Chapter 16
The Emporium became the best therapy I could have asked for. Being around Thomas calmed me in so many ways. His outlook on life closely mirrored that of his father’s. Life began to seem normal again. When I wasn’t busy in the store, I worked on my songs for the score. I had maybe four more songs to go, then I could put it all together and get in touch with Ms. Thompson. I missed her a lot. Blake had left for Germany. I’d heard nothing from Chase. I missed him more and more every day.
All of a sudden, I heard Thomas’s voice behind me. “Daniel said he and Mara are leaving for California the day after tomorrow. Do you think we can mind the store without him for a week?”
I actually cracked a tiny smile for the first time since the recital. “You and I can do it. I know we can. But if we can’t, I’ll call Bob and Carl to come help with the heavy lifting while Daniel’s gone.”
“Good idea. I’m going out to tune Mrs. Goetz’s piano this morning. You’ll be here alone, so give me a call if anything comes up.”
“I’ve got your number if I need you. See you later.”
Thomas picked up his bag, waved, and left by the back door.
I walked out front. I needed to uncover and dust each piano so they would sparkle in the sunlight. I thought of Chase and “The Gift of Goodbye.” I couldn’t help myself. I sat down at one of the baby grands and played the whole song to the end. How was I going to fulfill my dream of becoming a concert pianist now? Then, I remembered Ms. Thompson’s friend. The one who had given me his card at the recital. I hurried into my office, picked up my purse and searched inside for the card. I held the card in my hand, staring at it, when the phone rang. Mrs. Goldberg needed Thomas to come tune her piano. I tucked Hans’s card back into my purse, hoping he’d soon give me a call.
As I returned to the showroom, a man, probably in his forties with beady-looking eyes, opened the front door and stepped inside. I’d never seen him before. My stomach did a somersault as he approached me. “Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
For the second time since arriving in New York, I found a gun in my face. “Slowly lock the front and back doors, miss, then I want all of the money in your safe.”
I locked the front door, pretended to lock the back door, and lied, “We don’t have a safe here.”
“Don’t lie to me. I’ve been in this store before and know there’s a safe in here.”
“Does that mean you’ve robbed this store before?” I cried out.
“Be quiet or I’ll have to tie you up and break into the safe myself.”
“Sir, I don’t know the combination.” I began to shriek, not knowing what was going to happen next.
He shoved me into Thomas’s office and forced me to unlock the door to the room where Thomas kept his extra tuning supplies, knowing exactly where the safe was located. He removed the tapestry Mr. Cutler used to cover the safe. “Bingo. I’m giving you three chances to open the safe, missy, before I have to tie you up and shoot my way into the safe, maybe even killing you. Wouldn’t break my heart.”
Having no idea what the combination to the safe was, I became terrified and my hands began to shake as I tried to open the safe. “Hurry up, lady,” the man shouted. Then, the next thing I knew he grabbed me around the neck and threw me backwards up against the credenza. I began to scream. “Shut up,” he yelled, pointing the gun at me, and then at the safe. But before he could do anything more, Thomas quietly stepped in behind the man and struck him over the head with his leather bag of tuning instruments, knocking him to the floor, unconscious. Thomas grabbed the gun as I called 9-1-1.
“I forgot one of the tools I needed for Mrs. Goetz’s piano, so returned to the store. As I neared the back door, I heard you screaming, so knew something was wrong. I snatched up my brown bag and came in as quietly as I could. I couldn’t believe what I saw.” Thomas took a deep breath. “Are you okay, Anna Louise?”
I was about to say, “I’m okay, Thomas, thanks to your uncanny timing,” when the police came crashing through the back door, knocking hard on the front door. I rushed to the front door, unlocking it. They swiftly handcuffed the robber and dragged him out the back door.
As the last officer finished a final sweep though the store and removed the video recording of the robbery, Thomas handed him the gun. Once the police were gone, Thomas came over and held me for what seemed like a long time. We’d both been shaken up by the robbery.
Once I was able to find my voice, I said, “Nothing dangerous, other than my mother, ever happened in Wisteria, Kansas, but since I’ve arrived in Manhattan, I’ve been held at gunpoint twice and seen the devastation of a bombing. I love New York, but maybe I’m not meant to live here.”
“It’s not you, Anna Louise. More and more of these situations seem to be happening every day in the big city. This guy probably watched me leave in the SUV, then came around front and walked in as a customer.” Thomas hung the tapestry back over the safe, found the tuning instrument he needed, then closed and locked the door to the room, while I straightened up the rest of his office.
“Thomas, I never really wanted to know the combination to the safe and was happy just putting the money I received in the lock box in your desk drawer. But could I end up dead because I don’t know the combination?”
“We’ll keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them, but with your memory, I’ll have you memorize the combination just in case you need to use it in the future. No amount of money is worth getting killed over.”
“Thank you, Thomas. Glad no one tried to enter the store while the robber was here. The front door was locked at the time, but I’m not sure what he would’ve done.”
