Now
Wednesday, August 18
Woodstock, New York
Cassandra?” I asked Willa, dumbfounded.
“Yeah,” Willa said. “She was my roommate.”
It took me a moment, and then, suddenly, it clicked. “She was the one you missed, the one you lost touch with from the past?”
My mind spun, putting it all together. It was hard to believe, but at the same time, it wasn’t. “It was the two of you, wasn’t it? In that shitty apartment in Queens?”
Willa sat down, exhausted and spent. She was still clutching the bag of jewelry to her chest, but her grip had loosened slightly. She looked like she was about to set down a boulder she’d been carrying for far too long.
“Yeah,” she said. “The two of us, plus another guy, but we were the ones who were close. Cass and I grew up together, in Pennsylvania. That’s why I never told you where I was from. On the off chance you’d put it together.” She sighed. “We were friends since kindergarten. The same graduating class, everything. We always talked about how we wanted to get out. She finally did, after years of community college, which she paid for herself. She got her dream, finally, at twenty-six—a PR gig in New York City. I stayed behind. I hadn’t finished college, but I had a few credits under my belt; I was waitressing, shacked up with an asshole who wanted to make sure I never left. I was twenty-eight when she pulled me out of that bumfuck town. She gave me a room, fronted me the money for the first month’s rent and deposit. She made it so easy, she saved me.”
Had the truth really been there, so close beneath the surface, only a light sheen of water shimmering on top?
“We were really happy, or at least I thought we were,” Willa went on. “Yeah, our apartment was shit, but Cass loved it. We painted the living room purple together, used to blast Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey and Adele and have the stupidest dance parties.” Willa blinked back new tears. “Those two years living together—they were probably the happiest of my life. My family, my ex, my stupid hometown were behind me, but I didn’t owe anything to anyone. I was free to be myself. I had no money, but I had so much fun. Life was chaotic and improvised, but I was content. I thought Cass was, too. No, I know she was.”
“Then she met Henry,” I said.
I hate Henry.
“Yeah,” Willa said with a roll of her eyes. “She organized this benefit for his family—which you already know—and he came in super hot. It was like he put a target on her back. Like he decided this is the woman I’d like to buy, and went about doing it. I only ever met him once—he was too fancy to ever come to our apartment—I saw him pick her up in his SUV, but that was it. Still, the things she told me, the relationship had red flags all over it. It was clear, even back then, that the guy had a drinking problem. Even worse, he wanted to control her. First, it was that she needed nicer clothes, and how could anyone argue with a man who wants to buy you Celine and Prada? Then it was trips to the stylist that his family always went to. Some French lady.”
“Étoile,” I said, a tickle running up my spine. Whatever Willa was saying wasn’t completely a lie, at least. Étoile had cut George’s hair—and all the Haywoods’ hair, mine included—for years now.
“Then it was that she was too good to live in that apartment with us, even though she loved it there. And he basically prevented her from ever seeing us. It was like clockwork. Anytime she had something planned with us—a dance party in Bushwick or a trivia night at our local dive or whatever—Henry would call up fifteen or twenty minutes before with some story. He’d just gotten front-row seats to Hamilton. Or his family was off to Montauk, and he wanted her to come along. Or maybe he’d had a stressful day at work, a fight with his mother, and he needed her.” Willa shrugged. “Pretty soon, she was spending more nights at his than ours. He was on her to leave her job, saying it was too stressful, too many hours. He had his assistant scheduling laser facials for her. He urged her to stop going by Cass, said her full name was much more beautiful, that people would take her more seriously. I swear to god, he was crafting her into what he thought she should be—and Cass, she felt so lucky, she didn’t question it.”
My stomach twisted. All that she was describing, it was the exactly the way George had treated me. Maybe he was molding me into something different—less flashy, less ostentatious—but still he was molding me, like a piece of clay.
Willa crossed her legs and uncrossed them, then rubbed at the top of her neck, scratching beneath the high collar of her top. “I didn’t say anything at first—I didn’t know how. But when she told me she was thinking about actually moving in with him, I told her he worried me. That he seemed too much like the guy I’d left behind in Pennsylvania.” Willa looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “She didn’t take it well. She walked out of my room, slammed the door behind her, didn’t talk to me for days. I fucked up, I know. I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but I was scared. That conversation, it pushed her right into Henry’s arms. She moved out a couple of weeks later. I tried to stay in touch with her, but I only ever got one-word responses, and then, not even that.”
I looked at Willa. Was this all a way of luring me in, spinning yet another tale? But it sounded so real. For once, I thought, maybe it was.
“So how did it come to this?” I asked, motioning to the bag in Willa’s hands.
“I ran into her,” Willa said. “At Brooklyn Bridge Park, right in front of the carousel. I was living with Jack then, but he and Jack Junior were on this father-son glamping trip, and I had a day to myself. I always loved to walk the Promenade, see the couples taking engagement photos, tourists snapping up the city views. Cass was thrown to see me at first, but then she offered to buy me a drink. I’d missed her so much, even though things went down badly between us, so I said yes. She told me how wrong things had gone with Henry, how much she’d also missed me over the years. We agreed to meet up again, and we did.”
“Did you tell her about your . . . lifestyle?”
“Not at first, no. But the drinks continued, and eventually it came out. She was surprised, but to her credit, she didn’t judge me. And then we were at the Royal Palms one night—do you know that place? In Gowanus? People were drunkenly playing shuffleboard, and we were sitting there and her eyes just light up and she says, ‘Wait a second, you’re the perfect person to solve my problem.’ ”
“And you agreed?” I asked.
