There were a few other magazines in the carton, a postcard to Sandy and Natalie from Paris, two bottles of cologne, two small bottles of perfume, all about half-full and all names that I recognized, a box of dusting powder, a toothbrush, a brush and comb, two lipsticks, one a pink shade, one on the orange side, both about half-used, several bottles of nail polish, and makeup including powder, rouge, moisturizer, base, mascara, and lotion to remove all of the above. Although these were certainly personal possessions, they didn’t give me anything to go on, although I suppose I knew a little more about Natalie when I finished looking at them.

Down at the bottom, where it had probably dropped through the layers of disorganized items, was a key ring with several keys on it. None, I could see immediately, was for a safe-deposit box. One might have been for a suitcase, one or two for front doors, one small one just a mystery.

So that was Natalie Gordon’s legacy. I assumed Sandy had her clothes in his home, perhaps other pocketbooks, too, but if he had hired a private detective, I had to believe all of that would have been expertly checked out. What was missing was a Social Security card, probably in the bag she had carried the day she disappeared, stubs from paychecks, tax returns for the last few years, at least for the few before she married, letters from family or friends, diaries, almost anything in her handwriting. Some of those things, credit cards, a pocket agenda, a shopping list, might have been in the bag she was carrying. But records of past jobs would have been filed away somewhere. I learned when I married Jack that he keeps all of his records in case the IRS has questions years hence. Following his example, I began to do the same.

But Natalie Gordon hadn’t, or Sandy hadn’t thought such records were relevant. He had said that this carton was the place to start, but having looked through it, I still didn’t know where to go from here. No cosmetics counter was likely to give me a lead, nor was Lutèce, where she had enjoyed a meal. Her choice of magazines told me something about her, as did the books, but unless I could identify the men who had given and received them, they were pretty useless.

I had opened the carton with an almost breathless anticipation. Now I felt disappointed. Knowing what Natalie looked like, sniffing her perfume and looking at the shade of pink she chose for her cheeks, touching the evening bag she carried to Lutèce, were all very interesting but gave me no clue as to what had happened to her. Nor did they give me any clue as to who she was or what her life had been like before Sandy Gordon married her.

I put everything back, more or less in the order in which I had taken it out, leaving the keys for last. But they, too, needed a name or address to be hung on. Whatever doors they opened were as firmly locked as the doors to Natalie Gordon’s past.

I went back upstairs to finish my work for Arnold.

4

I drove into the city with Jack the next morning. Before he reached the Sixty-fifth Precinct in Brooklyn, he dropped me at a subway station and I went into Manhattan to Arnold Gold’s office. When I was finished there, I would take the train back to Oakwood and Jack would go to his classes. As I put my coat on before I left the house, I saw the carton. I had talked to Jack about it very briefly when he came home the night before, exhausted as usual. I could tell he didn’t like the idea of Sandy dropping in uninvited, and he had no desire to look at anything in the box.

In the last few days my own memories of the Thanksgiving Day parade had started to come back with greater clarity. I now recalled that my father had taken me to see it several times, and he had looked forward to those annual morning trips with an eagerness as great as my own. But there was something odd about those trips, something that didn’t quite make sense. On the drive into the city, I asked Jack about it.

“On the morning of the Thanksgiving Day parade, my father used to drive us in and then we took the subway the rest of the way. I don’t know what stop we got off at, but I remember we used to see the Statue of Liberty.”

“In the harbor?”

“That’s what’s so weird. It was near the parade. We walked down a street and saw it.”

“Sixty-fourth,” he said without hesitating. “Between Broadway and Central Park West, north side of the street.”

“So it wasn’t a crazy dream.”

“There’s some company in that building, or there used to be. Liberty something. She’s on the roof.”

“Then that must be where we watched the parade from, Sixty-fourth and Central Park West.”

“There’s a big building there, Ethical Culture, I think. Takes up the block between Sixty-fourth and Sixty-third.”

“It seemed like such a crazy memory, the parade and the Statue of Liberty.”

“You don’t talk about your father much.”

“I don’t remember much about him. This memory really came out of the blue.”

“Here OK?” He was slowing the car, my subway station just across the street.

“Fine.” I leaned over and we kissed. “See you tonight.”

He grinned at me and touched my shoulder as I opened the car door. On the sidewalk I waved and he took off.

—

“So we got you instead of a FedEx package.” Arnold Gold was standing at his secretary’s desk as I came in.

“You said you had some more work,” I said. “Good morning. Nice to see you all.”

The phone rang on the secretary’s desk and Arnold said, “Let’s get to work, friends.”

He took me out to lunch, one of the fringe benefits of working in his office. Arnold is not a one-restaurant man. There are days he wants a salad, other days a delicatessen sandwich, or a big bowl of soup and nothing else. Today he thought we’d try a new pasta restaurant that had opened about a month earlier, and he had noticed that the crowd had diminished, although his gourmet colleagues had assured him it was worth the walk. We walked, fighting the winds of downtown Manhattan. When we arrived, my face was so stiff with cold, I could hardly talk. But his colleagues were right.

“Looks like a good menu,” Arnold said, putting his glasses on to read it. “I think I’ll try this one with the clams and red sauce.”

“I’m going for the primavera.”

“Because you want spring to come. Will it be enough to keep you happy all afternoon?”

“You know what I usually have for lunch, Arnold.”

“I noticed the tuna fish market collapsed after you got married. You must make better lunches for Jack than you used to eat yourself.”

“I do. But I haven’t given up tuna fish altogether.”

A wonderful machine was spinning out miles of fresh pasta and I watched it for a minute.

“Looks like we get a free show.”

“It’s a very pretty place.”

“So how’ve you been since Christmas? We still haven’t stopped talking about St. Stephen’s. What a beautiful place that is. What a remarkable woman your friend Sister Joseph is.”

“Yes on both counts. We’ve been fine. Something just came up the other day.”

“Uh-oh.”

I laughed. “You smell it, don’t you?”

“Find a body under your bed?”

“Melanie’s uncle’s wife—young, beautiful, second marriage—”

“Usual story.”

“Right. She disappeared during the Thanksgiving Day parade the year before last.”

“And he wants you to find her. I wouldn’t touch it.”

“Why not?”

“She probably ran off with the milkman and doesn’t want to come back. They still deliver milk out where you live?”

“A couple of times a week.”

“I can remember the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves at six in the morning. And that was every day.”