James shook his head. “I think we’re past that. I’m serious. I’m telling her it’s over.”
Rowan felt the blood drain from her face. He couldn’t do that. “Okay, so stay here and think. Sober up. You’ll change your mind. You’ll see how wrong this is.”
“Saybrook.” James stepped forward and took her face in his big hands. “Just slow down for a minute, and maybe you’ll see how right this is. It will be messy, yeah, but you are my closest friend. You know me better than everyone. I love you. This should have happened years ago.”
He pulled her close and kissed her. Rowan shut her eyes. If only it felt dreadful, two shapes fitting together badly. She struggled to pull away, her lips feeling toxic. “I have to go,” she muttered.
It was six thirty by the time she showered, dressed, and gathered her keys, while James languished in the bed. Rowan avoided looking at James for fear of another tidal wave of shame—or desire. Was it even right to leave him here? But if they walked out of the apartment together, someone might see them, and that would be worse.
Rowan’s head swam as she stopped at the Starbucks on the corner. She barely noticed the loud grinder, the pounding world music, or the woman with the Staten Island accent in front of her. After waiting in a long line to get coffee and a muffin, she decided to eat in a little park near her apartment. She was in no hurry to get to work and face her cousin.
As she sat, pedestrians streaming past her, her mind ebbed and flowed over what had happened. Did James actually love her? And was Poppy really having an affair? Rowan couldn’t imagine it, but she supposed anything was possible. It didn’t make what Rowan had done more forgivable, of course. But it certainly explained why James had turned to her.
Finally, when she couldn’t put it off any longer, Rowan stood and made her way down Hudson. Twenty minutes later she turned onto Harrison—and stopped short. NYPD sawhorses blocked the intersection at Harrison and Greenwich. The Saybrook’s building, a gleaming slab of gray limestone and glass that looked particularly beautiful against the bright blue sky, sat at the corner. Yellow police tape surrounded the front entrance, and several ambulances and fire trucks were parked crookedly in front, lights flashing.
Rowan walked cautiously along the sidewalk, her heart speeding up. The police tape cordoned off a small rectangle on the pavement just outside the building; paramedics stood over something covered by a sheet. She looked up. Across the street, people stood on their balconies, men in shirtsleeves and women in spring dresses, their hands over their mouths, staring at the ground.
Corinne swam out from among the crowd, her face ghost-white. She ran to Rowan and clutched her arm.
“What’s going on?” Rowan cried.
Corinne stared at Rowan as if seeing through her. Then she collapsed in Rowan’s arms and started sobbing. The church clock a few blocks down bonged out the half hour.
“Corinne, what?” Rowan stared into her cousin’s face. “What is it?”
Corinne looked at Rowan with wet red eyes. “It’s Poppy,” she said hoarsely, her voice breaking. “She’s dead.”
7
“Corinne!” called a voice as Corinne emerged from her parents’ town car on Monday morning. “Can you comment on your cousin’s suicide?”
“Aster, does she have a history of drug use?” another asked, training a camera on Aster. “Was she mentally ill?”
Corinne pulled her black satin clutch closer to her body, grasped her mother’s hand, and hurried faster up toward the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue. A newsstand stood at the curb; Poppy’s face was splashed on every front page. “Carat, Cut, Clarity, Calamity,” read one headline. “City Mourns a Flawless Diamond,” read another. “A Fall from Grace.” There was a photo of Poppy at a gala at the Met, staring off into space, her eyes large, her mouth puckered, and her jaw tense. Another paper showed a photo of Poppy’s lumpy shape under the sheet on the sidewalk outside the Saybrook’s offices.
Corinne couldn’t get the morning of Poppy’s death out of her mind. She’d arrived at Saybrook’s just six minutes after Poppy jumped, still reeling from seeing Will Coolidge the day before. There had been a crowd of people around the entrance, and at first she’d been annoyed. But then she’d noticed a paramedic leaning over someone on the sidewalk.
Corinne had pushed through the throng when suddenly a Saybrook’s guard grabbed her. “Stay back, Corinne,” he said in a firm voice. It was a sweet Irish guy, Colin, who always invited Corinne and Dixon out with him and his buddies to drink on Saint Patrick’s Day.
“What’s going on?” Corinne had demanded, her heart thudding against her rib cage.