“Yes. We have to be grateful for that. I’ll lock the front door again now, put the ‘Out to Lunch’ sign in the window, then we can go across the street for something to eat,” Thomas said.
“Now that you mention it, I am hungry.” I grinned at Thomas, realizing how lucky I’d been once again.
“When we get back, I’ll need to get the security system going again, then I’ll go tune Mrs. Goetz’s piano. Never did make it to her house this morning. First I forgot one of the instruments I needed, then returned to the sound of a robber’s voice trying to force you to open the safe, which changed my plans in a hurry.”
“I still can’t believe you came back when you did. It was nothing short of a miracle,” I replied. “Let me call Mrs. Goetz’s house to let them know you’ll be coming right after lunch. That an emergency came up this morning.”
“Good idea. I’ll wait for you out back.”
~ ~ ~
When Thomas returned from tuning Mrs. Goetz’s piano later in the afternoon, he asked if I could help him bring in an old antique piano stool that Mrs. Goetz’s daughter had given him. “I hope Daniel, Bob, Carl, and I will be able to haul the antique piano that goes with this stool out of Mrs. Goetz’s house and into the store. It’s huge, Anna Louise.”
Thomas wasn’t kidding when he said the piano stool from Mrs. Goetz’s house was heavy. Thomas dragged it toward the back of the SUV, then put the unloading ramp in place before we each took an end, making our way down to the street below. Thomas was all bent over while I hung on for dear life. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” I said, trying to catch my breath.
“This is the only one I’ve ever seen like it,” Thomas replied. “I have no idea how old this stool is, but if it’s an antique, it’s at least a hundred years old.”
Thomas had propped the back door open, so we kept going until we had the stool inside the store. “Let’s set the stool in a corner of the showroom for now,” Thomas said. “Maybe you can clear out a space for the old, upright piano while we’re gone. Mrs. Goetz has wanted me to take the big, old thing off her hands for years, but I just never got around to it. Her daughter greeted me today. Mrs. Goetz died not long ago and willed her antique piano to me.”
“Mrs. Goetz. Now I remember taking that call from her daughter.”
“Yes. Mrs. Goetz has an elegant grand piano in her ballroom, which her daughter wants to keep in the house. That’s the specially designed piano I tuned this afternoon.”
“Mrs. Goetz’s house sounds like one of those grand, old New York houses once filled with music and laughter. Parties for the rich and connected.”
“Indeed it was, Anna Louise. Pop and I were often called to Mrs. Goetz’s residence to tune whatever piano or pianos she currently had. She bought a number of pianos from Pop after he opened the Emporium.”
With his usual flair, Daniel banged through the back door to see what was happening at the Emporium.
“Hey, Daniel, glad to see you. I’ve got quite a job for you, Bob, and Carl tomorrow morning. I’ll be going along, too. I don’t know if you ever met Mrs. Goetz, but she died and gifted me with her old, antique piano, which probably weighs a ton. That’s the stool right over there.”
“Sounds like fun,” Daniel said, rolling his eyes. “Yikes, that stool is huge.”
“I’ll go call Bob and Carl to let them know they’ll be needed tomorrow morning,” I said, smiling over at Daniel.
Back in his office, with Daniel towering over him, Thomas showed his son the directions they would be taking to Mrs. Goetz’s house in the morning. “Glance around the house while we’re there. You’ll probably never see anything like it again,” Thomas commented.
“Do you think I’d be allowed to take pictures on my phone while we’re there? I’d like to show them to Mr. Benson at the college. Maybe they could be used to build staging for one of our plays.”
“Oh. I don’t know, Daniel. You’d have to ask Mrs. Goetz’s daughter to see if she would allow you to take pictures.”
“I’ll ask her when we get there, then. It’ll probably take us all morning to get the piano loaded and back here to the Emporium.”
“Anna Louise will clear out a spot in the showroom for the piano while we make the trip,” Thomas replied. “Once we return with the piano and actually have it inside, I’m going to see if I can find out the value of it online. Maybe I can sell it sometime in the future.”
“Maybe you could put my brothers, sister, and Savannah through college with the money,” Daniel said, laughing. “I’ll take pictures for sure once we have it back here in the showroom.”
“Good idea. Thanks, Daniel.”
That evening, as Mara and I sat eating ham and turkey sandwiches on fresh-baked bread with lettuce and tomato from the deli down the street, I finally told her about the attempted robbery that morning at the Emporium. She said Daniel had sent her this convoluted text about a robbery at the store. She didn’t believe it. But, once I told her the whole story, she knew Daniel hadn’t been kidding. “Weren’t you scared, Anna Louise?”
“I was, but after the drug dealer and the bombings, I just went with my gut until Thomas came in when he did. His timing had to be sent from above.”
