“Not really,” Connie said.

Right: men would do anything for Connie, including having dinner with the wife of the biggest robber baron in history.

“And what plans do we have tonight?” Meredith asked.

“Plans?”

“You told Dan you had plans tonight.”

“Of course I did,” Connie said. She stood to clear the table. “I couldn’t let him believe we were staying home. Don’t you know anything?”


Their “plans” for Saturday night included eating a goat cheese soufflé and Caesar salad for dinner-it was like something Meredith used to order at Pastis, and Connie had whipped it up herself. And after dinner, Connie invited Meredith upstairs to Wolf’s study to look at the stars through Wolf’s telescope.

“Wolf knew all of the constellations,” Connie said. She pointed the telescope out the window. “I only know Orion, the Big Dipper, and Cassiopeia.”

“I can find the Little Dipper,” Meredith said. “And the Pleiades. And I know what the Southern Cross looks like.” Meredith had seen the Southern Cross on a trip she and Freddy had taken to Australia. They had been staying in the northwestern seaside town of Broome, which was the remotest place Meredith had ever visited. Freddy had a friend from business school named Michael Arrow who owned a huge pearl farm in Broome. Michael had been an investor; he had lost the pearl farm, which had been in his family since 1870. Michael had been a good guy, open and likable; he had been a friend. Meredith wondered how Freddy felt about cheating Michael Arrow. Goddamn you, Freddy! she thought (zillionth and fourth).

What Meredith remembered about Broome was the open-air movie theater Michael had taken them to. They had sat on swings and watched a movie under the stars. Meredith couldn’t remember what movie they’d seen, but she remembered Michael saying, “And that beauty there? That’s our Southern Cross.”

Meredith wondered if she’d ever see the Southern Cross again. Freddy, most certainly, would not.

Through the telescope, the stars looked closer, though they were still just stars, just points of light that were millions of miles away.

Connie said, “Freddy bought you a star, didn’t he?”

Meredith nodded but said nothing. Freddy had bought Meredith a star and named it Silver Girl, after the lyrics of a song that Meredith’s father used to sing her. Sail on Silvergirl, Sail on by, Your time has come to shine, All your dreams are on their way, See how they shine. The song was “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Every time it came on the radio, Chick Martin would reach for Meredith’s hand. Oh, if you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind. Chick Martin had bought the album for Meredith’s birthday. He played the song before each of her swim meets. They had slow-danced to the song in the living room in the hour before Meredith’s graduation. He had played the song on a cassette during every driving lesson after Toby broke up with her and left town for the summer. Meredith had played the song on her turntable again and again in the cold, lonely days after Chick Martin dropped dead of a brain aneurysm. She had the old album upstairs in her sole cardboard box; it was now, and always had been, her most precious possession. Even though technology had rendered the album all but useless, she couldn’t bear to part with it.

Meredith had explained the meaning of the song to Freddy, and, years later, when NASA made it possible for private citizens to buy and name stars, Freddy had bought a star for Meredith and named it Silver Girl.

Whoa. That was hard to think about, for many reasons.

Meredith excused herself for bed.


Connie was so excited about the date with Dan Flynn that Meredith felt herself growing excited by osmosis. Connie spent all day on the deck in the sun, diligently applying SPF 15 to her face and keeping cucumber slices over her eyes like a movie star. Meredith watched Connie from the safety of the living-room sofa, where she lay reading a book. More than anything, she wanted to be outside, but she couldn’t relax while worrying that someone might photograph her. The paparazzi in New York had been relentless, swarming the awning of Meredith’s building for days. But this was more insidious-the hidden camera, the secret, gazing eye recording Meredith’s every move. Whether or not there was anyone out there watching her didn’t matter. Meredith felt self-conscious; she felt guilty. She didn’t belong on a sunny deck on Nantucket.

She wanted to call Dev to see if he had any further news from Julie Schwarz about Leo’s case. Had they discredited Deacon Rapp? Had they found Mrs. Misurelli? Meredith switched on her cell phone and held her breath as she waited for calls or texts to come in. Nothing. Then she realized it was Sunday and even Dev, as hard as he worked, wouldn’t be in the office. He would be on a lake fishing somewhere, or strolling in Central Park. Hell, even the Feds-the nameless, faceless Feds-would be enjoying summertime today.


Meredith was borrowing a white linen dress from Connie; it was too long, it hit her midknee, but what could she do? She wished her skin had a little bit of color. She slipped on the dress first, then did her makeup, then put on her wig. It didn’t matter what she looked like, she reminded herself. She was the sidekick here, the tagalong. She was Rhoda to Connie’s Mary Tyler Moore. She was Mary Ann to Connie’s Ginger.

Connie looked absolutely drop-dead gorgeous in a celadon-green silk sheath. She looked like a mermaid who lured sailors to their death. She had on sparkly silver Manolos (Meredith had once owned a nearly identical pair) and she wore Guerlain Champs-Élysées and smelled like a garden in Provence. Oh, perfume! Meredith nearly asked Connie for a spritz, but she refrained. It didn’t matter how she smelled.

There was a knock at the door, and Dan Flynn materialized in the foyer. He was a very handsome man to begin with, and he cleaned up incredibly well. He wore creased white pants with expensive-looking loafers and a blue-patterned Robert Graham shirt.

Connie floated down the hallway. From her perch on the stairs, Meredith could see Dan’s eyes pop. It gave Meredith a vicarious thrill, watching Dan feast on the vision of her lovely friend. They embraced awkwardly, and Meredith suppressed a smile. Then Dan noticed Meredith and said, “And here comes my second date. Am I lucky or what?”


