“The windows were blackened in the scrawny NYPD security booth out front. I turned the corner to escape those unseen eyes. And there I stopped. Through a stand of Japanese privet, I caught a glimpse of the garden.
“The sight propelled me back to the night of the party. I hear the ghost strains of Pachelbel’s Canon over the growling rumble of a passing barge; the crystalline clink of laughter and champagne flutes. A hint of lilac rides the silken breeze. Elegant guests mingle beneath a gibbous moon. I see Bitsy standing off in the shadows, staring at the tides. She turns and fixes me with her mesmerizing eyes. You’re so lucky to be a writer, Colleen. She leans in and hugs me. And with that, everything falls into place. I’d had the answer all along.”
Jeffers scowled. “Huh? I don’t get it.”
“Thankfully, a cab came by. I phoned my brother-in-law on the way. My sister Maureen lost her battle with leukemia a year ago, and poor Frank has been horribly depressed. He barely eats, rarely goes out.
“I could hardly contain myself, but I didn’t want to say anything, even to Frank, until I made sure my theory was true. I told him I needed to check on something of Maureen’s for my book, and he waved me toward their room.
“Frank hasn’t been able to part with Maureen’s things. Everything is as she left it. I found what I was after right away. And there it was in black and white.”
Jeffers scratched behind his ear. “I still don’t get it.”
“When Bitsy hugged me that night, she slipped a note into the pocket of Maureen’s beautiful dress. And there it remained, yellowed with age. I’ll never forget the words: I can’t bear the lies anymore. I don’t belong and never will. This has to end now, tonight. I’ve studied the tides. The river will take me where I need to go. Please tell Harold I’m sorry. Tell him I had no choice.
L. C. pulled a breath. “She killed herself? Wow. I didn’t see that coming.”
Jeffers’s eyes bugged. “Bitsy Grainger offed herself? You’re sure?”
“At least we finally know what happened.” Colleen raised her wineglass. “To Bitsy Grainger. She took the only way she could see to end her suffering. Rest in peace.”
The whole group joined the solemn chorus. “To Bitsy Grainger.”
Jeffers stood abruptly. “Excuse me a sec. Nature calls.”
“Off the record, Jeffers. You hear me?” But the reporter hurried toward the men’s room, tapping away. L. C. sputtered in disgust. “That wormy creep. He’s going to tweet the end of your story. He’s going to post it all over creation and claim it’s his. I’m going to go flush him and his damned phone.”
Colleen set a hand on his. “It’s okay, L. C. Truly. Let it go.”
“But he’s a lazy, nasty, unethical jerk. He doesn’t care what he steals or who he hurts.”
“And he’ll get just deserts: a life sentence with himself.”
The next morning, Colleen bundled against the morning chill and hailed a cab to Sutton Place. She took a final stroll through Bitsy’s old neighborhood and then headed toward the charming patisserie she’d discovered on First Avenue. Their cappuccino was world-class.
She perched on a bistro chair at a tiny table in the rear and placed her order: Bitsy’s favorite drink and a croissant. Then she plucked the iPad mini from her tote.
Reuben Jeffers’s scoop had garnered the lead in today’s edition of A-List. “Missing Beauty Mystery Solved!” The piece recounted all the details Colleen had hoped to see: Bitsy’s childhood in Myrtle, Mississippi; her betrayal by Ray Adlen and his downward spiral; Harold’s move to Costa Rica and his children’s lawsuit over the terms of his will. Best of all, they included a manufactured replica of the suicide note Colleen claimed to have found. Jeffers had swallowed her story whole and spat it back unverified. Unscrupulous though he was, he should have known better. Colleen wrote fiction, after all.
But there was no going back. Jeffers’s story would be reposted in predictable perpetuity, and it would gather the heft that passes today for truth.
Colleen’s order was ready. She checked to be sure the time was right, paid, and stepped outside.
Near the corner, an old woman hunched against the chill in a hooded camel coat. She appeared to be homeless. “Can you help me, please? Can you help—”
Colleen approached. “Here, my friend. For you.” She passed the croissant and cappuccino.
The woman cradled the cup and took a sip. Her wrinkled eyes narrowed with pleasure, but Colleen still caught a hint of moonstone gray.
“Bless you, my friend,” she said and sipped again. “Heaven, right?”
JUDITH KELMAN is the award-winning, best-selling author of seventeen novels, three nonfiction books, dozens of short stories, and hundreds of articles and essays for major publications. In 2008 she founded Visible Ink, a unique writing program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering that enables all interested cancer patients to reap the benefits of written expression with the one-on-one help of a volunteer writing mentor. She lives in New York City.
DIZZY AND GILLESPIE
Persia Walker