I glanced at Daisy, who gave me a subtle look back. “Yeah…I mean, well, he was. He invested in…buildings—uh, commercial real estate—until he passed away.” The lie burned in my throat, but then it was done.
“I’m sorry to hear,” Kai said.
As the girls discussed the upcoming member selection process, something about them drew me in. The easy, lyrical way in which they spoke, their confidence and witty banter. I studied the way they held themselves and tried to imitate it. The whole world was open to them, and they knew it.
At one point, I could feel Cecily’s eyes on me as Kai whispered something in her ear. I held my breath, praying I hadn’t messed everything up earlier.
“So, bicker’s soon. You should come.” Cecily’s eyes shimmered, and my heart beat faster.
This was the opportunity I’d been waiting for.
I nodded, trying to contain my excitement. “Yeah, maybe, I mean, yes, I’d love to.”
“Great. We’ll see you there.” Cecily sashayed away, Kai trailing close behind.
Daisy dragged me to a corner and gave my arm a squeeze. “You did great!”
I grinned back, but over the course of the night, an unsettling thought lingered:Why would they want someone like me?
Chapter Eleven
Maya
May 2023
I ask Cecily, Daisy, andKai to meet me for a late lunch in Palmer Square. They immediately take off work and Uber down from Manhattan. It means a lot that they’ve come; they’re the closest thing I have to family now, besides Nate and Dani.
“Being back here,” I say slowly, cautiously, “I can’t help but think about what happened…”
Ever since running into Matthew, I’ve felt a question nagging at me. The grief is still there, but there’s a new energy running through me as well. I have to know if Naomi’s death was my fault. If it was because I didn’t warn her about Sterling Club, didn’t warn her about what membership really means.
“What happened when?” Daisy asks.
“What happened to Lila.”
Daisy stiffens. Cecily and Kai exchange a nervous look and the silence hangs heavy between us until Kai clears her throat. “That…was a long time ago.”
“And,” Daisy adds, “didn’t we agree not to talk about it?”
“It’s okay.” Cecily places a hand on Daisy’s arm before turning to me. “We can talk about it if you want to.”
But their reluctance has made me back off. I don’t know what to say. Whatisthere to say?
“Never mind, I think I’m just shaken up after everything.”
After nodding in understanding, they change the subject, something about the Hunt Gallery, which Cecily and her husband ownand where I’ve worked for the past eight years. As my friends discuss the new women’s initiative, I study them.
Kai, now a high-powered attorney, is a more put-together version of her college self, if that’s possible. She’s perfectly at home in her leather pants and crisp button-down, engagement ring perched on her finger. She’s enmeshed in the final stages of planning for her wedding later this summer, and I’m worried my grief will overshadow it.
Cecily has the same gray-blue eyes, same platinum hair, though it’s now cropped shorter along her jaw. Looking closely, I can see how exhausted she is. Her husband, Theodore, had some trouble at work recently. His investment fund is under investigation, he’s been working nonstop, and it’s taken a toll on her. Now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen them together in months. Not that they’ve ever been the kind of couple to spend every minute together, but sometimes I wonder if their marriage was more of a merging of dynasties than anything else.
Daisy, now an adjunct professor at NYU teaching business ethics, is always upbeat and energized, despite having confessed how hard it is to balance work and motherhood. I appreciate her presence all the more for knowing how stressed she’s been lately.
“What’s that?” Daisy asks, staring at my phone, which I’d left open.
I glance down at the screen to find the Twitter comment I’d been looking at ever since I first saw it:When it’s one of us it’s an “accident.”
Shuddering, I consider the implications.Wouldthe investigation have been taken more seriously had someone else been pulled from those waters? They still hadn’t determined how she’d gotten there. Was there something Detective Simmons wasn’t telling me?
