Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

“White or red?” Connie said.

“White, please,” Meredith said. She didn’t want to think about the Ruffino Chianti, their usual table at Rinaldo’s, Freddy saying, Here comes your poison, Meredith. Freddy didn’t approve of Meredith drinking, and he rarely, if ever, drank himself. He didn’t like losing control, he said. Of course, he hadn’t always felt that way. He had been a social drinker in college and young adulthood, and then, as his business grew, he had transitioned into abstinence. Now, Meredith knew that you couldn’t lie and cheat and drink, because what if you let something slip? What if you let the facade crumble? She thought of Freddy throwing back those three shots of Macallan and how shocked she had been. She had known something was wrong then, seventy-two hours before the rest of the world knew. Freddy had turned on her with wild eyes; she had seen the desperation. She thought, We’ve lost all our money. But so what? Easy come, easy go. Freddy had then pulled Meredith into the bedroom and had pushed her down and taken her roughly from behind, as though it were his final act. Meredith remembered feeling raw and panicky and electrified-this was not the perfunctory lovemaking she and Freddy had engaged in for the past decade or so (its lackluster nature owing to the fact, she had assumed, that he was preoccupied with work)-she remembered thinking, WOW. They were ruined perhaps, but they still had each other.

That was what she’d thought, then.

Connie handed Meredith a glass of chardonnay and said, “You can go out to the deck.”

“Do you need help with dinner?” Meredith asked.

“Don’t tell me you’ve started cooking?” Connie said.

“No,” Meredith said. And they laughed. “I ate from cartons every night after Freddy left.”

The words “after Freddy left” echoed in the kitchen. Connie poured a stream of olive oil into a stainless steel bowl and started clanging with her whisk.

Meredith said, “I’ll go out.”

She stepped onto the deck and took a seat at the round teak table. She hadn’t heard from Burt and Dev; she never knew if that was good or bad. The sun spangled the water. Let’s say good. She might be going to jail, but she wasn’t going to jail today.

Out in the water, Meredith saw a sleek, black head, then its body and flippers undulating through the waves. Then she saw a second dark form, moving less gracefully. Meredith squinted; she was wearing her prescription sunglasses, which weren’t as strong as her regular horn-rimmed glasses.

She called out to Connie. “Hey, there are two seals today.”

“What?” Connie said.

Meredith stood up with her wineglass. She poked her head through the sliding door.

“There are two seals today.”

“Really?” Connie said. “I’ve never seen two before. Only one. Only Harold.”

“I saw two,” Meredith said. “Harold found a friend.”

She smiled at this.

When Connie checked her cell phone in the morning, she saw that she’d missed a phone call during the night. There was no message, just a clattering hang up. Connie checked her display, then gasped. The number itself was unfamiliar, but it was from the 850 area code: Tallahassee. Which was where Ashlyn practiced medicine. So had Ashlyn called, finally, after twenty-nine months of silence? Connie’s hopes were coy, afraid to show themselves. The call had come in at 2:11 a.m., but this told Connie nothing. Ashlyn was a doctor, and doctors kept absurd hours. Connie checked the number again. It was the 850 area code; that was certainly Tallahassee, and Tallahassee was where Ashlyn now lived. So, it was Ashlyn. Was it Ashlyn? Connie was tempted to call the number right back, but it was still early, not quite seven. Should she call at eight? Ten? Should she wait and call tonight? A call at two in the morning might mean Ashlyn was in trouble. Connie decided to call right back, but then she caught herself. This was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to blow. She would wait. She would think about it.

Connie stepped out onto the front deck. There was low-lying fog, typical of early July: How many times had the town had to cancel the Fourth of July fireworks? Ashlyn! Connie thought. Was it possible? Connie was going out to get muffins and the newspaper from the Sconset Market, a pleasant errand, and now she would think about Ashlyn, a phone call out of the blue.

Connie didn’t see the envelope until she had kicked it off the porch and down the stairs. What was it? She picked it up. Manila envelope, closed with a gold clasp, nothing written on it, thin and light, nothing particularly sinister, but Connie got an awful feeling. She thought, Don’t open it! She thought, Anthrax! But that was ridiculous. This was Nantucket; it was a placid, foggy morning. She thought, An envelope dropped on the porch? She thought, Something from the Tom Nevers Neighborhood Association. They so often left her out because she was a summer resident, whereas most everyone else lived here year-round, but they’d remembered her this time. Potluck dinner or a community yard sale.

