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Southeast,Hollis thinks. To get to Logan, Matthew would have been traveling northwest on Dover. She looks at the diagram again, then double-checks it with the map on her phone.
Gigi must be telling the truth—Matthew had turned around.
He was on his way home.
Hollis bows her head, closes her eyes.
She grants herself one moment to rewrite the past.
It’s December 15 and Matthew has left for the airport. Hollis wraps foil around his uneaten breakfast and sets it in the fridge next to the pastry dough. She sits down at her laptop, but instead of stalking Jack Finigan on Facebook, she goes to the Hungry with Hollis website and posts her recipe for cheddar tartlets; her fans have been clamoring for it. Over the sound system, “Carol of the Bells” is playing.
She hears the door open, then footsteps, then the jingling of Henny’s collar. By the time Hollis reaches the kitchen, Matthew is there, his head and shoulders dusted with snow, his glasses fogged. Before she can ask,What happened, is something wrong?he has his trench coat and suit jacket off. He rapidly unfastens his reindeer cuff links and loosens his Santas-in-speedboats tie.
“Wait!” Hollis says. She’s close enough now that she can smell his shaving lotion. “Are you not going?”
“I’m not going,” Matthew says.
She’s about to ask if he’s hungry, if he wants her to warm up his breakfast… when he reaches for her hand and leads her upstairs.
Gigi is sitting, still as a statue, right where Hollis left her. Hollis is impressed. If it were her, she would have run while she had the chance.
“I just checked the accident report,” Hollis says, sitting down. “Matthew had turned around. He was on his way home.”
Gigi nods but doesn’t speak.
Hollis isn’t sure what to say or do now. Gigi has the countenance of a delinquent student waiting to be dismissed. Is that what Hollis should do? Tell Gigi she’s free to go?
Suddenly Hollis hears a commotion upstairs: A happy bark from Henny, Brooke calling out that she’s taking the first outdoor shower, Tatum asking if there’s any onion dip left because she’sstarving,and Dru-Ann saying that she’s heading back to the guest cottage to change but when she comes back they’d all better be prepared to woman up because she has half a bottle of tequila to finish before the weekend’s over.
She hears Caroline say, “I actually think I have enough footage for a shortfilm. What if I end up making you allfamous?”
“As long as it’s not infamous,” Dru-Ann says. “I’ve had enough of that this weekend.”
“The interviews with you three are the best part,” Caroline says. “I learned a lot about my mom, so thank you for your honesty. I know some of those stories were difficult to tell.”
Hollis doesn’t need to watch the interviews to be reminded of all the ways she failed the women a floor above. She promised Tatum she was staying in Massachusetts, then she left for North Carolina; she lied to Dru-Ann about her mother for a year and a half; she never stood up to Electra about ousting Brooke from the football group.
Tatum, Dru-Ann, and Brooke have forgiven her. This is, Hollis sees now, an example of their innate decency, generosity, nobility. Hollis could argue that Gigi’s betrayal is somehow greater than any of hers. Gigi slept with Hollis’s husband. Gigi used the Hungry with Hollis website to spy on her. Gigi wooed them all with her elegant style and her irresistible accent—under false pretenses.
Hollis takes one breath, then another, and considers the termfive-star. What does it mean? In her mind, it means “remarkable, best in class, of a rarefied quality, a standout.” It’s one thing to place fresh flowers on a nightstand or create an Instagram-worthy charcuterie board. But what if the five-star experience went deeper? What if it extended to this moment? What if instead of casting Gigi out, Hollis said,Please stay. I may not arrive at a place of grace right away—the pain of the betrayal is still new, shocking—but I will get there eventually, and until then, I’m willing to play through.
Is there such a thing as five-star forgiveness? If not, can Hollis invent it now?
“Stay,” she says to Gigi.
“What? Hollis—no, absolutely not.”
Hollis rises from her chair and approaches Gigi. Her loveliness is newly agonizing when Hollis thinks about Matthew appreciating it—but that’s in the past.
“Please,” Hollis says. She can’t bring herself to hug Gigi, but she does offer a hand to help her up from the chair. “It’s just until tomorrow morning. If I can do it, you can do it.”
“Are you planning to tell the others?” Gigi asks. She imagines the other women stoning her like she’s a character in a Shirley Jackson story.
“Heavens, no,” Hollis says. “It’s nobody’s business but ours. And anyway, they’ve all got other things to worry about.”
49. The Twist
Dru-Ann has been meaning to try out the Bakelite record player in her guest cottage. She stands in the little niche and flips through the short stack of albums on the shelf underneath: The Turtles, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell. All the album covers are worn; they’ve been lovingly handled, and Dru-Ann wonders if Hollis ordered them from some website for vintage records or if maybe these belonged to her mother and father.
