The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty (32 page)

Jack says, “Isn’t it amazing that the person who made this sorry-looking box is the same genius who put Lily’s million pieces back together?”

My friends laugh—even Penelope, who seems to be enjoying the teasing.

“It is astounding,” Georgia says, reaching for the box.

Jack hands it to her.

Studying the box, opening and closing it, Georgia says, “Wow, Penelope, you’ve come a long way, baby. Though the metal clasp is nice. Have you thought of going into metalsmithing?”

Penelope chuckles. “I’ve told you before, the clasp is the one thing I can’t take credit for. I’m not the type to take credit for other people’s work. The clasp was made by a very talented girl who I always buy my clasps from.” The effort to speak seems to tire Penelope quickly.

Then, in all innocence, Georgia makes a comment without realizing its implication until the words are out of her mouth and can never be taken back: “It’s unusual, the design of this clasp. I like how it’s encrusted with a stone, kind of like the clasp on that mirror-knife . . .” She puts down the box.

As though wishing she could distract us and herself from what she just said, Georgia turns to the window and asks, “Is it supposed to rain today?”

But it’s too late. Lily picks up the box and looks at the clasp. Her gaze meets Penelope’s. She puts down the box, not saying anything, but she seems deeply affected.

I’m staring at Penelope. Could it be? Could it be that Penelope is the killer among us?

Jack rolls his magazine into a tight tube. He uses it to turn the box around as he would use a stick to inspect a vile carcass. Once the clasp is facing him and he’s had a good look at it, he rests his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands without glancing at Penelope.

“Yes, I’m the one who wanted to kill Strad,” Penelope says, blushing fiercely. “I’m the one who made the preparations, who sent the gifts with the hidden blades. I had those gifts custom-made by the same woman at school who makes the clasps for my boxes. It didn’t occur to me you’d recognize the clasp. I’m the one who arranged the phone calls to lure Strad away from the dinner. I did do all that. But when it came down to actually killing him, I couldn’t go through with it.”

Georgia immediately voices what I’m thinking but am too stunned to articulate: “You couldn’t go through with it?” she exclaims. “We made it
impossible
for anyone to kill Strad that evening. Don’t make it sound like you had any choice in the matter. You
did
kill the guy from the bar, after all. You were able to go through with
that
, when no one was stopping you.”

“No,” Penelope says, shaking her head, “I’m not the one who killed the man from the bar, even though I told Gabriel I was. What happened was, I saw in the paper that the guy had been murdered. I have to admit it made me happy. It seemed as though justice had swooped down and for once done something right in the world, performed this beautiful act, discreetly. My only quibble was: the wrong man had been murdered. If
only
it could have been Strad. The article made me realize I could kill him myself.”

“You’re crazy,” Jack says.

“Ever since I was kept in that coffin for three days, I’ve had a lust for vengeance. I never talked about it and never acted on it, but I can’t stand seeing bad guys get away with stuff, especially if a friend of mine is being hurt.”

“You’re psychologically broken, like one of your pots,” Jack says. “You try to make yourself appear whole and sane, but you’re not.”

Penelope goes on. “I knew that killing Strad would probably ruin my life, probably get me arrested, possibly even killed. But I felt I had nothing to lose, that I was a total failure, lacking any talent, so why not sacrifice myself by doing something noble and selfless? My own life was worthless—I’d be putting it to good use. I felt that if Strad were dead, Lily’s life would be saved, or at least her happiness would be saved, which, in my opinion, amounts to almost the same thing.”

“You’re a lunatic,” Jack says.

Teeth clenched, Georgia says, “Shut up, Jack. We know. Let her finish.”

Penelope continues: “I wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of killing someone, even though I was determined to try. I had an easier time accepting the idea if I put time parameters on it and pushed it far into the future, so I could get used to it. I decided that if Lily was still miserable over Strad in two years, I would attempt to kill him between the hours of eight p.m. and midnight, on one particular day, and I picked the day randomly, October 27th, which was a little over two years away.”

Lily says, “If it’s really true that you didn’t kill that guy from the bar, why would you tell Gabriel that you did?”

