The Clasp (34 page)

N
athaniel buzzed the apartment. “Let us in, we brought you a present.”

“Is it Calvados?” came a staticky male voice.

“
Paul
,” Kezia said sternly, and the door buzzed.

They slogged up the stairs, Nathaniel leading the way. It was even darker and more narrow than she remembered. She turned around to make sure Victor was behind her, which, of course, he was. When they got to the top Grey was waiting with the door open, ready to pepper them with questions about their trip. She almost shut the door on Victor, like a farmer expecting to let only two chickens back into the coop.

“Holy shit, Victor.” She stood, mouth agape. “You look . . . what a surprise! Where did you come from?”

Grey kissed the air around his face. Kezia realized they should have planned what they were going to say, how much they were going to share, but Victor stepped up. He explained that he had used his vacation to come to France on a last-minute backpacking trip, that he had rented a bike and fallen (thus accounting for his
face), and that Kezia texted to say she and Nathaniel were in the area and that was that.

“Wow.” Kezia felt a shiver at how quickly he lied.

“Yes, wow,” Nathaniel agreed.

Paul, who had just returned from his Sunday ritual—a cheese expedition to the rue des Martyrs—was also delighted to see them. He peppered them with questions and then interrupted the answers. It was like watching someone try to breathe by inhaling and exhaling at the same time. Kezia and Nathaniel stood back amused, watching Victor stiffen as Paul embraced him like a brother.

“Let me give you the tour.” He patted Victor's back. “How goes mostofit?”

He pronounced it like “moose-to-feet.”

“Dominating the globe, apparently.”

Paul led Victor around the apartment. He was coming to the end of the story about the acquisition of his unsittable chaise when Victor gasped. Kezia assumed he was playing along with the travails of transporting furniture from the seventeenth to the third on a weekend. But then Victor pointed stiffly across the living room.

“What is that?” he asked, as if he had seen a large bug.

“What is what?” Grey squinted at the wall.

“That.” Victor dropped his duffel and sat on the hallway runner.

“Oh,
that
.”

A wooden dresser sat partially cloaked in a padded moving blanket. Kezia stood in front of the attached mirror, watching Victor on the floor behind her. Paul yanked the blanket off, quick as a magician, revealing a series of tiny drawers and wooden ribbons that hugged the corners. Victor was still stuck to the floor.

“It's . . . um . . .” Grey was flustered by the sitting.

“You like it?” Paul asked. “Felix is going to have an estate sale. They're selling the house and I guess they're in a hurry to get rid of some furniture before they do. He sent us a bunch of JPEGs of stuff so we could have first crack. Nathaniel, I think he left you off the e-mail because, well, most of the pieces aren't exactly midcentury modern.”

“Right, that makes total sense.”

“Do you guys hear that?” Grey quieted everyone.

The sound of a muffled submarine came from the toilet.

“Damnit!” She marched into the bathroom.

Nathaniel ran his hands along the corners of the dresser, feeling for seams.

“This is it, huh?” He looked straight at Victor.

Victor nodded.

“This is the one?” Nathaniel asked, as if he might, at any minute, arrest the dresser.

“Hey, Paul . . . do these drawers open or are they like hotel desk drawers?”

“Oh no,” he cheerfully explained. “Those are for show. I forget why. Some antiquated logic about confusing the maids.”

From the bathroom came the rather pornographic sound of submerged rubber sucking on toilet porcelain.

“But these are real keyholes.” Nathaniel pushed his finger into one.

Kezia knew what he was doing, testing the limits of Paul's curiosity. Victor stood. She tried to read his face. His eyes, almost smiling, said it all: Felix's mom's jewelry had followed him to France. Caroline had just blithely given it away—hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of precious pieces trapped in a dresser— and unless Victor said anything, they would stay there. He walked past the dresser and stepped out onto the narrow balcony to smoke a cigarette.

“This is so cool,” said Nathaniel. “Victor, you should really come check this out. See how cool it is.”

“Yeah.” Paul peered into the holes as if for the first time. “It's a trick. The keyholes are real but the drawers are fake.”

“Reality is wrong.” Nathaniel nodded. “Dreams are for real.”

“Who said that.” Paul stood up straight. “Foucault?”

“Tupac.”

“I'm sure Johanna would've been happy to know it wound up in the hands of friends,” Victor said, turning his head to exhale.

“Was that Felix's mom's name?” Grey asked, passing through the room, dripping plunger in hand.

T
his time Claude kept her waiting for only half an hour. She was full of regret for not telling him she had a plane to catch—Nathaniel had moved his flight and he and Victor were back at the apartment, waiting for her—but until the new clasps were in hand, she didn't want to make any extra demands on Claude. When he emerged from his office, he wore the same outfit as last time with a crucial difference in pant length—the waist was still sky-high but the hem was cut off at the knees. It was almost June. Claude's gams needed to breathe. They also had a slight sheen to them. They reminded Kezia of a cadaver's legs.

“T'as perdu ton chapeau, Madeline?”