Connie and Meredith climbed into Dan Flynn’s strawberry-red Jeep. The soft black top was accordioned down, and Dan said, “Here we go! Hold on to your hair!” This was a joke about Meredith’s wig-and surprise!-Meredith laughed. She did, indeed, hold on to her hair. The wind and the sun in her face were intoxicating. Dan played some Robert Cray. Meredith felt relaxed for the first time in months. She had made a deal with herself in the upstairs bathroom that she wouldn’t spend the evening musing about what the boys were doing, or about Freddy. Freddy, she had to assume, was fending for himself, and she, Meredith, was left to do the same. She was determined to be a sparkling dinner companion, witty and interesting-and not the complete downer that Dan Flynn, no doubt, expected.

“We’re starting with drinks!” Dan said. “Champagne!” Yes, Meredith loved champagne, although it gave her a regrettable headache. They arrived at the Galley Restaurant, which looked out over Nantucket Sound; they took their champagne onto the sand, where they lounged across low-slung wicker furniture covered with creamy linen pillows. It was a scene straight from the south of France. Meredith listened to Connie and Dan talk about Nantucket-the way it was now, the way it used to be. Dan Flynn had been born and raised on the island, and his father before him and his father… back five generations. At one time, he said, his family had owned nearly a tenth of the land on the island, but they had sold some of it off and donated some to conservation. Dan was a fisherman and a clammer and the owner of twenty-five lobster traps. He owned the power-washing business, and he managed his family’s fourteen properties, though his real job, he said, was to know everyone on the island and everything that was going on. In the off-season, he traveled. Just like the whalers of the 1800s, Dan Flynn had seen the world. He had ridden a motorcycle through China; he had backpacked through India, contracted malaria, and spent months convalescing, with the help of some psychedelic drugs, on the beach in Goa. He had hiked with his wife and three sons to see Machu Picchu.

Connie was beaming, and it looked like real Connie beaming and not fake, polite Connie beaming. Dan was a charmer and a gentleman. When Meredith tried to slip him a twenty-dollar bill for the drinks, he said, “Put that away. Everything tonight is my treat.” Meredith felt a relief she would have found absurd only a year before: she didn’t have to worry about money.

They left the Galley and stopped for another round of drinks at 21 Federal. Even Meredith, who knew next to nothing about Nantucket, had heard of 21 Federal-which meant she had to be on high alert. She would see someone she knew-but, she reassured herself, no one would recognize her. The wig, the glasses. Dan had been instructed to introduce her as Meredith Martin.

Dan knew everyone at the bar at 21 Federal, including both of the bartenders. He ordered more champagne. The bar was dark and sophisticated; the clientele was attractive and convivial. But it was in gracious, genteel places like this that the Delinn name got kicked around. These were the people who had lost money or who knew people who lost money. We’re changing our last name, Carver had said. You should, too.

Meredith wondered if the boys had followed through with this. Would Leo be able to change his name while under investigation? She worried that if they did change their name, they would slip away from her, and how would she ever find them?

She had to bring herself back. Stay present, no musing! The people next to her were talking about horses. Dan and Connie were talking about sailing.

Connie said, “My husband used to sail. And my brother, Toby, is a sailor.”

Toby, Meredith thought. God, she remembered when Toby had seemed like the dangerous one.

Meredith excused herself for the ladies’ room, even though this meant walking past people seated for dinner, people who might recognize her. She glanced surreptitiously at faces: she knew no one. She eyed the door to the ladies’ room warily. Amy Rivers could be on the other side of that door.

She wondered if she would ever outlive this particular anxiety.

The ladies’ room was empty. Meredith peed gratefully, washed her hands, adjusted her wig, and briefly studied herself in the full-length mirror. Somewhere in this disguise was a girl who had been able to execute a flawless reverse one and a half pike, a woman who had read all of Jane Austen’s novels except for one, a daughter and a wife and a mother who had always acted out of love. She was a good person, though no one would ever see her that way again.

Goddamn you, Freddy Delinn, she thought (zillionth and fifth). Then she took it back, because that was how she was.


The Company of the Cauldron was, as Connie had promised, the most romantic restaurant on earth. The room was small, charming, cozy. It was lit only by candles and decorated with dried flowers, copper pots, antique farm implements, and kitchen utensils. There was a harp player, and the sound of the music made Meredith think that even if everything she’d been told about heaven turned out to be false, there had better still be a harp player. Dan knew the owners of the restaurant, and so they were given the table in the front window, where they could look across the cobblestone street. Connie and Meredith sat next to each other, and Dan sat across from them. There was a rustic loaf of bread on the table, and a dish of garlicky white-bean dip. Dan ordered a bottle of wine, and when the waiter left to fetch it, Dan reached for Connie’s hand. Connie and Dan were holding hands, this was their date that Meredith was crashing, and yet Meredith didn’t want to be anywhere else.

As their food arrived, the conversation grew more serious. Dan talked about his wife and her ten-year battle with breast cancer. Her name was Nicole, she found a lump when she was forty years old and her youngest child was four. She went through chemo, and then a double mastectomy, and then five years on tamoxifen. Nicole had taken every possible precaution, including putting herself on what Dan called “a nasty macrobiotic diet,” and just when they thought she’d beat it-she was in great shape, doing long breast-cancer walks across the state-they found the cancer had metastasized to her liver. She was dead in two months.