by Amy Meyerson
Another flight boards with no empty seats. Jake is going to have to camp out in the terminal until morning. The airport grows emptier, and Jake lies down on a row of seats, angling his body beneath the rigid armrests. He continues to replay his fight with Beck, how he’d told her he lost everything. And he has—Kristi, his writing career, his job at Trader Joe’s, his chance at a family, all gone thanks to the Florentine Diamond. But Beck had no compassion for him. She had no compassion for Ashley, either.
He checks his phone. It’s after ten. He has no idea where Ashley has settled for the night. Of his numerous missed calls, none are from his siblings. He finds Ashley’s number and listens as her line rings. She picks up on the fifth ring, like she was debating whether to answer his call.
“Jake.” Her voice is cautious.
“Hey, Ash—” he starts, but doesn’t know how to continue. “Are you okay?”
“Not really. You?”
“Not at all.”
“Sorry I ran out like that. I just couldn’t face her. Either of them.”
“It wasn’t fair, how she treated you.”
Ashley pauses. “So this is it, then.”
“Who knows.”
“I’m going to have to sell the house. Ryan’s sentencing hearing is in three weeks. He has to return the money then. If we can’t sell, I don’t know what’s going to happen to him.”
Jake sits up, cracks his aching back. “I can come up, take a train and be there in a few hours.”
“You’re still in Philly? Did you go to the house?”
“I’m at the airport. Been waiting standby. I’m serious, Ash. Say the word and I’m there.”
“No, you need to go back to LA. Deal with your own life.”
“You’ll keep me posted about anything that happens with Ryan?”
“You’ll be my first call.” Jake hears what she’s really saying—she isn’t prepared to talk to Beck, either.
Jake listens to the soft snoring of the other passengers, settling in until morning. He is one of them, just another stranger in the airport, with nowhere to go. No fiancée, no family, no money. He has his unborn daughter, but who is he to her? For the first time in his life, he thinks he’s no better than his own father.
* * *
When Beck walks out of the bank, she doesn’t know where she’s headed, only that she can’t spend another second with her family. She can’t bring herself to go to the house on Edgehill Road or her apartment in Fairmount, which in a few weeks will belong to someone else. She should call Tom, the FBI, but all she can think about is Viktor. It had been so easy for her to trust him when it was never easy for her to trust anyone. She isn’t ready to confront his betrayal, so she starts walking. Her thoughts turn to the terrible things she said to her siblings. It isn’t their fault that Viktor proved deceitful. She was wrong to lash out at them, but they’d turned on her so quickly their abandonment felt as cruel as Viktor’s. And worse, Deborah had instigated it, shifting the blame from herself to Beck. After all the times Beck has forgiven her, after she’s defended her mother to her siblings, to Kenny, to have her turn on Beck like that. It felt unfathomably cruel. At least she won’t have to protect her mother from Kenny anymore. Now that there is no money, they definitely won’t be hearing from him again.
As she walks by her office building, she realizes Tom is probably upstairs, wrapping up some paperwork on their futile settlement. She can hear him saying, Viktor, really? Her body guides her past the building, through city hall, and while she tells herself that she isn’t walking anywhere in particular, she knows she’s headed to Christian’s.
He doesn’t ask her what she is doing at his studio or if she is okay, only opens the door and lets her inside. Wordlessly, she takes off his T-shirt and jeans, then her suit, which she’s still wearing from the settlement negotiation that afternoon. He lies down on an area rug that smells of spilled beer and Doritos, and she straddles him.
Afterward, they sit naked on his couch. He snaps open a beer for her.
“Can I have something stronger?”
He finds a bottle of whiskey in the cabinet, and she swigs directly from the bottle.
For two days, Christian supplies her with cheap beer and whiskey washed down with morning sex and afternoon fucking and pizza. During those forty-eight hours, news of the diamond’s disappearance reaches the media. If Christian hears of it, he doesn’t let on, just keeps buying more beer, more pizza, more condoms. For two days, they barely speak. They do not mention the Florentine Diamond, Helen, Flora, or Vienna. They do not turn on the television or the stereo. On the third morning she wakes at Christian’s, she hears her phone buzzing on his kitchen counter. He charged it for her, and she’s charmed by this. She strokes Christian’s smooth back, watching him sleep. One day, he might become someone she could fall in love with, but he isn’t there yet.
Her voicemail box is full. A news update sits between thirty-seven unopened texts and twenty-three missed calls: “The Florentine Diamond, Missing Again.” Despite herself, she opens the link and reads about Helen, the Millers, the settlement with the Austrians gone awry, Viktor. The article ends, Authorities are trying to determine if Viktor Castanza acted alone or if Deborah Miller was an accomplice.
Of all the mischaracterizations of her family the press has drawn, this one lands with Beck. Despite the mistakes she’s inflicted on her children, Deborah would never steal from them.
Beck finds her clothes in a ball beside the front door where she left them three days earlier, feeling an almost animalistic need to see her mother. She slips on her black skirt, her white blouse, her blazer. Christian stirs awake when Beck sits beside him on the bed.
“I need to go.” She kisses his forehead. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He casts her his boyish smile.
