The Bona Fide Fraud - Chapter 21 I Miss You

She left the lobby promptly and headed back into the theater. The double doors shut behind her. There weren’t many audience members in there. Just ushers and a couple of elderly folk who hadn’t wanted to leave their seats.

She had to get out as quickly as possible, without seeing Paolo. She grabbed her coat. She wouldn’t wait for Chance.

Was there a side exit somewhere?

She was running up the aisle with her jacket over her armand there he was. Standing in front of her. She stopped. There was no getting away from him now.

Paolo waved his bag of Swedish Fish. “Willow!” He ran the last length of the aisle and kissed her cheek. Gemma caught the whiff of sugar on his breath. “I am crazy glad to see you.”

“Hello,” she said coldly. “I thought you were in Thailand.”

“Plans got delayed,” Paolo said. “We pushed everything back.” He stepped back as if to admire her. “You’ve got to be the prettiest girl in London. Yowza.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. Woman, not girl. Sorry. Are people following you around, like with their tongues hanging out? How did you get prettier since I last saw you? It’s terrifying. I’m talking too much because I’m nervous.”

Gemma felt her skin warm.

“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll buy you tea. Or a coffee. Whatever you want. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” She didn’t mean to say it. The words came out and they were true.

Paolo grabbed her hand, touching only her fingers. He had always been confident like that. Even though she’d rejected him, he could tell right away that she hadn’t meant it. He was supremely gentle and yet sure of himself at the same time. He touched her like the two of them were lucky to be touching each other; like he knew she didn’t very often let anyone touch her. Fingertip to fingertip, he led Gemma back to the lobby.

“I only didn’t call because you told me not to call,” Paolo said, letting go of her hand as they stepped into line for tea. “I want to call you all the time. Every day. I stare at my phone and then I don’t call because I don’t want to be creepy. I’m so glad I ran into you. God, you’re pretty.”

Gemma liked how his T-shirt lay against his collarbone, and the way his wrists moved against the fabric of his jacket. He bit his lower lip when he was worried. His face curved softly against the black of his eyelashes. She wanted to see him first thing in the morning. She felt like if she could just see Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone first thing in the morning, everything would be okay.

“You still don’t want to go home to New York?” he asked.

“I don’t want to go home, ever,” said Gemma. Like so many things she found herself saying to him, it was absolutely true. Her eyes filled.

“I don’t want to go home, either,” he said. Paolo’s father was a real estate mogul who had been indicted for insider trading some months ago. It had been all over the news. “My mom left my dad when she found out what he’d been doing. Now shes living with her sister and commuting to work from New Jersey. Things are all mangled with the money and there are divorce lawyers and criminal lawyers and mediators. Ugh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s just ugly. My dad’s brother is being a giant racist about the divorce. You wouldn’t believe what’s come out of his mouth. And so my mother is full of venom, frankly. She has a right to be, but it’s hellish to even talk to her on the phone. I don’t think there’s anything, really, to go back to.”

“What will you do?”

“Travel around some more. My friend will be ready to go in another couple weeks, and then we’ll backpack through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, same plan as before. Then to Hong Kong, and we’ll go see my grandmother in the Philippines.” He took Gemma’s hand again. He ran his finger softly across her palm. “You’re not wearing your rings.” Her nails were painted with pale pink polish.

“Just the one.” Gemma showed him her other hand, which had the jade viper on it. “The others all belonged to this friend of mine. I was only borrowing them.”

“I thought they were yours.”

“No. Yes. No.” Gemma sighed.

“Which is it?”

“My friend killed herself not that long ago. We argued and she died angry at me.” Gemma was telling the truth, and she was lying. Being with Paolo muddled her thinking. She knew she shouldn’t talk to him anymore. She could feel the stories she told herself and the stories she told others shifting around, overlapping, changing shades. She couldn’t tell, tonight, what the names of the stories were, what she meant and what she didn’t.

Paolo squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”

Gemma blurted: “Tell me, do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?”

“What?”

“Do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?”

“You mean, will your friend go to hell because she killed herself?”

“No.” That wasn’t what Gemma meant at all. “I mean, do our worst actions define us when we’re alive? Or do you think human beings are better than the very worst things we have ever done?”

Paolo thought. “Well, take Leontes in The Winter’s Tale. He tried to poison his friend, he threw his own wife in prison, and he abandoned his baby in the wilderness. So he’s the absolute worst. Right?”

“Right.”

“But in the endhave you seen it before tonight?”

“No.”

“At the end, he’s sorry. He’s just really, really sorry about everything, and that’s enough. Everyone forgives him. Shakespeare lets Leontes be redeemed even though he did all that evil stuff.”

Gemma wanted to tell Paolo everything.

She wanted to reveal her past to him in its ugliness and beauty, its courage and complexity. She would be redeemed.

She could not speak.

“Ohhh,” said Paolo, drawing out the word. “We’re not talking about the play, are we?”

