FORTY-EIGHT

Kezia

Nathaniel buzzed the apartment. “Let us in, we brought you a present.”

“Is it Calvados?” came a staticky male voice.

“Paul,” Kezia said sternly, and the door buzzed.

They slogged up the stairs, Nathaniel leading the way. It was even darker and more narrow than she remembered. She turned around to make sure Victor was behind her, which, of course, he was. When they got to the top Grey was waiting with the door open, ready to pepper them with questions about their trip. She almost shut the door on Victor, like a farmer expecting to let only two chickens back into the coop.

“Holy shit, Victor.” She stood, mouth agape. “You look . . . what a surprise! Where did you come from?”

Grey kissed the air around his face. Kezia realized they should have planned what they were going to say, how much they were going to share, but Victor stepped up. He explained that he had used his vacation to come to France on a last-minute backpacking trip, that he had rented a bike and fallen (thus accounting for his face), and that Kezia texted to say she and Nathaniel were in the area and that was that.

“Wow.” Kezia felt a shiver at how quickly he lied.

“Yes, wow,” Nathaniel agreed.

Paul, who had just returned from his Sunday ritual—a cheese expedition to the rue des Martyrs—was also delighted to see them. He peppered them with questions and then interrupted the answers. It was like watching someone try to breathe by inhaling and exhaling at the same time. Kezia and Nathaniel stood back amused, watching Victor stiffen as Paul embraced him like a brother.

“Let me give you the tour.” He patted Victor’s back. “How goes mostofit?”

He pronounced it like “moose-to-feet.”

“Dominating the globe, apparently.”

Paul led Victor around the apartment. He was coming to the end of the story about the acquisition of his unsittable chaise when Victor gasped. Kezia assumed he was playing along with the travails of transporting furniture from the seventeenth to the third on a weekend. But then Victor pointed stiffly across the living room.

“What is that?” he asked, as if he had seen a large bug.

“What is what?” Grey squinted at the wall.

“That.” Victor dropped his duffel and sat on the hallway runner.

“Oh, that.”

A wooden dresser sat partially cloaked in a padded moving blanket. Kezia stood in front of the attached mirror, watching Victor on the floor behind her. Paul yanked the blanket off, quick as a magician, revealing a series of tiny drawers and wooden ribbons that hugged the corners. Victor was still stuck to the floor.

“It’s . . . um . . .” Grey was flustered by the sitting.

“You like it?” Paul asked. “Felix is going to have an estate sale. They’re selling the house and I guess they’re in a hurry to get rid of some furniture before they do. He sent us a bunch of JPEGs of stuff so we could have first crack. Nathaniel, I think he left you off the e-mail because, well, most of the pieces aren’t exactly midcentury modern.”

“Right, that makes total sense.”

“Do you guys hear that?” Grey quieted everyone.

The sound of a muffled submarine came from the toilet.

“Damnit!” She marched into the bathroom.

Nathaniel ran his hands along the corners of the dresser, feeling for seams.

“This is it, huh?” He looked straight at Victor.

Victor nodded.

“This is the one?” Nathaniel asked, as if he might, at any minute, arrest the dresser.

“Hey, Paul . . . do these drawers open or are they like hotel desk drawers?”

“Oh no,” he cheerfully explained. “Those are for show. I forget why. Some antiquated logic about confusing the maids.”

From the bathroom came the rather pornographic sound of submerged rubber sucking on toilet porcelain.

“But these are real keyholes.” Nathaniel pushed his finger into one.

Kezia knew what he was doing, testing the limits of Paul’s curiosity. Victor stood. She tried to read his face. His eyes, almost smiling, said it all: Felix’s mom’s jewelry had followed him to France. Caroline had just blithely given it away—hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of precious pieces trapped in a dresser— and unless Victor said anything, they would stay there. He walked past the dresser and stepped out onto the narrow balcony to smoke a cigarette.

“This is so cool,” said Nathaniel. “Victor, you should really come check this out. See how cool it is.”

“Yeah.” Paul peered into the holes as if for the first time. “It’s a trick. The keyholes are real but the drawers are fake.”

“Reality is wrong.” Nathaniel nodded. “Dreams are for real.”

“Who said that.” Paul stood up straight. “Foucault?”

“Tupac.”

“I’m sure Johanna would’ve been happy to know it wound up in the hands of friends,” Victor said, turning his head to exhale.

“Was that Felix’s mom’s name?” Grey asked, passing through the room, dripping plunger in hand.