“Noah, what is it?” I’d spent too much time with this boy not to know something was off. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” I studied him. I’d never seen his face like this, or his body so stiff. Ice began to spread through my veins. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I don’t believe in—I don’t know, airing family business.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder and his face went even more expressionless. “Let’s go over here.” He took my hand and tugged me one way, but I dug in my heels and turned in the direction he’d been facing.
And went cold.
I hadn’t seen his grandmother yet tonight, but now she glided out of the crowd toward us, immaculate in a blue gown, her white hair blown out. Around her neck, a necklace glittered, cold and clear as ice. “Hello, dears.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.
Slowly, slowly, I pivoted to Noah. He stood utterly still.
“Tell me,” I said, remote and precise, “you didn’t know she had it.”
He closed his eyes. He was impossibly handsome, this statue of a boy, with his artful curls and crisp white shirt. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t need to speak.
He knew. He had known this whole time. We’d found the photo of my grandmother wearing the necklace as a teen, and he’d thought,I know this necklaceandBetter not tell this girl,and he’d never changed his mind. He’d known his grandmother had the necklace, and he’d concealed it, despite knowing how badly I wanted to find it.
I had to escape and there was nowhere to go, no way to get throughthe mass of guests to the exit. So I did the next best thing. I turned and walked through the arch in the hedge into the deep, flourishing garden.
“Abigail—”
I picked up my skirts and ran.
Flowers and trees whipped past me. Juniper trees, with their sharp needles. Late summer blooms, orange and yellow, reminders of the autumn to come. I turned into the rose garden. Now what? I’d pinned myself in. There was nowhere to go, just the gazebo, the high ground in the storm. I bolted up the steps, as though it could protect me, this structure with no walls, no entrance or exit.
“Abigail!”
I whirled around, the sheer fabric of my dress swirling around my legs. Each detail of the evening intensified, like I’d put on glasses after walking through the world without. Ivy choked the gazebo’s posts; golden light gilded the deep green leaves. Rose perfume saturated the air. Tawny sunlight stretched in long lines across the gazebo’s floor. “You lied to me.”
Beneath Noah’s golden tan, his face was pale and set. “I didn’t lie.”
“You knew your grandmother had the necklace, and you didn’t say anything.”
He shook his head, putting his foot on the first of the gazebo’s three steps. I moved backward into a pool of light let in from the roof’s cupola. “I thought you were wrong. I thought you were digging into my family’s history, into our possessions. I thought it was my grandmother’s necklace.”
“But it wasn’tyourgrandmother’s, it wasmine.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Well, then, why didn’t we talk about it? Why didn’t you say, ‘Oh yeah, that necklace. I know it,’ instead of letting me flounder blindly?”
“Because we barely even knew each other.”
I drew back as though struck. “I see.”
He moved forward. “Don’t. Don’t withdraw.”
“Why shouldn’t I? God, Noah! What about later, when wedidknow each other? We had dinner with your family, andShabbat—we went sailing together,we talked to the rabbi, we ate hundreds of ice cream cones—you made me think we were friends and you werehelpingme and you knew where it was the entire time. Were you just trying to throw me off course?
“No!” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I mean, yes, when we started this, I was trying to keep you from getting too close. And then—I was trying to decide what the right thing to do was. I was trying to protect them.”
“Well, good,” I said. “You succeeded. You protected your family and kept your secrets, good job. You could have kept my grandmother’s necklace, too, if yours hadn’t insisted on wearing it.”
“God, Abigail, obviously I would have told you now. After learning the necklace belonged to your grandmother.”
