Chapter 1
HOLLY
“She loved you two like sisters,” Zoe’s mother, Mrs. Whitmore, says in a voice barely loud enough to register over the air-conditioning.
She’s an amazing pillar of strength for having just sat through her husband’s reading of their deceased daughter’s last letter.
Her hands folded in her lap, her grief as carefully contained as the perfect twist pinned at her nape, she sits perched on the edge of a burgundy damask settee in their estate’s library.
We’re all here at Zoe’s insistence: her parents, her older brother Leo, me, and, of course, Anna. One-third of our former friend trio. Anna and I haven’t spoken since that day five years ago when she ruined my life.
From behind his massive mahogany desk, Mr. Whitmore taps at the piece of paper he’s just read from, a metronome of judgment. Afternoon light filters through the heavy curtains, casting his face in shadow while illuminating the documents spread before him like a fan of accusations.
I squirm in the black leather chair, focusing my gaze on a white flower in the Persian rug. The matching leather chair next to me groans as Anna shifts. I know she’s looking at me. I know she’s willing me to look at her.
I can’t. Not when she’s wearing that ridiculous pink dress that probably cost more than my monthly mortgage. Not when I can’t forget what she did to me.
“I tried to talk Zoe out of this ridiculous idea,” Mr. Whitmore says, watching us with resigned weariness.
“Despite how much you hurt her, she wasn’t willing to let this go.
The one thing she wanted from her best friends you refused to do for her before she died.
But that was Zoe—once she set her mind to something, there was no reasoning with her. ”
Anna mutters, “That’s so Zoe.”
It is so very Zoe. Not that I’ll give Anna the satisfaction of agreeing with her.
The last time I saw Zoe, two months before she passed away, Zoe had made one last plea to bring us together.
She insisted Anna has changed. She hasn’t.
I’ve stalked her social media. She’s still the same Anna living her life online.
Lunch poolside in Bora Bora. Sunbathing in Capri.
Dinner at a Michelin star restaurant in Paris.
I feel a current run through my body and, as discreetly as possible, scan the room for Zoe’s urn. It sits on the mantel between two Wedgwood vases, elegant and understated, nothing like the vibrant woman who brought so much joy to my life.
I’m sorry, Z, I’m not ready to forgive her.
“Zoe outlined every step of this trip. She left nothing to chance.” He looks from me to Anna, a visual exclamation mark to his disapproval.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” Leo deadpans from where he’s leaning against the doorframe.
Leo. The crush of every woman who’s ever laid eyes on him, including me and, of course, Anna. Because everything comes full circle back to Anna.
Zoe had a natural, easy beauty to her. Leo, on the other hand, had the looks that TV superheroes were modeled after. Chiseled features, thick blond hair that was just shaggy enough to cause hearts to flutter but not eyebrows to rise in a corporate boardroom.
Anna giggles and shoots a quick grin in Leo’s direction. I ignore them both.
“Mr. Whitmore, that’s two weeks.” I feel like I’m hyperventilating.
I am hyperventilating. I’m a high school principal, I don’t get summer breaks.
I have a family. I don’t have the luxury of taking off whenever I want.
Quinn’s face flashes in my mind, my five-year-old son with Jack’s eyes and my stubborn streak.
Two weeks away from him feels impossible.
“Two weeks,” Anna echoes. A look of excitement spreads across her face. She’s probably plotting what she’ll pack. She has the luxury of taking off whenever she wants. As a travel agent, it’s her job.
“Two weeks and seven destinations,” Mr. Whitmore clarifies. He peers over the gold rims of his reading glasses like a judge delivering his verdict.
“Ohhhh,” Anna coos, and I whirl on her. She can’t possibly be thinking we’re going through with this. Her left hand is rubbing a necklace she’s wearing and my breath catches. Zoe’s necklace.
My hand instinctively goes to my neck, even though I haven’t worn mine for five years. Not since that flight home from the ill-fated trip to Greece. The trip that destroyed our friendship.
“We can cover more ground separately,” I say, addressing Mr. Whitmore and Zoe because I suddenly feel her presence. I swear a draft stirs the papers on the desk and that I can smell her soft, floral scent.
