Meg ignored Stowe’s text. Hunter Cross wanted them to “put their heads together” about the Page Six piece? It was really none of her business.
Or was it? Her conversation with Kevin had left her so unsettled, she couldn’t think straight. Could it possibly be true? Reed running for president?
She told herself she would discuss it with Stowe at dinner. They had reservations at Il Canale. Stowe had to travel the rest of the week to take depositions in Seattle, so they were treating tonight like it was a weekend. Normally, they didn’t talk about work over dinner. Dinner was for reconnecting after a long week. And after dinner, they would fuck.
They didn’t “make love.” Meg and Stowe fucked. It was one of the surprises—and delights—of Stowe Campion. Despite his patrician good looks, his unflappable composure, his buttoned-up way, all the way, everywhere—in bed, he was animalistic and thrilling. She wished that they could just skip dinner and get to the fucking part of the night. She, too, dealt with the world always buttoned up and on her game. It was exhausting. In Stowe’s hands, she could finally relax. And she really needed to relax.
Il Canale was nestled on a side street off M, the main strip of Georgetown. It was unassuming, with such outrageously good, authentic Italian food, it belonged in Queens or Little Italy. Stowe’s parents preferred Filippa, an institution. But Meg found it stodgy and overrated, and she and Stowe had been trying to convert them to Il Canale for months.
Stowe was already waiting for her at a table. “Hey, babe,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m starving. And I might need to take a call, so I have to leave this on. Sorry.”
Early on in their relationship, they’d agreed to silence their phones at dinner after one comical night in which they both took turns leaving to take calls and basically spent an entire meal not speaking to one another.
“Mutually assured distraction,” Stowe had said, finally turning off his phone as they ordered dessert. She’d followed his lead, and it was now their unofficial policy.
But tonight she saw it as her opening.
“No problem,” she said. “Actually, since work is already on the table, so to speak: I had an interesting conversation with Kevin today,” Meg said. “He basically told me he was putting me up for a promotion.”
“Meg—that’s fantastic. You deserve it, of course. Truthfully, it’s overdue. But then, maybe I’m biased.” He flashed a smile and kissed her again.
“Yeah, I’m beyond excited.”
“Did he say anything more specific?”
“Senior editor, White House.” She couldn’t help but smile as she said the words. God, she wanted it so badly. Maybe more than she’d ever wanted anything. Except for Stowe.
“Well then, that gives us something to officially celebrate tonight.”
“As if we needed more.”
He took her hand. “We’re fortunate, Meg.”
“Yes, we are…” She trailed off, wondering if her areas of good fortune were colliding in a very unfortunate way. “Stowe, the thing is, Kevin made it seem like my promotion had a contingency.”
When Stowe didn’t take the bait, she pressed her nails into her palm and continued. “He basically asked me to find out if your father is going to go after the Republican ticket. And to break the news on the site. I told him that was ridiculous. I mean, it is ridiculous, right? You would have told me if your father was thinking about running for president.”
“Well, aside from stating the obvious about how out of line he is—”
“Stowe, he’s a news guy. Your dad’s a senator and he’s hearing buzz. It isn’t out of line.” She noticed he didn’t answer the question.
“Yes, but it’s out of line to make a promotion you deserve contingent on a specific story. One that relates to you personally and is therefore a conflict of interest.”
“Well, I told him your father has no intention of running for president, so it’s a nonissue. Right?”
“Right,” Stowe said, studying his menu. Even though he always ordered the Bolognese.
Meg’s heart began to race. “But if your father were to announce his candidacy, I hope he would consider letting me break the story.”
Stowe glanced at her and sighed. “That’s not how it works, Meg.”
“Uh, yeah—it is. That’s exactly how it works. And you know it.”
“Okay, but he hasn’t decided to run, so it’s a moot point.”
She pulled the menu away from him. “What do you mean, ‘hasn’t decided’? Is this a possibility? Is that why he brought in a new communications director?”
“Meg, please calm down. Anything’s a possibility. You know how my father is.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t. And if you’ve been talking to him about this and somehow decided to shut me out, then I guess I don’t know you very well, either.”
“Meg, you might be all work, all the time—but believe it or not, when I’m with him, he’s just my dad. I don’t grill him about his plans for the entirety of his political career. And he is surrounded by very savvy people, ninety-nine percent of whom he would talk to about this stuff before he discussed it with me. And if he was dealing with something that was confidential in nature, he would be smart enough not to put you—a member of the press—in a compromising position to know about it.”
