After I'm Buried Alive Page 4

  I placed my euros on the table and knocked back the second cup. I needed fortification before I took on Tiffany and my deceased friend.

  I fingered the tiny espresso cup.

  In the rush to respond to Tiffany, pack, drive to SFO, assure Tina I would be right back, assure Chris I would be right back, make reservations, and pack, did I mention pack?, I hadn’t allowed much time to consider the reason for all this frantic activity. My dear friend. My friend who never deleted me from her top ten favorites, my friend who was always there for me, was gone.

  I glanced out at the square, still relatively empty of tourists. I met Miranda in 1985. A popular model then, her image is now considered an icon of the '80s.

  I was working with Deb Friedman, who had the big idea to photograph Miranda playing in the King Tide. We set up, at considerable peril, the lights in the wash of the tide. Miranda frolicked in the water, backlit in red, the wavering image of the illuminated Basilica in the background. Deb’s camera whirled. Miranda was beautiful, wet black hair flying, bright white teeth, mouth open in delight. It was a magical, lightning in a bottle moment, and in today’s parlance, the images went viral. So did Miranda.

  What no one knows is that Miranda sucked down two large swallows of the sea water that included large amounts of unknown particulate matter. She was ill for two weeks.

  I nursed her back to health. We then spent the next ten years ruining it again.

  I knocked back the rest of the coffee and headed to the apartment. I did remember the way. Both Miranda’s and Max’s flats were in the same general direction from St.. Marks. I remembered the way, but I did not see a single landmark.

  I walked through an altered city. Each time I recognized a facade of an old favorite café or shop, I was shocked again: a Burger King was egregiously wedged into the facade of Trattoria da Acqua. The pizzeria, always changing hands, looked suspiciously like a PizzaExpress. The twinkling glass shop windows displayed carnival glass ashtrays that belied the sign claiming Murano originals. My favorite bakery was shuttered. The display in Señor Vargas's hand-crafted leather shop was not the soft original hobo bags I loved but packed with thick heavy purses and belts that looked machine-made. Small signs by building doors announced Airbnbs upstairs.

  Miranda’s apartment was on the third floor overlooking the Grand Canal. Not the curve that overlooks the bridge. But the Grand Canal nonetheless. I always thought her place was impossibly romantic: from the deep recessed entrance that looked like it led to little more than a wet basement, to the third-floor flat sporting ceiling height windows (bitch to clean) that opened to a narrow balcony overlooking the water. The fish-rot stench, the mud, the floods, increasing in the last few years—Miranda sent me scary videos. I had wondered about Max’s first-floor apartment, still empty, but she assured me she had checked, and it hadn’t washed into the canal, (not just yet anyway. It all came rushing back, soothing my dismay at the changes I witnessed in the streets.

  The building door was always left unlocked. I climbed the dim interior stairs one at a time. Each step led me up and emotionally back. I had ascended the steps in so many states of mind: my first visit to the magnificent apartment with ailing Miranda in tow; the morning I returned from Nic’s hotel to tell her I was leaving for Cairo; the afternoon after a direct flight from Luxor, chastened, heartbroken. Miranda always welcomed me back, sometimes as a sister, sometimes as a lover.

  Had I missed something? Had she been ill? It wasn’t like her to not list every ailment, every cough, every bruise. I certainly had my own problems in the last month, had she been protecting me from hers? At the last step, standing before her unassuming apartment door, what the hell had happened?

  Tiffany had not given me any details during our phone conversation because that would have been helpful. I was in the dark. Literally, it’s a dark hall.

  “Never have children!” Miranda declared after another acrimonious phone call with one of her offspring.

  I was already in my forties. I was good.

  It was a thing back in the turn of the century. Have your own babies, pose pregnant and naked for magazine covers, then relentlessly work your body back in shape in record time and climb back on the runway. Miranda was one of the first super models to do it.

  But supermodels do not make the most attentive parents. Her daughters, as beautiful as their mother, still resented the lack of attention and presence of their mother. I would think they’d at least be grateful for inheriting Miranda’s high cheekbones and flawless skin. But no.

