The month passed faster than Anna thought it would. She didn’t know the extent of the fallout from her sex tape, because she hadn’t seen anyone from the outside world to discuss it. She spent her days reading books, playing lots of sad songs on the violin, and learning how to paint dogs and horses by watching YouTube videos. She was happy to see Dustin and had noticed the change in him immediately. There was a lightness about him, the glow of newfound love, which she recognized as the same look she’d had when she looked in a mirror during her affair with Vronsky. Her time of happiness was all too brief, but at least she knew such a grand feeling was possible. Dustin and Kimmie were a couple now, and though Dustin was too polite to talk about it in front of her, Anna was happy for him and made a point of telling him as much. She took comfort in knowing that at least some people, Dustin and Kimmie, and her brother and Lolly, could have a chance at finding happiness together, even if it hadn’t worked out for her.

XXVII

The night of Lolly’s concert performance at Lincoln Center, Anna got dressed and was standing in the foyer when her dad and Steven came out of their bedrooms dressed for the show. “I’m going, too,” Anna said. “Or am I still a prisoner in my own home?”

Before he could answer, their mother entered, her high heels clicking softly on the marble floor. Anna and Steven’s parents had not told anyone of their marital problems and were still keeping up appearances at social events, with most people assuming their sparse attendance was due to the trouble with Anna.

The four of them stood awkwardly for a moment, before Anna’s father opened the door and the four of them took a car south in silence.

Anna had no idea what her first public appearance in New York since the sex tape would be like. Surely all the fuss would have died down by now. Steven had told her that every school in Manhattan had worked together to delete as many of the videos as possible, thanks to their father calling in a few favors in Washington and offering up donations like Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters. Vronsky’s mother’s fixer had done what he could as well, but the culprit was still at large, and everyone speculated about the person who’d taken down the great Anna K. Many assumed it was the Greenwich OG, as he had the greatest motive for revenge in the situation. Anna had heard from Steven about the many rumors, but she didn’t believe it was Alexander’s doing. Sure, he was a likely suspect, but it didn’t seem like his style, and so she accepted the mystery of her downfall as just that, a mystery. Because what did it matter anyway?