Do You Promise Not to Tell? Read Online Free PDF Page A

beautiful. The enamel work and all the jewels were awesome. And when it sold for six million dollars, Peter heard the man sitting in the row behind him comment, “Well worth it.”
    It would have been. Except that it was a fake.
    Peter was sure of it.
    He rolled over and, closing his eyes, buried his face in his pillow. God, what should he do?
    He didn’t want to tell Olga. She was so old, and she had already been through so much in her life. Peter didn’t want the old lady to have any more problems in her remaining days.
    And she had made him swear that he wouldn’t tell.
    He remembered the afternoon clearly. Olga had set out tea and her homemade eggplant caviar as she did whenever he came to visit. But from the moment Peterentered her little apartment that day, he sensed that something was different.
    Olga’s eyes had shone brightly as the two of them sat in her small living room, Olga reminiscing about the old days. She told him about her family, now long dead, and about how it had been growing up as a young girl in St. Petersburg after the Communists had taken over. She talked about her father’s resigned acceptance of how their comfortable world had changed forever.
    Gone was their spacious apartment in St. Petersburg and their charming
dacha
in the countryside. Gone was the well-stocked kitchen with its ample supply of good wine and vodka in the pantry. Gone were the fine dresses and well-tailored suits and the many fur coats in the hall closet.
    Then, in the bitterness of another unforgiving Russian winter, her mother died.
    A tear had come to Olga’s eye as she spoke of her father. She had watched her father eaten away more by the inability to use his gift than by the loss of material wealth. In the Russia of the Communists, there had been no place for the “frivolous” creation of beautiful things.
    Then she pulled herself from her chair and slowly walked toward her bedroom.
    “Come with me.”
    Peter followed the old lady as she headed to the closet. She opened the door and gestured.
    Peter got down on his knees and reached toward the back of the closet. Beneath a wool blanket, he felt something soft and plush. He pulled the box free,rose, and handed the yellow velvet container to Olga.
    “You promise not to tell what I show you? My father make this, but he also take from studio when Communists come.”
    Peter nodded solemnly. “I promise.”
    Olga’s hands shook as she opened the golden box, and Peter gasped at its contents.
    “Imperial Easter Egg. Czar have it made for present for Czarina Alexandra.”
    Olga held out the box toward Peter. Peter carefully lifted the blue-and-white egg from its yellow nest.
    Slowly he turned the egg over in his hands, his breath taken away by its cool beauty.
    “Open it.”
    Peter studied the egg, trying to figure out how it opened. He looked up at Olga, a quizzical expression on his face.
    “Here, I do for you.”
    Olga took the egg from him. She pressed on a gold bead that was part of the design, and the egg split open.
    A shower of delicately connected diamonds quivered inside.
    “Is made after Halley’s comet. Comet appear in Europe before czar overthrown. Was sign—telegram from God.”

Chapter 14
    The Consignment Depot opened at ten, but Pat liked to get there at least an hour earlier to get organized. Once she opened the doors for customers, she often didn’t have a minute to herself until she locked up at six o’clock. Still, she just barely paid her bills each month. She’d never been able to get ahead.
    Pat stood, breakfast and
New York Times
in hand, on the wooden porch that rimmed the charming Victorian frame house that was home to the consignment shop. Fifteen years ago she had gone way out on a financial limb to buy the old, run-down house in suburban Westwood, New Jersey. But as always, when she looked at it, now so lovingly restored, she was glad she had taken the chance.
    After Allan had died, Pat had missed him so much there were times she