Home > Winter Solstice (Winter #4)(32)

Winter Solstice (Winter #4)(32)
Author: Elin Hilderbrand

Ava smiles. She loves that he wants more of her. “You’ll be fine. You need some sleep.”

“I won’t be able to see you until Friday. I’m coming there for dinner?”

“Yes,” Ava says. “No! Wait! I forgot Friday is my mother’s last broadcast. We’re going to the studio. There’s going to be champagne in the greenroom after the news, then Drake is taking us to dinner at Upland. Not just us, but Lee Kramer, who heads the studio, and his wife, Ginny, who is the editor of Vogue, and Darcy, my mother’s former assistant, who is flying in from Atlanta. And Roger, her wardrobe guy, and a few of the producers, and Raoul, my mother’s driver, and his wife. There will be twenty of us, I think.”

“Just tell me when and what to wear,” Potter says. “Vogue sounds intimidating.”

“You’re not intimidated by anyone,” Ava says—except, of course, his own son. Around other adults, however, he shines. She can introduce him to anyone—lowbrow or highbrow—and he always fits in. She brought him to Margaret and Drake’s wedding, where he knew no one but Ava and Margaret, and he did so well that now he is basically part of the family.

Family reminds Ava of the FaceTime call from Harrison and PJ. Clearly Harrison hasn’t reached out yet; Potter would have mentioned it. Should Ava tell him? She decides to follow her gut and think about it overnight. She’ll tell Potter tomorrow if he doesn’t mention it first.

The next day Ava gets a call from Bart saying he wants to use his Acela tickets and come to New York for the weekend. With Allegra Pancik!

“Wow!” Ava says. “So are you two a thing, then?”

“Yes, we are a thing,” Bart says. “I took her out to dinner last Friday night, and I’ve seen her every day since then, and I want to surprise her with a weekend in New York. I didn’t tell her where we’re going, but I asked her to take off of work.”

“Okay!” Ava says. She hasn’t heard Bart sound this animated since last Christmas, when he was still high on his newfound freedom. She’s happy for him, but the protective big sister in her wants to advise him not to move too fast or get too serious too quickly. Girls Allegra’s age can be flighty, shallow, and opportunistic. Allegra is very pretty and, if Ava remembers correctly, she has a wild streak; she’s the polar opposite of her serious, quiet sister. “Do you two want to stay at Drake’s apartment? Because if so, I can set that up.”

“I don’t want to seem like I’m showing off,” Bart says. “I want to get a hotel room. Something nice, too. I have my checks from the government saved up. Do you have any recommendations?”

“Let me research it for you,” Ava says. “And you and Allegra should plan on coming to Margaret’s last broadcast on Friday night. Dinner after—Drake is paying, so you can save at least part of your government checks. It’s a group of people. I’ll add you and Allegra to the list.”

“That would be beyond amazing,” Bart says. “Thanks, sis.”

Ava finds Bart a room at the Warwick New York on Fifty-Fourth and Sixth for a very reasonable rate, and she adds Allegra and Bart to Drake’s guest list. She is busy with all the details, and so she doesn’t have time to talk to Potter about the FaceTime call with Harrison and PJ, and Potter doesn’t mention it so Harrison must not have called yet. But Thanksgiving is only two weeks away, and Potter will need to book a flight. She worries that Harrison has reconsidered the invite, or that perhaps she misunderstood and she was supposed to be the one to pass the invite along.

She’ll broach the topic over the weekend, she decides. After things have calmed down.

Margaret’s final broadcast is a big deal, despite Margaret’s wish that it not be made a big deal. A story runs at the bottom of the front page of the Times on Friday, and Margaret’s photo is splashed across the front of the New York Post with the headline ANCHORS AWAY. There’s also a piece in Time magazine and a spread of Margaret’s best outfits in Women’s Wear Daily.

Margaret’s only nod to the occasion is that she has chosen, for the first time ever, to wear black on the air. She looks beautiful and Ava tells her so.

