Margo opens her mouth to interrupt when three waiters appear. “Octopus,” they say, setting the tiny plates in front of us. Two asparagus tips lie over the top in a cross. A white pansy sinks in black ink.
“Thank you,” Margo says. “We’d like the next ten minutes to be undisturbed.”
“Mom,” Graham starts.
“Twenty.” They disappear. Margo listens in stone silence as I tell her everything. Graham smokes. I feel myself shrinking, but I keep talking until I get to the end. Our plates remain untouched.
Margo stretches like this was a long, taxing story. “I was afraid this would happen.”
“This specifically?” I snap. It annoys me how she pretends to know everything. You would think having money made you psychic the way she talks.
“It is her first time,” Graham muses, chain-smoking blithely.
“She’s not one of us,” Margo dismisses his remark. “She never has been.” Her hands drift over my form. “She doesn’t have the killer instinct. It’s only a matter of time before she tries to save someone else.” Margo picks up her knife. “She’s a liability.”
“I’m not,” I insist. “I’ve kept all your secrets. I’ve never said a word.”
Graham clears his throat. My husband the great mediator. “I hate when you two argue,” he says, but that’s not true. He loves it.
Graham loves conflict. That is probably why he married me. Not because I conned him, like Margo seems to think. Or because I keep his secrets. He married me—he just had to—because his mother hated me. His life has been too easy. I watch him stretch back and smoke, the picture of indolence. That is why he gave me a gun and doesn’t fix the gate, why he thought it was sexy that I went to jail. He wants to get his hands dirty.
“We’re not arguing, darling. We’re just chatting,” his mother says. “Girl talk, isn’t it, Lyla?”
“I don’t see how what happened to Elvira is my fault,” I snap, breaking character.
Margo’s metal chair scrapes the stone floor. “You warned her.”
I keep my mouth shut. I remind myself that she doesn’t know. She is just good at guessing. I don’t remind her that she warned me on my wedding day: No one will ever offer you something of more value. But the truth is, I did warn Elvira. It was my fault in a way.
* * *
THE CONVERSATION HAPPENED by the fountain, ironically enough. I caught Elvira sitting there that night alone, staring at her own reflection. I didn’t know exactly what Graham got up to when it was his turn. I knew about the game but I didn’t want to know the details. I prided myself on being sophisticated. Some wives look the other way when their husbands have affairs. I look the other way when my husband crushes people’s lives. But I didn’t want him to crush Elvira. I liked her. She reminded me of myself, the parts that had deadened with time.
She looked up at me, water shadows undulating on her face, and she said, “It’s not that deep, is it? It looks so deep sometimes.”
I was slightly spooked, so I hurried toward the door. “Do you want a glass of Mo?t?”
“No.” She paused. “I get so sick of it, don’t you?”
I laughed. “Of course.”
Then she plunged her arm into the water suddenly, all the way up to her elbow, soaking her jacket. She held her arm up, victoriously, marking the waterline. “This is how deep it is.”
I was frozen by the door. “You’re right. They’re bad people,” I warned her. It was interesting that I said they’re and not we’re. Margo would have found it interesting.
“Who?” she asked, like she found it interesting, too.
“Them. You know, rich people.”
She just laughed. “Good people are boring.” It was something I would say. She was just like me, really. And now she is dead.
At the time, I laughed, too, and I went inside. Graham was standing by the door, listening. I was caught. “What was all that about?”
“I was just making conversation—”
“You were interfering. Do you want me to lose?” Like he could ever lose.
“No.” I just didn’t want her to.
* * *
GRAHAM AND MARGO are both watching me now, awaiting my reaction. An admission of guilt, a plea for mercy, nothing would be enough. They don’t know what they want. They already have everything.
Graham stands up. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies.” I have to remind myself he is going to the bathroom. This is not a tactic. This is not a plan.