She turned around. Toby was standing there, and something about the look on his face made Meredith’s anger pop like a soap bubble.

She said, “He won’t talk to me. He refuses. And they can’t make him.”

Toby nodded slowly. Meredith expected him to take this opportunity to say, He’s a rat bastard, Meredith. A piece of shit. What further proof do you need? But instead, Toby said, “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

Meredith smiled sadly and headed for the front door to meet Connie in the Escalade. They were going to the store. Meredith had planned on wearing her wig, but this suddenly seemed pointless. The wig was meant to protect her, but she had just suffered the ultimate blow. Nothing anyone did could affect her now; the wig had been rendered useless. Meredith left it on the stairs. When she got home, she would throw it away.

Toby was being kind about Freddy because he could afford to be. He knew, as Meredith did, that Freddy would never change his mind.


That night, before she left for her date with Dan, Connie made dinner for Meredith and Toby. It was a crabmeat pasta with sautéed zucchini in a lemon tarragon cream sauce, a stacked salad of heirloom tomatoes, Maytag blue cheese, and basil, sprinkled with toasted pine nuts and drizzled with hot bacon dressing, and homemade Parker House rolls with seasoned butter.

Unbelievable, Meredith thought. Connie had showered and dressed. She looked absolutely gorgeous, and she had made this meal.

“I feel guilty,” Meredith said. “You should have served this meal to Dan.”

“I offered,” Connie said. “But he really wanted to go out.”

Without us, Meredith thought.

“And I wanted to cook for you,” Connie said.

Because she feels sorry for me, Meredith thought. Again. But there was something almost comforting about reaching this point. Nothing left to lose, nothing left to care about, nothing left to want.

The outdoor table was set with a tablecloth and candles. There was a breeze off the ocean that held a hint of chill.

Fall was coming.

Connie wrapped herself up in a pashmina and said, “Bon appétit! I’m off for my date. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Dan’s on the noon boat.”

“This is lovely,” Meredith said. “Thank you.”

“And there’s dessert in the fridge,” Connie said.

“Have fun,” Toby said, pushing her gently to the front door.

She left, and Meredith had the feeling that Connie was the parent, and she and Toby were teenagers on a date. It was supposed to be romantic-the candlelight, the delicious food, the ocean before them like a Broadway show. Meredith should have dressed up, but she was in the same clothes she’d put on that morning: a ratty old T-shirt from Choate that Carver had worn his senior year, and her navy-blue gym shorts. She knew it was possible that she would sleep in these clothes and wear them again the next day. She didn’t care how she looked. She didn’t even care, anymore, about her hair.

Thirty years of marriage, and he wouldn’t talk to her. So many dinners at Rinaldo’s she had sat with Freddy the way she was now sitting with Toby, and she had talked about her day, and Freddy had nodded and asked questions, and when Meredith asked him about work, he’d run his hands through his hair and check his BlackBerry as if a pithy answer would be displayed there, and then he’d say something about the stress and unpredictability of his business. Meredith had no idea that Freddy was printing out fake statements on an ancient dot-matrix printer, or that he was spending his lunch hours with Samantha Deuce at the Stanhope Hotel. Freddy had pretended to live in awe of Meredith, but what he really must have been thinking was how blind and gullible and stupid she was. She was like… his mother, Mrs. Delinn, who toiled at providing for Freddy and giving him love. He’ll pretend like he can get along without it, but he can’t. Freddy needs his love. And Meredith had been only too happy to take over the care and maintenance of Freddy Delinn. He was a rich man, but she was the one who rubbed his back and kissed his eyelids and defended him tooth and nail to those who said he was corrupt.

There had been one time in early December when Freddy had called out in the night. He had shuddered in bed, and when Meredith rolled over, she saw his eyes fly open. She touched his silvering hair and said, “What? What is it?”

He didn’t speak, though his eyes widened. Was he awake?

He said, “David.”

And Meredith thought, “David? Who is David?” Then she realized he meant his brother.

“It’s okay,” Meredith said. “I’m here.”

And he had turned to her and said, “You’re never going to leave me, Meredith, right? Promise me. No matter what?”

“No matter what,” she’d said.

Freddy’s eyes had closed then, though Meredith could see manic activity beneath his twitching lids. She had stayed awake as long as she could, watching him, thinking, David. I wonder what made him dream of David?

But now she suspected he hadn’t been thinking about David at all. He’d been thinking about money, the SEC, a looming investigation, being caught, discovered, indicted, imprisoned. He had invoked his brother’s name to throw Meredith off the trail of his real worries. He had known how to lie to her, even when he was only semiconscious.

No matter what, Meredith had promised. But she hadn’t known what kind of “what” he was talking about.


“I don’t think I can eat,” Meredith said. Toby was very patiently holding his utensils in the hover position over his plate, waiting for her.

Toby’s face darkened. “The guy is the biggest creep on earth,” he said. “He didn’t deserve you.”

It was confounding hearing these words from Toby. Quite possibly, Freddy had said something similar about Toby so many years ago, when Meredith told him about how Toby broke up with her on the night of her high-school graduation. You’re better off without him. He didn’t deserve you.

Toby put a forkful of pasta in his mouth and chewed sadly, if such a thing was possible.

“You’re luckier than Freddy,” Meredith said. “You got me at my best. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. That was the best Meredith, Toby, and she was yours.”

Toby swallowed and looked at her. “You’re at your best right now.” He fingered the fraying sleeve of her ancient T-shirt. “You’re the best Meredith right now.”