Margaret says, “Will your father be watching, do you think?”

“He wouldn’t miss it,” Ava says. “You know that.” Mitzi might space that it’s Margaret’s last broadcast—or to her it might fall into the category of inconsequential—but Kevin and Isabelle will be there to remind her.

Ava gets choked up from the instant Margaret signs off. There’s a compilation of Margaret’s most memorable moments over the years.

Margaret in a biker jacket, T-shirt, and jeans doing a 60 Minutes segment on Sturgis.

Margaret in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, her hair plastered to her head from the rain.

Margaret surrounded by American servicemen in Fallujah.

Margaret in Paris after the shooting at Charlie Hebdo, in Rome when Pope Francis was elected, in London after the subway bombing, in Washington during Obama’s first inauguration.

Margaret with tears streaming down her face as she embraces one of the mothers of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims.

Margaret with Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago, years before Melania was the First Lady.

Margaret with Queen Elizabeth, the Dalai Lama, George Clooney, Beyoncé, Hillary Clinton, Muhammad Ali, Ralph Lauren, Jennifer Aniston, Bruce Springsteen, LeBron James, Stephen King.

Margaret at Ground Zero, standing in front of the wreckage of One World Trade Center, holding an American flag, wearing an I Love NY T-shirt over her dress.

There is champagne in the greenroom once Margaret is finished, and the mood is joyous. Margaret herself seems ecstatic.

She says, “I may just let myself get drunk tonight.”

Ava drinks three glasses of Dom Pérignon on an empty stomach, after which she feels very light-headed. Drake instructs everyone to take taxis down to Upland, which is on Park Avenue South. They have a private room, he says.

The network has surprised Margaret with a white stretch limousine. Raoul, Margaret’s driver, is also enjoying his first day of retirement, and so there’s another chauffeur and plenty of room in the limo for Margaret and Drake, Ava and Potter, and Bart and Allegra.

When Margaret sees the limo, she balks for an instant. Then she grins. “You know who I never got to interview? Liberace.”

There’s more champagne in the limo. Ava accepts a glass from Drake—it’s Cristal—and Allegra says, “I feel like I’m in a rap video.”

“You know who else I never interviewed?” Margaret says. “Snoop Dogg. Of course, he belongs to Martha now.”

The party atmosphere continues at the restaurant, Upland, one of Drake’s new finds. There are jars and jars filled with Meyer lemons suspended in liquid, and Ava becomes mesmerized by all those lemons—fifteen or twenty lemons per jar, and shelves and shelves of jars, two whole walls of shelves. Thousands of lemons sacrificed themselves for the decor of this restaurant, Ava thinks, and she may have said this out loud, because Potter says, “We’d better get you something to eat.”

In the private room there are high-top tables, a full bar, and long tables of food: kale Caesar, artisan pizzas, platters of pasta with exotic sauces.

“I’ll have more champagne,” Ava says.

People make toasts: Lee Kramer from CBS; Darcy, Margaret’s former assistant; and Drake. Ava can’t remember what anyone says, but she cries quietly through each toast. Her mother is such a phenomenal person. She has achieved so much. She is an idol, an inspiration, a national treasure.

Ava is too drunk to make a toast. She will come across as a weepy, sentimental mess.

But then Ava gets an idea. She speaks to the bartender, who calls in one of the restaurant’s managers, and Ava makes her request. Turns out, they can accommodate her halfway. They have a cordless microphone and a small amp, but no piano. As they set up the microphone, Ava double-checks the lyrics on her phone.

Potter sweeps Ava’s hair aside and kisses her neck. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing,” Ava says. She chimes a spoon against a glass, and the room draws silent. Ava is a little nervous about singing without accompaniment, but then she reminds herself that, just as being the most intelligent, gracious, poised, and articulate woman on the planet is Margaret’s gift, music is Ava’s gift. She can sing drunk or sober, with a piano or without.

   
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