The Allards have always been well-off, the way many in the neighborhood are. Sure, there are plenty of average government workers and teachers among Eastbrook’s residents, but every block boasts lawyers, consultants, and corporate executives who bring home mid to high six figures. Still, there is a tacit agreement that we are upper middle class, not rich. Most of us send our kids to public schools, we drive nice cars, but nothing too flashy. We pretended to be aghast that the new coffee shop was selling an eight-dollar iced latte even though we could all afford it.
But when Daniel’s father died, the Allards stopped pretending. He’d owned a pharmaceutical company in France, and the money that came to the Allards transformed them. The change was almost overnight. Daniel left his job at the law firm and took up wine collecting. They stopped going to the Outer Banks for their summer vacation and instead bought a house in Provence. Everyone could feel it: The Allards were just biding their time in the neighborhood until the kids graduated from high school.
As soon as I shut off the faucet, I hear a rustling sound coming from the dining room.
I freeze, water dripping from my fingers. “Hello?”
The rustling stops. Heart pounding, I wipe my wet hands on the side of my pants and move cautiously to the dining room, where I see Jo. She got back in the house without my hearing.
“Jo. What are you doing? I thought you left.”
She looks up from the plastic box that contains the ziplock bags of jewelry, caught in the act but utterly unashamed.
“Oh, just peeking at what’s on sale this year. You and Kenya do such a remarkable job.” Her smile is all teeth, like an attack dog snarling.
“It’s all up on the Facebook page,” I say, crossing my arms.
“I don’t know how you two do it. I have been so busy with Eloïse graduating—parties, dinners, sports banquets. I guess it’s easier when your kids don’t join as many things.” One manicured hand flies to her mouth in mock horror. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. Rachel has her tennis after all. And she was recruited as a walk-on at Georgetown. You must be over the moon.”
Suddenly I am bone-weary of Jo and her psychological warfare. I want her gone. “It’s time to go—”
“This is why I came back.” With one fluid motion she pulls a small black box out of her leather tote and hands it to me. “I almost forgot. A little something for Rachel.”
Tentatively, I take the box. “You shouldn’t have,” I say. And I mean it.
“Just a trifle. And you can tell Rachel it’s vintage. I know she only likes secondhand things.” She winks at me. “Ciao.”
She slips by me and out of the house before I can respond. I rush to the door and bolt it, then press my eye to the peephole, watching until her sleek figure disappears from view. Only when I am sure she’s truly gone do I collapse on the couch, still holding the mysterious black box. Inside is a familiar robin’s-egg-blue cloth pouch that I recognize instantly as Tiffany. My fingers tremble as I withdraw a small silver tennis racket with a tennis ball attached to the end. I stare at it, uncomprehending at first, but after a minute of searching on my phone I learn what it is. A key chain—a cult item, discontinued several years ago and reselling for about three hundred and fifty dollars.
I didn’t even get Eloïse a card.
As I place the gift back in the pouch and return it to thebox, a folded-up note that was tucked into the top of the box flutters to my lap.
I carefully unfold the thick cream paper.
Can’t wait to see you play at Georgetown next year! xo Jo and Daniel
The words swim before my eyes. And what had Jo said? That Rachel only likes secondhand things? Was that an oblique reference to the stolen bangle? Jo doesn’t do anything by accident. This key chain isn’t just a gift to my daughter, it’s a message.
But what is she trying to say?
NINETEEN
Finn stares at the tiles on the rack in front of him, ordering them first by suit and then by number, his fingers twitching with barely contained anxiety. Paula put him at the card table by the fireplace, in a seat where he has a good view of the second table across the room.
An hour ago, right after he got home from work, his landlady gave him a crash course on mah-jongg, teaching him to identify dots, bams, and craks and their respective jokers. Now he slides his flower tiles to the left end of his rack like she taught him and glances at the long trifold card in front of him, filled with this year’s hands. The numbers and letters seem to swim before his eyes, blurring under the weight of his impatience.
“Someone with your background in informational science will pick it up right away,” Paula told him, her voice low and conspiratorial. “It’s about patterns. Seeing patterns and pivoting when you have to. Just like what we’ll be doing this evening. We’ll be listening to the chatter and looking for an anomaly.”
“What anomaly are we looking for exactly?”
“I can’t say,” Paula said. “But we’ll recognize it when we hear it.”
Then the doorbell rang and the first guests entered, a tidal wave of perfume and chatter washing over him.
He sits at a table with Paula, Kenya Williams, and an older woman named Bonnie with short silver hair and glasses, their practiced movements making him feel like an intruder in some arcane ritual. Across from him, Bonnie frowns at the tiles in front of her. “I’ve got nothing.”
“You always say that,” Paula says. “Then you mah-jongg.”
