That gets a real laugh. She extends her hand. “I’m Raven by the way.”
“Saylor.” I shake it. Her grip is firmer than I expected. “How’d you know Whitney?”
The question lands differently than I intend. Raven’s face shifts—the humor draining, replaced by something raw and tender. She turns back toward the mirror, pressing the towel against her cheeks, but I can see her reflection. Her chin is trembling.
“Whit was…” she trails off, blinking rapidly. “I didn’t know herthatwell. I worked for her in a sense. We talked about once a week over the phone and met once a month outside of my appointments. She was…a really good person.” Raven means to tap her heart I think, except she crosses her chest with her left hand, patting the wrong side. “Good to her core. Nothing about this makes sense. She should be here. She promised me she was going to make it.”
I don’t say anything. Some moments need space, not words.
Raven sniffs hard and straightens. “What about you? How did you know her?”
My mouth opens and then immediately shuts, because in the two and a half hours Celeste and I spent in that car, we talked about Whitney’s childhood and Celeste’s guilt and my mum’s tomatoes and whether rest stops off the Long Island Expressway are a viable food source. Spoiler alert—they are not. What we did not discuss at all is what I’m supposed to say when someone inevitably asks how Celeste and I know each other. Are we together? Friends? Colleagues? Lovers? Did we meet at a gala or a gallery or a goat yoga retreat?
We didn’t cook up a single word of backstory. Brilliant.
“Friend of a friend,” I say, which is technically true. “I’m here with someone who was very close to Whitney. Celeste Brinley.”
Raven goes still.
Not the normal kind of still, where a person pauses to think. The kind of still where every molecule in the body locks into place. Her hand, still holding the damp towel, stops mid-dab. Her eyes fix on mine in the mirror, wide and searching.
“Shut the actual fuck up. You’re here with Celeste? She is in the building?”
I keep my lips closed and Raven gives me the universal look for “well, explain yourself.”
“I’m sorry, do you want me shut the fuck up or answer your question?”
Raven rolls her eyes and I take my cue.
“Yes, Celeste is here. She’s off finding Eleanor to ask about speaking during the?—”
“Oh my God.” Raven presses both hands to her face. “Oh my God, it worked. I want you to know you’re speaking to an actual genius. Not on paper or anything, I barely passed high school algebra. But when it comes to schemes, I’m your girl.” She holds up her hand, begging for a high-five.
Something about the way she says it—not relieved, not surprised, butvalidated, like a gamble she’d been holding her breath on just paid out—trips a wire in the back of my brain. “I’m not congratulating you until I know what scheme you’re talking about.”
She drops her hand, looks at me, then looks at the bathroom door like she’s calculating whether she can make a run for it.
“Raven. What worked?”
“Okay.” She grips the edge of the sink with both hands, steadying herself. “Okay. This is going to sound insane.”
“Lucky for you, my bar for insane has been significantly raised in the last ten minutes.”
Another laugh—this one nervous, almost manic. She turns back to the mirror, fidgeting with her clip, not looking at me directly. “The baby I’m carrying. It’s not mine.”
The bathroom goes very quiet. The eucalyptus candle flickers.
“I’m Whitney’s surrogate,” she says. “This baby is Whitney’s.”
I stare at her reflection. She blinks back. The information settles into my chest with the slow, heavy weight of something that’s about to rearrange everything.
“Whitney’s,” I repeat.
“Whitney’s. She wanted a baby more than anything. And she chose me to carry it.” Raven’s hand drifts to her stomach, protective and automatic. “We’d been planning it for a while. She had everything figured out. The nursery, the name shortlist, the—” Her voice breaks. She swallows it back. “But then she died. And now I’m four months pregnant with a baby whose mother is being eulogized in the next room by a woman who I’m pretty sure she hated for her entire life.”
“Eleanor.”
“Eleanor.” Raven’s jaw clenches. “Who is already trying to contest Whitney’s will. Who didn’t even want to invite—” She stops. Presses her lips together.
