“I sense a pivot in strategy,” Poppy said.
I looked at her. “What?”
“Her strategy has pivoted.” Poppy sipped her juice. “Yesterday she tried to make you feel small. It didn’t work. So today she’s trying to be you. She thinks if she takes what makes you likeable, she wins.”
“Poppy, she’s not in a competition.”
Poppy looked at me.
“Okay,” I said.
“The war is on,” Poppy said.
“What war—”
“You’ll see.” She shook her head. “I cannot believe how innocent you are. I genuinely cannot.”
Callie sat down on my other side. “What did I miss?”
“Poppy says the war is on.”
Callie looked at Poppy. “I think so too.”
“I’m not in a war,” I said.
They both looked at me.
Douglas came through the garden gate from his morning walk, cap on, hands in his jacket pockets, the pleased look he always had after an early walk. Margaux appeared at the french doors.
“Mr. Calloway.” She smiled. “Did you see any good fish this morning? For meals today?”
Douglas stopped walking. He looked at Margaux. He looked at the kitchen. He looked back at Margaux.
“I saw some good crab meat down at the market,” he said. He said it the way you answer a question you weren’t expecting from a person you weren’t expecting to ask it.
Callie pressed her lips together.
Douglas came to the table and sat down, and he leaned toward Callie and said quietly, “Is she feeling alright?”
“Perfectly fine,” Callie said. “Completely normal.”
Douglas looked unconvinced. He picked up his coffee.
Jennifer and Margaux came out carrying the breakfast trays together. Margaux had a tray of eggs and fruit in both hands. She was wearing heels. White kitten heels on a patio that connected to a garden that connected to a beach.
Fletcher came behind them with the toast and the butter.
I watched Margaux navigate the step down from the french doors. Her weight shifted wrong on the heel. The tray tilted. I saw it before anyone else did — the angle, the speed — and I was up and across the patio before I’d finished the thought, both hands catching the tray from underneath and my other hand grabbing her arm at the elbow to stop her from going down.
Everything steadied.
The eggs didn’t move. The fruit bowl rocked once and settled.
Margaux looked at me.
She looked at my hand on her arm.
She pulled her arm away. Not fast. Deliberately. She straightened up, adjusted the tray, and looked around at the table.
