But Corinne didn’t believe that. She’d seen Danielle on that bridge; she’d been devastated to discover that her mother was a monster. It was possible Danielle had sensed that her mother was off-kilter, but she hadn’t had any idea she was a full-blown lunatic. There was someone who had, though: Corinne’s father.
Which was why she was barely speaking to him. She hadn’t even called him after the news had come out this morning—on the Blessed and the Cursed, of course—that Mason was being charged with obstruction of justice in Steven Barnett’s murder. No doubt he would pay someone and make it all go away.
Maybe someday Corinne would forgive her father, but now she just needed distance. It was the same way she felt about her grandfather. Person by person, her idols had been knocked off their pedestals. Everything had changed, it felt, and yet here she was, with no option but to keep moving forward.
The salesgirl placed the item behind her and typed on the screen. Corinne unloaded several more parcels and returned a cashmere blanket, a Versace tray for chips and dip, and a pair of crystal goblets with gold-tipped rims. All at once, she thought of the mismatched plates she and Will had used the night they were at his apartment. He’d bought them at flea markets for a dollar apiece, and they’d all had a story before Will got hold of them. That was far more interesting than a chip-and-dip tray for three hundred dollars.
Will. She checked her phone, but of course he hadn’t called. Did she even want him to call? She’d been the one to tell him it was too late.
He had to know they’d called off the wedding. But did he care? Corinne dropped her phone back into her purse.
The salesgirl took the final item, and Corinne spun back around, inhaling the flowery scents around the salesroom. She scanned the directory, her gaze washing over the various departments and floors. She’d taken the day off, but she had nowhere to go, and there was nothing she wanted to do. She thought about visiting her grandmother, but lately Edith had stayed in. She claimed she wasn’t feeling well, though Corinne believed that really she had no idea how to handle the truth about the business. The cousins had decided to call a family meeting to announce what they knew. Instead of nodding ashamedly, Edith had been shocked—it was clear she’d had no idea what her husband had done.
Fifth Avenue was a swarm of people and vehicles, and Corinne turned right, with nothing better to do than walk back toward the office. It was a bright June day, the sidewalks and windows sparkling in the sun. In a parallel universe, she would still be on her honeymoon with Dixon in South Africa. In a parallel universe, she’d be with Will, sitting at the bar of his restaurant.
In a parallel universe, she’d have her daughter too. And Poppy wouldn’t be dead.
“Corinne?”
She turned. The sun was in her eyes, so at first the figure down the sidewalk was just a dark shape. She shaded her eyes. Will.
Corinne’s hands went limp. “H-hello,” she managed to stammer. “You’re here.”
Will walked toward her, a Trader Joe’s carrier bag swinging on his arm. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”
Her heart did a leap. “Yeah?”
The sun slanted against Will’s features. He smiled sadly down at her. “Yeah. So. You aren’t getting married anymore.”
Corinne shook her head. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
“How did your family take it?”
Across the street, three pigeons perched high atop the Trump Tower. All of them looked like fat old men, set in their ways, as if this had been their perch for years. Corinne had braced herself to tell her parents that she’d broken it off with Dixon. Her mother’s eyes had gone wide, her father was silent. But Aster hadn’t cared. Neither had her cousins. And her parents hadn’t even said they were disappointed—in fact, Corinne’s mother had hugged her afterward.
“I guess it went okay. But I have no idea how to judge anything anymore,” Corinne said, suddenly overwhelmingly tired. “I don’t even know what I think about things. Maybe I never have.”
“You know, you said it was too late for us, but I don’t think it is. It’s never too late.”
“What do you mean?”
He took her hand. “Why don’t we just start over? Begin everything again, right here, right now.”
Start over? Just like that? She looked down at his hand, considering what he’d just offered her. There was something about the simplicity of it that brought to mind one of Corinne’s favorite poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Edith used to quote part of it all the time, the line about preparing a face to meet the faces one needed to meet, but Corinne was thinking about the poem’s first lines instead, the ones about a couple going off into the night as the evening spreads out before them. It sounded hopeful.
Pedestrians rushed busily past them. Those pigeons lifted off the top of the high-rise across the street, all at once the most beautiful sight Corinne had ever seen. She curled her fingers through Will’s. She had no idea what the future would bring. But that was it: she would wait and see.
34