  My phone buzzed and I reached for my back jeans pocket. It was a tight fit, my phone barely fit in the pocket and it was hard to wrestle out. I glanced at the screen text from Tiffany. Where are you?

  It was 9:58 A.M., Italian time, which means I had a window of about an hour to be considered on time.

  At the front door. I texted back. I shifted my sweater over my arm and reached for the door handle. Miranda could be miserly in the oddest ways. Her apartment would be cold. As cold as her daughter.

  Chapter 5

  I pushed open the apartment door, bracing myself for the worst. For a second, it was like coming home, the living room fanned out from the alcove entrance and opened to a view of the canal. The water sparkled in the morning sun and threw light and shadow on the dingy ceiling. I paused for a second to watch the play of light. The memories shot through me and I faked a sneeze to explain my suddenly watering eyes.

  A figure turned from examining the paintings hanging on the far wall. If I was almost sixty, Tiffany had just crossed to the wrong side of forty. She was rigorously slender; her face was a mask of anger. If she makes that face too many more times, she’ll need another face lift.

  “Ah Tiffany.” I reached out my hand—what else was I supposed to do? I met the girls maybe three times. Tiffany’s father Steve was a savvy, undeservedly successful businessman, adept at side stepping disaster which included a pre-nup with Miranda. They had met at a party, she was at the bottom of her weight, he was at the height of his powers. Steve’s claim to notoriety was to fortuitously drop all his bank clients in 2007. His hobby was buying California real estate even before the local fire had stopped smoking. Miranda was always surprised he didn’t give a TED talk about his techniques. Steve was brilliant, ruthless and for a very short time, married to Miranda.

  Tiffany’s younger sister, Lucy had a Hollywood father. Mike worked as a photographer just long enough to fall for Miranda and she for him. Theirs had been a love affair, but their careers dragged them apart one too many cross-continental flights and they had to call it quits.

  The children looked like their mother but behaved like their fathers.

  Steve ended up more rigid than Mike. Blame it on the east coast, blame it on Boston. Tiffany took after the Puritan side of the family. Over the years I watched as Miranda’s former in-laws exercised disapproval into a contact sport. Steve secured full custody of Tiffany days after I moved in, calling Miranda unfit and me a bad influence. I was mortified but Miranda was only amused. Even at the time I though Miranda did not care as much as maybe she should. The girls suffered because of it. But Miranda didn’t need to care. Her family was old New York money. That’s why she could afford to model. That’s why she could afford ex-husbands.

  “And you are?” Tiffany didn’t approach, making me cross the wide room to reach her.

  “Vic Gardner.” I prompted. “You asked me to fly out, paid for my ticket and here I am.” One would think she’d remember my name, even for just this one twenty-four-hour period.

  “Oh.” She started and peered more closely. “Oh, of course. You and Mother were friends.”

  I smiled. If Tiffany wanted to revise history, that was her prerogative.

  “Yes, friends. You and I have met once or twice, but you and your sister were pretty young. What happened?”

  “My sister moved to California.”

  I looked at her. She flipped back her shoulder-length hair. “Oh, Mother. She had a heart att
ack.” Tiffany put her hands on her hips and slowly surveyed the living room. “And now all this is ours.” She looked at me again. “A few things have been left to you.”

  My phone buzzed. I shot an apologetic look and dug out my phone, which was buzzing like an angry bee.

  A text from Chris, I miss Grandma

  We all do, I texted back.

  Not Mom.

  I love that kid.

  I clicked off the phone and wiggled it back into my jeans pocket. “To me?” I stepped up next to Tiffany and eyed the art collection.

  While Max loved new art, new furniture, new things he at least rotated the old items to the back bedroom, later to a storage facility on the mainland. Miranda just added. Often. Indiscriminately.

