Page 99 of Instant Karma

My lips part in surprise. I cannot believe she actually came.

“Hey, Maya,” says Quint, beaming. “Come to help out?” He holds an empty tote toward her.

A look of uncertainty flashes across her face, but she quickly conceals it with a smile… albeit it an unenthusiastic one. “I actually had a question.”

“Shoot.” Quint sets the bag down and steps closer to her. As if being drawn into her orbit.

I bristle, and then feel immediately annoyed with myself for it.

“I lost something a while back, at the bonfire party.” She twists her hands. “I was wondering if maybe one of your volunteers picked it up.”

“What was it?”

“An earring. A diamond earring.”

I avert my attention to another cardboard box and start peeling off the tape.

Of course that’s why she’s here. Not to help out, but to see if we found her missing jewelry.

Odd how this comforts me, knowing that she isn’t here to help with the cleanup. I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but I’m still shaken from how niceshe was to Jude and Ari this morning. It’s difficult to reconcile with my hazy memories from the bonfire.

“Oh, bummer,” says Quint. He knows—we all know—how unlikely something like that would be to turn up. The sand on the beach shifts every day. Something as small as an earring could be lost and gone within hours, swept out to sea or buried for the rest of time.

But… something tells me that didn’t happen to Maya’s earring. Though I can’t know it for sure, I have a feeling that her earring was picked up by that beachcomber I saw yesterday. I didn’t get a good look at the jewelry she found, but I do recall how it glinted in the sun.

I bunch up the tape and toss it toward one of the garbage cans outside the tent.

It ricochets off the side and lands in the sand.

I huff.

At least it’s a good excuse to keep from looking at Maya. I know I have guilt written across my face, even if… I mean, I didn’t actuallydoanything. It was all the universe. Punishments and rewards.Karma.

“I’m really sorry,” says Quint. “I don’t think anyone’s turned in anything like that. Hey, Prudence?”

I freeze in the middle of picking up the tape.

“Has anyone turned in an earring?”

“Like this,” Maya adds, forcing me to make eye contact with her. She has a small box in her hand and inside is a single drop earring. Delicate gold filigree surrounds a solitary diamond. A big diamond. Bigger than the stone on my mom’s wedding ring.

The thing that strikes me about the earring, though, is its back. It’s the sort of earring that has a levered back that snaps up against the hook, closing the loop to prevent the earring from falling out.

I have a pair of earrings like that, and I know that unless that lever piece breaks, they’re practically impossible to lose.

Unless karma wills it so.

“Um, no,” I stammer, with an apologetic smile. “I haven’t seen anything like that.”

“I can let the volunteers know to keep an eye out for it,” says Quint. “Where were you when you lost it?”

“Right over there, by the cliffs,” says Maya. “Please let me know if someone finds it. These earrings belonged to my grandma. They were…” She pauses, and my shoulders tense. Emotion is filling her voice when she continues. “She passed away last year, and they were the last thing she gave to me, and… I just… I’ve been out here almost every day since the party, searching…”

Raw guilt scratches at the inside of my throat.

But I didn’t do anything wrong. Her losing that earring was her fault. It was retribution from the universe!

“I mean, I still have one. So that’s something,” says Maya with a weak smile. “But it’s not the same.”

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