“You know how to scuba dive?”
“I could learn.” I pause. “I just feel stuck here. Like life is meant to be bigger.”
He looks at me. “You really want to get out of here, huh?”
I shrug. “Nothing keeping me.”
“What about your family?”
I hesitate. I never know what to say when someone asks about my family. How much of the story they want. “My parents passed away when I was a kid. It’s just me and my sister…and…we’re not that close.”
“She older?”
I nod. “Ten years older. She went here too, actually.”
Ben looks surprised. “That’s cool. Got your own little legacy thing going.”
“I guess it is…yeah.” I don’t tell Ben how complicated our relationship is. It’s not really like most siblings. Between our age difference and our parents passing when we were so young, Maya acts more like a parent than a sister most of the time. She thinks she’s helping with all her advice, but the truth is: after Mom died, Maya left. She went to Princeton and left me with Aunt Ella, who couldn’t take care of me, and then handed me off to the St. Clairs. I know she was only twenty-one at the time, but it always stung that she didn’twant me. I feel a tiny prick of hurt in the center of my chest thinking about it now.
Yet still, I adored her. My junior year of high school, I remember telling her how excited I was to apply early to Princeton. I wanted to follow in her footsteps.
But instead of the excitement I’d expected to see, her face had fallen:What about Brown?she’d asked, in a false tone that made me cringe.They don’t have traditional majors. You could choose any classes you wanted!
She’d gone here, and all her friends had gone here, and her entire life was built around having gone here, yet she was pushing me to go anywhere else. I guess she wanted to keep Princeton for herself.
That’s when I realized I had to look out for myself.
“I mean, I love my sister, of course. And Margaret, the woman who took me in, is great, but this place”—I gesture around—“it feels so isolated sometimes. Don’t you ever want to see what else is out there?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah I do.”
Ben tells me about his parents in Singapore. His mother is a caregiver for a wealthy woman. His father was an accountant before retiring in his seventies. Ben grows quiet, and I can tell he’s hurting.
“My dad’s not doing great,” he says without looking up.
I look at Ben. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah…he had a stroke last year. My mom’s got him on a special diet, but…” He shoves his hands in his pockets and grows quiet. “I feel guilty sometimes, being here…when she could really use my help…” He blows out a breath. “Anyway, I don’t know where that came from. Sorry to lay it all on you.”
“No…not at all.” I’m surprised and humbled he’d share something so personal. We walk in silence. Ben is so different from Liam: sensitive and kind. Liam would never open up like this. But maybe that was the least of our problems.
Chapter Ten
Maya
October 2011
A rush of warm airloosened the wind-chilled skin on my cheeks as I crossed the threshold into Sterling Club, the fringe on my dress brushing my thighs with each step.
“This place is insane.” I looked around, awestruck as if we’d entered another world, something on the edge of reality, like a movie, or a dream. A beautiful girl swept past, her feather boa tickling my arm, expensive perfume lingering in the air.
“Let me take your coat, dear.” The strongly accented English came from behind me. I whirled around to find a housekeeper behind me with dark wiry hair, bushy eyebrows, and an unreadable expression. She had a sturdy frame and looked to be about fifty.
“Oh, um—”
“Hi, Marta,” Daisy said, along with a few words in what might have been Ukrainian. Daisy was good with languages and loved to befriend everyone. “This is my friend Maya.”
Marta gave a small nod and took our coats. “Marta’s worked here forever,” Daisy explained. “She knows where all the bodies are buried.”
