Genuine Fraud(26)

Paolo gave up hunting for the key. His hair was soaked. “The windows are alarmed,” he said. “I think it’s hopeless.”

“What should we do?”

“We better go in the gazebo and kiss for a while,” said Paolo.





The rain didn’t let up.

They drove in damp clothes toward London and stopped at a pub to eat fried food.

Paolo pulled the car up to Jule’s building. He didn’t kiss her but reached his hand out to hold hers. “I like you,” he said. “I thought—I guess I made that clear already? But I thought I should say it.”

Jule liked him back. She liked herself with him.

But she wasn’t herself with him. She didn’t know what it was, or even who it was, that Paolo liked.

Could be Immie. Could be Jule.

She wasn’t sure where to draw the line between them anymore. Jule smelled of jasmine like Imogen, Jule spoke like Imogen, Jule loved the books Immie loved. Those things were true. Jule was an orphan like Immie, a self-created person, a person with a mysterious past. So much of Imogen was in Jule, she felt, and so much of Jule was in Imogen.

But Paolo thought Patti and Gil were her parents. He thought she’d been to college with poor dead Brooke Lannon. He thought she was Jewish and rich and owned a London flat. Those lies were part of what he liked. It was impossible to tell him the truth, and even if she did, he’d hate her for the lie.

“I can’t see you,” she told him.

“What?”

“I can’t see you. Like this. At all.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“Is there someone else? That you’re going out with? I could take a number or get in line or something.”

“No. Yes. No.”

“Which is it? Can I change your mind?”

“I’m not available.” She could tell him she had someone else, but she didn’t want to lie to him anymore.

“Why not?”

She opened the car door. “I have no heart.”

“Wait.”

“No.”

“Please wait.”

“I have to go.”

“Did you have a bad time? I mean, aside from the rain, no Stonehenge, no country house, no sheep? Aside from the fact that it was a day of disaster upon disaster?”

Jule wanted to stay in the car. To touch his lips with her fingertips and to relax into being Immie and to let the lies build up on each other.

But it would not do.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Paolo,” she snapped. She pushed open the car door and stepped into the downpour.





A couple of weeks went by. Jule kept her eyebrows plucked thin. She bought clothes and more clothes, lovely things with fat price tags. She bought cookbooks for the flat’s kitchen, though she never used them. She went to the ballet, to the opera, to the theater. She saw all the things, historic sites and museums and famous buildings. She bought antiques on Portobello Road.

Late one night, Forrest showed up at the flat. He was supposed to be in America.

Jule forced down panic as she looked through the peephole. She wanted to open the window and climb the drainpipe to the roof, leap onto the next building, and, frankly, just not be home. She wanted to change her eyebrows and her hair and her makeup and— He rang the buzzer a second time. Jule settled on taking off her rings and putting on joggers and a T-shirt instead of the maxi dress she’d been wearing. She stood before the door and reminded herself that she had always known Forrest might show up. It was Immie’s flat. She had a strategy. She could handle him. She unlocked the door.

“Forrest. What a great surprise.”

“Jule.”

“You look tired. Are you okay? Come in.”

He was holding a weekender bag. She took it from him and brought it into the flat.

“I just got off a plane,” said Forrest, rubbing his jaw and squinting through his glasses.

“Did you take a cab from Heathrow?”

“Yes.” He eyed her coldly. “Why are you here? In Imogen’s apartment?”

“I’m staying here for a bit. She gave me her keys.”

“Where is she? I want to see her.”

“She didn’t come back last night. How did you find the flat?”

“Mrs. Sokoloff gave me the address.” Forrest looked down at the floor, awkward. “It was a long flight. Could I have a glass of water?”

Jule led the way into the kitchen. She gave him water from the tap with no ice. She had lemons in a bowl on the counter, because they fit her idea of how the flat should look, but inside the cupboards and the fridge, there was nothing Imogen would have stocked. Jule ate saltines and sugary peanut butter, packets of salami and chocolate bars. She hoped Forrest wouldn’t ask for food.

“Where is Immie, again?” he asked.

“I told you, she isn’t here.”

“But, Jule.” He grabbed her arm, and for a moment she was afraid of him, afraid of his hard hands pressing the fabric of her shirt, thin and weak as he was. “Where is she instead of here?” He spoke very slowly. She hated the feel of his body close to hers.

“Don’t you ever fucking touch me,” she told him. “Ever. You understand?”