“So he is running.”
“Jesus, Meg! Did you hear a word of what I just said? No, he’s not running.”
“But if he were, you wouldn’t tell me.”
“Would you want to know something you couldn’t write about?”
“Why couldn’t I write about it?”
“Meg, I’m not going to go around and around in circles on this.”
“What? Is that the most outrageous suggestion in the world? I’m a journalist, and Poliglot is a major news outlet. Why wouldn’t your dad want me to break the news?”
“His office has other press relationships. And Poliglot isn’t exactly CNN.”
“For our generation, it is. Have you looked at CNN’s demographics lately?”
“Meg—he’s not running. Drop it.”
“Fine.”
“Why are you pissed at me?”
“I’m not.” But she was.
They ordered, finishing their glasses of wine faster than usual.
“By the way,” Stowe said, breaking a long silence. “My mother told me to tell you that she can get you a personal fitting with Monique Lhuillier.”
“I already have an appointment at the shop with my mother next week.”
“No, I mean a fitting with the designer herself.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. She did my mother’s dress for the Correspondents’ Dinner last year.”
A pause.
If Stowe was keeping something from her, it would take a lot more than a custom dress fitting to make it okay.
“Thanks, but … I just want to go to her showroom with my mom and my sisters. I don’t want to do anything crazy,” she said uneasily.
Stowe reached for her hand, holding it from across the table and looking into her eyes. She wanted to melt into his gaze, but she was still extremely unsettled by their conversation.
“How did I find the only woman who would pass up the chance to be fitted for a wedding gown by the designer herself? But whatever you want, babe. You might as well indulge in your last year of being anonymous, since this time next year you might be a public figure. With my father running for president and all.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand with a wink.
She smiled, a real smile, and breathed deeply with relief. He wouldn’t joke around if he were lying to her.
Would he?
“Very funny.” She ordered another glass of wine.
* * *
With Jo tucked into her childhood bedroom just halfway down the hall, Meryl was careful to keep her voice low.
“Hugh, I’m not angry about the situation at school. You had good intentions, and things happen. What’s upsetting me is that you won’t even try to fix it. If you just talk to Harrison and admit your mistake, this will all get resolved. Everyone makes mistakes. If he sees that you’re repentant, he won’t let this go too far.”
“But that’s just it, Meryl, I’m not repentant. I don’t believe Janell should get expelled.”
Meryl knew when Hugh got like this—idealistic, on moral high ground, defensive—there was no reasoning with him. And there was no point in trying. Hugh was beloved at Yardley; hopefully this would all just blow over. They could ride out the four-week loss of income. For now, there was a bigger issue at hand.
“Listen, Hugh, I got a call from the super at my mother’s building today. Apparently, she’s having these … episodes. She screams like she’s being murdered, God forbid. I had to rush down there. It was extremely upsetting, to say the least.”
“What’s going on? Did she tell you anything, or was it more of her usual closed-off MO?”
She didn’t blame Hugh for being cynical about her mother, but she wished for once he could put his feelings about her aside. “She didn’t even seem to know that she was doing it. It was like she was in a trance or something. I’m telling you, it was really disturbing.”
“Did you call her physician?”
“Yes. I’m going to bring her in for testing. But he says it’s probably not neurological.”
“Then what is it?”
“Psychological.”
There had been times when Meryl was a teenager that her mother had fallen into deep depressions, not leaving her room for weeks at a time. Her father always dealt with it, and when the storm passed, her mother acted like nothing had happened. She wasn’t a “sharer”—and she clearly wasn’t about to start now. Meryl did believe she wasn’t aware of the yelling, that something subconscious was going on.
“Do you think it’s some kind of early dementia?”
“Good Lord, I hope not.”
“Well, we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“The thing is, regardless of what’s causing it—we’re already at the bridge.” Meryl took a deep breath. “They’re not renewing her lease. She’s disturbing the other tenants.”
“Can they do that?”
“We can try to fight it, but I don’t know—”
“Don’t worry, Meryl. We’ll find someplace else. You said she never really felt at home there, anyway.”
“It’s just … I don’t think she should live alone right now, Hugh.”
“She’s not alone. She has full-time care.”
“But I’m really worried about her.”
“See what the doctor says first.”
Meryl looked at Hugh. She felt as though she were talking to a stranger. When had a gulf opened between them?