“No, not at first. But you have to understand, Mary, just how much everything was worth. And it was hers. It wasn’t even stealing. We just needed a way in. And once she knew, well, the kind of life I lived, it felt serendipitous, you know? I mean, we’re talking more than half a million in jewelry. She didn’t want the flash of it, the glamour. She needed the money since the Haywoods were taking everything. And she never could have done it on her own.”
“So you just befriended me?” I asked. “And then seduced George? I know Cassandra was mad, but I thought she cared about me.”
Willa scratched at the edge of the sofa cushion. “Cass was furious that you wouldn’t help her get the jewelry back. And maybe, at the beginning, I told myself that that was why it was okay, because you hadn’t helped her when you had the chance.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” I said. “She put me in an impossible position.”
“I know, Mary,” Willa said, voice kind. “I know that now. But I didn’t then, okay?”
Tears crawled down my cheeks, but I swiped them away with the back of my hand. “How did you even find me?”
“Cass gave me the address of the brownstone,” Willa said. “I figured that you might still go to the playground across the street, so I started taking Jack there regularly. It wasn’t long before you showed up.”
I thought of Alex and Jack, happily playing together, Willa and I stretching our legs into the sun and trading stories. It cut so deep, even after all the secrets and lies, hurts and betrayals.
“Look, there would have been other ways of getting the information I needed to get. But you were refreshing. You were different than the other moms I met. You were fresh out of this marriage and fighting for your new life, and so raw, so honest. And so caring. No one was ever really like that with me, not since Cass. And with you, I felt like I could be me.”
“Except you weren’t you,” I said. “You were lying the whole time.”
“I was myself,” Willa said. “I promise you. And it was a nice break after so many years of being who all those men wanted me to be.”
“So when did you meet George?” I asked, pressing on. “And how?”
“You’d mentioned some of your favorite bars when we first met, and I went to a few of those, but I never ran into him. I knew I was relying too much on luck. So the last week of May, I started sitting outside the brownstone and waiting to see if he’d go out. He did, eventually, to this cocktail bar down the street, and I went, too.” Willa shrugged. “We talked a little, exchanged numbers, but that was all. Nothing happened until early June. And then, I felt so bad, I really did. And I thought maybe I’d give it all up, maybe this was going too far. But then Jack figured out I’d been talking to another guy. I had no real money, no place to stay. George was it. That’s when I stopped talking to you. I’m sorry for everything. It was never meant to come to this.”
So I had been right, I thought. George had been distracted by someone else this summer. By her. The thought cut deep. And not just that, but the fact that Cassandra had at least partially set this all up. The two friends I’d thought I loved most, working together to use me. Willa was trying to make it sound nuanced, complicated, like she was carefully stepping through a gray area instead of boldly crossing a line. But in the end, it was betrayal, pure and simple. The worst kind.
More tears sprang to my eyes, but I wiped my face again, holding them back. I needed to know more. “So when did it end with George?”
“When I took the jewelry, when I came up here. Mid-July.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of all of it. “So what happened on Sunday night, then? How did it get to this?”
“You were right, to a point,” Willa said. “George did find me, but I don’t think he came here looking for me—I think he came here for you and just got lucky to see me, too. This town is too goddamn small. When I left the flea market where you saw me on Saturday, when I was walking back to Rich’s with Poppy, I saw him in a bar. He must have followed me home. Then on Sunday night, he showed up at Rich’s house. It scared me.”
“So you—”
“No, Mary,” Willa said firmly, as if anticipating what I was going to say. “Yes, I was scared, but I never hurt him. I texted him back that I knew you, that if he didn’t leave me alone about the jewelry, I would tell you about us, and you’d never take him back. That’s it. I swear.”
My mind turned in circles as I took all of this in. “But who killed him, then?”
“Honestly? I thought it was you.”
I reared back. “Me?”
“You had the most to gain, didn’t you? Freedom. Your kid. I’m guessing George had a big life insurance policy. Rich people always do. And he was a prick to you. He was a prick to everyone. When you called me, I knew I had to help you, and I thought maybe . . . you’d actually done it.”
“Then why didn’t you turn me in?” I asked. “You had that text.”
Willa laughed then, breaking the tension. “You think that if you did kill him, I’d be anything but proud of you? Christ, Mary, he put you through hell. Cass, too. He deserved it, whatever he got.”
“It wasn’t me. I couldn’t kill my son’s father, and he was talking about changing, for once. He was talking about making things right.”
Willa didn’t say anything, but I could see it in her eyes. She thought a man like George would never change.
A silence fell across the room, and my brain struggled to catch up. Was I really meant to believe this? That, betrayals aside, there really had been an explanation for everything?
That Willa and Cassandra had teamed up to get what should have been Cassandra’s all along? That even if their methods had been cruel, their motives had been understandable?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
How many times had Willa fooled me now?
Willa scratched at her neck, obviously nervous for me to believe her, and in the bright daylight, I saw something. A red mark, almost . . . like a handprint.
I struggled to remember if I’d seen the mark yesterday, but couldn’t. She’d had that scarf on the whole time, like a teenager trying to cover up a hickey.
“What’s that on your neck?” I asked. “Did someone . . . hurt you?”
“Nothing,” Willa said, pulling up her collar quickly. “This top is just itchy.”
I stood up, walked closer to her, and Willa’s shoulders tightened as she grasped the velvet bag tighter.
Something had happened. Something she wasn’t telling me.
“Willa,” I said. “Did he . . .”
I swallowed, trying to understand.
“Who did that to you?”