Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

“Did I wake you?” Meredith asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m running. Riverside Park.”

Riverside Park was in the same city where Meredith had spent most of her adult life, but she hadn’t been there in twenty years or more, since one of the boys had a little friend from school who lived on the Upper West Side, and the other mother (whose name was lost to Meredith) and Meredith would take the boys to the playground there. Meredith liked thinking of Dev running on those paths by the Hudson. She liked thinking of him unchained from his desk.

“I’m sorry to bug you,” Meredith said.

“Is everything okay?” Dev asked.

“I’m calling because I thought of something that might help,” Meredith said.

“Oh, yeah?” Dev said.

“A million years ago,” she said, “and I’m talking nineteen eighty-two, nineteen eighty-three…”

Dev laughed. Meredith counted back to make sure that Dev would have been alive in those years.

“It was my senior year at Princeton, and Freddy was living in New York City working for Prudential Securities.”

“Which division?” Dev asked.

“Oh, God, I have no idea,” Meredith said. Even as much as she had loved Freddy back then, she hadn’t bothered to find out exactly what he did for work. She didn’t care; she had never cared, just as Freddy had never cared about the distaff family lines in Faulkner. “Trading? Derivatives? Don’t you guys have that kind of information at your fingertips?”

“I don’t,” Dev said. “The SEC might, though.”

“We lived in a sublet of a man named Thad Orlo.” She paused. She could hear the thwack of Dev’s sneakers on the pavement, a siren, taxi horns, a barking dog. “Has that name come up in the investigation?”

“I’m not supposed to say,” Dev said. “But no, I don’t think so.”

“Thad Orlo was working for Prudential, but he was spending a year in Switzerland, at some Swiss bank, perhaps a bank affiliated with Prudential? Anyway, I never actually met him because while we were in New York, he was in Switzerland-that was the whole idea-but I asked Freddy about him from time to time in subsequent years. Freddy told me that Thad Orlo had stayed on with the bank in Switzerland, but when I asked which bank it was, Freddy said he couldn’t remember. Now, what this really meant was that he didn’t want to tell me because if there was one thing about Freddy, he remembered everything. And then there was another time-” this, Meredith remembered just as she was saying the words-“when I asked Freddy what had ever happened to Thad Orlo. I was asking because we had, you know, lived in his apartment with all of his furniture and all of his stuff-every time I saw a certain kind of Danish design, I thought of him-and at first Freddy pretended not to know who he was at all, which was absurd, and then once he copped to the fact that he did remember him, he started asking me in this paranoid way about why I wanted to know about Thad Orlo. And I can remember saying, ‘Freddy, I’m sorry. I was just wondering!’ ”

Dev was breathing hard. Maybe he was crushed at how underwhelming this tip was. Maybe he was wondering why she hadn’t just waited until he was in the office. But the more Meredith thought about it, the more convinced she became.

“Yes,” she said. “He was defensive and angry when I asked him about Thad Orlo. You should check it out. You should find Thad Orlo.”

“But you don’t know which bank?”

“I don’t. Freddy most certainly does, even though he lied and told me he didn’t.”

“But Freddy’s not speaking. At all.”

“Still?” Meredith said. She didn’t want any news about Freddy. But she did.

“Still.”

“Well, can’t you find him anyway?” Meredith said. She had figured the SEC had huge databases crammed with names, and connections between those names. It was impossible, in this day and age, to stay anonymous, right? “Can’t you google him?”

“I’ll do that first thing on Monday,” Dev said. “Do you know anything else about this guy?”

“His mother was Danish,” Meredith said, but then she wondered if she knew this for sure, or if she had just assumed it, because of the furniture. “I think.”

“Where was the apartment?” Dev asked.

“Seventy-first Street,” Meredith said. But she couldn’t remember if the building had been between Lexington and Third, or Third and Second, and she certainly didn’t remember the number of the building. She had lived there for nearly two years, but the address eluded her. She was old enough now that this sometimes happened. The salient details of her past evaporated.

“Okay,” Dev said. “I’ll check out everything you just told me.”

“And you’ll tell the Feds?”

“I’ll tell the Feds.”

“You’ll tell them I’m helping? You’ll tell Julie Schwarz and Leo I’m helping?”

