Tito was already heading down the steps with both dogs. She sat back, watching Pearl hesitate before gingerly trotting around after Bart. She could tell she was both confused by the wide-open space and thrilled by it. The best she got in New York was a crowded pen at the Central Park dog run.

When she was satisfied that Pearl was okay, Elodie turned her attention to a pair of men launching a kayak into the water. A small bird landed on the bench beside her, tilting its brown head quizzically before taking flight once again.

Elodie inhaled, realizing that, as frustrated as she was, there were far worse places to be stuck for a short while. She had no doubt she’d prevail with Celeste. It was just a matter of how long it would take.

Gemma, however, was another story. She’d been noncommittal—disinterested, even—on the phone. If she didn’t take the bait and run out to Provincetown, it would be time for a plan B. But Elodie didn’t think it would come to that.

People always took the bait.

17

Constance, 1993

The times were changing, and not for the better; Constance Pavlin would never step out of the house looking like the models in the pages of that month’s Vogue. More than being in poor taste, all that anti-glamour, minimalist, grungy heroin-chic was bad for business.

“This will pass,” she assured her husband. After thirty years of marriage, she’d ridden the highs and lows of Pavlin & Co long enough to know that trends—no matter how good or how onerous—were temporary. Her husband seemed to have lost sight of that.

Alan had been in a bad mood all day. Still, they’d gone to the party. She wore Azzedine Alaïa—the one designer who she felt hadn’t yet lost his mind, unlike the house of Perry Ellis, who’d hired that young Marc Jacobs kid. The Alaïa was a form-fitting red sleeve of a dress. She’d barely eaten all week in anticipation of wearing it, but even her success in pouring herself into the unforgiving frock hadn’t put a smile on Alan’s face.

At fifty-five, Alan Pavlin had aged into a distinguished head-turner of a man. The boyish, uncertain person she’d married all those years ago had finally come into his own. It wasn’t just that he was more confident; the good looks of his youth had been honed by the passing years into something sharp and deeply attractive. And she wasn’t the only woman who’d noticed; all night long, that opportunist Betsy Laurent-Leeds had been making eyes at him. Alan, to his credit, paid little attention. But he did drink too heavily, which was very much out of character. His father, Elliot, had been a big drinker. It wasn’t uncommon for Scotch to appear at the lunch table. And Alan made a point of doing everything differently than Elliot.