Chapter 3 #3
“Whitney’s mother arranged the funeral,” I say, and I hear my own voice go flat, the way it does when I’m holding something toxic at arm’s length. “Eleanor Montgomery-Trace from Scarsdale Traces. That’s why the service is all the way in the Hamptons.”
“I don’t understand.”
I let out another breath, one that tastes bitter.
“Whit came from a world where everything is a performance of wealth. Even grief. Especially grief. Eleanor and Whit were estranged, but that’s not going to stop her from throwing the most beautiful funeral East End has ever seen.
Every person there will know exactly how much it cost.” I pause.
“That’s the point. Everyone in attendance is going to talk money without words.
Without that watch, you look like an escort I hired to accompany me because I’m too alone, and too much of a coward to let these people know just how alone I am.
It’s the first time I’m seeing them since my divorce. ”
Saylor is quiet, processing. He puts on the watch.
It looks good on him—the silver face against his wrist, the weight of it settling naturally, like he was always supposed to be wearing something that expensive.
I file that observation away in the part of my brain marked absolutely not and keep going.
“The Rolex isn’t a gift. It’s armor. Everyone at this funeral will be wearing armor.
” I jazz-hands at my own expensive shields—the Cartier Love bracelet stacked against my grandmother’s vintage Tiffany diamonds, the Van Cleef & Arpels earrings that are disturbingly expensive.
“This isn’t an outfit. It’s a costume. We’re going to a performance, and you need to look the part. ”
“For a funeral, shouldn’t looking the part be looking…sad?” he asks mildly.
“Yeah, Saylor. To people with a soul.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to go to this? If this isn’t the way you want to remember your friend, maybe we mourn in a different way.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I plead. “But I have to attend. I wrote a speech for Whitney.” I tap my pocket because this dress is from Target and it has pockets.
The beautiful irony of fashion is the cheaper the dress, the more functional it is.
Not one of the dresses from my favorite Celeste line has pockets.
Probably because the women who can afford to buy them can also afford an entourage to follow behind, bearing the responsibility of her belongings.
His mouth twitches, but he lets it go. “Fair enough. So these people. What should I expect?”
“Old money. Or people who’ve spent thirty years pretending they have old money, which is somehow worse.
They’re going to look at me and calculate.
What I lost in the divorce. Whether I’ve aged.
Whether the rumors about the company are true.
” I curl my fingers into my palms. “I haven’t seen most of them since Greg and I split.
To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen Whitney since before Greg and I split.
” My voice cracks. A hairline fracture. I try to keep going because stopping feels more dangerous than breaking, but no words come out.
“Oh, hey now.” Saylor reaches over the middle compartment, and cradles my shoulder with his palm—warm through the thin fabric of my dress.
It’s not a squeeze or a pat. It’s gentle and firm, his fingers curving around the ridge of my collarbone, thumb pressing lightly into the hollow beneath it.
Like he’s trying to hold that one piece of me in place while he watches the rest of me concave, my spine wilting forward, my chest collapsing inward around the vacuum where my composure used to be.
“People lose touch, Celeste. It doesn’t mean you didn’t love her. ”
I shake my head, desperately trying to convince him of my culpability.
“You don’t understand. We had a fight. It was my fault.
” I wave him off. “Sorry, it’s too much to dump on someone for one weekend.
I only want you to understand where the judgmental glares will be coming from.
I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“Celeste.” The way Saylor says my name summons my gaze.
I turn my head, meeting him eye-to-eye. “It’s not too much to dump on me.
This is my job. Grabbing your makeup bag for you, driving, giving you an escape plan—it’s part of the package.
I’ve been hired for a few funerals and in my experience you need a boyfriend, a partner.
Not a nervous first date. So don’t worry about how I’m feeling. Just focus on how I’m making you feel.”
And good at his job, he is. The sentiment sinks deep into me and I speak before thinking. “You’re making me a little too comfortable. Loose-lipped.”
“Good. Say what you need to. I’ll listen.”
“I’m not even sure she’d want me there,” I whisper. “I fucked up so badly.”
The car is very quiet. Outside, Brooklyn carries on—someone honking, a dog barking, the distant hydraulic sigh of a garbage truck.
But inside this car, it’s just my breathing and the space Saylor is holding without filling it.
There’s a steadiness to his silence that makes me think he’s held grief like this before. For someone else. Someone he loves.
I realize my eyes are wet again. I press my fingertips beneath my lashes and they come back black.
“My makeup,” I murmur. “It’s a disaster.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s red-carpet ready,” Saylor agrees, and something about his honesty—the absolute refusal to do the polite thing and pretend I don’t look wrecked—makes me settle right into his presence.
