“To answer your question, I don’t think I’ll need to try every number.” He’d clenched his teeth in concentration. “The wheel was parked at thirteen, so we’ll start with that as the last one. And there’s a little forgiveness for the shaky handed. Multiples of five should do it.”
She didn’t know what to do. She sat down in Hanna’s chair and flipped through her notes on the centerpiece. Vendredi, 24 ao?t, the top page read. Tomorrow. Nous ratisserons la pelouse et finirons la caisse. Comb the lawn and finish the case.
Ratisserons, finirons. We will comb, we will finish. Hanna had accepted her help more fully than Grace had realized.
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At five thirty, he came to her table with three sheets of paper marked up with numbers. “Let’s go,” he said. “You need to change your clothes.”
“I’m not coming to work,” she said. She hadn’t told him that she’d meant to leave Paris today. “Not if you robbed my boss.”
“Yes, you are,” he said. “Unless you want her to think you did it.”
“Jesus Christ, have you learned nothing?”
“More than you have, apparently. But I didn’t get the safe open. Not yet.”
“Yet? You think I’m coming back here with you tonight?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re going to sit there like a cherub and watch me crack your boss’s safe. Because you haven’t changed at all, right?”
“You think I get off on this,” she said in disbelief.
“I know you do.”
They rode home on the first train of the day. She had sometimes gone to work this early, but she couldn’t remember ever coming home so late. When they got there, Freindametz was still gone, and Grace found herself relieved. She didn’t know what was happening, but at least she didn’t have to explain it.
When Grace got out of the shower, Alls was asleep on her bed, on top of the blanket, stretched out straight on his back. Her wet hair dripped down her chest as she watched him. She quietly pulled a skirt and shirt from her closet and took them back into the bathroom to change.
He could have been hers, if she had done it right. But that was an Alls from a long time ago. She didn’t know this one at all.
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When Grace got to work, only two and half hours after she’d left it, Hanna was checking her measurements for the carrying case. Grace had no work of her own. She watched as Hanna jotted a series of tidy check marks in her notebook. Her vision was distorted with fatigue, every shape oversharp and indistinct. When she reminded herself that Alls was at home, asleep in her bed, she found herself doubting that it was true. She might have hallucinated it—him, what he would say to her. He might have been a dream. But then, staring at Hanna’s table, she saw Hanna’s notebook, the familiar printing, and she knew that all of this was very real.
“Hanna,” Grace whispered. “He’s here. Alls is here.”
“This is a great day,” Hanna said proudly. “Last tasks. On Monday I send this carnival packing.”
Grace stared, and Hanna blinked gaily at her as if she had not heard.
“He broke into my house last night,” Grace said.
Jacqueline stepped out of her office and curled her finger toward Grace.
At her desk, Jacqueline took the lid from a cardboard box. Coiled inside was a pearl necklace. “It’s filthy,” Jacqueline said, lifting it out. Hanging between the pearls were six gold disks with impressions of concentric circles, and in the middle of each disc was a ruby cabochon, each one like a lozenge of melted sugar. They reminded Grace of the cookies Riley used to have in his packed lunches, the ones with a blob of cherry filling.
“Take these stones out and replace them with something semiprecious,” Jacqueline said. “Take out just one to match at Fassi and leave the necklace with me.”
This time, she didn’t even offer an explanation.
At her table, Grace extracted the first ruby cabochon from its gold doughnut.
“Do you need anything from Fassi?” she asked Hanna, as if she were going out for a sandwich. But Hanna didn’t respond, not even a nod, a twitch, a flicker of recognition. It was as though Grace had not spoken at all.
In his shop, Fassi laid out rhodonite, rhodolite garnets, rubellite, red spinel, and lab rubies. He and Grace held each stone up to the light. The lab ruby was closest. The bill for all six was only twenty-two euros. Fassi dropped them in a sack like jelly beans, not even wrapped.
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“Hanna,” Grace said just before six. “Please talk to me.”
“It’s too convenient, don’t you think?” Hanna was sealing the plywood’s edges with polyurethane.
“What?” Grace asked, startled that Hanna had finally responded to her.
“That you tell me this story you’ve been holding back for years, and now you tell me he’s here? A little too neat.” She tapped her pencil on the table. “Shit,” she grumbled. “I’m going to have to come in tomorrow.”
“Why?” Grace asked. “And that’s why I told you. Because I was sure they were coming.”
“The poly has to cure overnight, and then the glue has to cure before I apply it, and then it takes twenty-four hours to set completely. A messy calendar.”
Distrust and then disregard—that was all Hanna would give her. Fine. “Can’t you pick it up Monday?” she asked.
“I’m getting a Biedermeier on Monday.”
“You are? When did that happen?”
“While you were at Fassi. Jacqueline says it’s a beauty, a chaise longue! I’ve been promised loose gimp and scratched arms.” She seemed as pleased as she seemed far away. “I can hardly wait.”
Grace’s hand was cramped. The sixth ruby popped out, plinking like a tiddlywink on the table. “I’m telling you the truth,” she said, nestling the imposter into the gold. “I have no reason not to.”
“That’s a real problem for you, isn’t it? That you need a reason.” Hanna pulled off her rubber gloves and dropped them in the trash.
Hanna was packing up her things quickly and Grace hurried to follow her. She returned the necklace and all its parts to Jacqueline without a word and raced up the stairs after Hanna.
“See you Monday,” Hanna sang out in the echoing vestibule. She pushed open the front door.
Alls was there waiting, leaning against the building and smoking a cigarette. He didn’t look at Grace, giving her the chance to ignore him in front of her coworker, but Grace realized that a beat too late. When Hanna turned to give her a cool wave, Grace’s face had already betrayed her.
Hanna noticed the man standing there, the man Grace was trying not to look at. She looked from Alls to Grace and back again
Alls smiled casually. “Hey,” he said to Hanna.
“I didn’t believe you,” Hanna said. She turned and pushed between the people walking too slowly and raced down the sidewalk, her shoulders stiff with being watched.
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“You should sleep,” Alls said. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
“You know I didn’t,” she said. “How could I sleep?”
The ease and intimacy with which they were discussing her sleep irritated her. He had come here to claim the painting or what money she had gotten from it. She knew that. Still, desire curled upward, a wisp of smoke. His ease was almost mocking, as though with every casual aside and every unfinished thought, he was reminding her what might have been.
At home she climbed the steps to her room and kicked off her shoes. She lay down on her bed and the scent startled her. Her sheets smelled like a man. She buried her face in her pillow.
He woke her up at midnight. “Got to wake up now, Gracie. We’re going to be late for the party.”
She blinked. He stood over her, blocking the light that streamed from the hallway. He reached to flick on the overhead light. “Back to work.”
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