and placed it in Nan’s lap. As she opened it, the box played “Moon River.” We looked at each other and grinned.
“See, I love Audrey almost as much as you do.”
She slipped a little key tied with a pink ribbon out of the box and gently dropped it in my hand.
“Alpha Building, unit 504.”
“Holy shit. I mean, wow. Thank you!” I said, tracing the outline of the key in my palm.
“So are we going to watch this movie or not?” asked Nan.
“We are!” I laughed and reached for the remote.
I hit PLAY and Audrey came to life again. Nan and I snuggled together, holding hands while we watched Tiffany’s. When it was over, I hugged Nan close once again, thanked her for everything, and said good-bye.
As I made my way to the Beast, my phone buzzed with another text from Tabitha Eden.
“Do u really exist ?!”
I couldn’t believe how many times Tabitha had texted me. Honestly, I’d figured she’d get bored when I didn’t respond and forget about our bizarre encounter in the Met bathroom that night.
“U better b my +1 this wkend !! ;) don’t make me go alone !! >.<”
Alone? How could she possibly be always so alone all the time? At her own party for her new album? It was so weird, I felt bad for her. I was dying to go, but I had to be realistic. I couldn’t possibly show up at her record party. Tabitha and her A-list friends were bound to figure out that I wasn’t actually the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn.
Besides, I didn’t have a thing to wear, did I?
I gazed at the little key with the pink ribbon and wondered.
15
The instant I left Nan’s, I phoned Jess, begging and pleading with her to meet me at the Room-2-Spare Self-Storage.
“Why are we meeting at eleven o’clock at night at some danky storage unit by the Holland Tunnel?” Jess asked.
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” I answered.
A half hour later, we were walking down the main corridor past the lockup. It was so close to the tunnel entrance that you could hear the constant grind of cars and trucks downshifting.
“Okay, just tell me your mother finally murdered your little brother and we’re stashing the body in a container that you’re shipping to Brazil.”
“How did you know?” I laughed as we walked down the dimly lit aisle with the flickering fluorescent light, searching for the elevator.
“Seriously, Lisbeth, stop walking.” Jess grabbed my arm. “Why are we here?”
“Because you’re my friend and a fashion genius.”
“And?”
I dangled the key in the air in front of her face. “What would you say to haute couture gowns from the fifties and sixties?”
“Um … yes…?”
“I was at Nan’s and she told me she’s been saving her fancy debutante gowns all these years. And naturally, I thought my favorite fashionista just might want to take a peak.”
“No way.” Jess’s eyes lit up. “Well, what are we waiting for?” She was sprinting down the aisle. “C’mon, c’mon!”
I followed behind her, peering cautiously into each doorway we passed. These storage buildings were serial-killer creepy, just the kind of place where you might have a run-in with a couple of axe murderers.
“Here it is!” shouted Jess. She was holding the elevator door, dancing around like her feet were on fire. “Hurry, hurry.”
I followed her into the elevator and pushed the button for the fourth floor, and nothing happened. The elevator smelled like urine. Finally it jerked upward screeching, metal against metal.
The buzzer dinged as we hit the fourth floor and just sat there. It took another twenty seconds for the door to open. I hated when elevators did that; like, instead of opening, the car might dead drop, crashing through the elevator shaft into a bottomless pit where nobody would hear you scream.
The door creaked opened.
Jess sauntered confidently out into the hallway. Nan’s storage was only a few units down. Jamming the key into the lock, I couldn’t turn it either way. It was stuck.