“Holly, no.” Anna’s fingers tighten around the delicate chain. “She wants us to do this together.”
“Us going together is insane. She’ll understand,” I say with more force than I intend. I feel the absence of my necklace choking me. Oh yeah, Zoe is definitely here. The temperature in the room seems to drop and Mrs. Whitmore pulls her cashmere cardigan tighter.
“Enough.” Mr. Whitmore waves his hand, dismissing the escalating difference of opinion.
“This is how it’s going to go.” He shows us two manila envelopes, one with my name on it, the other with Anna’s.
“Zoe has written explicit directions on where you’re supposed to go and what to do when you get there.
Tickets have been purchased, reservations made.
I,” he emphasizes the word for an extra hit of guilt, “have paid for everything.”
“Dun dun, dada dun dun, dada, dun dun,” Leo mumble-sings the Mission Impossible theme song, earning a snort-laugh from Anna, a twitch of a smile from his mom, and an unamused glare from his father.
“Ms. Bennet, Ms. Fisk, this expedition is a bad idea. I’m sure you won’t disagree considering the state of your, should we call it relationship?
” He gestures between us with his fountain pen.
“You broke Zoe’s heart. I, we,” Mr. Whitmore looks to his wife then to Leo, “think she was crazy to believe she could fix things between you. I’m afraid she’s set herself up for disappointment again. ”
“Give them a break, Dad. They were still her best friends.” Leo makes eye contact with Anna.
A flash of resentment grips me. I know Anna and Zoe saw each other regularly, far more regularly than Zoe and I. But Anna lives twenty minutes away. I live on the other end of the state. It’s not fair that after what she did, Anna got more of Zoe.
I take in a slow, deep inhale, not that there’s much air in this room. Despite the afternoon light, the room feels dark and oppressive. It’s the one room in the expansive Whitmore mansion that always unnerved me.
For all the time I spent here during college breaks, I never could shake the feeling of being an imposter.
My very middle-class upbringing compared to Zoe and Anna’s extremely upper-class lives.
It always amazed me that those two golden women chose me to be their best friend.
We were so different and yet we fit perfectly. We were like sisters.
Until we weren’t.
“Ms. Bennet, is there something you’d like to add?” I realize Mr. Whitmore, everyone actually, is staring at me.
“I’m sorry?” I ask, desperately willing at least one brain cell to have stayed present in the room while my mind wandered.
“I was saying,” Anna jumps in helpfully, “that we won’t let Zoe down. That, of course, we’re honored to take on this mission.” Anna shoots another quick look at Leo, pleased with herself for continuing his joke.
“It’s, um, Mrs. Sterling,” I mumble. I haven’t been Bennet in six years. Not that my last name is relevant to this conversation.
“Holly, tell him we’re committed to doing this.” Anna grips my forearm.
I yank my arm away, slamming my elbow into the solid wood back of the chair. “Of course, I’m, we’re, honored that Zoe has put such faith in us.”
Next to me Anna does an Anna shimmy in the chair, her outrageous pink outfit looking far more elegant than anything that color has the right to be. Only Anna.
“But,” I charge forward before Anna pops from excitement, “I don’t know about us traveling together.”
“It has to be together,” Anna insists at the same time Mr. Whitmore says, “Zoe specified it needed to be done together.”
I deflate into the chair. I don’t have an answer. I want to do this for Zoe. I absolutely do not want to do this with Anna.
Sensing the moment of no return, Mr. Whitmore delivers the final blow.
“You have one week to decide. I will be at LAX next Monday at nine a.m. with everything you need, including Zoe’s ashes.
The first flight leaves at noon. Don’t disappoint Zoe, not again.
” Mr. Whitmore folds Zoe’s letter and carefully slips it into an envelope.
Anna stands, teetering on her impossibly high heels. “Thank you, Charles, we won’t let you down.”
I glare at her.
“Mr. Whitmore, what is the last destination?” I ask as I stand and sling my oversized tote over my shoulder. We never had a chance to pick the winning spot for our next girls’ trip.
Mr. Whitmore makes eye contact before dropping the final bombshell on us. “The one you were supposed to go on after Greece. The trip she never got to take.”