The Manchester airport is bare-bones: a single terminal, worn carpeting, minimal security. Ava combs the arrival hall, wondering if she’ll recognize her friend’s altered face. And then there she is! Bundled into one of those sleeping-bag down coats, her pixie cut tucked beneath a fuzzy beanie, Winnie’s once again her college roommate, all buzzing energy and insatiable curiosity.
When their eyes lock, Ava feels her cheeks warm. She’s inexplicably shy. Her hand flies up to her own strands, snipped to just below the earlobe, which Winnie has not yet seen. She liked the haircut so much, she’s kept it ever since her sentencing hearing.
“Nice hair,” says Winnie.
“Nice face,” Ava replies.
And then—she’s not sure which of them initiates it—their arms wrap around each other, and she takes a deep whiff of her friend, who smells not like expensive eau de toilette, but like grass, rain, woodsmoke. She’s a shape-shifter, this Winnie, a wholehearted embracer of whatever her circumstances. She’s so fully herself that the changes only seem to further solidify who she really is.
Ava says, “I can’t believe we’re really here.”
“I can,” says Winnie.
“Oh, please. I’m the one who said this would work.”
“But I’m the one who knew you had it in you.” Winnie threads her arm through Ava’s, and they touch their heads and laugh.
En route to the parking lot, Winnie tells Ava about her new home. Her neighbors are delightful, so warm and welcoming. She’s thinking of getting a golden retriever. She can’t wait to show Ava the charming ancient shops on Main Street. Through it all, Ava listens for a hint of sarcasm, mockery, and finds none.
At Winnie’s house, Ava spies the American flag by the front door and giggles.
“What?” Winnie says. “It came with the place, and frankly I quite like it.”
They settle in the living room on the blue-and-white-striped overstuffed sofa.
Ava says, “I thought I saw him again, the other day, walking down the block.” She tells Winnie she jumped behind a pillar, quaking, before getting a hold of herself.
Winnie reminds Ava that Kaiser Shih won’t be eligible for parole for another four years, and the rest of them—Mandy, the police chief, the vice mayor—would never risk coming to the US. Still reeling from the government crackdown, they fear for their own freedom more than they begrudge Ava hers. It’s nothing Winnie hasn’t said before.
“I know, I know,” says Ava. “But my subconscious has ideas of its own.”
“Tell your subconscious that I’m the one they really want, if only they could figure out where I am.”
Ava’s gaze sweeps the room, all pastel florals and dark wood. “Well, this certainly is the last place they’d imagine finding you.”
Winnie smirks. “He wouldn’t have been surprised.” Her eyes mist over. She means Boss Mak, of course. He’s been gone for almost two years, his liver finally failing him a month after his arrest.
Ava hurries to comfort her. “Oli says the medical team did everything possible to relieve his pain at the end. He didn’t suffer.” It’s nothing she hasn’t said before either.
“So did you meet the new fiancée?” Winnie asks.
Ava waggles her head from side to side. “She came with Oli to pick up Henri a couple weeks ago but didn’t get out of the car. I think she’s good for him. He seems calmer, less angry. And Henri likes her too.” Mimi, her son calls her, short for Myriam. It unsettled Ava the first time she heard the nickname, not because she was jealous, but because it gave her a glimpse into her son’s inner life, a burgeoning side to him of which she has no part.
“Of course Oli’s less angry. Isn’t she a resident? She probably lets him order her around.”
“Stop,” says Ava, but she appreciates her friend’s loyalty all the same.
Winnie brings out a bottle of pinot noir that she pours into two large goblets. Together they sit and sip, watching the shadows lengthen across the parquet floor.
“I almost forgot,” Winnie says. She goes to the hall closet and returns with something in a plain white dust bag, which she sets in Ava’s lap.
“What’s this?” Ava’s nostrils flare at some faint animal scent. Her pulse quickens. Her fingers race to loosen the drawstring opening and pull out the blood-red crocodile Birkin.
The last time she saw this bag, it was being tossed in the back of a moving van, along with the other valuables confiscated by the Department of Homeland Security.
Ava asks, “How did you get this?”
“I waited for them to auction it off.”
Ava turns the bag this way and that. The crocodile skin retains its pristine mirrorlike gloss. The plastic protective tape on the palladium hardware is still intact. “How much did you pay?”
“Who cares?” Winnie swats her with an accent pillow. “It has sentimental value.”
Ava’s never heard her friend speak so cavalierly about money, and when she points this out, Winnie shrugs. “That’s because I don’t get attached to any old object. Without the emotions and the stories, they’re just things.”
Ava knows exactly what she means. The bag’s never been used and likely never will be, but she will keep it forever as a talisman, a symbol of her fearlessness and verve, of everything Winnie has taught her.
“I have something for you, too,” Ava says. She unzips her suitcase and retrieves a plain padded mailer, hands it to Winnie.
Inside, wrapped in tissue, is a lab-grown three-carat round loose diamond the size of a fingernail. It sparkles like a meteor in Winnie’s palm. Ava snaps on a light, while Winnie pulls out her jewelry loupe and tweezers and examines the stone. As promised, it is perfect—perfectly irregular, perfectly flawed, ready to be swapped in for a natural diamond set in an elegant platinum band.
This time around, they will hire men, all of marrying age; men who’ll report solely to them. And when their handsome, strapping shopper walks into Tiffany’s or Chopard or Harry Winston to return the engagement ring—utterly dejected over his would-be fiancée’s no—what sales associate wouldn’t want to be useful, to soothe his hurt feelings, and help make things right?
“Exquisite,” Winnie says, lowering the stone to the table. “We’ll start in Boston next month.”
In the lamplight, the diamond winks like a girl with a secret.
“Okay,” Ava says, “once and for all, tell me how you did it. How did you buy your SAT score?”
Winnie nearly spits out her wine like an actor in a sitcom. She throws back her head and cackles—there’s no other word for the pure shrill sound that tumbles out of her, making Ava wonder if this small-town solitude has turned her strange.
At last, Winnie sets down her glass. “I didn’t pay anyone. That test is a joke.”
Instantly Ava regrets bringing it up. She chokes out, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know . . . your dad . . . he really had a stroke?”
“No, Dad was fine,” Winnie says. “Those princelings paid me to take their tests. That’s how I got a perfect score. Practice. That’s how I could afford to go to Stanford.”
“You’re kidding.”
“That stuff pays well. Didn’t you read the news reports?”
“What about your scholarship? And your aunt?”
Winnie rolls her eyes extravagantly. “That barely covered tuition. There was still room and board, textbooks, health insurance.”