Ilese and the girls are smiling proudly. They look beautiful in their new dresses with their hair pinned up in little curls. Lida is waving up at the stage excitedly. I wave back and blow her a kiss. “Hello, Lida!”
The audience laughs. I feel myself relax and I open my mouth to speak. I hate the sound of my voice in the high-ceilinged room, but I smile and say the right things. I thank them and they beam. I make a self-deprecating remark about my failings as a public speaker and they titter. I speak earnestly about the importance of finding families for displaced children around the globe and they nod vigorously.
And then a face jumps out at me from the crowd. A man, standing against the back wall. Tall, angular, dark. He isn’t nodding. Isn’t smiling. But his eyes are locked on me. All these years later, I would know him anywhere.
The room sways and narrows to a pair of dark pinpoints. For a moment, I think my legs will give way and I imagine the headline in tomorrow’s social section: Philanthropist Marian Manning Collapses at Dinner Held in Her Honor. I manage to stay on my feet long enough to wrap up my remarks. There’s the dull thrum of applause as I leave the stage, but it’s strangely muted, as if I’ve been plunged underwater.
Ilese frowns as I sink down into my chair and dab delicately at the sheen of perspiration along my upper lip. She asks me if I’m all right, remarks that I look shaky. I nod and make myself smile. But all I can think is, Thank god Zachary couldn’t make it tonight.
Thank god. Thank god.
The girls want to see my award. I hand it to Mila and let them pass it back and forth until Ilese hisses for them to sit back in their chairs and behave. There’s a woman talking now, a tall woman in a ruffled yellow dress that reminds me of daffodils. I pretend to listen, but her words are garbled, indistinguishable.
I clap when the others clap, nod when the others nod, and sneak a look now and then to the back of the room. Still there. Still watching me. The girls are antsy, ready to go now that Mimi—they call me Mimi—has finished her talk. The women are beginning to gather their handbags and wraps. The men are folding their napkins and glancing toward the exits. Things are wrapping up. I’m relieved. And terrified.
There’s a final round of applause; then a rush of people are heading in my direction. They surround me, offering congratulations and shaking my hand. Ilese leans in and kisses me on the cheek, says the girls have had enough and she needs to put them to bed. She’ll see me for breakfast in the morning. And then she’s gone, leaving me to my crowd of well-wishers.
I manage to smile and say the right things, to be gracious and grateful, but all the time I’m peering over heads and between faces, praying he’ll be gone. Three glimpses later, he’s still there, waiting me out as the crowd steadily thins. Eventually, it’s just a handful of hangers-on. The waiters have begun to clear the tables. There’s nothing to do but get it over with. I tuck my handbag under my arm, pick up my award, and head for the doorway.
He takes his hands out of his pockets and squares his shoulders as I approach, still lean but with a new brand of confidence, the kind born of success rather than hubris. I’m suddenly self-conscious, wondering if the blue velvet gown I chose for tonight makes me look frumpy. How is it possible that he hasn’t aged since that night in the St. Regis ballroom? He’s wearing a dark suit, impeccably cut with a faint chalk stripe, the kind he used to make fun of my father’s friends for wearing. In his sixties now, and still breathtakingly handsome.
Zachary will look just like this one day.
The thought nearly knocks the breath out of me.
“Congratulations,” he says when I’m standing in front of him.
His voice sends the years spooling backward, to that very first night. His eyes have lost none of their blue, but there are fine lines fanning out from the edges now, and his hair is threaded with silver at the temples. His mouth has changed too. Harder. Less generous. Less prone to smile, I think. He’s smiling now, though, if one can call it a smile. The expression doesn’t reach his eyes and sharpens his already sharp features.
“Come now. No need for modesty. I’ve been reading up on you since I saw the announcement about tonight’s event in the Globe. You’re rather impressive.”
“Why are you here?” I say, finally finding my tongue.
“How could I pass on the chance to have a drink with an old friend and talk over old times?”
I don’t know what to make of him. His words don’t match his flinty smile, as if he’s got a trick card up his sleeve. “We caught up, remember? You wrote me a book.”
“And you wrote one back.”
“Which about wraps things up, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would have . . . once. But I’ve had time to think about things since then, to reflect a bit, and it strikes me that you left a few things out of your version of events. Plot holes, we call them.”
I stare at him, my heart caught in my throat. How could he know? Did he see Zachary somewhere? On tour perhaps? Surely one look would give the game away. Or maybe he’s read something. Zachary is always turning up in this or that paper. Or perhaps he’s known all these years. I think of the words inscribed on the title page of Regretting Belle. How, Belle? After everything . . . how could you do it? Perhaps that’s what he’s come to ask. But in person this time.
“There’s a bar in the lobby,” he tells me smoothly. “What do you say we have that drink?”
“I don’t want a drink. It’s been a long day and I want to go to my room.”
“You stood me up the last time we were in Boston.”
“I didn’t stand you up. I stood Dickey up. We didn’t have anything to talk about then and we don’t have anything to talk about now.” I step to my left then and try to push past him.
He blocks my path. “I think we do. I think it’s time we hash it out once and for all. You owe me that, don’t you think? Forty years is a long time to keep a man in the dark—no matter what you believe him guilty of.”
I can only nod. Forty years is a long time. Long enough to actually trick myself into believing my own carefully crafted narrative, to convince myself I could keep such a secret without consequence.
“So . . . the bar,” Hemi suggests again.
I nod, because there seems no way out of it. “I’ll need a minute to ring my daughter’s room so she doesn’t worry.”
“Here,” he says. “Let me free up your hands.” Before I can protest, he relieves me of the glass globe, assuring my return. “Shall I order you a drink?”
“I won’t be staying that long.”
I step past him then, out into the hallway, and head for the alcove where the house phone is located. I don’t have to call Ilese. I just need a moment to compose myself and I know the ladies’ room is here. I step inside, then sag against the closed door. I’ve dreaded this moment for so long, and yet I’ve never once thought how I might handle it, what excuse I might offer for what I’ve done. Probably because there isn’t one. Not for something like this.
It occurs to me, as I stand trembling at one of the black marble sinks, that Ashlyn might be behind Hemi’s sudden appearance tonight, that she may have taken it into her head to try to broker a truce between us—like Dickey did. I want it not to be true, but the timing is suspect. Particularly after last night’s heartfelt speech about forgiveness. And she knew exactly where I’d be tonight.