On Edgehill Road, the sidewalk is swarming with camera crews, who turn when they see Beck, their feet crunching the vibrant leaves that have fallen from the trees that line the street. Instinctively, Beck hides her face and fights the current of people up the walkway to her family’s house. When she enters, the television blares in the empty living room. The morning news is on, and a young reporter stands outside Viktor’s building, her dark hair blowing in the wind as she tells viewers, “I’m standing at the site of Mr. Viktor Castanza’s apartment, the last known whereabouts of the diamond. The building manager reports video coverage of Mr. Castanza entering and leaving the building on October 16, just hours after he was seen exiting Federalist Bank. The FBI has an APB out on Mr. Castanza, but he hasn’t been spotted since. We’re going to switch over now to Edgehill Road in Bala Cynwyd, where reporters tell me Beck Miller, who works for Mr. Castanza’s former counsel and was the first individual to discover the Florentine Diamond, has reportedly returned home after also disappearing for the last forty-eight hours.”
The TV switches over to a moment ago when Beck was darting through reporters, her face shielded by her arm. She can hear them outside, still calling to her, can see their shadows through the window’s thin curtains.
Footsteps drumroll as Deborah barrels down the stairs. “Becca, is that you?”
Deborah’s hair is a nest around her pale face. In two days, she looks like she’s lost five pounds and aged ten years.
“Oh, thank God,” Deborah says, and races down the last few steps, nearly pouncing on Beck. Her body has a faint, musty odor, her breath thick with morning, but Beck holds her tighter.
When they hear their names, they release each other and turn toward the television.
“The FBI is investigating whether the Millers have been in contact with Mr. Castanza or if he was working alone.”
A close-up of Viktor fills the screen. On the television, he’s even more dapper than in life, his eyes an impossible blue, his lush hair so white it shines like platinum.
“I’m sorry,” Beck says to her mother. �
�I never should have brought Viktor into our lives.”
Deborah places both hands on her daughter’s cheeks, something she’s never done before. “There’s nothing wrong with trusting people. Don’t stop because of this.”
The intensity makes Beck uncomfortable, but her mother’s hands remain on her cheeks, holding her there, until she agrees.
When she lets go, Beck asks, “Have you heard from Ashley and Jake?”
Beck is always the quickest to anger, the cruelest. She’s also the most resilient, Deborah realizes. For Beck, the words she and her siblings spat at each other in the vault are just that: words. Released and forgotten.
“They’re gone,” Deborah says. She stares vacantly at the image of Viktor as it disappears from the screen, fearing she will never understand this time in her life.
Twenty
Viktor did take the diamond. Of that much, the FBI is certain. They question Deborah, alone and with Tom. Her story never changes. Zoomed in, the security camera footage caught him dropping the diamond into his pocket as he pretended to return it to the safe-deposit box. They announce to Tom and to the media that Deborah Miller is no longer a suspect, that Viktor Castanza was working alone.
Like kidnapping cases, the first forty-eight hours are the most critical. The FBI checks airline records, Amtrak, SEPTA, Greyhound, gas station cameras along I-95, tollbooths on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Viktor has vanished as completely as the Florentine. Beck continues to stay on Edgehill Road with her mother. The FBI checks in with them daily, but they do not hear from Viktor again. Each day the number of news crews decreases until, by the following week, they’ve all moved on.
* * *
Jake knocks on what used to be his apartment door.
“I need one minute,” Kristi says as she opens the door, then rushes back to her room. As he waits, Jake braves a step inside. Preparations for their daughter’s arrival litter the space—a stroller, boxes of bottles and diapers beside the couch, a changing table against the window.
Jake helps Kristi down the apartment complex’s stairs. Her stomach is so large he’s surprised she can walk.
“If this baby doesn’t come out soon, I’m going to reach in there and pull her out myself,” she tells Jake as she situates herself in the passenger seat.
At the doctor’s, Kristi lets Jake follow her into the observation room.
“You’re sure?”
“We’re getting down to the wire. It’s important you know what’s going on,” Kristi says, plopping onto the bed.
While the doctor checks Kristi’s cervix, Jake remains completely still, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible.
“Everything looks good,” the doctor tells Kristi. “She turned, so we don’t have to do an external cephalic version.”
Jake has no idea what an external cephalic version is, but it sounds terrifying. Kristi says, “Thank God.”
The doctor removes her gloves and tosses them into the trash. “We’ll see you next week.”
With that, she leaves, and Jake averts his eyes as Kristi changes into her pants. As they walk toward reception, Jake asks what an external cephalic version is.
“It’s where they push and twist on your stomach to turn the baby around,” Kristi explains. “It’s supposed to be really painful.”
“Well, it’s good it worked out on its own.” This is a stupid, Jake Miller thing to say. Of course he would be relieved that everything just magically turned out okay.
To his surprise, Kristi smiles and weaves her arm through Jake’s. “What would you say to a walk around the reservoir? I’m supposed to be getting exercise. I should warn you, it’s more of a waddle than a walk.”
“I’ll waddle with you anywhere,” Jake says.