“Will you be okay while Daniel and I are gone?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”
~ ~ ~
The next morning it was Bob and Carl who came banging in through the back door. “Good morning, I called out as they entered the store. Daniel had come in early with his dad. Thomas then told them what the job for the morning would be. More eye rolling followed Thomas and Daniel out to the truck. Thomas and Daniel hopped in front while Bob and Carl held on in the back of the truck. Three fit nicely up front, but not four. I watched as they drove out of sight.
On the way to Mrs. Goetz’s house, Thomas reiterated to Daniel how everything had unfolded the morning before at the store. “Anna Louise sure kept a cool head through all of it. I’m just glad things went down the way they did. It was scary, though.”
“Has the store ever been robbed before?” Daniel asked with a serious look on his face.
“Not since Pop bought the Emporium, but Anna Louise said the robber knew right where the safe was, so I’d say yes the store has been robbed in the past.”
The bombings that took the life of his grandfather and now the robbery of the Emporium had Daniel concerned for his family. “Things sure have changed in the city, haven’t they, Dad?”
“They sure have son, but we can’t live in fear. I like the happy-go-lucky person you’ve become, so keep on striving for your goal of becoming a Broadway actor one day.”
“Thanks, Dad. I will”
As Thomas pulled into Mrs. Goetz’s driveway, Daniel went, “Whoa! That’s some kind of house. I can hardly wait to see inside.”
Bob and Carl met Thomas and Daniel on the steps leading to the front door. Thomas rang the doorbell. Mrs. Goetz’s daughter opened the door. “Good morning, gentlemen. Do come in. Thomas, you know where the old piano is. Go right ahead and move it out.”
“Thanks. It may take use a while, but we’ll be careful not to scratch up the floors or walls.”
“Ma’am,” Daniel said, “Thomas is my dad. I’m a theater student at New York University and wanted to ask if I l could take a few pictures on my phone of the inside and outside of your home for future staging of plays at the college?”
“Sure. Go right ahead,” she replied. “Mom loved going to plays, so I think she would be happy to know that replicas of her home might show up on the stage at the university.”
“Thanks, ma’am,” Daniel said with a wide grin on his face. “Guess I’d better get to work.” He snapped a few photos as he followed his dad, Bob, and Carl to the ballroom where the antique piano stood off in one corner.
After a long, slow fight trying to move the huge, old piano out of the ballroom and into an ancient-looking elevator—they all hoped would make it down to the main floor—the men were relieved when the piano was finally loaded and they could hop back into the truck, returning to the store where I would be waiting for them.
Once the men had finagled the old piano out of the truck and into the Emporium, they collapsed onto a couple of piano benches standing nearby. Noticing they all looked tired and hungry, I offered to play waitress and ran across the street to pick up lunch for everyone.
As I came back into the store, I remembered Mrs. Goldberg’s call from yesterday. “Oh, Thomas. I’m sorry, but I forgot to tell you about taking a phone call from Mrs. Goldberg to tune her piano right before the robber came into the store yesterday. I said you would tune her piano today. Do you want me to reschedule for tomorrow?”
“Robber,” Bob and Carl exclaimed together.
“Yes. We had quite and exciting day around here yesterday.” Thomas told Bob and Carl the story, then said to me, “No, I’ll go tune Mrs. Goldberg’s piano this afternoon. But, would you please keep your cell phone on you at all times while I’m out and call me right away if anything happens?”
“Actually, I stuck my phone in my pocket the second all of you drove away this morning,” I replied. “Guess yesterday’s episode still has me a little shaken up.”
~ ~ ~
When I walked into the apartment that night, Mara was busy packing what looked like everything in her closet. “You’re taking everything. Aren’t you planning on coming back?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, my friend, you can’t get rid of me that easy.” Mara donned one of her crazy hats and winked at me. “I’ve never been to California, so packed it all, just in case. Not that I have a lot of clothes anyway.”
“If I had to guess, it’s probably hot in California in July.”
“You’re probably right. Oh, well, I’ve got it all packed now. Daniel is picking me up at four in the morning. Is it even light out at that time of day?”
“Not sure. What time does your flight leave?”
“Six a.m. Can you believe that?”
“But, just think, it’ll be all clear blue skies after that for a whole week. I can hardly wait to hear about your trip and you haven’t even left yet.”
“That sounds like you maybe need a vacation, too.”
“Now that you mention it, I talked to Thomas about that, and we decided we’ll all take turns having some fun in the sun this summer.”
“Fantastic,” Mara sang out, glancing up at me from under her crazy hat. “Let’s go out and have some fun tonight. Daniel and I discovered this great little place here in SoHo that caters to everyone and has live entertainment seven nights a week. I think it’s hip hop tonight.”
“Do they have food? I’m hungry.”
“They do, but it’s mostly vegan-style food. Would that be okay?”
“Sure. Why not. I think I need to see this place so I can report back to Thomas where you and Daniel are hanging out these days.”
“Tattletale.”
“Enough. Let’s go eat. I’ll be sad about your leaving. Good thing I won’t be awake at four in the morning.”
“Never fear. I’ll wake you.”
“What for?”
“A hug.”
All I could do was shake my head.