“So do you like being a board chair? What do you go to college for to do that?”
Cosima’s smile was distantly polite. “At Bennington, we developed our own course of study. My degree was a kind of blend of taxonomy with art history.”
“That doesn’t sound like a straight path to sitting around a conference table.”
“The straight path to my job was being born Cosima Frank.”
Edie accepted the smackdown. Should’ve expected it. Her muscles felt shaky. She’d taken a shower when she got back to the inn, soaked through with cold rain, and after she was dry and comfortable and her stomach was full with Morag’s genuinely incredible take on pasta ca’ muddica, she’d refused to answer Morag’s questions until Morag had to leave, and then she’d paced between the dining room, where the guest book still was, and the kitchen, until she was thinking too much about everything that had happened and she started making shortbread.
She had wanted, by the next time Cosima saw her, to have repaired the tumble in her brain enough to smooth over her meltdown at the church and then joke her way out of the treasure hunt, out of spending any more time together, out of everything but endless walks in the English countryside and meals Edie had decided she would start taking in her room.
Her heart hurt. She kept thinking of the map, wishing shereally had been able to freeze time, to drag out that moment when they’d found it for longer, standing next to Cosima, teasing and laughing, elated.
“I suppose I’m not someone who could possibly understand what it is you’re responsible for,” she said.
Cosima shook her head, her golden-ratio eyebrows furrowed in gentle concern that made Edie’s heart feel too tender. “Edie, listen—”
“It’s okay, truly.”
“No. You were disappointed,” Cosima said. “By finding the map.”
“I was disappointed I couldn’t go to any of the placesonthe map.”
Cosima was studying Edie with the same frown between her eyebrows that she’d had bent over her notebook, working through the cipher. “And you know I could pay your way, and would be glad to, but you wouldn’t ask me to because…”
“I not only wouldn’t ask, if you offered I wouldn’t accept. A jacket is one thing—it was a kind of inside joke between us. I had already bought you a hedgehog pencil set, for example, at the tourist center’s gift shop.”
“You had?”
“Yes. But a European vacation is not a pencil set.”
“I once spent thirty-one thousand dollars on an Hermès Birkin bag because I spilled olive oil on my purse when I was in Dubai with my mother.”
“JesusHC rises again, Cosima! Don’t tell me things like that. I’ll re-Catholic and take vows of poverty in defense against my shock.”
But Edie laughed, for the first time in hours.
Cosima laughed, too, and then—probably because of the lack of calories and sore heart and possibly because Cosimawas so fucking pretty it was starting to burn Edie’s eyes—they were laughing together, but not at anything, really. They were just laughing like children who’d needed to go to bed hours ago.
“Letmesend you.” Morag’s voice made both Cosima and Edie scream.
“Why do you do that, woman?” Edie gasped. “Do I need to put up mirrors so I can see in all directions at the same time? Would I even see you in the mirrors if I did?”
Morag ignored Edie’s questions. She’d pinned her braids up, and she wore a plain wool peacoat with a hammered silver stag’s head brooch on the lapel. “First of all, stay out of my kitchen. This is your last warning. Second, I’m aware you don’t want to let Cosima pay your way. To be clear,Iwould let her. She wouldn’t miss it.”
“I wouldn’t,” Cosima confirmed. “I would make it back in interest by the time I’d Venmo’ed it to you.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” Morag chided. She turned back to Edie. “Iwill pay you to go on this treasure hunt.”
“And then what, I give you the treasure? What labor or goods are you getting in return?”
Something passed over Morag’s face that made Edie’s heart skip a beat. It was something sad, and she had never before seen Morag be sad. Morag, as far as Edie was concerned, should not everbesad. She should only and always be as scary and self-satisfied as she’d appeared in the smoking-hot photograph they’d found in the guest book, and should not ever die, additionally.
It was possible Edie had attached herself to Morag.
“I can admit this place could use a facelift,” Morag said. “No, that’s too drastic a statement. More like a bit of tasteful Botox.”
“You’re not making sense,” Edie told her. “Do you need to sit down? Or a cracker?” But there was a flutter in Edie’s belly. A good flutter.