* * *
Jo woke up confused, and then remembered why she was at her parents’ apartment.
“Fuck,” she groaned, realizing, too, that she was late for her shift at the coffee shop. She should call so she wouldn’t get fired. But she simply couldn’t bring herself to care.
At the breakfast table, her mother, in her eternal inability to “read the room,” suggested Jo come with her to help Meg with her bridal registry.
“Do you really think I’m in the mood to do something wedding related when I just lost the love of my life?” she asked, fully aware of how melodramatic she sounded yet still finding it an understatement.
“The timing isn’t ideal for any of us,” her mother snapped uncharacteristically.
“Um, okay,” said Jo, chastened.
Besides, she didn’t want to be alone all day. She didn’t like to be alone under the best of circumstances, never mind in this state, with her heart dissolving to ash.
She wasn’t like her mother, who could always curl up with her favorite book for hours, or Meg, who was the most independent person she knew, or even Amy, who could always run out for a little retail therapy. Jo felt most comfortable around other people, especially when she was hurt or upset. She’d never understood the impulse others had to slink off to a dark corner in solitude. Solitude was not her friend.
And while having two sisters was a cluttered, competitive, loud, annoying existence at times, it also meant rarely having to be alone. With Meg and Amy, she had two built-in best friends.
And today she needed one of those friends. Even if it meant doing something she’d almost rather eat nails than do.
Her phone rang. Toby.
“Where are you? I stopped by the coffee shop, and they said you were a no-show.”
“I slept at my mom’s last night.”
“Things didn’t go so well with Caroline?”
“Toby, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Well, why don’t you come over here?”
The thought of hiding out at Toby’s was tempting. But then, there was the unfortunate fact that she’d slept with him.
“Can’t—thanks, though,” she said. “I’m going to meet Meg at Bloomingdale’s to help with her bridal registry.”
“Wow, you really are in a bad state.”
She snorted, laughing despite herself. “Later, Tobe.”
Jo had to give her mother some credit—she didn’t ask her that much about Caroline during the ten-minute subway ride to Fifty-ninth Street. Either she was being extraordinarily sensitive, or she really did only want to talk about Meg’s wedding.
“So I don’t know if this country club thing is Meg’s idea or if the Campions are strong-arming her into it,” she said, leaning down as she held the metal pole. Jo had a seat at the edge of the subway bench, the metal bar pressing into her side. The car was too hot, the heating system prematurely activated given the warmth of the October day.
“Uh-huh,” she said, certain the elderly Asian woman next to her, peering up at Meryl intently, was more interested in this conversation than she was.
“I mean, I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine venue, but the wedding is usually in the hometown of the bride’s family, not the groom’s.”
“Whatever, Mom. I think you should just roll with it.”
Meryl, squinting up at the map of station stops above Jo’s head, ignored her.
“We’re next,” she announced, as if Jo hadn’t been riding the 6 train her entire life.
At Fifty-ninth Street, Jo took comfort in the tide of people sweeping her off the train. Her mother, a few feet ahead, glanced back to make sure Jo was behind her. She could have caught up with her mother, but she was happy to have the temporary buffer.
Lexington was crowded, and her mother walked with brisk purpose. Jo’s legs were longer, but she still practically had to trot to keep up with her.
“Are we late?”
“A half hour early, actually,” said Meryl. A white-gloved attendant opened the door for them. “I want to get the lay of the land first.”
Oh God. She didn’t need an extra thirty minutes of looking at china and flatware.
Her mother fumbled for her glasses and scanned the directory. “We’re headed to the third floor,” Meryl announced, loudly enough that a passerby looked at them.
“I’m going to check out the shoe department. I’ll meet up with you at eleven thirty.”
“Oh, come to the registry with me. It will be fun!” her mother said.
“Later, Mom.”
They parted on the escalator when Meryl got off first.
Alone in Designer Shoes, Jo felt lost. She should have stayed with her mother. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, she thought.
The salespeople appraised her—was she worth their time? Was there a commission to be had in talking to the woman in jeans and Converse sneakers with the lank unwashed hair?
The verdict must have been no, because she moved to the shelf of Chanel boots without interruption. She thought of Amy and Meg, and how if they were the ones walking into this department, they’d be surrounded, swarmed, bees to honey.
Maybe Amy was on to something with her love of shopping. Would trying on a pair of nine-hundred-dollar Chanel combat boots fade the memory of Caroline? Somehow she doubted it—even if she could afford to buy them.
