Read Online The Objects of Her Affection by Sonya Cobb - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sonya Cobb
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giving the door a businesslike shove and trotting down the steps like someone in a great hurry to do important things.
Now, moving much less deliberately, she pulled the mirror out of her bag and laid it flat on the palm of one hand. The glass was almost absurdly small in proportion to the wide frame, which was edged in black wood. A bit of silver filigree protruded from the top edge, with a ring for hanging the mirror on a nail. She admired the casually lifelike poses of the women seated in each corner, the graceful arrangement of their muscled arms and legs, the draping of their robes. A welter of finely drawn detail—from oddly mechanical-looking scrolls to a staccato line of beads and notches forming a delicately textured border—constrained the design in a formal, balanced composition. Sophie couldn’t believe the amount of effort that had gone into such a mundane object. So much labor for a simple mirror frame—those were the days!
Which days, exactly, she couldn’t really say. It was pretty old—she could see that in the tarnish of the silver and the mottled look of the glass. But she had no way of knowing if it was late Renaissance or late Reagan administration. If she had to guess, she would’ve said it was a twentieth-century reproduction of something from an earlier, grander time.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. What did it matter how old it was? It wasn’t supposed to be here, lying on her now-sweaty hand. It was supposed to be in a museum, on a storage cart, being readied for its journey to a faraway warehouse.
Of course she would take it back. It was just a harmless prank. She was like that guy in the news who had decided to test airport security by planting a gun in the airplane bathroom. She’d just sneak the mirror back into Brian’s office, and if she got caught she’d explain that she was making a point about careless storage practices.
Which would get Brian fired. It would probably be better to say it had been a mistake. She thought it was her mirror. Or, she had dumped out her bag and accidentally gathered up the mirror with the rest of her things.
She lay her head back on the couch. Lying to a three-year-old was one thing; it would be far too embarrassing to tell one of these fantastical stories to Brian’s boss. She took the mirror into the kitchen and wrapped it in several plastic grocery bags. She slipped it into the back of a cupboard, between some cookie sheets that nobody was likely to use for another decade or so. She needed time to think.
The babysitter wouldn’t be coming for another hour, so she strapped Elliot into the stroller and went for a walk around the neighborhood, ambling pensively through allées of ginkgos and decorative pears waving their freshly unfurled leaves. She needed to think things through logically. Working backward from her desired outcome, she should be able to find a stream of clear, rational steps that would solve her problem with elegance and efficiency.
Option A: Return to the scene of the crime and hope that Brian would leave her alone in his office. She could try to go when he wasn’t at work, but she would still need an escort to get to his office—and anyone who did that would be unlikely to leave her there by herself. Even assuming they did, what if the cart was gone? She couldn’t just stash the mirror in the midst of Brian’s mess—that would get him in as much trouble as stealing it.
Option B: Confess to Brian, and let him return the mirror.
Option C: Throw the mirror away, bury it in the backyard, toss it into the Schuylkill River. It sounded like no one would miss it. Some old lady had probably bequeathed her silver to the museum, and some overworked curator had just stuck it all in a storage closet until he had time to assign accession numbers and object cards. If the mirror was worth anything, someone would have taken better care of it.
Her mind followed each scheme to the end of its path, analyzing its logic
Now, moving much less deliberately, she pulled the mirror out of her bag and laid it flat on the palm of one hand. The glass was almost absurdly small in proportion to the wide frame, which was edged in black wood. A bit of silver filigree protruded from the top edge, with a ring for hanging the mirror on a nail. She admired the casually lifelike poses of the women seated in each corner, the graceful arrangement of their muscled arms and legs, the draping of their robes. A welter of finely drawn detail—from oddly mechanical-looking scrolls to a staccato line of beads and notches forming a delicately textured border—constrained the design in a formal, balanced composition. Sophie couldn’t believe the amount of effort that had gone into such a mundane object. So much labor for a simple mirror frame—those were the days!
Which days, exactly, she couldn’t really say. It was pretty old—she could see that in the tarnish of the silver and the mottled look of the glass. But she had no way of knowing if it was late Renaissance or late Reagan administration. If she had to guess, she would’ve said it was a twentieth-century reproduction of something from an earlier, grander time.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. What did it matter how old it was? It wasn’t supposed to be here, lying on her now-sweaty hand. It was supposed to be in a museum, on a storage cart, being readied for its journey to a faraway warehouse.
Of course she would take it back. It was just a harmless prank. She was like that guy in the news who had decided to test airport security by planting a gun in the airplane bathroom. She’d just sneak the mirror back into Brian’s office, and if she got caught she’d explain that she was making a point about careless storage practices.
Which would get Brian fired. It would probably be better to say it had been a mistake. She thought it was her mirror. Or, she had dumped out her bag and accidentally gathered up the mirror with the rest of her things.
She lay her head back on the couch. Lying to a three-year-old was one thing; it would be far too embarrassing to tell one of these fantastical stories to Brian’s boss. She took the mirror into the kitchen and wrapped it in several plastic grocery bags. She slipped it into the back of a cupboard, between some cookie sheets that nobody was likely to use for another decade or so. She needed time to think.
The babysitter wouldn’t be coming for another hour, so she strapped Elliot into the stroller and went for a walk around the neighborhood, ambling pensively through allées of ginkgos and decorative pears waving their freshly unfurled leaves. She needed to think things through logically. Working backward from her desired outcome, she should be able to find a stream of clear, rational steps that would solve her problem with elegance and efficiency.
Option A: Return to the scene of the crime and hope that Brian would leave her alone in his office. She could try to go when he wasn’t at work, but she would still need an escort to get to his office—and anyone who did that would be unlikely to leave her there by herself. Even assuming they did, what if the cart was gone? She couldn’t just stash the mirror in the midst of Brian’s mess—that would get him in as much trouble as stealing it.
Option B: Confess to Brian, and let him return the mirror.
Option C: Throw the mirror away, bury it in the backyard, toss it into the Schuylkill River. It sounded like no one would miss it. Some old lady had probably bequeathed her silver to the museum, and some overworked curator had just stuck it all in a storage closet until he had time to assign accession numbers and object cards. If the mirror was worth anything, someone would have taken better care of it.
Her mind followed each scheme to the end of its path, analyzing its logic
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