Silver Girl (24 page)

“In case you haven’t gotten it by now,” Connie said, “I don’t like going places without you.”

“I’m going to have to beg your indulgence here,” Meredith said. “I can’t do the salon.”

“You have to get back up on the horse,” Connie said.

“So you saw the article?”

“I saw the article,” Connie said. “And do you know what I thought when I read it? I thought, ‘Meredith Martin is the best woman your salon has ever seen. It’s your loss, Pascal Blanc.’ ”

“Really, it was my loss,” Meredith said. “I’m as gray as Whistler’s mother, and the salon got to broadcast how morally superior they were by keeping me out in the name of protecting their other clients, who might be upset by the sight of me.”

“Don’t you want to get your hair done?” Connie asked.

God, the answer to that question was yes. Since she’d started to go gray at forty, every six weeks she’d had her hair restored to the natural color of her youth—soft baby blond. This was, she knew, unspeakably vain of her—though it had more to do with how she felt inside, and especially now. The real Meredith Martin was blond. She was a brilliant and talented eighteen-year-old girl with an impossibly bright future.

“I can’t get my hair done,” Meredith said. “If I go to the salon, I’ll have to wear my wig.”

“So you’ll go with me, then,” Connie said. “And wear your wig. You can get a manicure and a pedicure. My treat.”

“It’s not about the money, Con.” Though it was about the money, in addition to everything else. In Palm Beach, Meredith used to get a manicure and pedicure every week to the tune of $125. And she always left a $50 tip. So, $175 on her nails, $100 on a weekly massage, and $250 every six weeks for hair. All that money, and she hadn’t blinked an eye. She was shamed by it now.

“It’s not about the money,” Connie said, “because it’s
my treat.
Manicure and pedicure. Please? It’s no fun going to the salon alone.”

“I can’t,” Meredith said. “Women who are under investigation don’t go to the salon. Women whose children are under investigation don’t go to the salon. Women whose husbands are serving one hundred and fifty years in federal prison do not go to the salon.”

“I understand you feel that way,” Connie said. “But it’s not that big a deal. It’s a manicure and a pedicure. Something to make you feel pretty. Something to take your mind off things. I can go alone, but I really want you with me. And no one’s going to hurt you, I promise.”

Connie secured appointments for Friday afternoon. In the car, Meredith thought she might hyperventilate. She used her Lamaze breathing; it had been much more helpful for her Freddy-induced anxiety than it ever had for the births of her two children. Connie eyeballed her.

“Do you just want to bag and go home?” Connie said.

“No,” Meredith said. “We’re going.” It had become some kind of stupid hurdle she now felt she had to jump. It was a test. And, Meredith reminded herself, she had never failed a test in her life.

The RJ Miller salon was inviting and unpretentious. There was jazz music playing, and the place smelled deliciously of hair product, acetone, cappuccino. It was a hive of activity, and Meredith quickly ascertained that this might work in her favor. The women who were lined up in the chairs were all glamorous—as glamorous as the women in Palm Beach or Southampton. They were suntanned and Botoxed; they wore Lilly Pulitzer skirts and Jack Rogers sandals. The type was familiar—it was Meredith’s type, her exact genus and species—but she didn’t recognize a soul. And no one turned to look at Meredith in her ugly wig and boring glasses. She was as exciting as a reference-room librarian. More than a few women turned to gaze at Connie; she was bewitching that way.

Connie checked them in with the receptionist, who had a cascade of sumptuous golden ringlets. She introduced Meredith as “Mary Ann Martin.” The receptionist barely took notice of her, except perhaps to secretly wonder why Meredith wasn’t there to have something done about her atrocious hair. It was a relief to be overlooked, but Meredith couldn’t help reflecting on the Pascal Blanc salon in the days when Freddy’s fund was returning at nearly 30 percent. When Meredith walked in, the room all but burst into applause. Meredith had been grounded enough to know that the ass-kissing had nothing to do with her and everything to do with money, but even so, she’d believed that the staff of the salon had liked her. She was a real person, despite her many millions. And yet, not a single one of the salon staff or the women she befriended at the salon had stood up for her. She had to admit, it had surprised her that, apparently, in the thirty years that she’d been with Freddy, she hadn’t made one true friend; she hadn’t forged one single human connection that could withstand the seismic aftershocks of Freddy’s collapse. Absolutely everyone had forsaken her—except Connie.

