She shakes her head. "It's still a small chance. They've had weeks to come forward. I'm telling you they don't know."
"I love your optimism and your confidence, but we have to tell her," says Jeanette.She looks around the group. "Don't we?"
"I agree," says Lutek. "We have to tell her."
Elly says, "But if we tell her that makes her part of our fraud. She doesn't know now. That probably keeps her safe if it all goes to shit."
Each of us silently appreciates how big a deal this is and how unpredictable the outcome could be. Or so I presume. Everyone's eyes have the unfocused look of imagining best and worst-case scenarios.
Sweat prickles in my armpits.
"You're going to do it, right?" asks Lutek, looking at me.
No. Yes. Every cell in my body is filled with a desperate resistance to doing it. "I just –“
"I sure as fuck aren't," says Elly. "I'm too young to take on that kind of responsibility and handle it with the kind of delicacy and maturity it needs."
"No," agrees Lutek.
Jeanette says, "We do it – and when I say 'we', I mean Ed does it – as soon as she comes in. Rip it off like a plaster. Brutal but swift. It's the kindest way."
"I'll do it," says Carlos. "I've been both brutal and swift many a time in my career. When I exposed Margaret Thatcher as a double agent for the KGB, I only had a split second to decide to put her down. I didn't hesitate. She had her finger hovering over the deploy button for the entire fleet of British nuclear warheads."
"Do we have nuclear weapons?" asks Lutek.
"Carlos, my love," says Jeanette. "Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke at a ripe old age."
"Sheryl Jonesdied of a stroke at a ripe old age."
"Who's Sheryl Jones?" asks Elly.
"A sheep farmer's wife from somewhere near Llanidloes in Wales. Spitting image. Proved a very effective doppelganger once she wrapped her tongue around the accent."
After a brief silence, Jeanette laughs and places a kiss on both of the old man's liver spotted cheeks. "You are a wonder. Thank you for being you."
"If it's all the same, Carlos, I think it's...best coming from me," I say with all the braveness I in no way feel. "I did write the letters after all."
Before anyone else rushes in to save me from possibly the awfullest thing I've ever had to do in my short life, Bess pushes open the door and pulls her sculpture through on an angle so as not to hit its head.
Lutek rushes over to help her.
"Like a plaster," whispers Jeanette.
"Hi everyone," says Bess. Her eyes are bright, her smile wide. She looks exquisitely beautiful in her happiness and I am about to shatter it.
The group echoes her greeting.
I do not.
"Ah, Bess," I start, and will myself to keep going. "I've got...something I need to tell you."
Bess standsA Lettered Manat her workstation and pulls a bottle of champagne from the bag slung over her shoulder. "And I've got something I need to tell all of you."
Oh God. She's got good news. This whole awful thing is going to be infinitely worse.
"I'm going to go first," she says.
"I don't think –" I begin and Bess continues with, "The auction's up to nine hundred thousand."
