When he arrived at the home of Michael Mainheart the first thing Charlie noticed was that no one noticed him. There were two guys working in the yard, to whom Charlie waved as he passed, but they did not wave back. Then the mailman, who was coming off the big porch, drove him off the walkway into the dewy grass without so much as an "excuse me. "
"Excuse me!" Charlie said, sarcastically, but the mailman was wearing headphones and listening to something that was inspiring him to bob his head like a pigeon feeding on amphetamines, and he bopped on. Charlie was going to shout something devastatingly clever, then thought better of it, for although it had been some years since he'd heard of a postal employee perpetrating a massacre, as long as the term "going postal" referred to anything besides choosing a shipping carrier, he felt he shouldn't press his luck.
Called a wack job by a complete stranger one day and shouldered off the sidewalk by a civil servant the next: this city was becoming a jungle.
Charlie rang the bell and waited to the side of the twelve-foot leaded-glass door. A minute later he heard light, shuffling steps approaching and a diminutive silhouette moved behind the glass. The door swung open slowly.
"Mr. Asher," said Michael Mainheart. "Thank you for coming. " The old man was swimming in a houndstooth suit that he must have bought thirty years ago when he was a more robust fellow. When he shook Charlie's hand his skin felt like an old wonton wrapper, cool and a little powdery. Charlie tried not to shudder as the old man led him into a grand marble rotunda, with leaded-glass windows running to a vaulted, forty-foot ceiling and a circular staircase that swept up to a landing that led off to the upper wings of the house. Charlie had often wondered what it was like to have a house with wings. How would you ever find your car keys?
"Come this way," Mainheart said. "I'll show you where my wife kept her clothes. "
"I'm sorry about your loss," Charlie said automatically. He'd been on scores of estate calls. You don't want to come off as some kind of vulture, his father used to say. Always compliment the merchandise; it might be a piece of crap to you, but they might have a lot of their soul poured into it. Compliment but never covet. You can make a profit and preserve everyone's dignity in the process.
"Holy shit," Charlie said as he followed the old man into a walk-in closet the size of his own apartment. "I mean - your wife had exquisite taste, Mr. Mainheart. "
There was row upon row of designer couture clothing, everything from evening gowns to racks, two tiers high, of knit suits, arranged by color and level of formality - an opulent rainbow of silk and linen and wool. Cashmere sweaters, coats, capes, jackets, skirts, blouses, lingerie. The closet was shaped like a T, with a large vanity and mirror at the apex, and accessories on each wing (even the closet with wings!), shoes on one side, belts, scarves, and handbags on the other. A whole wing of shoes, Italian and French, handmade, from the skins of animals who had led happy, blemish-free lives. Full-length mirrors flanked the vanity at the end of the closet and Charlie caught the reflection of himself and Michael Mainheart in the mirror, he in his secondhand gray pinstripe and Mainheart in his ill-fitting houndstooth, studies in gray and black, stark and lifeless-looking in this vibrant garden.
The old man went to the chair at the vanity and sat down with a creak and a wheeze. "I expect it will take you some time to assess it," he said.
Charlie stood in the middle of the closet and looked around for a second before replying. "It depends, Mr. Mainheart, on what you want to part with. "
"All of it. Every stitch. I can't stand the
feel of her in here. " His voice broke. "I want it gone. " He looked away from Charlie at the shoe wing, trying not to show that he was tearing up.
"I understand," Charlie said, not sure what to say. This collection was completely out of his league.
"No, you don't understand, young man. You couldn't understand. Emily was my life. I got up in the morning for her, I went to work for her, I built a business for her. I couldn't wait to get home at night to tell her about my day. I went to bed with her and I dreamed about her when I slept. She was my passion, my wife, my best friend, the love of my life. And one day, without warning, she was gone and my life is a void. You couldn't possibly understand. "
But Charlie did. "Do you have any children, Mr. Mainheart?"
"Two sons. They came back for the funeral, then they went home to their own families. They offer to do whatever they can, but. . . "
"They can't," Charlie finished for him. "No one can. "
Now the old man looked up at him, his face as bereft and barren as a mummified basset hound. "I just want to die. "
"Don't say that," Charlie said, because that's what you say. "That feeling will pass. " Which he said because everyone had been saying it to him. As far as he knew, he was just slinging bullshit clich??s.
"She was - " Mainheart's voice caught on the edge of a sob. A strong man, at once overcome by his grief and embarrassed that he was showing it.
"I know," Charlie said, thinking about how Rachel still occupied that place in his heart, and when he turned in the kitchen to say something to her, and she wasn't there, it took his breath.
"She was - "
"I know," Charlie interrupted, trying to give the old man a pass, because he knew what Mainheart was feeling. She was meaning and order and light, and now that she's gone, chaos falls like a dark leaden cloud.
"She was so phenomenally stupid. "
"What?" Charlie looked up so quickly he heard a vertebra pop in his neck. Hadn't seen that coming.
"The dumb broad ate silica gel," Mainheart said, irritated as well as agonized.
"What?" Charlie was shaking his head, as if trying to rattle something loose.
"Silica gel. "
"What?"