Page 58 of The Towering Sky
Calliope thought back to all her mom’s girlish exclamations of delight, the starry-eyed way she’d looked at Nadav during the wedding. Had those smiles been real? “After all the times you told meneverto let myself care about a mark?”
Her voice had risen too loud, but Elise didn’t chide her. “I love Nadav,” she stated simply. “This marriage is real. It isn’t just a con to me, not anymore.”
This is just a job, her mom used to say, in clipped, unsentimental tones.It’s temporary and unpredictable. Caring about people will only hurt you. Don’t let it happen.And now Elise, arguably the world’s greatest con artist, was violating her own cardinal rule—and for who? A nerdy cybernetics engineer.
Calliope stared wonderingly at her mom, suddenly realizing just how drastically Elise had changed.
Of course, Elise had changed constantly over the years. As they moved from place to place, playing out their various cons, she’d been forced to keep altering her appearance: widening and then re-thinning her nose, changing her hair and eye color, tweaking the curve of her chin. She was always beautiful, yet each time her mom emerged from surgery with a new face and new irises, Calliope had to get used to her all over again.
This was completely different. This time, Elise had actually become someone new.
“How... ? I mean when... ?”
Elise sank down onto the bench with a sigh, pulling Calliope to sit next to her. “I don’t know,” she confessed. She looked suddenly girlish and innocent, the light gleaming on her pearl stud earrings. “Maybe it’s that I’ve been with him for so long, much longer than I’ve been with anyone else. But I really care about him.”
“Even though he thinks you’re a goody-goody philanthropist?”
“Yes, even though he thinks I’m a goody-goody philanthropist,” Elise repeated, in such a matter-of-fact tone that Calliope couldn’t help laughing. She laughed at the sheer unlikely madness of it all, and after a moment Elise was laughing too.
“I don’t understand,” Calliope said at last. “How can you love him when you aren’t even yourself with him? I mean, he thinks you actuallywantto spend your honeymoon volunteering, scooping up woolly mammoth poop!”
“I’ve had plenty of beach vacations in my life. I don’t really need another one,” Elise said, in a way that made it seem as if she truly didn’t mind at all.That must be real love, Calliope thought wonderingly—being able to efface your own desires for the person you care about.
She wondered if she would ever feel that way about anyone. Brice’s face rose stubbornly into her consciousness, but she quickly forced it away.
“It’s really worth it to you?” she asked. “Staying in New York is worth playing this role forever?”
“Nadav is worth it,” Elise corrected. “New York was always your thing. I like it here, but I wouldn’t really care where we were, as long as I was with him.”
It was so outlandish that it had to be true.Wow, Calliope thought again in silent shock. Sweet, fumbling Nadav: so well-meaning but gruff. Who would’ve guessed that Elise would end up falling for him?
“If you really love him, I’m happy for you,” she decided, and was gratified by her mom’s smile.
Then Calliope remembered what Livya had said to her at Saks and again at the wedding. Her heart sank.
She glanced down at her hands, clasped in her lap, her fingernails filed into careful half-moons and utterly devoid of polish—because of course nail polish, even nude colors, wasn’t in character. “I think Livya suspects something.”
“What do you mean?” Elise asked carefully.
“She confronted me while we were dress shopping and at the reception. She suggested that we’re gold diggers, and that we aren’t who we say we are.” Calliope paused to let her well-trained eidetic memory kick in. “She said that most of the women who’ve dated Nadav in the past were just in it for the money, and that one of the reasons he loves you is because of how selfless you claim to be.”
Her mom listened to this with surprising calm. “Any girl would say that about a stranger marrying her wealthy father. It doesn’t sound like Livya really knows anything.”
Calliope winced. “She did catch me sneaking out. Twice.” She refrained from mentioning the fact that it was to see Brice.
“Then you can’t sneak out again,” Elise admonished. “Not with Livya watching us so closely. We can’t afford to do anything suspicious.”
Elise didn’t have to spell it out for Calliope to know what she meant. Nadav’s moral code was severe and uncompromising. If he learned the truth about them—that they were high-classgrifters who’d left a string of broken hearts in their wake; that Elise had, in fact, first targeted Nadav for his money—he wouldn’t just send them packing. He might very well send them to jail.
“Promise me you’ll behave. Don’t risk everything just because of some boy,” Elise pleaded.
And even though she’d been telling herself that it meant nothing, that it was just a flirtation, Calliope bristled at her mom’s words. “He isn’t just some boy.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. But no more sneaking out, no more acting sarcastic or opinionated. Just keep your head down and act like the sweet, selfless girl that I told everyone you are,” Elise asked. “It’ll all be over in less than a year when you graduate. Then you can go off and be whoever you want to be. Please, for my sake, promise me.”
Calliope sighed in resignation, watching as her reflection in the mirror did the same. For once, the sight didn’t make her smile. “Why did you tell Nadav that we were philanthropists, again?”
“Because it was so clearly his type,” Elise said softly and sighed. “I’m sorry this is such a mess. To think that of all the people we’ve conned, he is the one I ended up staying with.”