  I never broached the subject of all the clutter. My job was to push everything it to the walls when we held a party. Once pushed back it only took a couple of days for the glacier of art objects, small chairs, and complimentary gifts once again to encroach the living room. Why do some people have such a difficult time giving away their stuff? Do things have a gravitational pull? Does a rock from the Valley of the Kings exert as much attraction as a bracelet by David Yurman? Miranda believed that things should be kept just in case, the bracelet, even the rock, could be worth something later.

  On an unrelated note, can we keep people in storage until we need them?

  Tiffany frowned at the wall of art. “In her will, you and…” she squinted at a scrawled list that looked like it had been written in eyebrow pencil. Expensive eyebrow pencil but sometimes a Bic pen will do the job just as well. “…Rachael Monrovia were to take whatever you wanted, then the rest will go to us.” She put her hand on her hips and glared at the Rothko. “How much room does she think I have in New York? I have nothing.” She dismissed the Rothko and I almost snatched it off the wall. Fake or not, it was beautiful.

  I looked around the living room. What had my old friend come to? She always loved stuff, collecting, saving. But during the years I had been away to care for people, I had obviously neglected my friend. Where her art acquisitions had once been considered charming in a cluttered Gertrude Stein way the walls now looked like the poster displays during move-in day at college. Paintings crowded up against the ceiling as if trying to escape, only narrow lines of wall were visible between the heavy frames. I tipped my head back. Was that a Childe Hassem? Where on earth did she…? I would take that too.

  “Do we put colored dots on what we want? Or are you making a list?”

  Tiffany frowned at a tiny Pissarro. “We get tax credit if we give these to a museum, right?”

  “There’s one down the canal.”

  “They only show Peggy’s collection. I’m thinking of donating the lot to the Met. That may give me an invite to the May event.”

  “That would be generous.”

  She waved a hand at me. “Dots, Post-its. I have plenty of this stuff. And Lucy has even more. We just want the jewelry and the real paintings. You know, the valuable ones.” She pointed to a Cassatt. “Is that one worth anything?”

  “Probably.” I answered mildly. Worth, when faced with this kind of abundance, is relative.

  “And the proceeds of the apartment sale.” I pointed out.

  “Of course.” She was still squinting at the paintings as if she could judge their authenticity and value.

  “A heart attack, is that the official report?” The online posts were sketchy; even the aggregators and outlets based in fantasy and conspiracy theories were silent on the cause of death. One blog had featured the Sports Illustrated cover from the '80s, another re-posted the famous Deb Friedman photo shot here in Venice. It had been all about the photos, little copy except for time and place of death. Miranda Banks, popular model in the '80s died of natural causes in her apartment in Venice. No one even made up that she left peacefully surrounded by her loving daughters. Her daughters weren’t even listed. No mention of the ex-husbands. Natural causes. But sixty-seven is not old. Plus, there was little left of Miranda’s body that could be categorized as natural.

  I glanced at the bedroom. She had been found there.

  When we spoke, Miranda had been fine, maybe a little hung over. She had exhibited none of the albeit subtle signs of a heart attack: achy all over like the flu, a backache, fatigue. She didn’t look particularly robust, but I attributed that to her favorite sport—drinking. Her heart was fine, she rarely used it, it should have survived for much longer.

  Tiffany sighed and pointed to a picture of a mandolin. “Is that a Picasso?”

  “She loved living with the art.” The Picasso was probably genuine, valuable because of the large signature. My eyes traveled back up to the paintings at ceiling height. The ceilings were twelve feet high. When you run out of floor space, you go up.

  “Well, good, I’m glad you like it, because the rest of it is yours.” She turned away from the wall surveying the jumble of furniture—far too many chairs pushed to the walls. An enormous coffee table that often doubled as a dining space had been pushed under the window. In the kitchen, another dining table stood with five mismatched chairs crowding around. It looked a lot like a post-party configuration. The bar cart was pushed against the oven door. The only two items in the refrigerator would be milk for foaming and a jar of martini olives.

  Tiffany headed towards the master bedroom.

  “Lucy and I get the jewelry.”

  “That is only right. Your mother died when?”

  “Monday morning.”

  It was Wednesday.

  “And we already know who inherits?”