She opened the envelope and saw there was a photograph inside, a glossy color photo, five-by-seven, of Meredith, wearing her navy tunic and white shorts, standing on Connie’s back porch, holding a glass of wine.

Connie shivered. She looked out at her front yard and thought, What is this? Who put this here?

She looked at the photo again. It had been taken the night before. Meredith was turned toward the sliding door and she was smiling.

All day they passed the photograph back and forth between themselves, and when one or the other of them wasn’t looking at it, it sat on the dining table like a time bomb.

Meredith had blanched when Connie showed her the photograph. Someone had been out there taking her picture, but where? Meredith thought it was the same guy they’d seen by the Dumpster in the alley behind 824 Park Avenue-he must have followed them all the way from the city!-but Connie made her see this was unlikely, if not impossible. It was someone else.

“The only way they could have gotten that shot of you was from the beach,” Connie said. “Did you see anyone walking on the beach?”

“No one,” Meredith said.

“Or it could have been taken from the water,” Connie said. “Did you see anyone in a boat? Or a kayak?”

“I saw the seals,” Meredith said. “That was what I was smiling about, remember? Harold had a friend.”

Connie said, “Harold’s ‘friend’ was a photographer in a wet suit. Is that possible?”

“Oh, God,” Meredith said. She approached the sliding glass doors, then backed away. “You know what scares me?”

Connie wasn’t sure she wanted to know. What scared Connie was the whole thing. Someone taking the picture, someone leaving it for them on the front porch. A person trespassing on her property. Meredith couldn’t stay here. She had to go. The whole thing was chilling. Someone was watching them.

“What scares you?” Connie asked.

“If it was just the paparazzi, they wouldn’t have left the photograph for us. They would have published it, and we would have woken up this morning, and it would have been splashed across the front of the Post. HAPPY HOUR FOR MRS. DELINN.”

“So if it wasn’t the paparazzi, who was it?”

“Someone who wants me to know they know I’m here. One of Freddy’s enemies. The Russian mob.”

“The Russian mob isn’t real,” Connie said.

“There were Russian investors who lost billions,” Meredith said. “There are a lot of people who want Freddy’s head. And since they can’t get to Freddy, they’re coming after me.” She looked at Connie. “I’m putting you in danger.”

“No,” Connie said. “You’re not.” But she was. She had to go. Connie racked her brain. Meredith had made it clear that she’d lost everybody else in her life. But Connie had friends. Maybe she could ship Meredith quietly off to Bethesda? She could live with Wolf’s brother, Jake, and Jake’s wife, Iris. Iris was a know-it-all busybody. She had a degree in psychology from the University of Delaware and she was constantly expressing concern over others’ “general state of mind,” and especially Connie’s, since Connie had recently lost her husband and her daughter and, in Iris’s estimation, wasn’t doing terribly well. Connie would take great pleasure in inflicting Meredith on Iris, but she couldn’t bring herself to inflict Iris on Meredith. There was Toby? God, no, that could backfire in any one of a hundred ways. Plus, if Meredith left, Connie would be alone, and the absolute best thing about the past two days was that, for the first time in years, Connie hadn’t been alone.

Connie flung open the sliding door, and Meredith scurried to the other side of the room, as though she were a vampire, allergic to daylight. Connie went outside and stood on the deck. The jig was up. Meredith was here. Connie wanted to face the ocean and anyone hiding in it and shout, She’s here! Meredith Delinn is here! The world could tell Connie she was unstable, insane, or just plain stupid, but at that moment, she made a decision: Meredith was staying.

Meredith was afraid to read on the deck. Meredith was afraid to walk on the beach. Connie sat on the deck herself. She peered at the water. Around noon, Harold appeared, alone. Connie watched him frolic in the waves, then felt lonely. She went inside and made turkey sandwiches.

“Meredith!” she called. “Lunch!”

Meredith didn’t answer.

Connie went upstairs and tapped on Meredith’s door.

Meredith said, “Entrez.”

Connie opened the door. Meredith was lying on her bed wearing her bathing suit and cover-up, reading.

“Come out on the deck and have lunch.”