WHEN CALLIOPE RETURNED to the Mizrahis’ apartment, she was greeted by a heavy and decidedly menacing silence.
She started hesitantly down the hallway, her footfalls vanishing into the thick carpet. Her reflection danced in the ornate mirror to her left, wearing the jeans and long-sleeved shirt she’d been wearing when she left, hours ago; she’d stopped back at Altitude to change out of her incriminating gown, which she’d left hanging in a locker there. She couldn’t help thinking that she seemed unnaturally pale.
Nadav was seated in a high-backed chair in the living room, as if he were a judge about to deliver some kind of final sentence. He looked up at her arrival, but didn’t speak.
Where was Elise? Maybe she was hiding from the confrontation, Calliope thought; maybe she figured that it was easier to swoop in later, to help advocate on Calliope’s behalf.
Or maybe she’d decided that it was better for her marriage if she didn’t weigh in on what her daughter had done.
“There you are, Calliope,” Livya said smugly, turning the corner from her bedroom. She walked with small, mincing steps like a snail leaving a glistening trail of slime behind her. “We’ve all been so worried about you.”
“I’m sorry,” Calliope began. “I never—”
“You were at the inauguration ball, weren’t you?” Nadav asked, and his words fell like sharp-edged stones into the screaming quiet.
It went against all Calliope’s instincts to tell the truth in situations like this, but she also knew better than to tell a blatant lie when she’d been cornered.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I was at the inauguration ball. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about where I was going, but I was afraid that you would say no, and I had a good reason for wanting to go. The mayor’s new public health team was there, and I’ve been trying to petition them about the hospital’s emergency response teams—they don’t have adequate equipment. . . .” Calliope was pulling this story out of thin air, but she had to admit it wasn’t half bad; she was still a decent liar under pressure. “I went to the inauguration ball because it was the only way I could think of to actually talk with them face-to-face.”
Livya rolled her eyes. “Cut the crap,” she declared, and Calliope was gratified by the shock on Nadav’s features. Neither of them had ever heard Livya curse before. She threw a great deal of enthusiasm into it, for someone so ostensibly sweet-tempered. “Why don’t you tell the truth about where you were tonight? Or rather, who you were with?”
“I don’t . . .” Someone must have told Livya, she realized with a sinking feeling. That room had been packed with hundreds of people, and any one of them could have casually mentioned the fact that Livya’s stepsister was there with the older Anderton brother.
“She was out with Brice Anderton,” Livya announced, turning triumphantly to her father.
Nadav seemed to find his voice again. “Calliope. You went out with Brice, even after I told Livya to warn you about him? Why would you do that?” He sounded more hurt than angry.
Calliope blinked, a little startled that Nadav had been the one behind Livya’s ominous words at the wedding. “Because I like Brice. He isn’t a terrible person. Please don’t judge him based on his reputation.”
“I just wanted you to be careful,” Nadav said reasonably. “An older, more experienced boy like him, he might take advantage—”
“But, Daddy, Calliope is plenty experienced. If anyone was taking advantage, it was her,” Livya cut in, and turned sweetly to Calliope. “You’re sleeping with Brice because he’s rich, right? But then, you learned from the best. Like mother, like daughter—”
“I’m not sleeping with him—” Calliope interjected, her hands balling into fists at her sides; but Livya just talked louder, almost shouting to be heard over her.
“I always suspected that you were a liar, and now I have proof! You’re a lying gold digger, and I bet your mom is too!”
“What are you talking about?” Calliope asked, even as her stomach somersaulted in fear. Where was her mom?
Livya smirked. “Calliope, I was so inspired by your devotion to the hospital that I decided to make a donation in your honor, to the children’s wing.”
Calliope felt a cold dread gathering in her stomach.
“But when I called the hospital to make a donation, they had no idea who you were.” Livya feigned confusion. “They had no record of all your countless volunteer hours.”
Nadav frowned. Light from the windows streamed in great thick bars over the curlicues of the carpet, over the salt and pepper of his hair. “Calliope,” he said heavily. “All those times you said you were going to the hospital, where were you really going?”
Livya cut in. “To go meet up with Brice! She’s been putting on an act this whole time, don’t you see? She doesn’t care about philanthropy at all!” She rounded on Calliope. “I always thought there was something fishy about you. And it turns out I was right.”
Calliope didn’t argue, because for once, she couldn’t think of a lie to tell.
“What’s going on out here?” Elise glided calmly into the living room. She was wearing a simple white shirt with lace detail at the throat, making her look innocent and girlish. Calliope felt a measure of relief at the sight.
If anyone could fix this situation, it was her mother. There had never been a person alive, man or woman, that Elise couldn’t calm down. She was the world’s greatest living expert on bending people to her will.
“Elise,” Nadav said, and Calliope knew what was coming: He would punish Calliope, deprive her of whatever remaining freedoms she had, and she would never see Brice again. Fine, she could take it; she would take any abuse right now to spare her mom. Calliope squared her shoulders and lifted her head, ready to plead for forgiveness.