Meredith thought back to the day of Veronica O’Brien’s funeral. Meredith had arrived at the church nearly an hour early, and the only person there was Toby. He was sitting in the back pew, and Meredith had tapped his shoulder and he turned and they looked at each other and-what could Meredith say? She hadn’t seen Toby in nearly twenty years at that point, but the sight of his face brought her to her knees. He stood up and took her in his arms. It started out as a condolence hug. His mother had, after all, just died. The indomitable Veronica O’Brien was gone.

Meredith said into his chest, “I’m so sorry, Toby.”

He tightened his grip on her, and she felt her body temperature rise. She thought she was imagining it. Of course, she was imagining it. She was married, married to rich and powerful Freddy Delinn. Freddy gave her everything her heart desired, so what could she possibly want from Toby now? But the human heart, as Meredith learned then, rarely paid attention to the rules. She felt Toby’s arms tense around her, she felt his leg nudge up against her leg, she felt his breath in her hair.

“Meredith,” he said. “My Meredith.”

The next thing Meredith knew, Toby was leading her out of the church, leading her to the shady spot under a majestic tree where his car was parked. He opened the passenger-side door for her and she got in.

She stared out the windshield at the trunk of the hundred-year-old tree, and when Toby got into the car, Meredith said, “Where are we going?”

“I want to take you somewhere,” he said. “I want to make love to you.”

“Toby,” Meredith said.

“Did you feel it back there?” he asked. “Tell me you did.”

“I did.”

“You did, right? Look at me, I’m shaking.”

Yes, Meredith was shaking, too. She tried to think of Freddy, who had hired a helicopter and a private car to get her here, but who had not given her the most precious thing-and that was his time. He hadn’t come with her.

Meredith said, “This is insane.”

“I should have been more persistent at Connie’s wedding,” he said. “I knew then that I’d made a mistake with you.”

“You broke my heart,” Meredith said. “I thought we would get married.”

“I want to take you somewhere.”

“But the funeral…”

“We have time,” he said. He started the engine and drove out of the churchyard

“We should turn around,” Meredith said.

“Tell me you don’t want me.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Meredith said.

“So you do want me?”

She was glowing with arousal, but it wasn’t just sexual. A part of Meredith had been yearning for this moment-Toby wanting her back-since she was eighteen years old.

He drove through the town of Villanova to the O’Brien house. He screeched into the driveway, and he and Meredith got out. The day was hot, Meredith was wearing a black lace Collette Dinnigan dress; it was too fancy for the Main Line, and now it was plastered to her, and itching. Toby led Meredith into the O’Briens’ garage, which smelled exactly the same as it had twenty-five years earlier-like cut grass and gasoline from Bill O’Brien’s riding mower. A tennis ball hung from a string over one of the bays; it had been placed there when Veronica smashed her Cutlass Supreme into the garage’s back wall after too many gimlets at Aronimink. As soon as they were shut in the cool dim of the garage, Toby took Meredith’s face in his hands, and he kissed her.

And oh, what a kiss it had been. It had gone on and on, Meredith could not get enough, it had been so long since someone had kissed her like that. Freddy loved her, but there were a hundred things more important to him than sex and romance. Money, money, money, his business, his reputation, his clients, his profile in Forbes, his appearance, his yacht, his suits, his early bedtime-all of those rated with him in a way that kissing Meredith did not.

“Come upstairs with me,” Toby said. “To my room.”

She thought of parking with Toby in the Nova. The best of times are when I’m alone with you. She tried to think of Freddy, but she couldn’t conjure his face. So, she would go upstairs with Toby. She would have him again, just this once.

They hurried through the house, up the stairs. It was so familiar, it played tricks on Meredith’s sense of time and place. She had started her day in Southampton 2004, but now it was three o’clock in the afternoon and she was in Villanova 1978. Toby’s room was exactly the same-why hadn’t Veronica turned it into an exercise room or a study like every other empty nester? There was Toby’s lava lamp, his poster of Jimmy Page, his water bed. The heels of Meredith’s Manolos got caught in the shag rug. She stumbled and Toby caught her, then somehow they both crashed onto the water bed, and this knocked Meredith back into her present self. She stared up at the ceiling, and there were the tape marks from where Toby had hung his Farrah Fawcett poster.

He started to kiss her again. She said, “Toby, stop. I can’t.”

“What?” he said. “Why not?”

She rolled onto her side, creating wave motion in the mattress. She looked into his green eyes. “I’m married, Toby.”

“Please, Meredith,” he said. “Please?” He looked like he might cry. She reached out to wipe away the first tear with her thumb.

“I’m sorry, Toby,” she said. “I can’t.”

He watched her for a second, perhaps to see if she was bluffing. She hoisted herself up off the bed and straightened her dress.

“So that’s it?” he said.

“We should go back,” she said. “It’s your mother’s funeral.”

“Is it the man you love?” Toby asked. “Or is it the money?”

Meredith stared.

“Is it the houses? Is it the place in France? Is it the behemoth boat? I saw her once, you know, in the Mediterranean. Saint Tropez.”

“Toby, let’s go.”

“Does he make you laugh?” Toby asked.

“No,” Meredith said honestly. “But you’re not very funny right now, either. Let’s go back.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

Meredith turned on him. “What am I supposed to do? Allow you to make love to me, allow the feelings to come back, and then watch you take off tomorrow for… where? Where, Toby?”

“Spain,” he said. “On Tuesday.”

“See?” she said.

“You wouldn’t come with me even if I asked you,” he said. “Because you’re married to money.”