Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

“Which you are,” Connie said, trying to smile.

“Why couldn’t you live someplace awful?” Meredith said. “Why couldn’t you live in East Saint Louis? Why couldn’t they be reporting that Mrs. Delinn was spending the summer in hot and dangerous East Saint Louis?”

“This isn’t funny,” Connie said. She checked her rearview mirror. The road behind them was clear. Connie checked again. “Well, guess what. They’re not following us.”

“They’re not?”

Connie motored on. She felt the teensiest bit disappointed. “False alarm, I guess.” She tried to think why there would have been TV vans at the rotary, and then she remembered a third-or fourth-tier news story, buried way beneath the sentencing of Freddy Delinn. “Oh, that’s right!” she said. “The president is here this weekend!”

Meredith sat up. “You scared me.” She was doing some audible Lamaze breathing to calm herself down, and Connie remembered when Meredith was in the hospital after giving birth to Leo. Connie had taken two-year-old Ashlyn to the hospital to see Meredith and the baby. Freddy had been as proud as a goddamned rooster, handing out expensive (not to mention illegal) Cuban cigars; he’d pushed one on Connie, saying, “Go home and give it to Wolf. He’s going to love it.” Connie remembered feeling jealous that giving birth had come so easily for Meredith (Connie had slogged through twenty-three hours of labor with Ashlyn and she’d suffered a uterine rupture, which precluded her from having any more children). Meredith had said, “Thank God, Freddy got his boy and the hallowed Delinn name will live on.” This had upset Connie; she had felt defensive that Ashlyn was a girl and that there would be no more children to carry on the hallowed Flute name. Feeling bad about this led to resentment that, while Connie had made the trip from Bethesda to New York to see Meredith in the hospital, Meredith hadn’t made the reverse trip two years earlier when Ashlyn was born. It was amazing how memories intruded like that. It was amazing how Connie’s mind held the good and the bad of every interaction, swirled together like children’s paints. Meredith might only remember happiness that Connie had come, or recall the cute outfit that Connie had brought. When Meredith thought of Leo being born, she might only think, Leo is under investigation.

Connie turned into her driveway and parked in front of the house. Meredith scrambled to get the groceries out of the car.

“You go in and relax,” Meredith said. “I’ll get these.”

Connie laughed. “You’re not an indentured servant,” she said. “But thank you for the help.”

She flashed back to that day at the hospital. Meredith had allowed Ashlyn to hold her hours-old infant, even though the head nurse strongly advised against it. It’ll be fine! Meredith had said. Connie and I will be right here. Meredith had snapped the pictures herself. She’d had one framed and sent it to Connie. And then, of course, she’d asked Connie to be Leo’s godmother.

“It’s nice to have someone else around,” Connie said.

“Even me?” Meredith said.

“Even you,” Connie said.

At ten minutes to five, Meredith couldn’t put it off any longer: she had to call her attorneys and give them her coordinates. She was still under investigation. She wasn’t allowed to leave the country; the Feds had her passport. Burt and Dev needed to know where she was.

She sat on her bed and turned on her cell phone. This had become a suspenseful moment in Meredith’s daily routine: Had anyone called her? Had anyone texted her? Would Carver and Leo break the rules and text her the I love you that she so desperately needed? Had any of Meredith’s former friends found enough compassion in their hearts to reach out? Would she hear from Samantha? Had Burt or Dev called? Did they have good news or bad news? How bad was the bad news? Would this be the moment when Meredith received the worst news? Indeed, the reason Meredith kept her phone turned off was to limit the torture to this one moment, instead of living with it all day long.

There were no messages and no texts. This presented its own kind of misery.

She dialed the law firm and said a Hail Mary, which was what she always did when she dialed the law firm. She could hear the sounds of Connie making dinner downstairs.

Meredith had thought she might feel safer on Nantucket, but she was plagued by a low-grade terror. Nantucket was an island, thirty miles out to sea. What if she needed to escape? There would be no hopping in a cab uptown or downtown or across the bridge or through the tunnel into New Jersey. There would be no hightailing it to Connecticut if Leo or Carver needed her. She felt both exiled and trapped.

Meredith had $46,000 of her own money. This was the savings that she’d tucked away in a CD earning 1.5 percent, from her teaching job in the 1980s. (Freddy had ridiculed her for this. Let me invest it, he’d said. I’ll double it in six months.) But Meredith had kept rolling over the money in that CD for no reason other than personal pride-and how relieved she was now! She had something to live on, actual legitimate money that she’d earned and banked. Forty-six thousand dollars would seem a fortune to many people, she knew, but to her it felt like a pittance. She had run through that much in an afternoon of antiques shopping. Disgusting! she thought as the phone rang. How had she become that person?

The receptionist answered.

“May I speak with Burton Penn, please?” Meredith asked.

“May I ask who’s calling?” the receptionist said.

Meredith cringed. She hated identifying herself. “Meredith Delinn.”

The receptionist didn’t respond. The receptionist never responded, though Meredith had called and spoken to this selfsame receptionist dozens of times.

The phone rang. Although Meredith had asked for Burt, the person who answered the phone was Dev.

“Hi Dev,” Meredith said. “It’s Meredith.”

“Thank God,” Dev said. “I was just about to call your cell. Where are you?”

“I’m on Nantucket,” Meredith said.

“Nantucket?” Dev said, “What are you doing on Nantucket?”

“I’m with a friend,” Meredith said.

Dev made a noise of surprise. Clearly, he had been under the impression that Meredith didn’t have any friends. And he was right. But Meredith had Connie. Was Connie her friend? Connie was something; Meredith wasn’t sure what.

“What’s the address there?” Dev asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Phone number? Please, Meredith, give me something. The Feds want us to have contact information for you on the ground.”