  She impatiently flicked away the idiotic question. “We keep a copy of her will. Sealed, we never opened it. Until Monday.” She glared at me. “Of course. There are a few things to negotiate, but right now, we have to move the art.”

  “Have to?”

  “Well, the real estate agent said it would be best.”

  Points for efficiency. But moving the art, cataloguing it, valuing it, and selling it would be a big pain in the ass. And Tiffany knew it. Tiffany could walk out of the country wearing her inheritance. I glanced at her hand. Sure enough, Miranda’s prized emerald flashed back at me. I wondered if Tiffany actually pulled it from her mother’s cold dead hand. Ewww.

  Not that I had anywhere to wear such a beautiful ring. My own rings, gifts from Max, were stuffed into my parents' safe deposit box. I rubbed my neck and stretched my back. I was not jet lagged, but I could use that as an excuse to gain some time.

  “I have to get back home.” Tiffany dropped the familiar keys into my hand. “Take your time. God knows you’ll have to in this country.”

  “How long do I have?” Was that a Seurat pitched from the ceiling?

  “She was healthy.” I said out loud. “I just spoke with her. She didn’t seem sick.”

  “She had a terrible diet, you should see the wine; oh, you need to get rid of that as well. In fact, you need to get rid of everything.” She flipped her hand towards the center of the room. “Except the couch, maybe those two end tables. People want something spacious and this is terribly small. That bathroom!”

  “You trust me?” I got straight to the point.

  “Of course not.” She grimaced. Again, careful, your face will freeze that way.

  “I don’t have a choice. I need to get back home. I have a family. You need stay for as long as it takes to get rid of the art. Pick up the mail and any packages. Our attorney says that the will is very clear: you take care of it all, and we, my sister and I.” She looked at me as if daring me to remember Lucy’s name. I didn’t take the dare. Tiffany and Lucy were named after diamonds, which, next to art, was another of Miranda favorite things. Maybe if you were thin and beautiful, you also have the nerve to extract tribute from your lovers. Had Nic left me anything? Fortunately, no; I got tested.

  “Should get half and we split that.”

  “You don’t think that’s much, do you?” I looked up at the paintings. She loved them. She loved every damn
one. Why else spend so much cash? When you buy one thing, you choose not to favor another. The girls were never really in favor.

  Tiffany searched the paintings, still scowling.

  Miranda was my best friend; through it all, she was always there for me. I sneezed again. “Of course. I’ll do my best.” What else was I supposed to say?

  The master bedroom (there is another smaller bedroom to the right) was very tidy. Which was very wrong. Because as much as Miranda was a collector and loved things, she was as careless as only the rich can be.

  I surveyed the room. “You found her here?”

  Tiffany had gathered the Picasso, the Cassatt and a Rousseau and stacked them by the front door.

  “In bed. All that eating and drinking finally caught up with her.” There was a note of satisfaction in her voice that I left unchallenged.

  “She was old.” Tiffany insisted. She approached the jewelry box on the dresser for another look.

  “Not terribly old.” I countered.

  There were bits and pieces of memories scattered around the base of the commodious jewelry box—I recognized my gifts, bright pieces from Luxor, fake gold nuggets representing the times I had to leave Europe and help with the boys in California. Mardi Gras beads swayed from the bed post. Ah, that overbearing black sculpture I noticed during our last Skype call. I was sure that if asked, Miranda would swear it was an original Louise Nevelson. Original or not, it cantilevered over the headboard in a rather alarming way.

  When I fell for Nic and abandoned Miranda for adventure and itchy sand—because it bloody gets in everywhere, the sand not the adventure—I spent the first year tormented that I had broken Miranda’s heart. When I heard she had almost immediately taken up with a new girl—Cheryl? Sandy?—I relaxed and focused on Nic. By the time I returned to Miranda, tail metaphorically between my legs, all was forgiven. The girl was gone, we both had regrets, but I had more sand rashes.

  “That thing would be enough to give anyone a heart attack.” Tiffany gestured to the sculpture.

  For the first time that morning, I agreed with her.