She never expected what Nadav said next.
“Have you been lying to me?” He was looking not at Calliope, but at her mom.
Elise hesitated—only for an instant, but a crucial one, because in that instant her face revealed the truth. “What do you mean?”
“Were you honest with me about who you are? About your past? Or were you telling me what you thought I wanted to hear?”
Calliope saw her mom teeter uncertainly on the edge between a lie and the truth. She landed on the truth.
“I—I may have exaggerated our charity work,” she stammered. “We didn’t travel the world as roving philanthropists.”
“So you moved here directly from London?” Nadav asked.
Elise was trembling. “We did travel the world for a few years. We just weren’t volunteering.”
“What were you doing, then? How were you supporting yourselves?”
Elise looked stricken. What they had been doing was shopping, eating at expensive restaurants, staying at the very top hotels, treating themselves to every creature comfort they could get their hands on. And they funded all of it by tricking people out of their money.
“We were seeing the world,” Calliope explained. “My mom showed me all the historical and cultural sights, taught me to appreciate diversity.”
Nadav ignored her. His eyes were still on Elise. “You made up all those years of volunteer work? Why? Was it just about the money?”
“Of course not!” Elise stepped forward to put a hand on Nadav’s arm. He recoiled as if scorched.
“You’re telling me you saw me at that party and lied about who you were because of my wit and personality? My money had nothing to do with it?”
Elise flushed. “Okay. I would be lying if I said the money wasn’t part of it—”
“Part of it?” he said, caustically repeating her words.
“That was only at the beginning! Everything is different now! I love you,” she persisted, “so much. I had no idea that I could ever love someone this much.”
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say?” Nadav’s voice was very cold and deliberate, and it was far more terrifying than if he had shouted. “You just admitted that you were lying to me about who you are.”
“I wanted to be someone you might fall in love with! Someone worthy of your love! I was afraid that you wouldn’t love the real me. Don’t you see?” Elise cried out. “Your love has actually made me better. I’m becoming that person, the woman you fell in love with. I’m right here.”
Nadav stared at Elise in blank horror. He stared at her like a man broken: as if he wanted to strip away her charm and her beauty, layer by layer, so he might finally truly understand her, the way that he once believed he did.
“You lied to me. Every morning and every night, with every breath, with every moment of laughter. It was all a lie.”
“No!” Elise’s voice was ragged with desperation. “It wasn’t a lie! I love you, and I know that you love me!”
“How can I love you when you’re a complete stranger?” Nadav said heavily. “I invited you to share my life, and yet I feel like I’m meeting you for the first time.”
Elise’s eyes were wide and round with anguish. “Please. I’m asking for your forgiveness, and I’m asking for another chance.”
Livya turned around to smile at Calliope, an empty, bitter smile that failed to reach her eyes. Calliope swallowed. She and her mom were as still as actresses frozen onstage before the lights go out.
Elise held out her hands, palms up, in a wordless gesture of appeal. “I love you,” she whispered. “Please, I’ll tell you the truth—we can start over—only please don’t say good-bye, not like this, not after everything we’ve shared.”
Nadav was pointedly looking away. “We’re broken,” he said quietly. “My trust is broken. I have no desire to sit here picking up the fragments and try to put them together again when we both know that it will never be the way it was.”
Elise’s frame shook with silent sobs. She’d screwed her eyes shut, as if by closing her eyes she might make this whole thing go away. Calliope couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mom cry—really cry, not the fake tears she could summon on command.
“I’ll leave the apartment to let you pack. You have twenty-four hours,” Nadav announced. “Do not be here when I return. Either of you.”
“Nadav,” Elise pleaded, but his face seemed to have been carved from stone.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. Have you even stopped to think what kind of example you are setting for your daughter, marrying me for my money, lying about who you are?” He gave a defeated sigh. “Livya, let’s go.”
“With pleasure.” Her eyes glinted with malice.
For a moment Calliope thought Elise was going to throw her arms around Nadav, beg him to change his mind. Instead she twisted her wedding ring off her finger and held it out toward him.
The flash of pain in his eyes struck the breath from Calliope’s chest. “That was a gift. It’s yours,” he told her, and then his expression became hard and closed-off again, and he and Livya were gone.
Calliope felt the aftershocks of what had just happened racing through her body. She couldn’t really breathe. “Mom . . .” she tried, at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry.”
Elise reached up to wipe at her eyes, smearing makeup down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetie. This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s completely my fault! You told me not to go out with Brice, and I did it anyway. If I had just listened to you, none of this would have happened.”
“No, Nadav was right. I’m the adult, and I need to take responsibility for the life I’ve built for us. This day would have come sooner or later. I just always hoped it would be later.” Elise sighed. “It’s time for us to go, sweetie.”
They were leaving New York. And this time, Calliope knew, they wouldn’t be coming back.