“What?”

She tried not to stare at the legs.

“Rien.”
Claude stood before her, stirring his tea.

“Wait here, please,” he instructed her.

She sat. Not much had changed since last they spoke. The dust levels were the same. No worse, no better. As if the dust had
made a collective decision: Look, we've made our point here. More layers of us isn't going to solve anything.

Claude returned, putting a cardboard box on the reception desk and unceremoniously cutting it open with his thumbnail. He pulled out one of the new clasps in a small plastic bag, tapping the contents into Kezia's hand.

“'S okay? Up to the standards of Rachel Simone?”

It was. They were better than the Starlight Express deserved. Kezia spun one of them slowly between her thumb and her forefinger. Claude had redone the cloisonné beautifully. No drippy moons and stars. She could tell immediately, when she squeezed the metal prong open, that it was secure. No more scraping sounds, no more jiggling, no more Midwestern ladies reaching up to find their necklaces had vanished.

“It's perfect,” she said to the clasp.

“Good.” Claude patted her on the back a little too hard. “Because now you have a full order of them.”

He resealed the box and told her he would get her a bag. Instead of a secure nylon case, he unfolded a worn Galeries Lafayette shopping bag with corners that were about to give. As if she were picking up resoled shoes. Kezia smiled. She would transfer the clasps to her carry-on once she was in the hallway.

Claude handed her the bag. “Madeline, you seem interested in jewelry.”

“I am,” she said.

Was this not obvious? Why else would she be standing here?

“In which case, you should consider a career in jewelry.”

Then he retreated into his office, taking the jar of sugar cubes with him.

L
ook at him. How is that humanly possible?”

This was Kezia whispering. Nathaniel had closed his eyes before takeoff and was contentedly occupying the space between drifting and dreaming. But he could still hear her. He often fell asleep by focusing on pleasing hypothetical scenarios. Bean and he alone on a beach. Meghan sneaking into his bed while he slept. Luke getting the news that his pilot would not be picked up for series. Then his thoughts would break into pieces, slowly dissolving across his eyelids. But with Kezia an armrest away from him, he had difficulty immersing himself in the usual scenarios. So he sat with his arms crossed and his head back, fighting his mind, willing his heart to pace itself.

She sat in the middle with Victor on her left. Longest legs got the aisle. By luck, she and Victor were on the same flight back. And by credit card, now so was he. They didn't all have to sit together. It was Victor who had wordlessly gotten up and waited in line for the gate agent. When it was his turn, she seemed relieved
not to have to advise another passenger against adding himself to the upgrade list. Nathaniel knew what Victor was asking. So did Kezia. They just watched him.

“I love everything about you.”

Nathaniel could still hear himself whisper it. Should he have told her he loved her in the usual way? What he had said seemed not only right for the moment, but an upgrade from the traditional phrasing. “I love everything about you.” Not just
you
as an abstract concept. But perhaps she read it as a cop-out, in the same orbit as
I love . . . your forehead.
Why hadn't he said it normally?

“I have no idea.” Victor's voice was close. “He looks dead.”

Nathaniel could feel them staring. He put his temple against the window but there were too many vibrations. He opened one eye to glare at the cabin wall, as if it had offended him directly. As they reached cruising altitude, he relaxed, letting his knees fall apart, thinking he would hit Kezia. But she had her legs crossed in Victor's direction.

“Are you glad you told them?”

Before they left Paul and Grey's, Victor had explained about the secret drawer, about the jewelry, about the key buried around Johanna's neck (leaving out the bit about Nazis and that time Victor got shoved into the back of a cop car and tossed in a French jail). Short of exhuming Johanna or tossing the chest out the window, they were going to have to hire a locksmith to open the drawer and then, they all agreed, send the contents back to Florida.

Paul and Grey were plainly impressed with Victor's story, a reaction that both Kezia and Nathaniel had failed to have. But facts were facts—Victor had honored the wishes of a dead woman. A woman he barely knew. Not only had he kept her confession a secret, he tried to solve her mystery for her. It had not occurred to
Nathaniel to be impressed by this. He wondered what would have happened if it had been he who fell asleep on Johanna's bed. He wouldn't have done a thing about it except turn it into party fodder. It was a good story.

“Sure,” Victor said. “Though Caroline will never speak to me again when she finds out I lied to her face. On the other hand, is that such a bad thing?”

“Caroline not talking to you or lying?”

Nathaniel could practically hear him shrug.

“She'll talk to you again. When she and Felix have a baby, you'll be invited to the over-the-top shower just like everyone else.”

They stopped speaking. Ahead of them, a baby began to cry. Then there was the sound of Kezia tapping on the screen in front of her, perusing movie options.

Nathaniel would back Victor up if and when he needed it, protect him from Caroline's wrath. He would say that he gave Victor a pill the night of her wedding, when Victor was already beyond drunk, so it's no wonder he forgot he knew the location of Johanna's jewelry. It was almost totally true.

“So guess what Paul says?” asked Victor.

