Samantha and Adrienne fell in line with the flow of people walking away from the broken glass and the still-flying shreds of paper cups and jewelry and Christmas-blend coffee. She took Adrienne’s arm and they walked uptown in silence.

When the women reached Eighty-sixth Street they began to walk home through the park.

“Maybe I could sell makeup in some nice place like Bangor, Maine,” Adrienne finally broke the silence. “Say something, honey. We’re walking through the park at midnight and it’s too scary to be quiet. Just say anything.”

Samantha looked at her and the skyline still gleaming over the park.

“I miss Barry. I really miss Barry,” she said, and silently kept moving.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

·CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE·

Frankie

Frankie had worked late the night of the explosion. There had been an outbreak of thrush at All Souls nursery school, plus five girls at Brearley were diagnosed with mononucleosis. From Frankie’s perspective, every sophomore at Trinity, Sacred Heart, Horace Mann, or Brearley who wanted to avoid school suddenly came down with mono and was rushed by a caregiver to her office.

When Frankie came home she poured herself a glass of wine, reached for her phone to check on Abraham, then decided she’d do it all in the morning and watch an old movie on Channel Thirteen or American Movie Classics instead. Recently she had found any film produced after 1970 decidedly unsettling.

While surfing the networks, Frankie absentmindedly heard a woman say, “Bill, it’s still not clear if the Starbucks incident was a water main break or the first New York suicide bombing.”

Frankie dropped her cat and sat up in her chair. She changed the channel so she could hear the news from someone who wouldn’t be quickly moving on to a canceled celebrity marriage.

“An explosion rocked New York’s Upper West Side,” an anchorwoman reported with a furrowed brow. “The Starbucks at Sixty-seventh and Columbus exploded at 10:36 p.m. So far the death count is thirty and may grow larger. The mayor has urged New Yorkers to stay in their homes and not to jump to any conclusions.”

Frankie immediately picked up her phone. “Charlie! Charlie! There was an explosion at the Lincoln Center Starbucks. Thirty people were killed.”

Charlie got to Frankie’s house in fifteen minutes. The streets were eerily quiet and most of the taxis were already off duty. Charlie managed to get a ride from Judy Tremont’s limo driver, Bill. Apparently as soon as Judy heard about the explosion she had Bill drive her and the children to the heliport on Thirty-fourth Street to fly to Southampton. Bill had just dropped them off and was on his way home to the Bronx.

“I’m here if you want to come down,” Charlie spoke on the intercom in Frankie’s building. “I’m gonna go see if I can help them.”

“I’ll be right there.” Frankie grabbed her coat.