“No, of course not,” she answers quickly. The truth is, she isn’t sure what to think. She’s not even sure what she was expecting from this reunion; she really just wanted to see him.
The food arrives precisely at that moment, silencing both of them. The waiter sets down the plates, wishes them “bon appétit,” and vanishes.
“Smells good,” Kersti says, attempting to lighten the mood.
“To Cressida,” he says, raising his glass.
“I went to see her before I came here,” she says.
“You mentioned that.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, she continues. “I really went to see Deirdre.”
“Looking for that ledger?”
“I asked her about it,” Kersti says, pressing her fork down on a small mound of mushroom risotto.
“And?”
“She says she doesn’t have it, which I’m still not sure I believe. But she did tell me something interesting.”
“What’s that?”
“Cressida left a note.”
“A suicide note?”
Kersti nods and his mouth falls opens slightly, as though to ask a question that never comes. “Shit,” he manages. “I thought they never found one—”
“Deirdre says Bueche sent it to her later with the rest of Cressida’s stuff. Supposedly Armand found it when he went to pack up her things, after the dust had settled, coincidentally.”
“No doubt,” he says. “They wouldn’t have wanted a suicide on school grounds getting out. That’s all they cared about. Their reputation.”
“That’s what Deirdre said.”
He’s shaking his head, looking pale and discombobulated. “Shit,” he says again.
“You’re surprised.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Why?” Kersti asks him, leaning forward. “I know you said she was wasted, but how did she seem to you that night?”
“You mean was she suicidal?”
“Depressed? Acting weird? Anything . . .”
“She was the same Cressida as usual. Infuriating, aloof. She didn’t seem depressed at all. In fact—”
“What?”
“She was . . . I think she was really happy. She was kind of . . . I don’t know. I guess she was in love.” His tone is conciliatory, defeated. They both know she was never really in love with him.
He reaches for the wine and this time he refills Kersti’s as well. “So this whole time we’ve been talking, you knew she jumped?” he asks her.
“That’s the thing,” Kersti says. “I don’t necessarily think she did.”
“A suicide note is pretty cut-and-dried, isn’t it?”
“I read her note and something about it isn’t right.”
He rests his elbows on the table, his face drawing nearer to hers. For a second she imagines them as a couple, him leaning close to tell her she looks beautiful tonight, that he’s in love with her. . . .
“Doesn’t feel right how?” he wants to know.
“It just wasn’t her.”
“What does it say?”
“I’m sorry I’ll miss you.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. Not her style at all. She would have quoted Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. There would have been more drama and flair. Nothing about this fits.”
They stare at each other for a few moments, both of their plates untouched. Finally, Magnus says, “Does it matter anymore, though?”
“We both loved her,” Kersti responds. “No matter what she did, we loved her. Don’t you want to know how she fell? And why?”
“To what end?”
“Curiosity. Closure. Justice?”
“Justice,” he repeats, scoffing.
“I’m not doing this to be noble—”
“Maybe it was Colonel Mustard in the library.”
“Maybe it was you,” Kersti teases, emboldened by the wine. She says it almost flirtatiously. “A crime of passion?”
“Or maybe it was you, Kuusk.”
At this, Kersti draws back.
“Weren’t you always jealous of her?” he goes on. “Weren’t you in love with me? Maybe you guys fought about it. She didn’t really want me, but she wouldn’t let you have me, either, would she?”
Kersti’s face heats up. “Do you even remember having sex with me?” she blurts, finally getting it off her chest. “That day in the woods?”
Magnus’s face turns deep red. “Of course,” he says. “You were a virgin.”
“You remember.”
“Of course I remember.”
She waits for him to say something else, but nothing comes.
“It hurt,” she tells him.
“Well, it’s supposed to the first time—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean afterwards. How you never really spoke to me again once Cressida decided she wanted you back. You never acknowledged what happened between us. It was like it never happened. I was crushed.”
Magnus sighs and Kersti can’t tell if it’s remorse over his behavior, or dread at having to have this conversation twenty years after the fact. “I’m sorry, Kuusk. I liked you. You were a cool chick. But me and Cressida . . .”
“I get it,” she says. “It’s just how you did it.”
“I was an asshole,” he says. “I only knew how to be an asshole.”
They resume eating in silence. Kersti figured that telling him how she felt after all these years would be freeing. She imagined that having him acknowledge what he did and apologizing for it would be cathartic, healing. But she feels no different, no better about herself. Turns out it changes nothing.
“What about this ledger Lille mentioned?” he says, trying to change the subject. “Why would she think there’s something incriminating in it?”
“Because Cressida got it in the mail the day she fell,” Kersti tells him. “She took it with her when she went to meet you.”
“The plot thickens,” he mutters. And then, at length, “What’s she like now?”
“You’ve never been to see her?”
“No,” he says, disappearing for a moment. His eyes go dim, his expression vacant. She wonders where he’s gone. “I know we were just kids, but I really . . . she meant a lot to me. Obviously much more than I meant to her.”
“Same,” Kersti says, feeling a beam of compassion for him, remembering how Cressida had once described their relationship as a “trivial high school thing.” “She’s still beautiful.”
He nods, probably grateful he’s never seen her in her current incarnation. “What now?” he asks Kersti.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t exactly have a plan.”
She thinks of Jay with a shudder of sadness, imagining him home alone, worrying about what she’s doing in New York, when she’s coming home, where she’s going next. She feels guilty for having fled Toronto. She misses him, but she doesn’t miss their fertility stalemate. Besides, it can’t hurt to let him suffer a bit, to let him miss her and rethink his position on using an egg donor.
“You know, Kuusk, maybe Cressida was sitting on her balcony railing drunk off her ass and she just fell backwards,” Magnus says pragmatically.