At least Meg hadn’t told me to leave.
Everyone was in a hurry. Meg and the others sent me on errands while they set up the Costume Hall and got the costumes ready for the day’s performances. I hunted through the boxes downstairs looking for a crown made of metal filaments, then for a pair of shoes covered in fake amethysts. I walked over to the campus print shop to pick up an order of signs that Meg needed. I matched buttons that I’d sorted earlier in the summer to costumes that needed repair. At the end of my shift, Meg gave me a list with everyone’s lunch order written on it. She wanted me to go out to the concessions stand and get Irish jacket potatoes and fruit salad and lemonade and tarts for everyone. Three raspberry tarts, two lemon, one cream cheese, the list said.
Was Meg trying to punish me by having me go face my former coworkers?
“It’s the closest place and we’re taking as short a break as possible today,” she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. “If you want lunch too, you can add your order on to this and they’ll bill it to Costumes. You’ve earned it. If you’re tired, you can go home for the day instead.”
What should I do?
I wanted to stay and eat out in the courtyard with all of them. I wanted to laugh with Meg and Emily and Nate and the others at the tables under the sycamore tree and look up at the sky and see if an afternoon storm was on its way. I wanted Gary and everyone to walk by and see that I still had friends. I wanted to slice into the salted skin of the potato and lick lemon tart filling off my fingers.
But Leo wouldn’t be there. He was stuck at home.
And I couldn’t face Gary.
“I think I’ll go home,” I said to Meg, handing back the lunch list.
A flicker of disappointment crossed her face. Disappointment that I wasn’t staying? Or disappointment that I was too chicken to take the order?
“All right,” Meg said. “Run this box back downstairs and you can be finished for today.”
? ? ?
I found the right spot for the box and slid it back onto the shelf with the others. All those labels, all those pieces to each beautiful outfit from summers long ago.
And then I knew.
Where Lisette’s ring would be.
Who’d had it all this time.
I walked down the aisle, looking at the years until I came to the right one.
LISETTE CHAMBERLAIN, MIRANDA.
The date was twenty years ago.
Her dress and coat were labeled and hung up on a rack with the other costumes waiting to go upstairs, but all the accessories were still in the box. There weren’t many. A few shimmery hairpins. A packet with extra buttons for the coat. And a small velvet-covered box. I opened it.
There was a ring inside. With three pale stones.
Lisette must have given it to Meg.
And now Meg was going to put it on display. Because Lisette did wear it in the play that night, whether it was an intended part of the costume or not.
I took the ring out and put it on my finger.
Lisette Chamberlain wore this, I thought.
I closed the box and put it back on its shelf.
2.
I knew Meg would notice that the ring was missing, eventually.
I knew that she would probably figure out it was me who’d taken it.
I knew I should tell Leo that I’d found it.
All through dinner and talking with my mom and Miles and doing laundry for our move back, the ring sat in my pocket, like a secret. A stolen secret.
Meg trusted me.
Leo trusted me.
And I stole from them.
Everything made sense. If Lisette had given the ring to anyone, as a gift or to keep it safe, it would have been her best friend. Maybe Lisette knew Roger was coming to the hotel that night. Maybe he wanted the ring back. Maybe Lisette asked Meg to keep it for that night, or for a while, or forever.
Or maybe Meg stole it, in which case she was in the wrong too.
I put the ring on the windowsill. It looked so small. I touched my finger to each of the three pale stones. They felt cold and smooth.
My heart pounded faster and faster. Would Lisette take it? Would Leo?
And then I realized that I hoped she wouldn’t.
I didn’t want the person leaving things to be Lisette’s ghost, or even Leo.
I wanted it to be Ben.
When I let myself realize this—my deepest most important wish—it hurt, how much I wanted it. It hurt, how much I hoped.
Breathe, I reminded myself. Beat.
And my lungs did and my heart did and I hoped.
Let it be Ben.
I opened the window a crack. The wind came in but it didn’t move the ring.
I decided I would stay up all night to see what happened.