“I'm whining and wallowing. Why aren't you busting me for having a pity party? That's what girlfriends do—we bust each other. Why aren't you telling me that I made those choices and I need to take responsibility and grow up, like you always do?”

“Old rule,” Zoe said softly. “A girlfriend doesn't bust a friend whose mother has just died.”

So Carrie finally lost it. She cried loudly for a long time. After she finally finished, Zoe pointed out that was probably the reason why she'd come over. “And you had mommy issues even before Rose died,” she added.

“Not anymore,” Carrie said.

“They're probably worse now that she's gone. You never got it all cleared up with her, and you need to do that. You know?”

Carrie did know. But she didn't want to start sobbing again. “Unfortunately it's going to be hard to have a nice long talk.”

“You need closure, Carrie.”

“You really should stop Tivoing Dr. Phil. And for your information, I'm getting closure. I'm going to the apartment today to clean it out.”

“Alone? Don't do that.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? I can handle it.” Zoe looked at her. “I'm okay. Okay?”

After a second, Zoe nodded and pulled another tray of basil truffles out of the freezer. They dipped and dusted until it was nine o'clock and there was no way Carrie could tell herself that it was too early to go to Rose's apartment.

“CAN I ASK one question about the memorial service?” Zoe said as she walked Carrie to the elevator.

“Can I stop you?” Carrie braced herself for another Dr. Phil moment.

“Did you invite your grandmother?”

The question was a little worse than Carrie had expected. “I couldn't,” she said after a moment. “Mother wouldn't have wanted it.”

“Do you think your grandmother would have come anyway?”

“Why?”

“I thought I saw someone in the back … she looked a little like some of the pictures I've seen … from the end of your grandmother's career.”

“The way I understand it, if she had shown up we would have known it. At the very least there would have been an entire brass section.”

“That sounds a little hostile.”

“It's just a fact. Everyone says no one could milk an entrance like Lu Lawson.”

Chapter 2 - New York City 2008

CARRIE HAILED A cab to take her to her mother's apartment on Eighty-second Street—the home where Carrie had lived for the formative years of her life—and settled back in the seat. The idea that her formidable mother's formidable mother had attended the memorial service was almost as bad as the basket of white flowers showing up. For most of Carrie's life, her mother and her grandmother had been estranged, as they said in old movies. How it had happened or why, Carrie didn't know. As far as she could figure out, the break had occurred sometime around her father's death.