“I don’t believe you,” I said. “None of this makes any sense. How can you be part of this with her? Why should I believe any of what you are saying?”
“I know,” ZK said, as his whole body seemed to slump like a marionette whose strings had been cut. “You’re so different, Lisbeth. Wherever you came from, whoever you are. Everything is new to you, filled with possibilities. I have none, never have had any. In my world I don’t stand a chance,” he answered. “I had hoped you wouldn’t take me seriously, but you did. And the more I grew to appreciate you, the more I knew I would be bad for you. I made another shameful Northcott bargain in a history of bad bargains. My family was at stake. It was the only way.”
I turned to Dahlia, who was enjoying the drama.
“Dahlia, your private detective has simply mixed my Nan up with someone else,” I said. “Please just give me back the bracelet. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll disappear. Just leave Nan alone.”
She paused, seeming to savor the situation. I thought for a moment that she might be gratified by how utterly devastated I was, how broken ZK seemed, and return Nan’s bracelet.
“I can’t dear, sweet girl; it’s federal evidence. When we discovered the truth, I was obliged to consult the district attorney, an old friend of my father’s. There’s nothing I can do now. Oh, I forgot, I’ve been talking to a delightful New York Post reporter about you; he’s done quite a bit of digging, which was very helpful, including a certain Page Six photo.”
Page Six. Those words felt like a punch in the stomach.
“You’ve had your moment, ZK. I must admit, it was a moving performance, almost seemed like you meant it,” she said with a smirk. “It’s time to go.”
His feet seemed glued to the street. Dahlia’s eyes hardened. “If you’d like me to hold up my end of the deal, do come along,” she said, and the limo driver closed her door.
ZK walked around the limo almost as if his body had no choice. He barely glanced up as he ducked inside. But I saw in that mere instant his pleading eyes, the lost boy in all his agony.
Dahlia lowered her window.
“My dear, I think you can assume your life is ruined. I wish I knew how to make one of those evil supervillain laughs. This would be the time for it, don’t you think?”
65
With every step it felt like I was leaving behind some part of myself. I compulsively moved forward, staring down at the sidewalk in that determined way people walk in the city where no one dares talk to you. I found myself at Central Park by Columbus Circle and realized I was only a few blocks from Tiffany’s.
Even though the evening was winding down, the carriages and their sad horses were still escorting tourists through the park. Turning down Fifth, I saw the seamless glass box that was the Apple store glistening in the moonlight.
Yellow taxis sped by as I approached the street corner at 57th. For the first time, it felt sad to peer up and see the familiar chiseled logo. Not at all like the times Jess and I, as so many girls, would bring our breakfast to eat in front of Tiffany’s windows.
I gazed down Fifth Avenue.
In a few hours, at dawn, the streetlights would still be on when Holly would arrive by taxi. Gazing up at the Tiffany logo, she’ll release an almost imperceptible sigh from her shoulders. Wearing her sunglasses in the morning twilight, she’ll float on tiny steps to the jewelry-showcase window and delicately take a cruller from a white bag with her long black gloves. She’ll gingerly remove the plastic top of her deli coffee cup and let it tumble into the paper bag, not spilling a drop.
Without a soul in sight, she’ll examine the stunning display of diamond bracelets and miniature chandeliers, tilting her head ever so slightly, contemplating their elegance and beauty.
I could see her standing before me in her fragile splendor. I had always assumed she was an early-bird window-shopper with an intimate knowledge of diamonds and pearls returning from some fabulous party.
Now I realized she was outside staring in. She came to Tiffany’s because she needed to make herself feel better. She was endlessly searching for what she never had, sad for whatever she was missing. Just like me.
She went to Tiffany’s that morning to feel safe. She must have been somewhere unsafe that night.
Although it’s hard to find anything bad about Audrey, there must have been a dark side in her life that people don’t talk about. After all, she was a heavy smoker who liked a glass of bourbon. Rumors of affairs with married men and anorexia have been around forever—Audrey’s own version of the mean reds—but she kept her problems discretely hidden in a Givenchy dress where no one would see. I wished we could talk, Audrey and I, and she could tell me if she ever made it feel all right.
It was time to go back to New Jersey.
66
I should have told them right away. Nan, Mom, Courtney, and Ryan were all sitting there waiting for me. I couldn’t imagine how unbelievably fast Dahlia had put her plan into action.
“Pinched Givenchy!” was the headline on the front page of The New York Post lying on the kitchen table in front of them.
My face was on the cover.
I was wearing the dress.
And the tiara.
They had cropped out ZK and Dahlia.
“I’ve done something terrible,” I said, which at the time seemed like a massive understatement. I waited for Nan or Mom’s reaction, but there wasn’t one.
When the NYPD detectives picked me up for interrogation, they asked if I had a lawyer. I knew we couldn’t afford one, so I was given a public defender, who seemed even younger than me, like he was just out of law school. He seemed more terrified than I was of the press and was no help at all.
Without any prior criminal record (I hadn’t even had one day of high school detention) and my name and face plastered on tabloids, I wasn’t considered a flight risk, so they sent me home to Jersey. After all, they didn’t have formal charges—yet.
I had read the article on the PATH train home. The Post gave me the full tabloid treatment, I guess because it was a slow news day in a slow news week, and because their venerable Page Six had been victimized as part of the fraud.
Dahlia slipped the whole story to some intrepid society reporter for The New York Post, who did his best to uncover the sordid details about me and Nan. It hadn’t taken long to search through their photo archive. I should have known that evidence of my Givenchy napping would surface.
Pretty much everything in the article was true: how I had faked and photobombed my way among the Upper East Siders, freeloading in their world of conspicuous consumption—limousines, personal shoppers, weekends in the Hamptons—passing as one of them when I was a wannabe South Ender from Jersey.
It featured a teary-eyed Tabitha Eden with a quote beneath her picture: “I felt devastated and betrayed. She wormed and manipulated her way into every aspect of my life. I regret every moment I knew her.” I assumed someone had written that line for her, but it made me sad regardless. How Dahlia persuaded Tabitha to be in the article I’ll never understand. The reporter discreetly kept Dahlia’s name out. No one would have known she arranged the whole thing.
Back home in the kitchen everyone seemed stunned, except smart-ass, smirking Ryan. All the color drained out of Nan’s face when I got to the part about Sammy. And when I admitted how I let the bracelet get taken away from me, I couldn’t stop sobbing and threw myself at Nan’s feet. I hugged her legs, hoping she wouldn’t hate me, afraid to meet her eyes.