I opened the door and walked down the hall, hearing the familiar squeaks, smelling the familiar scents, feeling all the old ghosts rise; the ancient insecurities circling around my head, taunting me. You’re ugly. You’re fat. No one likes you. No one ever will. I could see Drue’s face, contorted in anger, could hear her saying We all just felt sorry for you. I walked past the classroom where my father had once taught, past the Senior Lounge, a nook under a staircase with two padded wooden benches. Once, during finals, I’d walked into the nook and found Drue holding her phone to her face. “Shh!” she’d hissed, and nodded at the bench, where Darshi had fallen asleep, leaning against the wall and snoring audibly, with her head slumped on her shoulder, her mouth wide open, and a strand of drool trickling from her chin to her cardigan.
“Drue,” I’d said, batting at Drue’s hand. Too late. With a giggle and a click, Darshi’s snoring and drooling had been posted on the Lathrop Class of 2010’s Facebook page, memorialized for eternity. As class prefect, Drue was one of only four students allowed to post to the page. Theoretically, she was supposed to keep us up-to-date on things like exams and homecoming rallies. In reality, Drue posted every embarrassing, cringe-inducing moment she could capture. Kids picking their noses, nip slips and fashion disasters, girls who’d been surprised by their periods or boys who’d been surprised with erections. Drue would post, and as soon as some administrator saw what had been posted, it would get taken down, but by then, all sixty-seven members of our class would have seen… if not the original post, then a screenshot.
I breathed in, reminding myself that high school was over, and that we were all grown-ups now, that Darshi was fine and that Drue wouldn’t be tormenting anyone, ever again. In the former chapel, a high-ceilinged room with wooden pews and arching stained-glass windows donated by long-dead alums, I was touched to see that the Snitzers had come to pay their respects. I greeted the doctors and bent to whisper hello to Ian and Izzie. “I’m very sorry that your friend died,” Ian said.
I squeezed his hand. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m very sorry, too.”
I found the seat my parents had saved me, three rows from the front. A lectern stood between two waist-high urns full of pungent white lilies, their scent overpowering the classy perfumes of a hundred ladies-who-lunched, all of them dressed in their funereal best. I saw sleek black skirts and sharp black jackets, fitted dresses and sky-high black stilettos, designer sunglasses, even, here and there, a black straw hat. It was part funeral, part fashion show, and I was glad of Leela’s gift, which made me stylish enough to fit in but was comfortable, with pockets for my sunglasses and my tissues.
A minute before the service began, Darshi slipped through the door and into the seat beside me, in a fitted black suit, a white blouse, and a pair of black high-heeled shoes. Her curls were pulled back into a sleek bun, her eyes were lined. She nodded at my mom, smiled at my father’s “namaste,” and returned my “Hello” with a muttered “Hi.” Darshi hadn’t wanted to come. “I hadn’t been Drue’s friend in a long, long time,” she’d argued. “Why would I come to her funeral?”
“Because I need you,” I’d told her. “Please.” Finally, she’d agreed to take the morning off from school.
“When are they going to start?” she whispered as ten o’clock came and went. The room was getting warmer; the mourners were getting restless. Just as Rabbi Medloff stepped out from the wings, I heard a familiar voice murmur, “Excuse me.” I looked up and saw Nick Carvalho finding a seat in the center of a row just behind us.
“Nick!” I whispered, waving.
“Oh, jeez,” Darshi murmured.
“Who is that?” asked my mom. Darshi widened her eyes—You didn’t tell her? I glared back, hoping my expression communicated that I’d had no desire to give my parents the details of my post-party hookup.
“Nick!” I whisper-shouted. When I’d caught his eye, he gave me a wave and a nod. I wanted to ask what he was doing here, why he’d come, and where he was staying, but the rabbi had reached the podium. The crowd stilled. The rabbi stood behind the lectern, holding it on each side, before bowing his head.