“This way,” the receptionist said. She led them into the spa room and showed them each to a pedicure tub. Meredith started to climb up on a perch, then realized she had forgotten to pick a color. She chose a dark purple.
Paris at Midnight.

Meredith had experienced Paris at midnight more than once—any time they flew to Cap d’Antibes, they flew to Paris and then drove down to the coast in a Triumph Spitfire that Freddy kept in the hangar at Orly. Often, Meredith had shopping to do in Paris—she liked to stop at Printemps for candles and table linens, and at Pierre Hermé for boxes of colorful macarons.

Her life had been one of disgusting consumption. How had she not seen that?

The nail technician appeared. She introduced herself as Gabriella. She asked Meredith—whom she called “Marion”—if she would like a cappuccino. Meredith, feeling courageous, said yes.

Gabriella had some kind of accent, Eastern European or Russian. Meredith had known the names and life stories of all of the girls who had worked at Pascal Blanc. Her regular manicurist, Maria José, had a son named Victor who went to public school in Brooklyn. Meredith had once gone to see Victor in his high-school musical; he played Mr. Applegate in
Damn Yankees.
Meredith went because she loved Maria José and she wanted to be supportive, but Maria José was so ecstatic that
Meredith Delinn
would travel all the way to Red Hook to see Victor that Meredith’s presence overshadowed Victor’s performance, and Meredith ended up feeling guilty. When Meredith had explained this to Freddy, he’d kissed her cheek and said,
Ah, yes, I know. It’s hard being Meredith Delinn.

Here, at RJ Miller, Meredith didn’t talk to Gabriella. She hid behind a copy of
Vogue
—which was filled with the cool and lovely things she could no longer afford—and tried to enjoy the pampering. She monitored the comings and goings of the salon over the top of the magazine. Every time a woman entered the salon, a chime sounded, and Meredith seized up in fear. Once, she jerked her foot, and Gabriella said, “Oh, no! I hurt you?”

“No, no,” Meredith said. She closed her eyes and leaned back, listening to the sticky, slapping sound of Gabriella rubbing lotion into her feet and calves.

Next to her, Connie was blissed out. She said, “This is sublime, is it not?”

“Mmm,” Meredith said. It was sublime in theory, though Meredith couldn’t relax. She wanted to get it over with and get the hell out of there. She bent forward in anticipation, watching the final steps of her pedicure like she was watching a horse race. Gabriella slid Meredith’s feet into the ridiculously thin foam-rubber flip-flops and gently inserted the stiff cardboard toe separators. She painted Meredith’s nails with two coats of Paris at Midnight and a shiny top coat. Finished!

Meredith practically jumped off her perch. Gabriella said, “You in hurry?”

Meredith gazed at Connie, whose eyes were at half mast, like some college kid who had smoked too much dope.

“No,” Meredith said guiltily.

Gabriella invited Meredith—again calling her “Marion”; Meredith almost didn’t respond—over to the manicure table. The manicure table was trickier. There were no magazines to hide behind; it was face-to-face business. Gabriella started working on Meredith’s hands and tried to make small talk.

“I like your ring,” Gabriella said, fingering Meredith’s diamond. Freddy had been dirt poor when they got married, too poor to buy a ring, so he’d been happy about Annabeth Martin’s enormous diamond. There had been times, in those early years, when Meredith had overheard Freddy telling people that he’d bought it for her, or letting them assume so.

“Thank you,” Meredith said. “It was my grandmother’s.”

“Are you married?” Gabriella asked.

“Yes,” Meredith said. “No. Well, yes, but I’m separated.”

Gabriella took this news in stride. She didn’t even look up. Maybe she didn’t understand “separated.” She certainly didn’t understand the kind of separated Meredith was talking about.

“So you live on the island, or you just visiting?”

“Just visiting,” Meredith said.

“From where? Where you live?”

Meredith didn’t know what to say. She defaulted. “New York.”

Gabriella brightened. “Yes? New York City? We have many clients from New York City.”

“Not New York City,” Meredith said quickly. “I live upstate.”

Gabriella nodded. She pushed at Meredith’s cuticles. Since everything that had happened with Freddy, Meredith had reverted to her childhood habit of biting her nails. She remembered her grandmother dipping her fingertips in cayenne pepper to get her to stop. This would certainly be considered child abuse now.

