Would You Like a Rose

Chapter 14 - Pittsburgh

Victoria visited Pittsburgh for the first time in her life in November, eight months after the restaurant, at Clara's invitation and at Lily's considerably less restrained insistence.

The city was not what she'd expected, which she recognized, even while experiencing it, as the product of having had very little occasion to think about Pittsburgh specifically rather than any particular failing of the city itself. It was colder than New York and considerably less vertical, with neighborhoods that had the specific, comfortable, slightly worn quality of places where people had actually lived for long enough to stop performing living and simply do it.

Clara's apartment was on the second floor of a red-brick building that had once been a factory of some kind, a detail you could read in the ceiling height and the large industrial windows that let in the November gray light from the street. The apartment was small and genuinely warm and full of evidence of a life that had been built carefully over a long time by people who didn't have much margin for error, bookshelves organized to within an inch of their lives, a kitchen whose every surface was in active use, Lily's room featuring seventeen different drawings of various sea creatures pinned to the wall in a grid that was organized by scientific classification rather than any visible aesthetic principle.

Victoria stood in the doorway of Lily's room and looked at the grid for a long time.

"She made a key for it," Clara said, from behind her. "On a piece of cardboard. So she can add things and know where they go."

Victoria thought of her own childhood bedroom, which had been professionally decorated and occasionally photographed and contained no drawings at all, and made a specific, private decision about something she'd been considering for the past two months.

"I want to tell you something I've been planning," she said, turning to face Clara. "And I want you to tell me if it's too much, or too fast, or not what you want, because I've been wrong before about what other people want and I'm trying to do better."

Clara folded her arms, in the way she did when she was listening carefully. "Tell me."

"I've spoken with three schools in New York," Victoria said. "Sciences-focused, good marine biology programs at the upper school level, the kind of environment where Lily's particular approach to organizing information would be treated as an asset rather than a problem. I've also spoken with James about the estate's education trust provisions, and there are specific allocations that would apply to direct descendants of Rosewood heirs."

She paused.

"What I'm saying, Clara, is that if you were willing to consider moving to New York, both of you, Lily could attend a school that would actually deserve her, and you could—" she stopped. "What I'm saying is that I have a great deal of space in my life at the moment, and my sister and my niece are currently eight hours away, and I'd like that to change if you're willing."

Clara looked at her for a long moment.

"You're asking us to move to New York," she said.

"I'm suggesting it as a possibility," Victoria said carefully. "I understand this is an enormous decision. I understand you have a life here. I understand—"

"Yes," Clara said.

Victoria stopped.

"Yes," Clara repeated. "I've been in Pittsburgh my entire life, and Lily deserves a better school than what's available to us here, and you're my sister, and I want to know you." She paused. "Also Lily's been asking me every single day since October whether we could live closer to the museums. I didn't tell her which museums I meant but I think she figured it out."

Victoria looked at her.

"She asked me," Clara said, "whether the Museum of Natural History was close to your apartment."