“They would look good on you.”
She turned, prepared to tell the salesperson thanks, but that she was just looking. But the woman—dressed in a baby blue cashmere cardigan, a scarf knotted loosely but perfectly around her long neck, and carrying a really cute Marc Jacobs—was not a salesperson.
Their eyes met, and Jo felt something. A ping. A jolt. Impossible. Jo was in love and Jo was heartbroken and any illusion of feeling was just a traumatized mind and heart playing tricks on her. It was like someone who had lost a limb, waking at night with pain in the foot that no longer existed. But she had to admit, this woman was exquisite. She had flawless, creamy skin, shiny dark hair cut into long layers framing her face and falling past her shoulders, and intense, nearly black eyes that were big and almond shaped and slightly exotic looking.
“These would look good on anyone,” Jo said. She turned them over to look at the price tag again. “And for nine hundred dollars, they should.”
“I couldn’t pull those off. I’m stuck with this sort of thing.” She held out a ballet flat.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Jo heard herself saying, her tone—dare she admit it—flirtatious. “Try them on.”
The woman smiled at her, as if accepting an outrageous dare.
A bow-tied salesman appeared. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, actually. I’ll try these in a seven.” She held Jo’s gaze as she said it.
Jo, her heart beating fast, her body responding in a way that she hadn’t even felt for Caroline in a long time, felt like she was having some sort of anxiety attack. It’s fuck or flight, she told herself.
“Good luck with the shoes,” Jo said.
And she got the hell out of there.
On the third floor, her mother was deep in conversation with an older saleswoman. She had dyed red hair and a tweed jacket and black slacks that did nothing to slim her extremely wide hips and ass. The woman wore glasses on a beaded chain around her neck, and nodded at whatever Meryl was saying, her face tight with extreme seriousness as if matters of national security were being discussed.
Meryl spotted her and waved vigorously, as if guiding a plane to landing.
Yeah, Mom, I see you.
“This is my youngest daughter, Josephine,” Meryl said as soon as Jo was in shouting distance. She was holding a gilt-edged dinner plate with a giant H design in the middle of it.
“Congratulations on your engagement,” the woman said.
“Uh, no. I’m not the one getting married.”
“The bride-to-be is my eldest daughter, Meg,” said Meryl.
Jo, still rattled by her odd attraction to the stranger in Designer Shoes, just nodded distractedly. She wandered off to look at a glass case filled with Lalique figurines—fish, goddesses, Buddhas. She wondered which ones Meg would pick out. Maybe the ballet dancer on the top shelf. Meg had always liked ballet. She took Jo to see Swan Lake when Jo was in ninth grade, and then when the Natalie Portman movie Black Swan came out, they went to see it together. Jo was so turned on by the sex scene with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, she was too embarrassed to enjoy the rest of the movie, as if her sister could somehow guess what she was thinking in the close darkness of the movie theater.
“Honey, Meg’s here!” her mother called excitedly. Jo turned to see her sister, practically glowing with her classic beauty, turning heads in her camel cape, her blond hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, her face pale but her blue eyes shining.
Meg kissed her mother hello but then made her way quickly to Jo, pulling her into a warm, Chanel Allure–scented hug.
“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” she said. “It totally sucks.”
“Yeah,” Jo said, holding her tight, feeling the prick of tears.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said, a whisper. Then, kissing her on the cheek before pulling back, she put an arm around her and they faced the room together.
“So how much of this crap do you think I need?” she said.
Jo laughed.
“Meg, come over here. This is Helen, and she’s going to help us get organized.”
“Okay, but we should wait until Leigh gets here.”
“Who’s Leigh?”
“Leigh Beauford. The wedding planner. Tippy told you about her, right?”
Jo saw her mother’s face turn a shade of purple she’d never seen before.
“I told Tippy we didn’t want a wedding planner.”
“Well, Mom, she didn’t get the message, because Leigh came in from Philly this morning just to help out, so let’s keep that thought to ourselves, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay—”
“Shhh—she’s here. Hi, Leigh!”
Jo turned to follow the direction of Meg’s greeting, but all she saw was the woman from the shoe department. Jo couldn’t help but look down at her feet.
She was wearing the Chanel boots.
Their eyes locked. Had she followed her here? How had she known? Surely, the woman was not going to the bridal registry—
And why was Meg talking to her? Why was Meg waving them over?
“Mom, Jo, this is Leigh Beauford. Our wedding planner.”