It’s just a walk, Jake reminds himself as they stroll past the meadow where families are flying kites and childless couples are lounging in the sun. They are just getting some exercise, even if it feels more like a first date. All the things he wants say but knows he shouldn’t make him awkwardly quiet, like he was the first time they went out.
Kristi is talking ceaselessly, just like she did on their early outings. She tells Jake how everyone at the vet has been treating her better since her pregnancy became obvious. She describes her freezer, overflowing with meals her mother has made, even though her mother plans to drive down as soon as she goes into labor and stay with her for the first month.
Their steps grow smaller as they wind their way around the final bend of the reservoir, toward Jake’s car.
“How’s the script going?” Kristi asks.
“Good.” And it is going well. Jake knows the whole arc of the story now: Helen’s motivation for keeping the diamond, what happened to her family in Vienna. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do. Maybe you’ll read it when I’m done?” His heart races like he’s asked her to marry him again.
“I’d be honored,” Kristi says, causing them both to blush.
* * *
Twelve days have passed, and still there are no sightings of Viktor. Ashley removes all the family photographs from the living room mantel, placing them in a box Tyler will run up to the attic. The house smells of chocolate chip cookies that Ryan is baking for the open house that afternoon. They’ve decided to sell the house without a real estate agent to save on the commission. Ashley has cleaned, pared down their furniture to streamline the rooms, and bought Prosecco. It feels odd, creating the fantasy of a perfect family by packing up the memories the Johnsons have built in this house. As Ashley places the lid on the cardboard box of framed photographs, she spots a picture of her family from Lydia’s dance recital. Ashley has always loved this photo, even though there are better snapshots from trips to Martha’s Vineyard and Rome. But this is the only one where they are looking at each other rather than the camera. She lifts it out of the box and returns it to the mantel.
At three, Ryan takes the kids miniature golfing while Ashley stays behind to manage the open house. The children have grown attached to Ryan while Ashley was gone, competing to show him their drawings, to regale him with tales of prisoners taken during capture the flag, anecdotes they would normally race to tell Ashley. Ryan’s sentencing hearing is just a week and a half away. While the children don’t know the exact date, they know to consume as much of their father as possible, before it’s too late.
By 3:15, no one has shown up to the house, and Ashley starts to panic. Did they find out about Ryan? The prosecutors had promised the case would stay out of the papers. Maybe it’s because of the Florentine Diamond? Ashley was never considered a suspect in its robbery. Still, something is keeping the people away. Ashley bites her nails, then catches herself. She messes the pamphlets by the front door to look like others have already sifted through them. She hides three cookies in the cupboard, leaving an obvious space on the tray in the kitchen, and downs a glass of Prosecco. The driveway remains empty.
For the first time since she ran out of the vault, Ashley wants to call Beck. Her sister would know how to quell her anxieties, fears of what will happen when Ryan does not have the money by his sentencing hearing. Then she remembers what Beck said in the vault. If Ashley calls, she doesn’t know which Beck she’ll get—the one who promised they’d get through this together, or the one that made her feel so alone.
By 3:45, she’s drunk one more glass of Prosecco. The house looks perfect. It is perfect. How is no one here? Without the sale, what’s going to happen to her husband? His sentence was going to be reduced on account of returning the money. She doesn’t want to know how much jail time a half million dollars buys, so she wanders into the kitchen for a third glass of Prosecco.
A little after four, tires crackle in the driveway. She wasn’t expecting Ryan and the kids for another half hour. She quickly dumps the rest of the glass down the drain and dries her eyes with the back of her palm. As she plasters a smile on her face, ready to
tell her family it went great, two strangers walk in, followed soon after by another couple.
* * *
While Deborah insists that the first rule to moving is to only take what fits in the Red Rabbit, Beck hires movers with a truck. Deborah objects until she sees the sleek gray couch Tom had purchased for the Fairmount apartment, the flat-screen television, the midcentury bar cart being carried into the house by three burly men.
“Tom didn’t want any of this?” Deborah asks Beck as two men navigate the stairs with an antique dresser.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Atta girl,” Deborah says, plopping onto their new couch.
It’s been two weeks since Viktor disappeared, and Beck can’t believe that she’s moving back into the house on Edgehill Road. She’s been living on her own for fifteen years. Now, at thirty-six, she’s returned. Somehow, this doesn’t feel like defeat. Despite her closeness to Helen, she hadn’t considered Edgehill Road a harbor, somewhere she could always return. It wasn’t until Deborah moved in and filled the house with color that Beck felt like this house could be her home again.
“I’m thinking of quitting,” Beck tells her mom. She doesn’t mean to say this. In fact, she hasn’t even fully admitted it to herself. After Viktor disappeared with the diamond, something at work changed. It has been seven years since Beck was expelled from law school. Seven years of licking her wounds. Seven years where she could have made a plea to the school for reentry, in which she could have proved she was sorry and had been rehabilitated. Instead, she spent the last seven years becoming the best paralegal at her firm, caring only about winning regardless of whether her clients were in the right. Now that the diamond is gone and she isn’t speaking to either of her siblings, winning doesn’t feel so important anymore.