The Summer Without You (28 page)

If she could just connect with Matt, it would overwrite the moment . . .

But she couldn’t sink down thanks to the sudden hard slap of expensive shoes hitting the wooden floor. She couldn’t float away as she heard the gentle pad of manicured bare feet
lightly running over. She couldn’t drift into her subconscious over the jingle of pretty hippy bracelets as hair was quickly tied in a topknot, and by the time Ro felt the soft breeze as a
mat was thrown out and unfurled beside her, she knew the intruder by name.

‘Hey,’ Bobbi whispered.

‘What are you doing here?’ Ro whispered back, still keeping her eyes closed and privately giving herself a brownie point for putting on her new sleek olive yoga kit.
‘It’s Tuesday morning.’

‘I know
that.
I’ve got a meeting in an hour. Thought I’d try to chill beforehand.’

A meeting out here? Ro listened to the sound of Bobbi inhaling deeply and knew from her movements that she was running through some warm-up stretches.

Melodie began moving the class through some salutations and Ro got onto her knees, looking across finally at Bobbi, who was wearing a white crop top and navy hot-pant-style shorts, her body
doubled over, her nose taking a well-earned rest on her knees.

‘It’s so dark in here. What’s with all the gloom?’ Bobbi whispered again, turning her cheek onto her knees so that she could look at Ro.

Ro, who was upside down in downward dog, tutted lightly. ‘It allows the mind to rest from external stimulation and helps with the meditation. We all like it.’

The ‘we’ sounded cliquey and she flashed a brief smile to take any sting out of the words, but Bobbi wasn’t looking. She couldn’t take her eyes off Melodie. Ro closed her
eyes again, trying to engage with the light inside her.

‘She looks good for her age, don’t you think?’ Bobbi whispered, sitting up from her stretch and joining in with the rest of the class.

‘She’s only forty-one. Hardly a pensioner,’ Ro whispered as they slid from downward dog into a plank.

‘Check out her toe ring. That stone’s citrine. Pomellato, if I’m not mistaken. Probably, what, eight thousand? Just on her
toe
.’

‘You are obsessed. Melodie isn’t remotely acquisitive. She’s a very spiritual woman.’

‘With a very rich husband.’

Ro fell quiet, still disquieted from the dinner party at the weekend. Bobbi and Brook’s continued high spirits and private conversations had persisted throughout the meal, long after the
open-table topics had ended and the plates had been cleared. Bobbi had insisted she had only been ‘being polite’ as Hump teased her all the way home. Greg hadn’t said a word, and
Ro had a bad feeling about what might happen if Brook’s showman ego and Bobbi’s ambition were given further opportunity to merge.

The class repeated the sequence, pushing back into a downward dog again. Ro felt the sense of calm trickle down her as she focused on her breath, trying to loop it in one continuous, fluid
motion, and by the time they started on the salutation seals, ten minutes later, she wasn’t even aware of Bobbi’s competitive meditation beside her. It was beginning to happen again,
the peace that settled upon her during the class transporting her across continents and time zones . . .

‘How much longer?’ Bobbi whispered.

Ro sighed, losing her concentration again. ‘We’re nearly done. Honestly, I don’t know why you bothered coming.’

‘Well, it never hurts to consolidate contacts.’

Ro stiffened. What did that mean?

‘Who’s the client?’ she asked casually, willing her not to say Brook.

‘Can’t say yet – don’t want to jinx it.’

‘Where did you meet, then?’

‘I gave him my card at the Wölffer party.’

The Wölffer? The night Ro had met Brook for the first time – and Bobbi had been there too. Could they have met there,
before
the dinner? Was that why Bobbi had been so curious
about him? Why she’d been so nervous about what to wear?

Bobbi looked across at Ro. ‘If I can pull it off, it’s just the kind of new business I need to bring in to make the partners sit up and take notice.’

‘Bobbi, how could anyone not notice you?’

‘I know, right?’ Bobbi deadpanned, as they rolled onto their backs to the bridge position, hips in the air, arms by their sides. ‘Hey! Is this giving me a double chin?’
Bobbi demanded.

‘Can’t. See,’ Ro muttered, more concerned with not being smothered by her breasts, which had slid up her chest and were making breathing difficult. What was it with yoga that
made apparently reflexive behaviour strained?

They relaxed into the final pose – the Shavasana – lying flat on the floor, palms up, and Ro closed her eyes for the last time, trying to forget about Bobbi’s ambitions and
push herself back down into a lucid mental state. She
had
to find Matt today; she had to have some feeling of connection with him to hold on to. What had happened in the studio last night
was nothing to do with Ted Connor, she knew that. It was just a reflection of her loneliness. The affection she saw between Ted and Marina was a mirror to her and Matt, and she missed his touch.
She missed being touched so badly she wanted to cry – back slaps from Hump on the way to the fridge didn’t count. Matt had been so certain that their reunion sex would more than make up
for his absence, but she had never counted on feeling so physically isolated that a yoga class would be her only escape from the loneliness.

She inhaled as deeply as she could; her ribcage spread gratifyingly wide with each inhalation, the lotus oil and gamelan background music pulling her to a land that was as dark and ancient as
this one was bright and shiny and new. Matt was in there somewhere; she could sense him, like smoke in the mist. But even as the familiar feeling of safety settled over her, something was wrong
– she couldn’t see his face.

