“So,” says Dad, pretending to scowl, “you’re the reason my daughter has been working so hard this summer and not having any fun. Don’t you kids know that summer vacation is supposed to be spent goofing off? None of this”—he gestures around at the beach—“do-gooder nonsense!”
Mom rolls her eyes and grabs Dad’s elbow. “He’s just teasing. We think this is great.”
Quint casts a sidelong glance at me. “Believe it or not, this actually has been fun. For me, at least.”
My heart lifts as I realize, for the first time, this has actually been a lot of fun for me, too. The planning, the organizing—I thrive on that.
And Quint … well. His company hasn’t been nearly as intolerable as it used to be.
Quint and I wave goodbye as the four of them take off with their bags. Ellie insists on using the grabber first, even though her hand-eye coordination isn’t quite good enough to use it properly. I can hear my mom issuing a challenge—whoever collects the most garbage gets to choose what we have for dinner. Ellie screams skabetti! and races off down the beach.
“And you say you don’t like having little siblings?”
I wince. “Sometimes they’re not so bad.”
“I thought they seemed great.”
I can’t look at him, otherwise he’d for sure see the way my heart is overflowing at this simple comment.
We’ve nearly filled up two giant garbage cans when someone else appears at the edges of the tent. “Hello, Quint. Prudence.”
I turn around.
Maya is leaning over the table, holding the blue flyer that my dad handed her at the record store that morning.
My lips part in surprise. I cannot believe she actually came.
“Hey, Maya,” says Quint, beaming. “Come to help out?” He holds an empty tote toward her.
A look of uncertainty flashes across her face, but she quickly conceals it with a smile … albeit it an unenthusiastic one. “I actually had a question.”
“Shoot.” Quint sets the bag down and steps closer to her. As if being drawn into her orbit.
I bristle, and then feel immediately annoyed with myself for it.
“I lost something a while back, at the bonfire party.” She twists her hands. “I was wondering if maybe one of your volunteers picked it up.”
“What was it?”
“An earring. A diamond earring.”
I avert my attention to another cardboard box and start peeling off the tape.
Of course that’s why she’s here. Not to help out, but to see if we found her missing jewelry.
Odd how this comforts me, knowing that she isn’t here to help with the cleanup. I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but I’m still shaken from how nice she was to Jude and Ari this morning. It’s difficult to reconcile with my hazy memories from the bonfire.
“Oh, bummer,” says Quint. He knows—we all know—how unlikely something like that would be to turn up. The sand on the beach shifts every day. Something as small as an earring could be lost and gone within hours, swept out to sea or buried for the rest of time.
But … something tells me that didn’t happen to Maya’s earring. Though I can’t know it for sure, I have a feeling that her earring was picked up by that beachcomber I saw yesterday. I didn’t get a good look at the jewelry she found, but I do recall how it glinted in the sun.
I bunch up the tape and toss it toward one of the garbage cans outside the tent.
It ricochets off the side and lands in the sand.
I huff.
At least it’s a good excuse to keep from looking at Maya. I know I have guilt written across my face, even if … I mean, I didn’t actually do anything. It was all the universe. Punishments and rewards. Karma.
“I’m really sorry,” says Quint. “I don’t think anyone’s turned in anything like that. Hey, Prudence?”
I freeze in the middle of picking up the tape.
“Has anyone turned in an earring?”
“Like this,” Maya adds, forcing me to make eye contact with her. She has a small box in her hand and inside is a single drop earring. Delicate gold filigree surrounds a solitary diamond. A big diamond. Bigger than the stone on my mom’s wedding ring.
The thing that strikes me about the earring, though, is its back. It’s the sort of earring that has a levered back that snaps up against the hook, closing the loop to prevent the earring from falling out.