But I can stand in a room full of people who loved her and tell them who she really was. I can give them the Whitney I knew—the one who could’ve joined Destiny’s Child, she sang those songs so well; the one who burned her hair off with a curling iron and laughed about it; the one who wrote articles about life and love as if it were divine poetry. The Whitney none of us deserved, but were privileged to experience anyway.
That’s not an apology. It’s not forgiveness. It’s the only offering I have left, and I’m going to deliver it even if my hands shake and my voice breaks and two hundred people watch me come undone.
The courtyard is empty now. The wisteria sways in the breeze. The ocean crashes against the shore with the steady neutrality of something that has been here long before any of us and will be here long after.
I tuck my phone away and walk back toward the building. Somewhere inside, Eleanor is terrorizing caterers. Somewhere inside, Saylor is navigating a world that isn’t his with the kind of grace I’ve never been able to manage in my own. Somewhere inside, two hundred people are settling into theirseats, preparing to mourn a woman most of them probably didn’t really know.
And somewhere inside me, beneath the anxiety and the guilt and the grief, a small stubborn voice that sounds suspiciously like Whitney’s says:Get your ass up there and say what you need to say, Lessi. That’s all you owe me.
She’s wrong of course.
I owe her so much more.
But this is where I’ll start.
chapter 6
Saylor
By the time I find Celeste, the service is minutes from starting.
She’s standing near the entrance to the main hall, arms crossed, one hand gripping the opposite elbow like she’s physically holding herself together. Her lips are redder than when we arrived, like a fresh coat of paint. She must have found a bathroom and touched up her makeup again because although the rest of her looks put-together, her eyes betray her. Red-rimmed. Slightly swollen. The face of a woman who’s been crying and then carefully pretending she hasn’t.
“There you are,” she says, and the relief in her voice catches me off guard. Like she wasn’t sure I’d come back. “Where did you disappear to?”
“Got turned around.” The lie tastes sour. “Big venue.”
I want to tell her. The words are right there, stacked behind my teeth like cars in a traffic jam—Raven, the surrogacy, the baby, the forged documents, Eleanor’s legal maneuvering. All of it pressing against the back of my mouth, demanding to be spoken.
But the funeral attendants have begun herding everyone toward their seats. The string quartet has shifted from warm-up noodling to something deliberate and somber. And Celeste has a folded piece of paper sticking out of her dress pocket—her speech, the one she wrote at three in the morning, the one she is so determined to deliver for Whitney’s sake.
I can’t drop a bomb on her and then send her to a podium.
It will just have to wait. A delayed truth for the sake of mercy.
“Ready?” I ask, offering my arm.
She threads her hand through the crook of my elbow. Her fingers are ice cold. “No.”
“Fair. Should we go in anyway?”
“Definitely.”
We enter the hall. Two hundred chairs are arranged in precise rows facing a raised stage, and nearly every seat is occupied. The hydrangeas are all over—lining the aisle, framing the stage, clustered around an enormous portrait of Whitney that sits on an easel surrounded by white candles. She’s laughing in the photo. Mid-laugh, actually, caught in the act of finding something hilarious, her red curls wild around her face. She looks alive in a way that makes the rest of the room feel like a museum exhibit.
A staff member guides us toward the back rows, gesturing to two open seats near the aisle. Celeste nods and starts to sit, but then someone official looking with a clipboard and headset intercepts us. She gently touches Celeste’s arm.
“Ms. Brinley, I’m sorry. Please, come with me. I have seats near the family closer to the front.”
Celeste stiffens beside me. She opens her mouth—probably to decline—but the coordinator is already moving, and we’re trailing her up the center aisle like two people being led to the principal’s office. Every step takes us deeper into the room, past rows of straight-spined people with stoic faces, most of themdressed in the kind of understated black that communicates wealth without trying. A few heads turn as we pass. I catch whispers.
“Celeste’s new husband?”
“Doubtful. I heard she’s barely divorced.”
“Probably just some arm candy.”
My stomach churns at their audaciously accurate commentary. Except I don’t think I’m here to be candy. More like…decoration.