“I’m getting to that,” Penelope says, gathering her thoughts and her strength before continuing. “Gabriel kept talking of killing himself. I desperately wanted to tell you guys of his frame of mind so that you could help me help him, but he’d made me promise not to tell. I did all I could to be comforting, caring, everything one’s supposed to be. It made no difference. So finally, one day, out of frustration, I decided to reveal to him my plan to kill Strad. I hoped it would freak him out and make him want to stay alive to stop me. He didn’t believe me at all, of course, which was something I’d expected, so I showed him the article about the first man’s murder and claimed I was the one who’d killed him and that now I was going to do the same thing to Strad. That cinched it. He believed me then. But it wasn’t enough to make him want to live.”

We ask her a few more questions, but finally take pity on her. She looks exhausted. I fetch her a glass of water.

She says, “Barb, there’s something you need to know. Gabriel saw a psychiatrist who told him he was clinically depressed and that all signs pointed to the likelihood that it was biological, not due to external circumstances such as his unrequited love for you. But Gabriel refused to take antidepressants. He thought it was just his love for you that was ruining his life. The shrink told him that was very unlikely, that even if you had loved him back he probably would still have been depressed and would simply have assumed the reason for his depression was some other frustration in his life. I believe the shrink. I’m convinced Gabriel had a mood disorder and couldn’t have been happy for any length of time unless treated.”

I feel my throat clenching with emotion.

Georgia comes over and squeezes my shoulder affectionately. “See, you shouldn’t have thought his suicide was your fault,” she says.

Lily and Jack chime in, expressing their support of this view.

I nod, blinking back tears.

A FEW DAYS
later, Lily calls and asks if she can stop by because she wants to give me something.

When she arrives, she hands me a CD and says, “I hesitated for a long time . . . but finally I made this music for you. It’ll work only for you. It’s not something that most people should have. But in your case, maybe it’ll help.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“You seem unable to tolerate the blindness which we—as human beings—all have.” She pauses. “This music will enable you to know people’s true feelings. It’ll allow you to see into their hearts. Use it sparingly. Use it on Peter. Next time you’re alone with him, play this piece. Then you’ll know how he truly feels about you. And you’ll know what path to take.”

TWO DAYS LATER,
Peter and I are in my living room, sitting on my couch, chatting. I cherish his dwindling visits.

The time has come. I get up and go to my stereo.

My heart pounding, I open the unlabeled CD case Lily gave me. I put the disk in the player. I stare at the Play button, my finger hovering over it. I wonder what the music will sound like, and what it’ll reveal.

And that’s when something incredible happens: I realize I already know—not what it will sound like, but what it will reveal. For the first time, something in me unblocks and I feel it, I know it—his love for me and the nature of it. And I realize I’ve known it all along, on some deep level, but just hadn’t known how to recognize it. It took being on the verge of discovering the truth to perceive it was already in me.

“What are you doing?” Peter inquires.

I turn toward him.

“Are you going to play a CD?” he asks.

“I don’t think so.”

I go back to the couch and sit next to him, close. He’s following my every move and puts down his glass. I lean toward him and we kiss for the first time. He seems hardly to believe it. He responds passionately.

I give myself to him, abandoning all reservations, all doubts. Perhaps tomorrow, I will have doubts again. But not now. If tomorrow I doubt, I can press Play.

BUT THE NEXT
day, I don’t press Play. And the day after that, I don’t press Play.

ON THE FOURTH
day, I get a visitor. It’s Derek Pearce, Lily’s old, persistent schoolmate. He’s here because when he phoned me yesterday asking me yet again for her number, and I asked him yet again why he needed to reach her, he said, “Please don’t ask me to tell you.”

I replied, “Then please don’t ask me for her phone number.”

As I was about to hang up, he said, “Wait. Okay, I’ll tell you. But I can’t just blurt it out over the phone; it’s too awkward. Could I meet you to make my case in person? Five minutes is all I need. I’d be so grateful.”

I caved in.