This is exactly what I needed. Raw honesty.
Someone who says exactly what he means. “But I’ll help you fix it.
Or maybe just take it off entirely. You’d look just as pretty without. ”
I peel my gaze away and stare forward again. “Is that a line?”
“Oh yeah. Strap in. I’ve got an arsenal full of compliments that’ll keep you blushing or at least distracted during what I’m sure will be a difficult weekend for you. I’m here for whatever you need.”
“Thank you, Saylor. But let’s keep these compliments platonic and little-brother appropriate, yes?”
He purses his lips, smirking with all sorts of guilt written on his face. “In that case my arsenal is significantly less impressive.”
I chuckle and hate myself for it. “Don’t do that. Don’t make me laugh the week I found out my best friend passed away.”
He reaches over to place his hand on my knee. All these gentle touches—now I know they are strategic. Or are they? I can’t tell if I’m being handled or held. “Tell me about her. Whitney sounds like an artsy name. Was she creative?”
I nod, warm memories flooding me, smoothing out the goosebumps on my legs. “Whit was good at everything. Art, writing, cooking, sports, you name it. I have never known anyone who sampled life like she did.”
Her laugh echoes in my brain, like a beautiful haunting.
I try to focus to place the right visuals with the right soundtrack in the labyrinth of my memories of Whit.
That laugh…from the time she got her hair stuck in that defunct curling iron.
It burned a whole chunk of hair off. We had to cut off six inches to make it look even.
That hot tool committed a felony terrorist attack on her beautiful red curls.
It’d be enough to send any reasonable woman into a spiral, but Whit?
She laughed. Hard. With me. At herself. She took a disaster and somehow found joy.
And yes, her hair looked damn good short.
Saylor releases my knee and collects my hand, weaving his fingers into mine.
Not in a romantic way. Not the way men reach for women in movies, all loaded glances and meaningful squeezes.
He just takes it. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Like he noticed my hand sitting there empty and cold and decided to fix that particular problem the way he’d right a knocked-over trashcan—simply, without fanfare, because it needed doing. Which reminds me…
I nod toward the sideways metal can in front of us. “I should pick that up.”
“Nah, I left it on purpose. Belongs to our neighbor who never picks up after his dog which is why our street always smells like shit. Maybe this’ll force him to pick up something for fuck’s sake.”
His hand is warm and enormous around mine. My rings press into his palm and he doesn’t adjust his grip.
“Our neighbor?” I ask. “Do you live with a…colleague?” I cringe. Damn, why did that sound like I was accusing him of living in something akin to a brothel? “I mean it’s hard to live anywhere near Manhattan these days without a roommate.”
Saylor gives me an obvious once-over that makes me feel unsettlingly vulnerable. Like I’m being judged, naked…after binge-eating Cheetos, orange dust still coating my lips.
“I meant my neighbor.”
I nod emphatically, taking his subtle hint not to ask.
Saylor straightens in the seat and checks the GPS.
“This address?” He waits for my confirmation then checks his mirrors before pulling smoothly into the street—unlike me, he does not hit anything.
All the tension in my body has relaxed as I watch Saylor merge into traffic with the relaxed confidence of someone who trusts the physics.
I wiggle my ass in the passenger seat. Yes, this is best. This is where I belong—nowhere near a steering wheel.
“So why don’t you tell me about Whitney,” he says.
And it’s the way he says it. Not what happened with Whitney or why did you two stop talking or are you going to be okay. Just: tell me about her. Like she’s still a person worth knowing. Like the story matters not for context or preparation, but because he wants to understand what I lost.
I look out the passenger window. The city is sliding past—bodegas, laundromats, a man walking four dogs who are each pulling in a different direction.
Normal life. Ordinary Tuesday-morning life.
And I’m in a car with a twenty-six-year-old man I barely know, heading to a funeral I’m terrified to attend, wearing four-inch heels and ruined mascara and a grief so enormous I can feel it pressing against my ribs.
This time I reach for his hand, pressing my palm tightly against his.
“She had the best laugh. Completely unrivaled,” I tell him. “And she would have loved this. Me, showing up to her funeral with a hot twenty-six-year-old in a Tom Ford suit.” I wipe my eyes with my free hand and let out a wet, broken laugh. “She would have absolutely lost her mind.”
Saylor squeezes my hand. “Hot? Now is that any way to talk about your little brother? Kind of creepy, Celeste.” He pulls his eyes away from the road just long enough to wink at me.
I shoot him a scowl that’s also kind of a smile. “Shut it.”
He chuckles. “All right, Lessi, tell me more. I want to know everything about her.”
The floodgates open. The tears flow again. And I start talking.