Nathaniel knew the answer to this. He had been there for the conversation this morning and couldn't believe it himself. He was eager to hear Kezia's reaction.

“What does Paul say?”

“He says that his firm is investing in a new search engine based in Paris. It seems that the
moose-to-feet
model is kind of revered in France, if you can believe it, and having worked there in the States is impressive to them. Anyway, he's pretty sure he can get me a job.”

“In Paris?” she asked.

“Yup.”

“With Parisians?”

“One assumes.”

“Wow.”

Nathaniel could hear it in her voice, how floored she was, how she tried to mask her surprise. Victor, who had been in their rearview for so long, would propel himself forward before either of them could.

“And you would move to Paris?”

“Do you have heatstroke?”

“Cute. I think that sounds like a great idea . . . What? What's that look?”

“You sound like the mother of a convict about to be reincorporated into society.”

“Hey,” she snorted, “if the jumpsuit fits. No, I'm happy for you. It's just that if you move . . . I'll miss you.”

She meant that. Nathaniel could hear it. He could also hear the affectionate squeak of Victor kissing her cheek in return. There was a snap as he pulled a magazine from the mesh pocket in front of him.

“Oh, shit,” Kezia said.

He caught a whiff of her as she leaned down to fish through her bag. She smelled like the soap in Paul and Grey's house, like vanilla and mandarin. Her shoulder brushed his knee on the way up.

“I forgot to buy anything to read.”

Victor unbuckled his seat belt. He pulled his duffel from the storage bin. It thudded on his seat. Nathaniel heard an unzipping and cracked an eye open to confirm:
The Tales of Guy de Maupassant: 1850–1893
.

“This old chestnut.” Kezia flipped the pages.

It was hard for Nathaniel not to pipe up, to offer some form of comment. He was supposed to be their literary guru. He was supposed to be his own literary guru. He wanted to be there, eyes
open, as she read the story for the first time. He wanted to know if she would see all the things he had once seen in it, back when he was getting his hair blown back by short stories.

“Page seventy-four.” Victor was seated again.

“Am I going to cry? People are more likely to get emotional and burst into hysterics on airplanes. Something to do with the lack of oxygen. Or the excess of it.”

“You'll like it.”

“Why? Does the woman in it remind you of me?”

“Holy shit, not everything is about you.”

“Not everything is about you, either.”

The beverage cart lumbered by. People who would never order tomato juice under normal circumstances ordered tomato juice.

“Does she? I'm not being vain. This is me asking.”

“She reminds me of me,” Victor said, “and everyone we know, I guess. I think the reason people find it so sad is because it doesn't seem that sad for most of the story. And then you get to the end and this woman's life is totally ruined and for nothing. You feel real sympathy for her. And that's when you realize that the necklace was always kind of a red herring, distracting you from the actual twist.”

“Being?”

“It's not upsetting that the necklace is fake but that she is real.”

“Give it.” She took the book from him.

Nathaniel heard only the droning of engines. Eventually, the seat belt sign chimed off.

“I can't read with you watching me.”

“I'm not,” Victor protested. “I'm reading this magazine. Did you know Atlanta has a burgeoning sculpture scene?”

“I can't read with you purposely not watching me.”

“Fine.” He unfastened his seat belt again. “I'll go pee.”

“Don't loiter in the aisles.” She leaned into his seat. “You look like a maniac.”

He said something sarcastic and walked away. Nathaniel sensed the muscle movement of her flipping him off, the quick jutting of her arm followed by her laugh. Still, he kept his eyes closed, kept them closed even as a toddler behind them kicked Kezia's seat. Nathaniel could feel the thud of the kid's sneaker and it wasn't even his seat.

“Sorry,” came a woman's voice through the crack, presuming forgiveness, “he doesn't know he's doing it.”

“That's okay,” Kezia said, twisting back around and mumbling: “Yes, but you do.”

Nathaniel's lips curled. He really did love her. It was a relaxing love, a love in his blood that was nowhere and everywhere at once. It was comforting to be left alone with her. It was like they were back in the car. But in place of car seats, airplane seats. In place of cows, flight attendants. He visualized driving over the white roads that cut through Normandy—up and down, up and down, cross the roundabout, Kezia's hair dancing out the open window.

His body took the suggestion of sleep and drifted off.

“Pssst,” she said, sharply. “Open your eyes.”

“No.”

“Ouvrez vos yeux.”
Her voice pranced into his ear. “I know you're awake.”

“I'm not.”

“Yes, you are.” She poked his forearm with the book.

“I'm not. You're dreaming. You're having a dream in which I am pretending to be asleep and you are pretending to be awake.”

“I finished it.”

“I'm happy for you.”

If he stayed still, he had a shot of getting back to sleep. He could ride those roads all the way home, tires scattering blanched
gravel into the corners of his mind. He tightened his arms around his chest and breathed through his nose, air drifting deeply into his lungs.

“It's sad.” Her hand was warm on top of his, the only living point of contact in the cold, dry dark. “But it's not unbearably sad.”