The Towering Sky

“Don’t forget swimsuits,” Calliope reminded her mom, trying to be helpful.

“I won’t need a swimsuit, sweetie.”

“There isn’t even a hot tub in the Gobi Desert?”

“It’s northern Mongolia,” Elise corrected. “To visit the woolly mammoth reculturation center. We’ll be volunteering on the steppe, helping dig up the permafrost that obstructs their grazing sites.”

God, her poor mom had given that speech so many times, she practically believed her own con. “Sorry you couldn’t convince Nadav to take you to Bali, or the Maldives.” If her mom was going to actually be married to this guy, at least she should get a beach vacation out of it.

“Oh, I don’t mind. And we’re going to Japan for a few days afterward to relax.”

“Japan, to relax? You hate it there!”

“Japan can be relaxing. All those zen gardens and tea ceremonies.”

Calliope was surprised how hurt she felt at the idea of her mom having tea without her. “You made us leave Japan early the one time we went,” she reminded Elise. “You said it was loud and chaotic, and impossible to navigate unless you speak Japanese.”

“Nadav speaks Japanese.”

It was the weirdest thing, but her mom actually seemed excited about this honeymoon. Maybe she was just ready to get away from all the madness of the wedding, and her ice queen of a mother-in-law. Calliope didn’t blame her.

She felt guilty all over again for the sacrifice she had asked her mom to make: agreeing to stay here in New York, to trade their nomadic existence for a settled family life. Surely by now Elise was getting restless. Wasn’t she counting down the days till it was all over?

Wasn’t Calliope?

She thought briefly, longingly, of Brice—but then she remembered Livya, and that ominous threat she’d made at the wedding. There was no way Calliope would ever really get to date Brice, not with her new stepsister breathing down her neck.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself, trying not to feel disappointed. Her flirtation with Brice had been just that—a flirtation. It hadn’t meant anything.

Calliope stood up and wandered over to the marble-topped dresser where her mom was sorting a stack of ivory pajamas. She cleared her throat. “Mom, I don’t know if this is worth it anymore.”

“What do you mean, sweetie?”

“It’s my fault that we’re here. I’m the one who wanted to stay and actually live somewhere for once, play out this con for another year. But it’s getting ridiculous. New York isn’t worth this. Nowhere is worth this. We aren’t even having any fun here—we’re stuck pretending to be prim and proper and boring, just to maintain your meaningless relationship with Nadav!”

“It isn’t meaningless,” Elise said quietly, though Calliope didn’t hear her at first.

“You shouldn’t have to suffer through that awful honeymoon. Why don’t we just leave? Besides, it’s getting too risky. I think Livya—”

Elise took Calliope’s hands in hers. “I don’t want to leave,” she said quietly.

Calliope blinked, stunned, as the truth hurtled inescapably toward her. It couldn’t be.

“Surely you don’t— I mean—” she stammered.

“I love him.”

Calliope thought back to all her mom’s girlish exclamations of delight, the starry-eyed way she’d looked at Nadav during the wedding. Had those smiles been real? “After all the times you told me never to let myself care about a mark?”

Her voice had risen too loud, but Elise didn’t chide her. “I love Nadav,” she stated simply. “This marriage is real. It isn’t just a con to me, not anymore.”

This is just a job, her mom used to say, in clipped, unsentimental tones. It’s temporary and unpredictable. Caring about people will only hurt you. Don’t let it happen. And now Elise, arguably the world’s greatest con artist, was violating her own cardinal rule—and for who? A nerdy cybernetics engineer.

Calliope stared wonderingly at her mom, suddenly realizing just how drastically Elise had changed.

Of course, Elise had changed constantly over the years. As they moved from place to place, playing out their various cons, she’d been forced to keep altering her appearance: widening and then re-thinning her nose, changing her hair and eye color, tweaking the curve of her chin. She was always beautiful, yet each time her mom emerged from surgery with a new face and new irises, Calliope had to get used to her all over again.

This was completely different. This time, Elise had actually become someone new.

“How . . . ? I mean when . . . ?”

Elise sank down onto the bench with a sigh, pulling Calliope to sit next to her. “I don’t know,” she confessed. She looked suddenly girlish and innocent, the light gleaming on her pearl stud earrings. “Maybe it’s that I’ve been with him for so long, much longer than I’ve been with anyone else. But I really care about him.”

“Even though he thinks you’re a goody-goody philanthropist?”

“Yes, even though he thinks I’m a goody-goody philanthropist,” Elise repeated, in such a matter-of-fact tone that Calliope couldn’t help laughing. She laughed at the sheer unlikely madness of it all, and after a moment Elise was laughing too.