Jean-Paul stretches out his arms and cracks his knuckles, a nasty habit that Marie has been trying to break him of. He’ll need to call a staff meeting to debrief everyone—to warn them not to talk to the press under any circumstances. But not until he speaks to Julie in PR and gets his marching orders. He suspects they’ll be issuing a statement along the lines of There’s been an unfortunate, unexpected incident at the hotel. Our condolences go out to the family who’ve lost a loved one, and right now the proper authorities are handling the investigation. We’ll update you as we know more. It’s only a matter of time before the television crews start showing up on the front lawn.
He thinks uncomfortably of the conversation he’d overheard among the officers at the watercooler, who were speculating about whether they could be dealing with a possible homicide. The last thing the hotel needs is a witch hunt during the rush of summertime guests. And then he remembers: they’ve got a wedding this weekend! How on earth will they manage to handle all the guests arriving within a few short hours? On his notepad, he scribbles Talk to Gillian!
A sharp dart of pain shoots through his chest, right beneath his rib cage, and he rubs at it with his palm while considering the logistical nightmare that awaits him. Even if, as he suspects, it’s a suicide, this unfortunate event cannot be quietly swept under the rug, as much as he’s tempted to do precisely that. There are witnesses, a potential crime scene. What if it was a lovers’ spat? A slip off the balcony? What if, God forbid, somehow the railing on the balcony had cracked and gave way? When was the last time they’d had the balconies inspected for safety?
His mind spins with the possibilities, none of them good. The police will want the room number of the guest who fell. They’ll probably need to cordon off the area, perhaps the entire hallway. He’ll need to double-check that none of this weekend’s wedding guests are booked for that floor. Slowly, the domino effect begins to settle in. Without asking, he already knows that the hotel is fully booked for the weekend. Two hundred and fifty-two guests. Where can he move people? He’ll have to call in a favor, maybe his pal, Frederick, over at the Four Seasons, see if he can walk the guests over, as they say in the business, to his hotel.
But first things first. He needs to figure out who their mysterious guest is. Already officers are knocking on doors, checking rooms one by one with Housekeeping. Any room on the side of the building facing the harbor. Above the fifth floor. That leaves five floors, up to floor ten. Because about one thing there is no question: that woman fell from a considerable height.
It feels, Jean-Paul thinks as he bravely opens the door to his office, like waiting to hear which guest drew the shortest straw upon checking in.
Earlier that week
SEVEN
“Daisies or lilies of the valley?” Riley asks.
“Lilies of the valley.” Tom probably doesn’t have the faintest idea what the flower, a delicate chain of tiny white bells strung along a green stem, looks like. “What?” he says when Riley shoots him a look. “I like the sound of them,” he says. “Daisies seem kind of, I don’t know, boring.”
They’re jogging along the Charles River, the narrow ribbon of blue-green water unspooling to their right. On this Sunday morning, June 6, a few early rowers skim the water in their shells, attempting to get a head start on the heat forecasted for later in the day. Already the morning air is thick, swollen with humidity. Sweat beads on Riley’s forehead, and she regrets having forgotten to grab her baseball cap before heading out. At the very least, she could have slathered sunscreen on her face, which will, in all likelihood, explode into a million freckles this afternoon. Riley’s fair Irish skin is no match for Boston summers.
“Good choice,” she huffs, her breathing growing more labored now that they’ve passed the mile-and-a-half marker. Her footfalls try to match Tom’s, whose stride is about twice as long as hers. Yesterday, she’d been debating which white flower would complement the pink peonies in the bridesmaids’ bouquets, and lilies of the valley, she agrees, are the best choice. Although she suspects Tom could care less about the flower selection, bouncing the random wedding detail off him every now and then is important. Not only so that he feels involved but also so that Riley can assure her mother-in-law, who’s certain to ask, that Tom has been consulted on every detail.
Riley had always assumed it was the bride’s mother, not the groom’s, who would be interested in all the details. And the very fact that her own mom isn’t around to help her with dress-shopping or picking music for the church or choosing her bridesmaids’ dresses only underscores that—no matter how fantastic her wedding day might be—it will always be somehow less than. Less than all she’d hoped for. Less than what her mother would have wanted for her. Less than because her mom won’t be there to walk her down the aisle with her dad, which is how she’d always imagined it.
It’s a fact that Riley keeps trying to ignore because there’s nothing in her pink wedding handbook or her oversize binder filled with fliers and pamphlets (mostly from Marilyn) that advises a bride on how to proceed when her mother has died. She supposes Marilyn is only trying her best to fill that huge void, but it’s almost laughable. Because no one else can come close to filling the shoes of Libby Thorton, world’s biggest hugger, easiest laugher, most loving mother ever. If her mom were still here, Riley would be having an engagement party with all her friends and neighbors back in Michigan. There would be an announcement in the local Lansing paper. There would be darling little gifts her mom would be sending to her bridesmaids, saying what special friends they were and how much she loved them, even thought of them as her own daughters. If Libby Thorton were around, this wedding would be about love in all its forms, and the planning part—the logistics of it all—would take a back seat.
But there’s no way to explain this to Tom or his parents. To make them understand. They never had the opportunity to meet Riley’s mom, so they only know what Riley has told them and what they’ve seen in pictures, usually her mom’s arms wrapped around Riley or her dad. There’s no way to capture the bigger-than-life essence of her. That ebullience. The gift she had for making everyone feel as if they were the most interesting person in the world while she was talking to them. No, trying to capture Libby Thorton for someone who has never met her is the equivalent of trying to explain the rush of skydiving to someone who has never tried it.
So, alternatively, Riley has been pushing any thoughts of her mom further away, to a place where she can guard them like precious heirlooms, where they’ll be accessible to her when she needs them most. In the back of her mind.
When a handful of runners heading in the opposite direction approaches them, Riley and Tom have to jump out of the way before hopping back onto the asphalt path. Now that the weather has turned warmer, the running route along the river fills up quickly. It’s annoying, especially when she and Tom have grown accustomed to having it mostly to themselves in the early mornings. She thinks back to over a year ago, to the jam-packed road race where they first met near this very spot. The weekend of the Earth Day festival. The race had wrapped up at the Hatch Shell, and all the sweaty runners suddenly found themselves rubbing elbows with the horde of environmentalists gathered on the grassy lawn. They were easy enough to spot in their hemp shorts, their Birkenstock sandals, a Save a Tree or Save the Whales sticker affixed to their T-shirts. Everyone was waiting to see which band would take the stage next.