The class had ended now. People could get up when they felt ready to. Most took advantage of the peace to lie there for a few minutes longer, but beside her, she heard Bobbi jump up and dash
across the room, determined to be first at the water cooler. Ro opened her eyes, jolted back to reality once again, and stared bleakly at the ceiling. No matter what she did, it was going to be yet
another day without him.

‘The very person!’

Ro turned, her newly purchased yoga mat on her shoulder narrowly missing knocking over a white mannequin in a $1,000 dress. Florence was walking towards her down Newton Lane, a cardboard roll
under her arm.

‘Guess what I just picked up!’

‘The posters?’

‘The very same! Are you free for a bit or rushing off?’

Ro beamed, grateful for yet another diversion to keep her from going back to the studio – the scene of last night’s crime. She didn’t want to see Ted Connor’s face when
she hadn’t been able to find Matt’s, and she’d hopped on her bike straight after Melodie’s class, adamant that she couldn’t go another minute without owning her own
yoga mat. She’d do anything to delay pressing ‘play’ again.

‘I’m free. I was just putting up my ads, at last.’ She pointed to her advert, now hanging in the window of the hardware store, and showed off one of the high-quality cards Hump
had sweet-talked his printer into doing as a small run, for her to leave in the smarter galleries.

Florence nodded approvingly. ‘Well, we’d better hurry, then – before your phone starts ringing off its hook.’ She tapped the large tube under her arm. ‘This
warrants a coffee and a muffin – my treat. We need to admire the fruits of our labour.’

They wandered into the Golden Pear, Ro grabbing them a table at the back where there was more space and the tables were larger, while Florence poured them each a coffee from the orange-rimmed
percolators – signifying the French roast – and carefully chose the two best-looking gluten-free banana muffins.

Ro, who had picked up a free copy of the
East Hampton Star
on the way in, began absently scanning the news as she waited.

Her eyes flicked to the next panel.

She wondered whether Brook Whitmore had read this.

Ro was about to move on to the next story when her eyes caught sight of a name in the text. She leaned in closer.

‘Here we go,’ Florence said, setting down a tray with the coffees and muffins.

Ro looked up, quickly folding the paper away, but not before Florence caught sight of the headline.

‘Oh.’ She drew her lips into a thin line as she sat down slowly, her back to the room. ‘Well, that ruined my breakfast this morning.’ She shook her head slowly.

Ro blushed, embarrassed that Florence had caught her hunched over it, reading it avidly as though it was a gossip column. Florence had been one of the first people to show her kindness and
friendship since arriving here and this was how she repaid her? But a $3-million black hole . . . ? She couldn’t not ask about it.

‘May I ask what happened?’ Ro took her coffee cup and wrapped her hand round it.

Florence busied herself with stirring her coffee and was quiet for a long while. ‘We made some bad calls,’ she said finally. ‘Invested too heavily in a highway-maintenance
scheme that was later badly damaged by Sandy anyway, so that was money down the drain. We privatized the recycling programme hoping to make some savings, but it was a complete fiasco during the
changeover: some people had no collections for over a month, and with the costs of trying to put it right, we ended up spending more than we ever could have saved . . .’ Her brow furrowed.
‘It was just a bad year. We couldn’t do right for doing wrong. We overspent, borrowed too much . . . There were too many people writing cheques. It was shambolic – I readily put
my hand up to it . . .’ She inhaled sharply, meeting Ro’s gaze with watery eyes. ‘And I was having problems in my personal life. I was there in name only. I was grieving and . . .
not myself.’ Her voice faltered, but she stared back at Ro with wet, determined eyes. ‘It was the first and only time I’ve ever given less than my all to the town, but I take full
responsibility. It happened under my watch. When we discovered the money was missing, I offered to resign, but the board gave me a vote of confidence.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, nearly all
of them, anyway. Some members saw it as the perfect opportunity to try to get rid of me; they see me as getting in their way. I’m a stickler for making sure our rules are fair to everyone
– not just the rich weekenders – and that they’re rigorously enforced. It doesn’t always make me popular, especially when there’s money involved.’

‘But what about the missing money?’

‘It’s still missing. We’ve brought in a team of forensic accountants to try to trace it.’ She shrugged. ‘It appears to have been taken in small deposits, rather
than one lump sum – that’s why it’s taking so long to trace. There’s just so many accounts to work through . . . Hundreds, in fact, some moving just a few dollars.
There’s been a full investigation and inquiry. I was exonerated of any wrongdoing, but . . . mud sticks, doesn’t it? And until they find the money, the whiff of suspicion hovers over
me.’

Ro put her hand on Florence’s arm lightly. ‘But that’s terrible. Surely no one who knows you could think you’re capable of something like that . . .’

‘My true friends don’t, of course, but to those for whom I’m just a public official . . .’ Florence chewed her inner cheek. ‘I think it’s the size of the loss
that makes people wonder whether maybe there’s some truth in it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, doesn’t it strike you as odd that the number’s so . . .
small
? I mean, if you were going to defraud the town accounts, why take such a measly sum?’

Ro thought that only in the Hamptons could $3 million be considered measly.

‘If you’re going to go to the trouble and risk of stealing it, why not take thirty million dollars? That would still be insignificant enough to stay below radar for a long time,
certainly long enough for the thief to cover their tracks and disappear. But three million?’ She pursed her lips together tightly. ‘It’s almost a domestic sum.’

Ro frowned again; she couldn’t fathom this world where $3 million was almost considered pocket change. ‘So what are you saying?’