“Holy shit,” says Ivy, in a voice of awe. She reaches out and traces the bottom of the bell with a finger. “That is gorgeous,” she says. “Did you design it?”
Why does Ivy’s admiration make Jane so sad about Ivy lying? “It’s based on a photo my aunt took,” she says. “My aunt Magnolia. She raised me. Then she died. Maybe you knew that? She was an underwater photographer. She used to teach me to breathe the way a jellyfish moves.” It’s a ridiculous mouthful, but Ivy is still touching Jane, and Jane needs her to know all of it, all the parts of it.
Ivy’s finger drops. She frowns.
“Ivy?” says Jane.
“Ivy-bean,” says a deep, scratchy voice. It’s Mrs. Vanders, taking big, hurried steps toward them. “Where’s Ravi?”
“I think he’s having breakfast,” says Ivy thickly, her eyes on her camera.
“I need him,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I need to position him in front of the Vermeer.”
“Why?” says Ivy. “Is something wrong with the Vermeer?”
“I just want him to stand in front of it,” says Mrs. Vanders, “and not notice anything wrong about it, so that I can stop worrying about the damn thing and apply myself to the million tasks surrounding a gala. Send him to me, but don’t tell him anything! You,” she says, narrowing eyes on Jane. “I have things to say to you.”
“I’ve been getting that impression,” Jane responds. “Can we talk now?”
“I’m busy,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Find me! And say nothing to anyone!” She spins around and heads back the way she came.
“Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“Earlier, in the kitchen, Mr. Vanders said that he knew my aunt Magnolia.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know my aunt Magnolia?”
Ivy opens her mouth to answer. Before she can say anything, Mrs. Vanders pops her head around the entrance to the bridge again and yells, “Ivy! No more dawdling! Find Ravi!”
Ivy takes hold of Jane’s arm right where the jellyfish tentacles reach to her elbow. She grips so hard that it hurts. “Talk to Mrs. Vanders,” she says. “Please?” Then she turns away and heads down the stairs, leaving Jane to rub her arm and nurse her resentment.
The moment Ivy disappears, Ravi enters the receiving hall. He’s carrying two pieces of toast in one hand and a bowl of fruit in the other.
Taking a bite of toast, he jogs up the western stairs and crosses onto Jane’s bridge.
“Breakfast too sedentary for you?” asks Jane wearily.
“I wanted to say hi to you again,” says Ravi.
“Ravi,” says Jane, ever so slightly turning a shoulder to him, “aren’t you with Lucy?”
“On and off,” he says. “Off at the moment.”
“Oh,” says Jane, confused that this information pleases her. “I’m sorry.”
“Well,” he says, “to answer your question, yes. Every meal in this house is too sedentary for me.”
“Then,” says Jane, “that means you’ll want to keep moving.”
Ravi chuckles, then surprises Jane by doing just what she suggests. He doesn’t even crowd her too much as he passes. “I’m sorry to say that another soul awaits me this morning,” he says as he walks away. “What about you, do you have any interest in the universe’s multiple realities? Or are you like my twin, opposed to cosmology?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come with me,” he says.
“Where?” Jane asks, thinking partly of Mrs. Vanders, but mostly of this strange little interplay she seems to have going with Kiran’s panoptically attracted brother.
“You do know what cosmology is, right?” Ravi says. “The study of the cosmos? You’re not confusing it with cosmetology? The application of makeup?”
“Condescending donkey,” says Jane, then adds, “No offense, Eeyore.”
Ravi chuckles as he steps away. “Your choice.”
Jane watches him move gracefully up the stairs. She’s completely forgotten to tell him that Mrs. Vanders is looking for him.
“Oh,” she says, meaning to call out to him. But in that moment, a kid darts into the receiving hall below her. This house is like Grand Central Station.
Jane has seen this girl before: She’s the one who was digging up the garden yesterday in the rain. Carrying something close to her chest, she goes to a side table, pushes some lilacs aside, and slides the thing onto the empty space. Jane can’t see it properly; there are too many lilac branches in the way.
It seems almost to Jane as if this little girl waited until the lilac ladies left, then snuck into the hall just when she wouldn’t be seen. The girl darts out again, taking the path under Jane that leads into the Venetian courtyard—spots Jane up on her perch, and freezes. She glares at Jane for a millisecond before continuing on, leaving Jane wondering if it’s utterly irrational to imagine that she looks like the news pictures of the oldest Panzavecchia child, Grace. The one who vanished from her school the same day her parents tried to rob a bank. The one with the mnemonic memory devices.
Ravi is long gone. Mrs. Vanders is long gone. Kiran is long gone and that child is just gone; only Jasper remains, still hopping and wiggling and occasionally whining on his landing. Piles of lilac branches litter the checkerboard floor below, like berries on ice cream.
The house is suddenly still, like it’s holding its breath.
Then the gunshots of Kiran’s boots touch Jane’s ears once more and Kiran stalks into the hall.
She walks to the pile of lilac branches on the floor. She picks one up, shakes the water out of it, then throws it back down again, seemingly just for the violence of it. Then she wraps her arms around her chest, hugging herself, pressing her chin to her collarbone. She doesn’t see Jane. Jane’s ability to see Kiran is an intrusion into Kiran’s personal pain; Jane knows this. Still, Jane reaches out, unable to stop herself. She wants to help.
“Kiran?”
Kiran’s mask slides into place. She raises her eyes to Jane. “Oh,” she says. “Hi, Janie.”
“Are you okay?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” she says. “Do I seem so not okay?”
“You seem sort of . . . missing.”
“Missing!” Kiran says. “That’s just lovely. Why did I even come here if people are going to accuse me of being missing?”
“Did Patrick confess to anything yet?”
Kiran’s face flickers with irritation. “I forgot I’d told you about that. No. He’s said nothing. You’re sweet to remember.”
“What do you think it’s about?”
“I don’t know,” Kiran says, “and I’m trying not to care.”
The lilac ladies come trooping back into the hall with more armfuls of empty vases. Kiran swings her back to them so they can’t see her expression.
“Do you ever feel,” she says to Jane, “like you’re trapped in the wrong version of your life?”
This extraordinary question fixes Jane in place. She’s felt exactly that way, ever since Aunt Magnolia died and the wrong version of Jane’s life wrapped its arms tight around her, dove into the water, dragged her to the bottom, and held her there while she drowned.
“Yes,” says Jane.
“People tell you that what happens to you is a direct result of the choices you make,” Kiran says, “but that’s not fair. Half the time, you don’t even realize that the choice you’re about to make is significant.”
“That’s true,” says Jane. “My parents died in a plane crash when I was one. Most everyone on the left side of the plane lived and most everyone on the right side died. My parents picked seats on the right, randomly, for no reason.”
Kiran nods. “Octavian went to an art auction in Vegas but his flight was delayed. He got in so late that he missed breakfast, so he caught a cab, and told the cabbie to find him a restaurant out in the desert, where he could drink a Bloody Mary and eat eggs while surrounded by flowering cactuses. The cabbie told him forget it and drove him to the Bellagio, where he got lost trying to find the restaurant and ran into a lady drawing sketches of the layout of the casino. He asked her if she was planning a heist. She told him her name was Charlotte, she was an interior designer, and she was redesigning the casino floor. Now she’s my stepmother. Could that be more random?”