The Queen of Hearts(101)

Anticipating my next question, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry. Drew doesn’t mind. He’s in our romantic hotel suite on a conference call with some guys in Japan.” She waved at a passing waiter and held up her mason jar, which smelled gingery. “Another one?” she called. To me, she said, “It’s too summery of a drink, but I can’t get through this without bourbon. An homage to our homeland, right? But I know you won’t drink it neat.”

Her voice was slippery. I wondered how long she’d been sitting here, waiting for me to arrive.

“Zadie,” I said. “Thank you. I can’t believe you got Nick to help me.”

Curiosity lit her features. “Tell me. How did it go?”

She listened as I recounted the visit with the Packards, her face growing more animated as I talked. “That’s amazing! That’s so beautiful, Emma. I love it. And I’m so proud of Nick for helping you.”

I was fairly sure I knew the answer, but—“Did you tell him what I did?”

“You mean the little matter of impersonating me?” She was definitely tipsy.

“Yes,” I said.

She sighed. “No. I didn’t see the point in telling him that. Obviously, he’d have never agreed to help you. And it’s totally possible that he’d have burst into the OR and hacked you to pieces with a 10-blade.”

“So,” I said softly. “You protected me, after all I did to you.”

“Yes,” she said. “And Nick protected you too, for years, you know, letting me think he was married. If you hadn’t made him so angry at the Arts Ball, I might never have found out about any of this.”

“Was it weird, talking to him?”

“Uh, yes,” she said, and laughed. “He lives uptown, in the First Ward, not too far from here. I made up my mind to do it, and I ran to his apartment after I checked into the Ritz this morning. At first he thought— Well, I felt awful. But he agreed immediately to help you, and I could tell he thought the medical decisions you made were reasonable.”

I felt a surge of relief course through me: despite everything, I guess I still craved Nick’s professional approval.

Zadie kept going: “Also, I knew he’d been in a golfing foursome with Boyd, Dirk Wynne, and Buzzy Cooper—Buzzy put in a word for you too, by the way—and I figured Nick would have more pull with Boyd than I would.”

I faced her. “Why did you do it? Get Nick to help me, after what I did to you both?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t. I’m not built for holding on to anger, for one thing. It seemed like it was destroying me. I was so miserable. Then, the other day, I was falling asleep, and I prayed to know what to do, and all of a sudden there was this easing-up sensation in my chest. I felt like I’d been inhaling fire for days, and then, out of nowhere, the soot and the smoke and the pain were gone, and I was breathing clean air again. I felt an overwhelming forgiveness. A real forgiveness this time.”

She paused, apparently collecting her thoughts. Or maybe she wanted to cushion the blow I felt certain was coming, because she graced me with a gentle smile and added, “In a way, I’m glad I didn’t know all this before. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without you in it over the past ten years. I love my other friends, but they all fit into a unidimensional slot in my life. They’re my mom friends or my doctor friends or my friends from school. You’re the only person who connects all the dots.”

I nodded, trying not to wince at the term “my other friends.”

Zadie continued. “It’s like—everyone needs one person who gets all their quirks and their history.” She cocked her head and a shimmering tear appeared at the corner of her eye. “I want to punch you in the face for messing this up.”

“You will never know how sorry I am.”

“Well, you obviously lost your mind. Everyone involved lost their mind. Graham loved you. You loved Nick. Nick loved me. If I’d only fallen for Graham, we’d have had a perfect love quadrangle.”

I didn’t know how to phrase it, what I was thinking. But Zadie and I had always had a kind of sisterly telepathy. “It worked out the way it was supposed to,” she said, suddenly fierce.

“You don’t wish—”

She held up a hand. “I can’t let myself think that way.” I risked a quick look at her: she was staring straight ahead. “I love Drew. I love my children. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

“Zadie,” I said. “What happens now?”

“Oh, Boyd will call off Macon Bradford. And Nestor Connolly never wanted to fire you in the first place. You’ll be—”

“I meant, what happens with us? Can we go back to the way we were?”

She didn’t answer. Behind her, lolling test notes from a saxophone floated out from a band setting up by the stairs. The young bankers near us exploded in a raucous bout of head-thrown-back hilarity, and I shivered. Graham and Nick and Zadie and even Eleanor tangled up in my brain in a huge knot of remorse.

This was it: of all the pivotal moments in my life, this was the one I cared about the most.

A cheerful tattooed guy deposited my drink and departed. I ignored it. “Zadie?” I prompted gently.