“Friends. Family. We are gathered to celebrate the memory of Drue Lathrop Cavanaugh. Drue was a daughter, a sister. A colleague, and a friend. A beautiful, talented young woman with a brilliant life ahead of her.” A sob ripped through the silence. I looked and saw Ainsley Graham, Drue’s former wingwoman who hadn’t wanted to be in her wedding party, red-faced and crying. I recognized Abigay, the Cavanaughs’ cook, a few rows back, with a handkerchief fisted in her hand. Drue’s mother was in the front row. Her face was veiled, her body so motionless that I wondered if she was on sedatives. She didn’t seem to be crying. Or breathing, for that matter. Drue’s father sat beside her, handsome and impassive in a navy-blue suit and blindingly white shirt. I guess he’d concluded his business on the Cape with his secret daughter, and was now prepared to mourn his public one. Drue’s brother, Trip, sat on his mother’s other side, his shaggy blond hair unkempt, his face slack, his expression blank and shocked.
“We mourn for what could have been,” said the rabbi. Which was smart, I thought, insofar as what had been was not great. Drue had left mostly wreckage behind her, burnt bridges and broken friendships and hurt feelings. Not to mention the husband she hadn’t loved and had more or less bought. Better to focus on what she could have done, who she might have been—the wife Drue would never get to be, the work she would never get to do, the children she would never get to bear, or raise. Maybe babies would have softened her. Maybe she and Stuart would have fallen in love for real, or maybe she’d have divorced him and spent a happy life with some other man. Maybe Drue could have built incredible skyscrapers, or inventive affordable housing. Maybe she could have been a wonderful mother. Maybe she could have changed the world.
“Drue’s brother will share some memories with us first,” said the rabbi. Trip walked to the lectern with a sheet of paper in his hand.
“If you knew my sister, you know she was the kind of person who could turn a trip to the bodega into an adventure,” he began, his voice a wooden monotone, his eyes on his written speech. “When we were little, she’d make up games. She’d tell me that the living room was the North Pole, and we’d pretend to be explorers trying to make it across the ice floes. Or she’d say that the kitchen was the Gobi Desert, and we’d have to gather supplies. Which usually meant me sneaking past Abigay to get potato chips from the pantry.” I saw smiles at that and heard a sprinkling of laughter. In the front row, Lily Cavanaugh sat, unmoving, as if she’d been frozen in place. Her husband patted her back, the motions of his hand as regular as a metronome.
Trip’s voice got a little less stiff, a little warmer as he continued. “I’m probably mangling this quote from Oscar Wilde, who said he saved his truest genius for his life—that his life was his real work of art. That was Drue. She had a genius for living.”
“Smart,” Darshi murmured. I agreed. Announcing that someone had a genius for living excused all kinds of material shortcomings. Never finished that dissertation, or committed to a relationship, or a job? No worries! Your life was your art!
“My sister had a brilliant future ahead of her. It is a tragedy that her days were cut short.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking. “Miss you, sis,” he whispered. As he sat down, my mother started to cry. The rabbi walked back to the lectern.
“And now, Drue’s friend Daphne Berg will speak.”
My father squeezed my hand. My mother patted my shoulder. Darshi pressed her lips together in a tight line. I got to my feet, smoothed out my jumpsuit, and walked to the front of the room, with the eyes of the crowd on me. The trip couldn’t have been more than ten yards, but it felt like it took me forever. I unfolded the sheet of paper I’d had in my pocket and smoothed it out on the lectern. “Drue and I went to school together, right here at Lathrop,” I began. “I met her in the sixth grade. I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe someone as beautiful and as glamor
ous as Drue even noticed me. She always had a kind of star quality, even in sixth grade.” That got a few laughs, and I felt myself relax incrementally. “Drue was everything people said. Funny, and sharp, and smart, and beautiful, and occasionally ruthless.” That got a little more laughter. “Like her brother said, Drue had a talent for life. When you were with her, you were always your most interesting self. Any party she walked into got more fun. And every day could turn into a vacation, or a party, or an impromptu trip to the Hamptons.” I heard a woman sniffle, a man noisily blowing his nose. I unfolded the piece of paper that I’d printed out that morning, a poem I’d read in high school, called “To Keep the Memory of Charlotte Forten Grimké.” “This is for Drue,” I said, and began to read.
