“I snapped,” she said, slumping. “It gets to me.” He could see her pulse beating next to his necklace. “And I guess I was surprised. You were so above all the grubbing,” she said, almost to herself. “I always liked that about you. That you were above everything.” Her words reminded him of those days before he left.
Looking back, he could see that in those brief moments everything had been his to judge and choose. He felt a faint beat of that pulse through his blood now. His surety during that time had been the most comforting thing in the world. He’d not realized how fleeting it would be—a moment when he felt a real and tangible certainty. Since coming home, since seeing his father, since May’s decision, since Ethan’s accident—it seemed like he hadn’t known anything at all. To have that firm conviction back for a minute—he’d forgotten how alluring it was. Forgotten how appealing it was to see himself through May’s eyes.
“Not that I know what I’m talking about, according to your brother.” She said this with no small amount of bitterness for a woman who’d been married so shortly. She kicked off her perch and came to stand next to him. “Double-edged sword, I guess. That you used to think for yourself.”
“I did. I’m not sure—” he started, noting she’d used the past tense, but she interrupted him.
“It makes no sense if we’re not friends. We—” Here she turned toward him, looking over his left ear, as if intent on something in the field behind them. “We knew each other so well before. It seems a waste for that to all just—” She made a fist and released it, as if to say “poof,” and then turned to walk toward the house.
He had to hustle after her.
“I was thinking you and Arabella make quite a good match,” she said when he caught up, her hands behind her back like a marching general. “I believe she sees things very much the way you do.” Though just last night he would have agreed with her, today the comment rankled. She’d compared him to a flighty debutante, and yet again a line was drawn in the sand. You are on this side. I am over here. “I saw you kissing her last night.”
They were at the bottom of the field, about to enter the garden, still a good way from the house.
“Kissed, not kissing,” he said.
Just then Ethan, in a light-colored suit, fashionable in the early summer, stepped out under the dark portico.
“Darling, you’ll make us late. We’re due there now,” he called, his voice rising over the lawn.
“May,” Ambrose said, taking her hand before they reached the lawn. “I want to be friends, too.”
Her arm went limp and slipped out of his grasp. She hopped up into a lilting jog toward the library doors, her boots shuffling in the wet grass, the morning dew just burning off. She reached up to give Ethan a kiss on the left cheek, his bad side. She didn’t hesitate. Then she dashed inside and up the stairs to change.
Ethan held the door for his brother, the scars on his hand looking more pronounced against the heavy wood. “She’ll be right down.” Then Ethan shut all three of them quietly in the house.
THE IMPROMPTU PICNIC
Lake Erie looks brighter next to the Shoreway as Nell’s driving away from the museum. She’d put the Moon on in the parking lot right after she’d left Reema Patel, talk of loan and acquisition and the maharaja ringing in her head. It’s safer on her. She’s convinced of that.
She parks near the service entrance to the farm and checks her hair in the rearview mirror. Even in the shade, the Moon sparkles outrageously, and she’s having a hard time hiding it inside her neckline. Now that she knows what it is, her father’s advice comes back to her. She heads inside and pounds up the rickety back stairs to Loulou’s bedroom, intent on stashing the Moon in her luggage until she can decide on a truly safe place to store it.
It takes Nell one look at her suitcase to realize that someone’s been up here, been through her things. The back door slams, and Pansy’s shrill, nasal voice calls out, “Yooo-hoooo.”
“Hey.” Pansy’s voice is controlled to the point of suspicion when Nell walks in the kitchen. “Where’ve you been?”
“Upstairs,” Nell says. Her antennae rise at her cousin’s presence at the farm in the middle of the day. Shouldn’t she be at her house in the Heights, or running after-school activities, or meeting clients in town for coaching? Nell wonders briefly if any of the Loulou lessons updated for a new century have made it into those sessions.
Pansy nods and goes directly to what she cares about. “Reema Patel called me.”
Nell’s face turns pink. She can’t help feeling betrayed by Patel; then again, there’s no confidential relationship between them, just savvy and politics.
“She told me a relative had just been to see her. Wanted to know if I knew anything about our family harboring a potentially stolen necklace of importance.”
Stolen—really? Nell didn’t peg Reema Patel as one for drama.
“Of course I had to cover,” Pansy continues. “Had to pretend I knew all about it. That my family doesn’t hide things from one another.”
“There’s no hiding. You saw it.”
“Can I see it again?” Pansy asks, eyes on Nell’s neck.
Nell wants to exercise another right as executor and say no. “You tried it on yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Pansy’s palm is out flat, like “Hand it over.” And some ancient authority Pansy has over her makes Nell untie it, then drag it over her head and off. For the second time today, she offers the jewel up for scrutiny.
“Reema said it was important,” Pansy says, hefting it.
“How do you know Reema Patel?”
“One of her boys is in the same grade as Andrew. How’d you know to go to the museum with it?”
“You passed on it,” Nell says, suddenly wary. “I thought the museum could shed some light.”
“Well, it’s a jewel, and yeah, I mean . . .You offered it to me. Still stand?”
Pansy laughs like this is a little joke, but it feels ominous to Nell. “Oh, look, it’s exciting, okay?” Pansy says with a sparkle in her eye as she hands it back to Nell. “Can’t I be excited?”
Pansy only has to throw her a bone and Nell starts considering letting go of skepticism and double thinking. The pull of going back to a time when they stood beside each other never quite leaves Nell. Even the slightest glimpse of lightness and Nell is willing to try again, is willing to believe that at least one Quincy could treat her like one of their own.
“It is nuts, isn’t it?” Nell says.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Pansy gushes. “So unique. That’s probably why Loulou never wore it. Probably thought it was too strange or unusual or something. You know how traditional she was.”