Meredith had written down the phone number at the house. She recited it to Dev.

He said, “First things first. I’m glad you’re safe.” Meredith smiled. Dev was one person, aside from her sons, who didn’t want to see her jump off the George Washington Bridge. Her other attorney, Burt, would never have expressed this kind of sentiment. Burt didn’t dislike Meredith, but he was detached. She was a case, a legal problem. She was work.

Dev said, “I heard from Warden Carmell at the MCC, and he said Mr. Delinn was shipped out on the bus at noon. Ten hours down to Butner. He’s due to arrive tonight.”

Meredith closed her eyes. When her attorneys had called her to tell her Freddy had been given the maximum sentence, Meredith hadn’t been sure what they meant. She had turned on the TV and saw Freddy being led out of the courtroom in his light-gray suit, which no longer fit. The banner across the bottom of the screen read: Delinn sentenced to 150 years. Meredith had run for the kitchen sink, where she vomited up the half cup of tea she’d managed to ingest that morning. She heard a noise and she thought it was the TV, but it was the phone. She’d dropped the phone on the ground, and Burt was calling out, “Meredith, are you there? Hello? Hello?” Meredith hung up the phone and shut off the TV. She was done.

She had gone into her bedroom and fallen back onto her king-size bed. She had sixteen hours until federal marshals came to escort her from her home and she would have to give up the sheets, which were as crisp as paper, the luscious silk quilt, the sumptuous down-filled duvet.

One hundred and fifty years.

Meredith had understood then that Freddy had taken her hand at the edge of a giant hole, and he had asked her to jump with him, and she had agreed. She’d jumped without knowing how deep the hole was or what would happen when they hit the bottom.

“Okay,” Meredith said to Dev now, although obviously the fact that Freddy was going to prison for two or three lifetimes wasn’t okay. She was so angry with Freddy that she wanted to rip her hair out, but the thought of him on that bus crushed her.

“The sticking point with your investigation…”

“I know the sticking point.”

“They can’t seem to get past it,” Dev said. “Do you have anything to add?”

“Nothing to add,” Meredith said.

“Anything to amend?”

“Nothing to amend.”

“You know how bad it looks?” Dev said. “Fifteen million dollars is a lot of money, Meredith.”

“I have nothing to add or amend,” Meredith said. “I told it all in my deposition. Do they think I lied in my deposition?”

“They think you lied in your deposition,” Dev said. “Lots of people do.”

“Well, I didn’t,” Meredith said.

“Okay,” Dev said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “If you think of anything you want to add or amend, just call. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch.”

“What about Leo?” Meredith said. “Please tell me about Leo.”

“I didn’t hear from Julie today,” Dev said. Julie Schwarz was Leo’s attorney. It was her job, now, to help federal investigators find Mrs. Misurelli, and to prove that Deacon Rapp was lying. “And days that I don’t hear from Julie are good days, much as I love her. It just means there’s no news. And as they say, no news is…”

“Right,” Meredith said. She wasn’t going to utter the words “good news.” Not until she and Leo and Carver were free and clear. And together.

Goddamn you, Freddy! she thought (zillionth and first).

A voice rang out from downstairs: it was Connie, calling her for dinner.

They sat at a round teak table on the deck and gazed out at the indifferent ocean. The ocean didn’t care whether mankind lived or died or cheated or stole; it just kept rolling and tumbling over itself, encroaching, then receding.

Connie had poured herself a glass of wine. She said, “Meredith, do you want wine?”

“Do you have any red?”

“Of course I have red,” Connie said, standing up.

“No, wait. I don’t want it,” Meredith said. The chicken was cooking on the grill, and it smelled far more delicious than anything Meredith had eaten in months. Meredith would have loved a glass of red to go with the chicken and the fresh, delicious salad that they were now eating-Connie had whipped up the vinaigrette while Meredith looked on, astonished-but drinking a glass of red wine would put Meredith right back at her usual table at Rinaldo’s, next to Freddy.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Meredith squinted out at the water. She saw a sleek, black head out about twenty yards. “Do you have seals?”

“That’s Harold,” Connie said. “Our seal. He’s always here.”

Meredith watched Harold swim through the breaking waves, then she noticed Connie’s downcast eyes.

“Are you okay?” Meredith asked.

Connie took a sip of her wine and nodded, but her eyes were shining. Our seal: she was thinking about Wolf. Meredith wanted to take Connie’s hand, but she wasn’t sure how that kind of gesture would be received.

Connie sniffed. “Tell me something.”

“What?” Meredith said.

“I don’t know. Anything,” Connie said. “We have to start somewhere.”

Instinctively, Meredith checked her wrist. For her birthday in October, Freddy had given her a tiger-striped Cartier watch, but Meredith had been required to leave behind any personal effects purchased in the past twelve months worth more than three hundred dollars. She said, “Well, as we speak, Freddy is on the bus for Butner. He’ll get there at ten o’clock tonight.”

“Jesus,” Connie said.

“What he did was awful,” Meredith said. She swallowed, and wished for that wine, but she took a sip of ice water instead. Her glass of ice water had a paper-thin slice of lemon in it. Things at Connie’s house were nice like that. What had Meredith done to deserve this? Freddy was, at that very moment, on some bus to North Carolina, his hands and feet shackled in heavy iron cuffs. The bus driver probably stopped for bathroom breaks every four hours or so. If Freddy couldn’t hold it, he would wet himself, and the other prisoners would love that. Meredith tensed with worry, as she might have for one of her children. Freddy suffered from a weak bladder. Recently, Meredith wondered if this had been a side effect from carrying around so much stress, fear, and guilt. Maybe now that he’d confessed, his bladder was sturdier. “I went to see him in jail.”