Still are there wonders of the dark and day:
The muted shrilling of shy things at night,
So small beneath the stars and moon;
The peace, dream-frail, but perfect while the light
Lies softly on the leaves at noon.
These are, and these will be
Until eternity;
But she who loved them well has gone away.
Each dawn, while yet the east is veiléd grey,
The birds about her window wake and sing;
And far away, each day, some lark
I know is singing where the grasses swing;
Some robin calls and calls at dark.
These are, and these will be
Until eternity;
But she who loved them well has gone away.
The wild flowers that she loved down green ways stray;
Her roses lift their wistful buds at dawn,
But not for eyes that loved them best;
Only her little pansies are all gone,
Some lying softly on her breast.
And flowers will bud and be
Until eternity;
But she who loved them well has gone away.
Where has she gone? And who is there to say?
But this we know: her gentle spirit moves
And is where beauty never wanes,
Perchance by other streams, mid other groves;
And to us there, ah! she remains
A lovely memory
Until eternity;
She came, she loved, and then she went away.
The night before, I’d been working on my speech, and I’d asked my father for advice. If you don’t have anything good to say, he’d counseled, read a poem. I knew the one I’d chosen wasn’t a perfect fit—Drue was many things, but “gentle spirit” was not among them. Still, the poem had the benefit of being more about the world the departed had left—the flowers, the mist, the moon—than about the departed herself. But I loved the line about the muted shrilling of shy things at night. And I loved the idea of Drue as “a lovely memory, until eternity.” All of that promise, and none of it fulfilled.
I looked out into the audience. My mother was sniffling. Drue’s father sat, stone-faced and unmoving. Trip Cavanaugh was crying. As I refolded my page, Lily Cavanaugh started to tremble. First just her neck, her head, then her shoulders, and finally her entire torso, every part shuddering as if she’d been doused in ice. Her husband appeared not to notice, moving his hand up and down and up and down again even as she shook as if she was coming apart underneath his palm. Pat, pat, pat. Then, as I watched, Mrs. Cavanaugh bent forward from her waist, opened her mouth and gave a terrible keening shriek, a noise that reminded me of a sound I’d heard when a neighbor’s cat had been hit by a minivan; an agonized, animal howling. It went on and on and on, endlessly, as if Mrs. Cavanaugh no longer required air, until, finally, Trip Cavanaugh took one of her shoulders and Robert Cavanaugh took the other, and the two of them hoisted her upright. I’d meant to take my seat but found that I couldn’t move, as Robert Cavanaugh’s eyes pinned me in place. For an endless moment, he held his wife and glared at me, before helping his son half-walk, half-carry Lily Cavanaugh out of the room.
I walked down the aisle and collapsed in my seat, hearing Nana’s voice in my head. Shut your mouth, you’re drawing flies. In my pocket, my telephone buzz, buzz, buzzed. Darshi raised an eyebrow. I pulled the phone out to mute it and saw a picture of myself, a shot that must have been taken twenty minutes ago as I was walking into the school. The jumpsuit’s fabric flowed over my body, the wide legs making my waist look small, the neckline flattering my chest. In my red lipstick and my dark glasses, I looked as close to glamorous as I’d ever been. I hated myself for the tiny thrill I felt, admiring myself while my friend was dead and my friend’s mother was wailing out her grief. Hang in there, Leela had written. She’d added a lipstick emoji, a manicured-hand emoji, and two red hearts, one whole, one broken. I put my phone back in my pocket as Rabbi Medloff returned to the podium. “Please rise and join me in the mourners’ Kaddish,” he said. The room filled with the sounds of movement as everyone got to their feet and the rabbi began to chant, in Hebrew, the prayer for the dead.
* * *
When it was over, I led my parents out of the room. Groups of mourners stood talking in the halls, impeding our path to the door or any view I’d hoped to catch of Nick. I pushed and pardon me’d my way outside, got my parents in their Uber, and went back inside to collect Darshi. I’d just cut through a throng of older couples planning a post-ceremony lunch at La Goulue when I bumped up against a dark-haired, dark-skinned man in a badly fitting blue suit and sneakers.
