“What’s what?” I ask. I’m leaned against the deck railing, looking down at her, her hair wet from a shower, drying. She sits at the table, her hands around a chipped mug. Emily doesn’t wear makeup. She’s one of the few women in the world who doesn’t look naked without makeup, mostly because I’ve almost never seen her with it on.
My hand follows her eyes. It goes to my neck, coming down on the necklace Daniel gave me last night, fingering the beads.
I forgot all about it. I fell asleep with it on.
“That necklace,” she says.
“What does it look like?” I ask.
Emily takes a sip of her coffee. She sets the mug back down. “But what does it mean?”
“What do you mean? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a necklace.”
“The beads,” she says. “They form a pattern.” If they do, I hadn’t noticed. “Where did you get it?”
My throat tightens. “Does it matter?”
Emily raises her eyebrows. “It’s just that I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s Skylar’s, okay? She let me borrow it,” I say, getting defensive, and then, turning around to look out over the water instead, I mutter, “I didn’t know I had to ask your permission to wear my friend’s necklace.”
She’s onto me, I think.
That afternoon, we’re at the pool. I lie face down on my chair, listening to Mae and Cass scream and run around the pool deck, which Emily has told them at least a thousand times not to do because someone might fall and get hurt.
“Mae, please. I saidno running,” Emily says again, for the millionth time, as Mae runs and cannonballs back into the pool like she’s invincible or has some death wish.
“Cass!” she screams out when her head surfaces. “Let’s play Marco Polo!”
Cass gets back in the water, and then all I hear until Aunt Courtney says she’s heading back to the cottage to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch is, “Marco! Polo! Marco! Polo!” screamed at the top of their lungs.
I put my headphones on to drown out the sound. I close my eyes and think about Daniel.
A few minutes later, I feel drops of water like from rain.
I look up, lifting my head. Mae stands next to me, her wet hair raining pool water down on me. I look over. Uncle Elliott is gone. I don’t know where he went, but beside me, his chair is empty, Mae and Cass trying to squeeze together into it, soaking wet, wrapping themselves in his towel.
“Can you two stop?” I ask.
“Stop what?” Mae asks. “We’re not doing anything.”
“Stop getting me wet.”
I put my head back down. I try to ignore them, but not ten seconds later, they start to laugh, a big belly laugh that’s impossible to ignore even over the sound of my headphones. I lift up,propping myself on my elbows just in time to see them tuck something under the towel to hide it from me.
“What’s that?” I ask, pulling the headphones off.
“What’s what?” Mae asks, looking over at Cass, who presses a hand to her mouth to stop herself from laughing, though they’re not fooling anyone.
“That,” I say, pointing at the towel. “Whatever you’re hiding.”
They look at each other and crack up, saying in unison, “We’re not hiding anything.”
“You two are such liars.” I reach out. I tug on the towel. Beneath it, they have Uncle Elliott’s iPad, which they’re not supposed to use unless they ask. He must have forgotten all about it; he must have left it behind in his chair when he went wherever he did.
“Put that away, you idiots. You’re not even supposed to be on that thing.”
They don’t put it away. Instead, still giggling, Cass lifts the iPad and starts taking pictures of me, which is what they were probably doing before I noticed, so that there must be a dozen of me on that stupid thing.
