Now
Saturday, August 14
Woodstock, New York
Willa walked quickly, purposefully—like a true New Yorker—across Woodstock’s main drag.
I sat there, nearly frozen in place. Should I run out, call her name, beg her for answers? Or pretend like I never saw her, try to keep an ounce of my self-respect?
She kept walking, my butt still glued to the stool in indecision, and then she disappeared from view, the moment gone, my chance slipping through my fingers. I pushed my plate forward, asked for the check.
The bartender raised an eyebrow. “Food okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll take a box for the rest, please.”
By the time I was outside, Willa was nowhere to be seen, but I turned right anyway, heading in her direction, my brain running in familiar circles. What if Willa hadn’t meant to ditch me at all? What if she’d lost her phone, lost any way to contact me? What if there were reasons she’d stopped responding, and they had nothing to do with the secrets I’d shared? What if she, Jack Senior, and Jack Junior had needed to move, spur of the moment, for some reason? Well-off people were always doing things like that, especially this time of year. Jetting off to Mexico. Summering in Sweden. And we’d only really been friends for two months when she ghosted me. She was saved in my phone as Willa Playground.
Face it. The logical side of me fought back. She ditched you. She had your name, your number, she could have found you on one social network or another. Hell, she could have pulled up the contact form on your journalism website. She heard what you had to say and decided she was done with you. She made that abundantly clear.
I wandered down the stone sidewalk, past a candle boutique and a bakery, a mom-and-pop hardware store, and a toy shop that looked like it hadn’t changed much in the last fifty years or so. At the corner, I paused in front of a sign that said Flea Market Every Saturday, Noon to Four, debating whether label-loving Willa would ever wander a flea market.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my purse, naively hoping it was Willa. An email instead—from my lawyer’s paralegal.
Dear Mrs. Haywood,
Apologies for the delay, but Ron and I were both out of the office yesterday. The firm has received initial paperwork from Mr. Haywood’s team. Please review it in the client portal. Ron would like to set up a call to confer at your convenience early next week. Please send me your availability Monday or Tuesday.
Immediately, I tapped out of my email and into a web browser, cueing up the firm’s portal. I was met with a spinning wheel; the page wouldn’t load. I glanced at the top of my phone. My service was shit. Fine for checking email, but the lawyer’s site had always been a bit finicky. I needed Wi-Fi. I wasn’t able to check in to my rental until four p.m., which gave me another thirty minutes to kill. Reluctantly, I flagged the email as important and slipped my phone back into my purse, making for the flea market instead. The paperwork should reflect what George and I had agreed: I’d have Alex Monday through Friday in Woodstock, take the train across the river in Rhinebeck down on Fridays and meet the nanny or George in Grand Central. Do the same on Monday mornings. The prenup ensured I wouldn’t get any real money, but between alimony and child support—and hopefully, more and more two-dollars-a-word assignments—I’d have enough to get us a nice place, maybe even with a third bedroom for my mom or Rachel to stay in once my mom was mobile again. After all the drama, I couldn’t believe that something might actually work out.
I was approaching a table of cast-iron molds when my heart leapt at the sight of her. Willa, emerging from around the corner, walking toward a stand of framed old posters, only a few yards ahead. This was my chance. I walked forward, my heart still in my throat, until I was a couple of feet behind her, then cleared my throat. “Willa.”
Nothing.
“Willa,” I said, louder this time, but she still didn’t move. I reached out then, touched her shoulder. “Willa.”
She finally turned, but her face was blank and cold—stoic. “Can I help you?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I’m saying hello.”
“I’m sorry,” Willa said. She took a quick, sharp breath. “But I don’t know who you are.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “You’re going to pretend you don’t even know me?” I asked. “Is this about what I . . . well, you know. What I texted?”
“I can see you’re upset,” she said, her voice thin and calm. “But I think you have me confused with someone else.”
My jaw dropped. It actually did. “Really? How can you pretend you don’t—”
My words were swallowed by the squeal of a little girl, running from behind the next table, tugging on Willa’s bright yellow sundress. “Carry me, Annie, carry me.”
“Come here, sweetie,” Willa said, lifting the girl.
“Where’s Jack?” I asked, looking around, my heart beating fast. “Where’s your son? Willa, it’s me. I get it, you don’t want to be friends with me anymore, but please. Stop the charade.”
Willa pulled the girl closer to her, stroked the back of her head familiarly. “I really am sorry for any confusion, but my name is not Willa.”
“It’s Annie!” the girl proclaimed cheerfully.
“But—”
“Can we go get ice cream?” the girl asked. “You promised ice cream.”
Willa’s head whipped back and forth, as if looking for someone, before settling on the child. “Yes, baby, we’ll go right now.”
She started to turn, but I reached out and grabbed her arm, desperate now. “Why are you doing this?”
She shook me off, and she pulled the girl closer. “Please,” she said. “Please just leave us alone. I’ve already told you. You must have me confused with someone else.”
I stepped back. I felt like either I was crazy or she was. Her voice, even her posture; it was Willa’s, had to be. But as I stared at her, taking her in, I wondered. The resemblance was uncanny, even down to her thin, graceful hands, but then again, this woman did have shorter hair than Willa, she did have darker hair than Willa—brunette rather than blond. And her clothes were wrong, too. I looked closer—her lacy sundress wasn’t designer at all, more like something you’d pick up at H&M.
The Willa I knew wouldn’t be caught dead in something so cheap.
Was it really possible that it wasn’t her?
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I stammered, taking another step back. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“It’s okay, really,” the woman said. “It’s fine.”
As she turned, the Catskill light caught her profile just so.
There, beneath the lace, I could see it, shimmering like only a real stone could—a glint of brilliant royal blue.
Willa’s sapphire necklace.