When he arrives, I realize right away that I’ve seen him before. Two things make him memorable. He’s strikingly handsome. And he played in the same recital as Lily a couple of years ago and was in fact the performer whose music Strad had admired so much, describing it as “music that beautifies the world”—those fateful words that led Lily to her path of unimaginable musical powers.

When Derek tells me that his very important reason for wanting to see Lily is “I like her very much,” I’m annoyed to no end that this ridiculously good-looking guy, who I’m sure didn’t give her the time of day back in school, is now seeking her out.

Feeling protective of her, I’m getting ready to dismiss him.

“The fact is,” he adds, “I would like to ask her to have dinner with me, to see if we might hit it off.”

“Why now? Why didn’t you ask her to dinner when you were in school?”

“Because I was in a serious relationship then. It only just ended recently.”

“How convenient. If you date her now, you’ll have all the perks of her fame, which I’m sure will be very useful to you.”

He looks aghast. “The timing is a coincidence. If I’d been single back in school, I would have asked her to dinner then. Even though I hardly knew her, I found her extremely appealing. I feel like an idiot explaining myself to you.” He huffs and looks down at the floor. “I always had it in the back of my mind that if I was ever single again, she was the one person I would want to get to know better.”

I’ve been far too disenchanted too many times to believe a word he’s saying. So I reply, “I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to give her number to anyone, including old friends. Strict instructions. No exceptions.”

After a moment of stunned silence, he nods sadly and takes out a piece of paper on which he scribbles his name and phone number. He puts it on my ottoman cube and says, “Please give her this and tell her I’d be very happy to hear from her if she wants to call me.”

“I sure will!” I snap. “But don’t hold your breath. I’ve already given her your number all those other times you’ve given it to me, and she’s not calling anyone.”

“Okay, I understand.” He thanks me for the meeting and heads for the door.

As he’s about to leave, I say, “Wait.”

He turns around.

I go to my stereo and press Play—not so much to test Derek as to witness his worthlessness. I need to be thorough for Lily’s sake and for my own peace of mind.

As soon as the music starts, I blink, taken aback. Like a strong gust of wind from a suddenly opened door, the truth hurls itself at me. I see such honesty and power in his soul, such genuine love for Lily in his heart, I can hardly believe it. His feelings for her are not only real, they are old, just as he claimed. They are not yet very deep, because he hardly knows her, but they are pure.

“That’s a beautiful piece,” he says. “I’ve never heard it before, though it’s obviously by Lily. Her music is unmistakable. I could listen to it all the time.”

I nod, too moved to speak. Finally, I manage to say, “Her number. Are you ready?”

He flips open his notebook, surprised, and I give him Lily’s number.

“Thank you so much,” he says. “I really appreciate it.”

I nod.

He heads back to the door.

Suddenly, I know what will happen. His beauty will blind Lily, just as it blinded me when he first arrived a few minutes ago. She’ll see nothing else about him—not his decency, not his gentleness, not his goodness. She’ll assume his interest in her can only be corrupt. And she’ll dismiss him without giving him a chance.

“Wait,” I say again, softly.

He turns and looks at me.

“When you call her, don’t tell her who you are. Just say I gave you her number.”

He doesn’t respond.

I go to the far end of my living room. “Let me also give you this.” I unhook from the wall my most darkly beautiful, mysterious mask.

I bring it to him. “Wear it when you’re with her. At least the first few times.”

He takes the mask and looks at it, perplexed. “Why don’t you want her to see me?”

I smile. “On the contrary. I do.”

THE END

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my brilliant editor, Jill Bialosky, and my extraordinary agent, Melanie Jackson, for their advice, support, and enthusiasm.

For their encouragement, thoughtfulness, and, in some cases, help with special expertise, I am grateful to Sondra Peterson, Daniel Filipacchi, Katherine J. Chen, Rebecca Schultz, Martine Bellen, Allegra Huston, Louise Brockett, Angie Shih, Jennifer Cohen, Shelley Griffin, Kathleen Patrick Bosman, Bruce Champagne, Régis Pagniez, the team at Norton, and, everlastingly, to Richard Hine.

ALSO BY AMANDA FILIPACCHI

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