She should tell Shirley before the television did it for her, but the people in Gideon’s office repeated Jake’s order to keep quiet. Eva, Zoya, Linh, and her family—they’d all find out via media unless she acted in split-second timing. In an act of cowardice, she’d left an early-morning message for Eva, alluding to a family problem as a reason for missing work, promising to speak soon.
Oh God, what was she thinking? Her sister needed to hear this from her, not as breaking news on TV. After locking the bedroom door, she pressed Deb’s number into the bedside phone on Jake’s side. Her sister, as always, picked up immediately. She and Ben were up by seven, dressed and out by ten.
“You caught us!” Deb answered as though Phoebe made her day simply by calling. “We’re on the way to Bed Bath & Beyond. The kids are coming down, and I want to get new sheets for the guest rooms. We were going to get a new mattress, but—”
“Deb. Stop. I need to tell you something.”
Her sister inhaled. “What’s wrong?”
Phoebe pictured her sister clutching her chest just as their mother had always done. “Is Ben there?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Please. Put him on the extension.”
After a moment of silence Deb said, “Hold on.”
Phoebe wanted to break their sisterly intimacy, praying that if Ben absorbed the news with her sister, it might dilute and thus soften the blow.
“Okay. He’s on. What’s wrong?”
“I’m here,” Ben affirmed. “What is it?”
Their voices held the tension of people expecting death, anticipating awful truth. They’d make reservations. Fly to the funeral. Get out the black dress, the somber suit.
“Phoebe.” Ben snapped her to attention. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
She snaked a hand into the drawer and under a mound of scarves, feeling for her emergency cigarettes. She fingered the cellophane wrapper. Unopened, of course. About three times a year, she’d smoke one cigarette, throwing out the pack right after.
“This isn’t easy,” Phoebe said. “Something awful happened.”
“Just tell us,” Deb said.
“The money is gone.”
“What money?”
“Yours. Everyone’s.”
“What are you talking about?”
How many conversations like this were ahead? People would call asking for reassurance, “Not me, right?” She imagined the faces of her friends, cousins—even the rabbi who’d performed the ceremonies at the kids’ weddings.
“Jake totally . . .” Phoebe couldn’t think of a way to frame the enormity. “He lied about the investments. All the investments. Everyone’s.”
“What? How?”
“In every way possible. There are no investments. Nothing. It’s all made up. It’s paper.” Jake had said that. Paper.
“Paper? What do you mean ‘paper’?” Ben’s voice rose.
“Please don’t yell,” Phoebe said. “I’ll tell you everything. I just found out.”
Ben took two loud breaths. “What about the statements? The money we take out every month? Where does it come from?”
“I don’t understand anything.” She tried to relax her fingers before she squeezed the cigarettes so hard she’d crush them. “He said it’s all just paper.”
“What the hell does ‘just paper’ mean?” Ben asked. “Has he gone off his rocker?”
“The kids. Ben’s family!” Deb said. “Them, too?”
“Of course them, too,” Ben said. “What? You think he only screwed his family? What the fuck, Phoebe? Is he insane?”
Crazy, insane, psychotic, I don’t believe it, how, why, what the fuck—so many words doomed for repetition.
“Don’t scream at her,” Deb said. “You don’t think she’s dying from this?”
For a few moments, no one spoke.
“You knew nothing?” Ben asked. “Are you sure?”
“How dare you ask that,” her sister said.
“It’s not such an impossible question, Deb.” Anger crackled through the phone. He’d obviously raced ahead to the consequences of Jake’s actions faster than Deb. “They live together. She has an office there.”
Phoebe pulled at the cellophane strip locking away the pack of Marlboros. “I use the office for convenience. That’s all. To take care of Cupcake Project business. The only thing I do for JPE is wrap presents. This was as much of a shock to me, to the kids, to Theo, as it is to you.”
“Of course.” Deb sounded dazed.
Ben kept quiet.
“Nothing’s left?” Deb spoke so softly that Phoebe had to strain to hear. “Nothing?”
Phoebe thought of Jake’s checks, waiting to be sent out. Then she thought of the FBI. “I only know Jake wanted you to be first in line for what he still had. He planned to write you a check today, but the FBI took him.”
“Jesus,” Ben said.
“I don’t think he’ll be sending those checks out.” Fuck it. She’d smoke right here.
“What’s going to happen?” Ben sounded stunned.
Her sister began weeping, her tears starting Phoebe’s, until both of them were sobbing.
“I’m clueless,” Phoebe said between gulps. “I’m waiting for the lawyer to call.” She ripped open the pack of cigarettes and lit one.
After disengaging from her sister and brother-in-law, she splashed icy water on her face and then reached Theo on his cell. “They’re already here,” he whispered. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
She held a match to the end of another cigarette and called Noah, then Kate, again and again, repeatedly, until finally her daughter picked up.
“We’re not supposed to speak with you,” Kate said without preamble.
“According to whom?” Phoebe asked.
“Our attorney.”
“You have a lawyer? Did you have Daddy arrested?”
Kate didn’t answer.
“You didn’t give Daddy the weekend?”
“Have you lost your mind, Mom?”
Crazy, insane, psychotic.
“Do you realize the scope of this scheme?” Kate asked. “This isn’t a mistake or a lapse in judgment or Daddy’s usual bullshit. This is billion-dollar fraud. Do you have a clue what kind of risk he put us in? Hasn’t the impact of what he’s done hit you?”
“He only asked—”
“Asked us to give him the weekend? For what? To make us coconspirators? You’re very lucky our lawyer made this move.”
“But . . .” But what? “We don’t even know why he did it,” she said finally.
“Who the fuck cares why! Get your head out of the sand and leave, Mom. Now. Stay with him, you lose us. Stay with him, everyone blames you along with him. Get out.”
“I’ll think about it. Really. I promise. But not when—”
Kate hung up.
Phoebe put the phone back in the cradle. She turned the television on low, tuning into CNN in case the story broke.
What do you wear to a courthouse? A suit? A dress?
Just then, Ben’s words came back: “Did you know?”
If her own brother-in-law asked her that, what would the rest of the world think? Her hands shook as she pulled on beige wool pants and a plain black sweater.
Who knew what this sweater cost—she couldn’t remember. Five hundred. Eight hundred. Two thousand. Phoebe still looked at tags when she bought things—nobody grew up in Brooklyn without checking prices—but the theory of relativity crept in and then tipped so far she threw cashmere sweatshirts over Gap jeans while gardening.