“Yes, Meredith,” Dev said. She couldn’t discern if his breathlessness was due to his fast pace or the beauty of the Hudson in the morning light or exasperation. “I’ll tell everyone you’re helping.”

Connie had been certain Dan would call. She knew she had not put on a good show that night at dinner; she had been drunk, and Connie had had enough experience with her own mother to know what that looked like. But she hadn’t heard from Dan in nearly three weeks. Their relationship had been progressing, and then, boom, it just ended. Connie wasn’t good at handling rejection. It was, as her sister-in-law Iris would say, messing with Connie’s general state of mind.

She hadn’t heard from Ashlyn, either, even though Connie had tried texting. Please call. It’s Mom.

She had also resumed her habit of leaving messages on Sundays. It was pointless, Connie knew, as pointless as prayer: she was talking to someone who may or may not be listening.

The only person Connie heard from was Toby. He sent a text that said: I’ll be there the 5th or 6th, OK?

Connie hadn’t been quite sure what that text was referring to, until she scrolled back and saw the text saying that Toby had sold the boat to the man from Nantucket, and he would be on island in three weeks, OK? And she had responded, OK! LOL.

Connie groaned. Nothing about this was laugh out loud. She had to tell Toby that Meredith was here. She had to tell Meredith that Toby was coming. Which one of them would be more upset? Connie decided to keep quiet about it for now. She was afraid if she told Toby that Meredith was here, he wouldn’t show up. And Connie desperately wanted to see him. She was afraid that if she told Meredith that Toby was coming, Meredith would pack her things and leave. Or perhaps worse, she would get her hopes up, and then at the last minute, Toby would call to say that he wasn’t selling the boat after all but was, instead, sailing down to Venezuela to meet some girl named Evelina for a cup of coffee.

Connie looked at the text again. The fifth or sixth? Well, they had nothing going on. They never had anything going on. She responded, OK. But left off the LOL.

Connie decided to ambush Dan at Stop & Shop. He had told her in passing that when the island got crazy-busy in August, he went to the grocery store midweek at six o’clock in the morning.

Connie hadn’t expected to bump into him on her first attempt. “Midweek” could mean Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. And “six o’clock” could mean six thirty or seven. But when Connie pulled into the parking lot at ten minutes past six on Wednesday morning, the strawberry Jeep was there. Connie felt a jolt of nervous excitement and an irrational sense of collusion: the mere fact that Dan was here when he said he would be seemed like a good sign. Connie began muttering to herself. Calm down. Hurry up! You have to catch him before he leaves. This is so obvious, but only to you. He’ll think it’s a random coincidence; everyone has to go to the store. He gave you the tip for the best time to go, why wouldn’t you take him up on it? She grabbed a cart, she had a list; this was a legitimate trip to the store. Connie had invited Meredith along the night before saying, Hey, I’m going to the store bright and early if you want to come. But Meredith had said no; she had said no to every outing since that woman had accosted her at RJ Miller. Connie said, Meredith you just can’t spend the rest of the summer in the house. It’s August now, the best month. And Meredith said, No, it’s not safe. Connie said, But it is safe. The vandalism has stopped. You let that woman have her say; that was all she wanted was to have her say. She’s not going to do anything else to you. She’s not going to stone you.

But Meredith wouldn’t be moved. She was stubborn like that. Connie had not forgotten.

The store was chilly, the produce section like an icebox. Connie was on a mission here. She had to find Dan first, then worry about her groceries. But if she bumped into him in the middle of the store with an empty cart, it would announce the obvious.

Connie tossed a netted bag of limes into her cart.

Connie zipped through the store, checking down each aisle. There was a blond woman with two little boys in their pajamas, a man in a suit and tie-a Jehovah’s Witness, perhaps? someone headed to a funeral?-and then she found Dan, looking positively edible in khaki shorts and a T-shirt and flip-flops, standing in front of the healthy cereal. He didn’t see her. Connie could back up, retreat to produce, chicken out. But this was her chance. She had gotten up at daybreak to shower and do her hair. She was bright-eyed, she smelled good, she was wearing a pretty pink cotton halter dress.

She pushed her cart forward. “Dan?” she said.

He turned. The expression on his face was… complicated. It was many expressions at once. He looked surprised, happy, wary, perplexed, caught.