Genuine Fraud(25)

“Are you inviting me?”

“Yes! There will be separate bedrooms. Available.”

He perched himself on the edge of her kitchen chair, as if unsure of his welcome. As if maybe he’d been too forward.

“You’re nervous right now,” she said, stalling for time.

She wanted to say yes. She knew she shouldn’t.

“Yeah, I’m very nervous.”

“Why?”

Paolo thought for a moment. “The stakes are higher now. It matters to me what your answer is.” He stood up slowly and kissed the side of her neck. She leaned into him, and he was shaking a little. She kissed his soft earlobe and then his lips, standing on tiptoe there in the kitchen.

“Is that a yes?” he whispered.

Jule knew she shouldn’t go.

It was the worst idea. She had left this possibility behind long ago. Love was what you gave up when you became—whatever she was now. Larger than life. Dangerous. She had taken risks and reinvented herself.

Now this boy was in her kitchen, trembling when he kissed her, holding a bag of junk food and fizzy water. Talking nonsense about sheep.

Jule crossed to the other side of the room and washed her hands in the sink. She felt as if the universe was offering her something beautiful and special. It wouldn’t come around again with another such offer.

Paolo walked over and put his hand on her shoulder, very, very gently, as if asking permission. As if in awe that he was allowed to touch her.

And Jule turned around and told him yes.





Stonehenge was closed.

And it was raining.

You couldn’t get close to the actual stones unless you’d bought tickets ahead of time. Jule and Paolo could see some big rocks in the distance as they drove up, but from the visitors’ center, nothing.

“I promised you ancient mystery, and now it’s nothing but a parking lot,” said Paolo, half sad and half joking, as they got back in the car. “I should have looked it up.”

“That’s all right.”

“I do know how to work the Internet.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m more excited about the sheep anyway.”

He smiled. “Are you really?”

“Sure. Can you guarantee sheep?”

“Are you serious? Because I don’t think I can actually guarantee sheep, and I don’t want to let you down again.”

“No. I don’t care about sheep at all.”

Paolo shook his head. “I should have known. Sheep are not Stonehenge. We have to face that. Even the very best sheep are never going to be Stonehenge.”

“Let’s eat the Swedish Fish,” she said, to cheer him up.

“Perfect,” said Paolo. “That is a perfect plan.”





The house wasn’t a house at all. It was a mansion. A great house, built in the nineteenth century. It had grounds and a gated entryway. Paolo had a code for the gate. He punched it in and drove along a curving driveway.

The walls were brick and covered with ivy. On one side, there was a sloping garden of rosebushes and stone benches, ending at a round gazebo by the edge of a stream.

Paolo fumbled in his pockets. “I have the keys in here somewhere.”

It was raining hard now. They stood in the doorway, holding their bags.

“Damn, where are they?” Paolo patted his jacket, his pants, his jacket again. “Keys, keys.” He looked in the tote bag. Looked in his backpack. Ran out and looked in the car.

He sat down in the doorway, under cover from the rain, and pulled everything out of all his pockets. Then everything out of the tote bag. And everything out of the backpack.

“You don’t have the keys,” Jule said.

“I don’t have the keys.”

He was a con artist, a hustler. He wasn’t Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone at all. What proof had Jule seen? No ID, no online photos. Just what he told her, his manner, his knowledge of Imogen’s family. “Are you really friends with these people?” she asked, making her voice light.

“It’s my friend Nigel’s family’s country house. He had me here in the summer as a guest, and no one is using it, and—I knew the gate code, didn’t I?”

“I’m not actually doubting you,” she lied.

“We can go around the back and see if the kitchen door is open. There’s a kitchen garden, from—from whenever in history they had kitchen gardens,” said Paolo. “I think the technical term is ye olden days.”

They pulled their jackets over their heads and ran through the rain, stepping in puddles and laughing.

Paolo jiggled the kitchen door. It was locked. He wandered around, looking under rocks for a spare key, while Jule huddled under the umbrella.

She pulled out her phone and searched his name, looking for images.

Phew. He was definitely Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone. There were photographs of him at charity fund-raisers, standing next to his parents, wearing no tie at an event where clearly men were supposed to wear ties. Pictures of him with other guys on a soccer field. A high school graduation photo that showed a mouth full of braces and a bad haircut, posted by a grandmother who had blogged a total of three times.

Jule was glad he was Paolo and not some hustler. She liked what a good person he was. It was better that he was genuine because she could believe in him. But there was so much of Paolo that Jule would never know. So much history he’d never get to tell her.