“What do you want, Charlotte? Do you want me to swear never to say anything, so neither of us disappoints her?”
Charlotte turned slowly to face Lucie. “You know, that wasn’t my intention at all. But since you bring it up, I do think it would be in t
he best interests of everyone to take an oath of omertà and keep this incident completely to ourselves.”
“Fine with me.”
“Let’s swear that we’ll tell absolutely no one.”
“It will never leave this room,” Lucie swore.
“And we should leave Capri first thing in the morning.”
“What do you mean? We can’t leave in the morning—there’s still the post-wedding brunch on board Issie’s godfather’s yacht!”
“Lucie, I could give a rat’s ass about the brunch on a yacht right now. It’s imperative that we leave tomorrow. Don’t you see? For the sake of your reputation, our family’s reputation, we just can’t risk any hint of gossip getting out.”
“But that makes no sense! Don’t you think it will look more suspicious if we suddenly left without saying goodbye? No one but the three of us knows what happened and…”
Just then, Charlotte heard the elevator doors opening. She ran to the door and saw George coming down the hallway, looking a bit out of breath.
“What happened?” Charlotte asked anxiously.
“I caught up with them. I had to chase them all the way down to Via le Botteghe, but I got to them.”
“Oh dear, did you get into a fight?”
“We managed to negotiate. It was all very civilized. We went to the nearest ATM, I got them some cash, and they gave me the drone.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s all destroyed, the hard drive, everything. I crushed it with a rock and threw it off a cliff. That’s why it took me so long.”
“Oh, thank God. Thank God, thank God, thank God.” Charlotte sighed in relief. “How much did you have to pay them?”
“Don’t worry about it.” George peeked in at Lucie leaning by the archway to her bedroom. He was about to say something to her when Charlotte cut him off.
“George, will you please come with me for a moment to my room? There are a few things we need to discuss,” Charlotte said, suddenly taking on a no-nonsense tone.
George nodded wearily.
“Charlotte! What are you doing?” Lucie asked suspiciously.
“Pack your bags, Lucie.”
“Charlotte, no!” Lucie cried out in alarm.
Charlotte ignored Lucie, closing the door firmly behind her as she marched George Zao down the hallway toward her room.
* “Not Our Class, Darling.”
II
· 2018 ·
I
The Metropolitan Museum of Art