Chapter 1 - Water on My Face
The water hit before I could close my mouth.
It wasn't a lot of water, just what was left in a glass, but it came fast and cold across my face and I squeezed my eyes shut without thinking. My hair was already damp from outside and now it stuck to my cheeks. I could hear the glass clink back down on a table somewhere and the music in the ballroom kept going for a second like nothing had happened. The lights from the chandeliers were warm and yellow on the white marble floor, and everybody in tuxedos and long dresses was suddenly looking at me.
She stood right in front of me in a long-sleeved teal dress, blonde hair pinned up, dark earrings that swung a little when she moved. Her hand was still out from throwing it. I hadn't meant to make her mad. I had only slipped past the doors at the Waldorf because the man at the side entrance left it open when the caterers brought trays in, and I thought if I kept my coat closed no one would see my shirt underneath.
My name is Maya and I was nine that winter.
That night the charity gala was listed on a paper taped to the lobby board downstairs and the doorman had said Sarah Whitmore wasn't on any list. I had my mother's necklace tucked inside my coat pocket and I kept touching it through the fabric while I stood near the back wall trying to read the name tags. The ballroom smelled like perfume and polished wood. I didn't know what time it was exactly but the clock over the band said 8:42 and the floor was so shiny I could see the lights reflected in it.
She saw me before I saw her. I felt someone grab my shoulder and turn me around, not hard, but enough to make my coat slip off one side. My boots squeaked on the marble.
"Who let you in here?" she said, and her voice was low and sharp, the kind of voice that makes people around you go quiet. More people turned. I tried to step back and my foot slid. The glass was already in her hand. I remember her manicured fingers tight around it, the ice still inside, and then the splash.
I didn't fall right away. I stood there with water dripping off my chin onto my coat. Then my knees gave out and I sat down hard on the cold marble. My coat fell open. Something gold slipped out of my pocket and hit the floor with a little click and then skittered, spinning a circle before it stopped. It was the necklace. The chain was thin and the blue stone in the middle was shaped like a teardrop. It caught the chandelier light even while it lay still.
I stared at it on the white floor with grey veins running through it. I could see my own wet reflection next to it.
For a second nobody moved. The woman in teal looked down at the necklace, then at me. Her mouth was still open from whatever she had been about to say. A man in a tuxedo behind her took a half step forward and then stopped.
She bent a little, not to touch me, but to see the necklace better. Her voice changed.
"Where did you get this?"
I wiped water from my eyes with my sleeve. My throat hurt. I wanted to say I didn't steal it.
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"My mother gave it to me," I said.
She didn't pick it up right away. She just stood over me while I sat soaked on the floor, her shadow falling across the marble between us, and everyone in the circle around us kept watching without saying anything. I could hear my own breathing and the necklace chain ticking faintly as it settled. She was about to speak again and I didn't know if she would believe me.