“Beg your pardon,” he said quietly, in a voice that sounded familiar. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“Hey,” I said. “Hey!”
The guy’s eyes widened behind his glasses as he saw me.
“Wait a second. I need to talk to you!”
He spun on his heel and cut through the crowd, slipping around the knots of people with astonishing speed.
“Hey!” I was trying to catch him, but there were people everywhere, and his sneakers had the advantage over my heels. “Stop!”
He gave me an apologetic look over his shoulder, and pushed through a knot of disgruntled-looking mourners and out through the big double doors. I was preparing to give chase when I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard another familiar voice.
“Daphne? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Detective McMichaels wore a sober gray suit and a dark-blue tie. He had bags under his eyes, and his formerly close-shaved cheeks and chin had been colonized by silvery stubble.
“Thank God,” I said. “That was the guy! The one I saw outside Drue’s bedroom! The one with the water!”
He pulled out his phone, pressed a button, murmured into it, and put it back.
“Don’t you want to go question him?” I felt wild, wide-eyed, and frantic.
“Right now, I’d rather speak to you.” He gave me a hard look before raising his eyebrows. “Want to do it right here, or find somewhere a little more private?”
I led him to a French classroom, where the walls were covered in colorful travel-agent posters for Paris and Quebec. There was a wooden desk at the front of the room and three rows of six molded desk-chair combos, with wire baskets underneath the seats for books. Detective McMichaels leaned against the teacher’s desk. I considered the desks, the same kind I’d sat in as a student, and decided to stand.
“What can I do for you?” I asked. “What brings you to New York?”
“We’ve learned a few things.”
I kept my mouth shut, feet planted, waiting.
“Emma Vincent is not a suspect in the murder of Drue Cavanaugh,” he said.
I tried to keep my face still as my heart tumbled, over and over. So it was official. Drue had been murdered. And Emma had not done the deed. “Oh?”
“She had an alibi,” he told me. When he didn’t offer it, I didn’t ask.
“Do you have other suspects?” I asked.
“We’re casting a wide net. That’s why I’m here.”
“Here at the memorial, or here in New York?”
“Both.” Smo
othing his tie, he asked, “Want to know how your friend died?”
My mouth felt very dry. “If you want to tell me.”
“Someone put cyanide in something that she ate or drank just before her death.” He looked at me and I immediately pictured myself, a glass of ice water in one hand and a pair of shot glasses in the other, trotting up the outdoor staircase and into Drue’s bedroom.
“Did it hurt her?” My voice sounded strange in my ears. “Did she… you know… did she feel anything?”
“It was quick,” said the detective. “That’s what the coroner tells me. Quick, but unpleasant.” He put his hands in his pockets. His shoes squeaked as he turned, making a show of looking around the room. “Fancy place. How much does it cost to go here?”
“When I was a student, about fifty thousand dollars a year. I had a scholarship. And they gave my family a break because my dad’s a teacher.”
“A scholarship girl.” With the first two fingers of his right hand, he stroked his bristly mustache, the picture of a man deep in thought. “You know, when someone dies, the first question they tell you to ask is Cui bono.” He looked at me. “You know what that means?”
“They make you take Latin here. One of the things fifty thousand bucks a year buys you. So yes. It means ‘to whom the good.’ Or, more colloquially, ‘who benefits.’ ”
He nodded. “Correct. And that’s what I’ve been wondering, ever since your friend’s death. To whom the good?”
My knees wanted to shake. I refused to let them, clenching my leg muscles hard. “So have you come up with an answer?”
Instead of responding, he asked, “Did you know that Drue and Stuart Lowe were already married?”
Again, I tried to school my face, hoping I didn’t look surprised that he’d found out. “Stuart mentioned it to me a few days ago.” If he knew about the wedding, I wondered if he knew about the whole scheme—Stuart’s plan to leave Drue at the alter, Drue’s discussion with the Single Ladies producers, the way Drue and Stuart and Corina Bailey had planned to make money from the scheme.
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