Page 12 of Saltwater

Freddy pours himself a glass of champagne and settles between Richard and Naomi. I take the empty seat next to Helen.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Freddy says, pointing to the box as he pushes the champagne bottle back into its ice bucket.

My pulse picks up when Helen’s father passes her a knife off the cheese plate. It’s smudged with something crumbly, but no one seems to want to wait for the housekeeper to bring scissors. It takes some doing, the knife not quite up to the task, but soon Helen is pulling a wooden box from the cardboard one. The wooden box is a nice touch, I think.

“Freddo,” she says, grinning at him.

“Don’t look at me,” he says, wiping a piece of bread through a runny bit of cheese. “It’s not from me. I can’t keep a secret that long.”

“Is there a card?” Marcus asks.

Helen fishes around and pulls out an envelope. Richard’s and Marcus’s names are the only ones listed on the front, and she passes it to her father casually. She’s so convincing that I feel sick. Like she has no idea. Like it wasn’t her plan all along.

“Let’s see what’s inside,” she says, unlatching the clasp and pushing it open.

I see it first because I’m right next to her. A gold collar made up of writhing snakes, their scales and eyes etched into the gold. It used to belong to her mother. On my computer, I have photos of her taken on opening night of one of her plays in New York. Sarah and Richard standing together, glamour and money radiating off them. She’s dressed in a dark blue sheath, not quite navy, the necklace at her throat. She looked like Helen. In fact, so many times I look at Helen and think but for the teeth, the bigger smile, she could be her mother.

“What is it?” Freddy asks.

He pulls the box toward him while Marcus grabs the envelope from a distracted Richard. But Freddy’s motion is too quick. He knocks the box to the ground.

“It’s gorgeous,” Freddy says, picking up the necklace.

He’s oblivious to the way their faces have drained of color, their lips slack. The way Marcus has already folded the note, slipped it into his back pocket. We had hoped for a reaction like this, but witnessing it is a cold shock on a hot summer day. It’s their fear. It feels infectious. I didn’t count on that.

“It’s impossible,” Richard says, standing up and making his way around the table to take the necklace from Freddy. “We looked for it. We looked for it for a week after she died. Every day, we had divers out there.”

I try, again, to catch Helen’s eye, but she’s hypnotized by it: not just the necklace but their reaction. In the moment, the door to the public street feels very far away, the cliffs behind us unbearably steep. The sound of the gentle Mediterranean waves breaking on the rocks below us is impossibly loud, ringing in my ears.

The arrival of the housekeeper cuts through the noise. She’s carrying my lemonade.

“It’s a sick joke,” Marcus says.

As he says it, I watch the glass slip through the housekeeper’s hands and hit the stone, the sound like an egg cracking.It’s just an accident,I think.She doesn’t know. She can’t.

“I’ll help,” I say, getting on my knees.

“No—” She pushes me away. “It’s fine.” She places pieces of broken glass on the tray. “It was just wet.”

“Here—” I hand over a few more shards. Handling the glass is easier than handling whatever is happening at the table.

“Really,” she says, her voice firmer now, “please sit.”

“I can just—”

“No—” She pushes me away again.

“For fuck’s sake, Lorna. Would you sit down? Goddamn it.”

Naomi’s voice is electric. I’m stunned, my hand somewhere between the tray and the stone, my fingers wet.

“I’m sorry,” I say, brushing them against my legs. The smell of sugar and lemon seems to be on me, inescapable.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Helen says, bending down so that she’s whispering to me. “It’s natural to want to help.”

Only, with all of them here, I can’t say the words that are caught at the back of my throat, the words only the housekeeper might understand:Helpme.

Helen

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