Gemma shook her head.

“I’m not angry with you, Willow,” said Paolo. “I am crazy about you.” He reached out and touched her cheek. Then he ran the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “I’m sure your friend isn’t still angry with you, either, whatever happened when she was alive. You’re a top-notch, excellent person. I can tell.”

They had reached the front of the line. “Two cups of tea,” Gemma said to the lady at the counter. Her eyes leaked even though she was not crying. She had to stop being emotional.

“This seems like a dinner conversation,” said Paolo. He paid for the tea. “Do you want to get dinner after the play? Or bagels? I know a pub that serves real New York bagels.”

Gemma knew she should say no, but she nodded.

“Bagels, good. So for now, let’s talk about cheerful things,” said Paolo. They brought their drinks in paper cups over to a stand with milk and coffee spoons. “I take two sugars and a giant glug of cream. How do you drink it?”

“With lemon,” Gemma said. “I need like four slices of lemon for tea.”

“Okay, cheerful, distracting things,” Paolo said as they walked to a table. “Shall I talk about myself?”

“I don’t think anyone could stop you.”

He laughed. “When I was eight, I broke my ankle jumping off the roof of my uncle’s car. I had a dog named Twister and a hamster named St. George. I wanted to be a detective when I was a boy. I made myself sick from eating too many cherries once. And I haven’t been out with anyone since you told me not to call you.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Liar.”

“Not one single woman. I’m here tonight with Artie Thatcher.”

“The friend of your dad’s?”

“The one I’m staying with. He said I hadn’t seen London if I hadn’t seen the RSC. And you?”

Gemma was brought back to reality.

She was here with Chance.

It had been stupid, unthinkably stupid, to let Paolo derail her.

She had been leaving the theater. But then he’d brushed her cheek with his lips. He had touched her fingers. He noticed her hands and he’d said God, she was pretty. He’d said he wanted to call her every day.

Gemma had missed Paolo very much.

But Chance was here.

They couldn’t meet. Paolo must absolutely not see Chance.

“Listen, I have to”

Chance appeared at her elbow. He was languid and slouching. “You found a friend,” he said to Gemma. He said it as if speaking to a puppy.

They had to leave immediately. Gemma stood up. “I’m not feeling well,” she said. “I got a head rush. I’m nauseated. Can you take me home?” She grabbed Chance’s wrist and pulled him toward the lobby doors.

“You were fine a minute ago,” he said, trailing behind her.

“Great to see you,” she called to Paolo. “Goodbye.”

She had intended Paolo to stay rooted in his seat, but he got up and followed Gemma and Chance to the door. “I’m Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone,” he said, smiling at Chance as they walked. “I’m a friend of Willow’s.”

“We have to go,” Gemma said.

“Chance Smith-Martin,” Chance responded. “You’ve heard, then?”

Let’s go,” said Gemma. “Now.”

“Heard what?” said Paolo. He kept pace as Gemma pulled Chance outside.

“Sorry, sorry,” Gemma said. “Something is wrong with me. Get a taxi. Please.”

They were outside now, in heavy rain. The Barbican Centre had long walkways leading to the street. Gemma pulled Chance along the pavement.

Paolo stopped under the shelter of the building, unwilling to get wet.

Gemma flagged a black taxi. Got in. Gave the address of the flat in St. John’s Wood.

Then she took a deep breath and settled her mind. She decided what to tell Chance.

“I left my jacket on my seat,” he complained. “Are you sick?”

“No, not really.”

“Then what was it? Why are we going home?”

“That guy has been bothering me.”

“Paolo?”

“Yes. He calls me all the time. Like, many times a day. Texts. Emails. I think he’s following me.”

“You have weird relationships.”

“It’s not a relationship. He doesn’t take no for an answer. Thats why I had to get away.”

“Paolo something Bellstone, right?” said Chance. “That was his name?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he related to Stuart Bellstone?”

“I don’t know.”

“But was that the last name? Bellstone?” Chance had his phone out. “On Wikipedia it saysyeah, the son of Stuart Bellstone, the D and G trading scandal, blah, blah, his son is Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone.”

“I guess so,” said Gemma. “I think about him as little as I possibly can.”

“Bellstone, that’s funny,” said Chance. “Did Willow meet him?”

“Yes. No.” She was flustered.

“Which is it?”

“Their families know each other. We ran into him when we first got to London.”

“And now he’s stalking you?”

“Yes.”

“And it never occurred to you that this stalker Bellstone might be worth mentioning to the police in terms of investigating Immie’s disappearance?”

“He has nothing to do with anything.”

“He might. There are a lot of things that dont add up.”

“Will killed herself and there’s nothing more to it,” snapped Gemma. “She was depressed and she didn’t love you anymore and she didn’t love me enough to stay alive, either. Stop acting like there’s anything else that could have happened.”

Chance bit his lip and they rode in silence. After a minute or two, Gemma looked over and saw that he was crying.