Gabriella said, “Upstate? Where upstate?”

Meredith didn’t want to answer. Gabriella couldn’t have cared. Upstate had none of the sex appeal that the city had; they were like two different nations. But the question had been asked in earnest, and it required some kind of answer.

Meredith defaulted again. “Utica,” she said. This had been the town where Freddy grew up, though he hadn’t been well off enough to live in Utica proper. He had been raised—if you could call it that—in the sticks outside of Utica.

“Really?” Gabriella said. This came out as “Rilly!” Gabriella’s voice was loud enough that conversation in that part of the salon came to a momentary halt. “My boyfriend,
he
come from Utica. Perhaps you know him? His name is Ethan Proctor.” She said his name carefully as though she had practiced long hours to pronounce it correctly.

“No, I’m sorry,” Meredith said. “I don’t know Ethan Proctor.”

“But same, from Utica, yes?” Gabriella asked.

“Yes,” Meredith said. Gabriella was transforming Meredith’s nails from ragged, splintery edges to smooth half-moons. Her hands needed this, but Meredith had to turn the conversation around so that Gabriella was the one talking about herself, otherwise Meredith was going to find herself in trouble.

Gabriella leaned forward and lowered her voice, in the perfect stereotype of gossiping manicurist. “Of course you know who used to live in Utica long time ago?”

No,
thought Meredith.
No!

“Who?” she whispered.

“Freddy Delinn.”

Meredith felt her nose twitch, and she thought she might sneeze. This was her goddamned stupid idiotic fault for saying Utica instead of making up the name of a town. Pluto, New York. Why hadn’t she said Pluto?

“You know who I mean, Freddy Delinn?” Gabriella asked. “Monster psychopath, steal everybody’s money?”

Meredith nodded. Monster psychopath, curled up next to Meredith in bed by nine thirty every night, buying the children a golden retriever puppy, resting his hand on Samantha’s back, then snatching it away as though it had never been where it was not supposed to be. This was the boy who had walked her to Mental Health Services and had offered to come back and pick her up. He had talked her out of diving for the Princeton swim team so she could be his date at the holiday formal. He had been master of the fried chicken sandwich, king of the pool table. When, exactly, had he become a monster psychopath? The Feds thought 1991 or 1992, so when the kids were eight and six, right around the time Meredith was set free from the kitchen. No more making mac and cheese from a box. They could go out for dinner—to Rinaldo’s or Mezzaluna or Rosa Mexicano—every single night! Monster psychopath stealing everyone’s money. Meredith thought it might be hard to hear Freddy called a monster psychopath by Gabriella the Bulgarian or Croatian manicurist, but all Meredith could think was that it was true.

“Where are
you
from, Gabriella?” Meredith asked.

Gabriella didn’t answer. Gabriella hadn’t heard her because Meredith’s voice was nothing more than a strangled whisper. She may not have spoken at all, in fact; she may have only been thinking those words, desperate to change the subject, but had not actually managed to utter them.

Gabriella said, “There is girl? Here on Nantucket? Like me, also from Minsk?”

Minsk,
Meredith thought.
Belarus.

“She clean houses. She ask her boss, man who own house where she is cleaning, if he can invest her money with Freddy Delinn because man has account with Freddy Delinn, and man says, ‘Okay, sure,’ he will ask if she can also invest. And Mr. Delinn say, ‘Yeah, sure.’ So my friend invest her
life savings—
one hundred thirty-seven thousand dollar—with Freddy Delinn and now, all of it gone.”

Meredith nodded, then shook her head. The nod was meant to acknowledge the story; the shake was meant to say:
That is a hideous, awful, sickening tragedy, caused by my husband.
That money, your friend’s life savings, that hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars, could have been the same money I spent at Printemps on hand-milled candles. It could have been used to put gas in the Spitfire on the way to Cap d’Antibes. But what you have to understand, Gabriella, is that although I am guilty of spending the money in lavish and inexcusable ways, I didn’t know where it came from.

I thought Freddy had earned it.

Gabriella, perhaps picking up on something in Meredith’s body language, or in the pheromones she was giving off, which were broadcasting
FEAR
, said, “Did you know Freddy Delinn?”

“No,” Meredith said. The denial came easily and automatically, the same way it must have come to the disciple Peter. Meredith tried to convince herself that she wasn’t lying. She didn’t know Freddy; she had never known Freddy.