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Caroline feels a hand on her arm. It’s Tatum, pulling her in the other direction.
“You don’t want to end up with another drink on you,” she says. “Let’s just pretend we didn’t see them.”
A minivan from Roger’s Taxi idles at the curb in front of the Club Car. Caroline climbs in, and Brooke and Tatum follow. Before Dru-Ann ducks in, she hears someone calling her name.
She looks across the street to see Gucci Bex and Laura Ingalls pop out of the Blue Beetle—and Gucci Bex is waving her arms. “Dru-Ann! Wait!”
You want me to wait so you can publicly ridicule me in front of my friends?Dru-Ann thinks.No, thank you.
“Dru-Ann, I’m sorry, we’re sorry!” Gucci Bex says. She runs across the cobblestones in a pair of platform Mary Janes. “We were wrong, you were right.”
Dru-Ann blinks.
“About Posey,” Laura Ingalls says. (Another day,Dru-Ann notes,another prairie dress.)
“What about Posey?” Dru-Ann says.Her boyfriend pulled off the biggest coup of the year,Dru-Ann thinks.He’ll be on the cover ofSports Illustratedthis week for sure. It’s crazy.
“Are we going to Squam or what?” the taxi driver says. “It’s so far away, we need to leave now to get there by nightfall. And I hope you brought snacks.”
“Get in, sis,” Tatum says and Dru-Ann can’t help but smile.Sis!
“Check Twitter,” Gucci Bex says. “And again, our apologies.”
“Whatever,” Dru-Ann says. She climbs into the taxi and slides the door shut. The taxi bounces up the street.
“Were those fans?” Brooke asks.
Dru-Ann rolls her eyes. “Influencers.”
“They’re so stylish!” Brooke says. “What are their accounts? I’m going to follow them.”
48. Accident Report II
Gigi says, “You know how Matthew was presenting a paper at the conference in Leipzig?”
The mention of Leipzig brings it all back: the December morning, snow falling outside, Matthew’s shaving lotion, his reindeer cuff links, the beautiful wedge of quiche that ended up in Henny’s dog bowl, the carols. The knock at the door. Hollis freezes as though Gigi is holding a gun.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“I was supposed to meet him on Friday evening in Paris for the weekend,” Gigi says. “It was going to beourChristmas.”
“YourChristmas? In Paris?” Hollis says. “That Saturday was our annual holiday party. Matthew was missing it. He told me he wanted to stay in Leipzig until the conference was over and then visit his professor in Berlin.” Explaining the ways she was deceived makes Hollis feel like she’s sitting in front of Gigi buck naked.
“Yes,” Gigi says. “He told me about the holiday party.”
He’d told Gigi about the party.
“Get out!” Hollis says, pointing at the stairs. “Get out of here right now and never contact me again. I’m going to block you from the website.” Hollis feels a stabbing pain just below her breastbone. She thinks of Matthew the night she first met him at Harvard Gardens.I just wanted to finish up reading on takotsubo cardiomyopathy, otherwise known as “broken-heart syndrome.”
Broken-heart syndrome.
“Please just let me finish,” Gigi says. “Matthew called me the morning he died. He called me from the car.”
What?Hollis thinks.
Gigi says, “We often talked while he was in the car—it was safest, no one would overhear. His call woke me up; my flight to Paris wasn’t until much later that night.”
“Please stop,” Hollis says. “I don’t want to hear any of this.”
