Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Rose

The following morning, I’m kept busy between playing with Damon and Kelly’s children in the play fort, greeting guests when they arrive on the buggy, and ensuring that luggage is distributed to the correct guest rooms. I’m not formally introduced to the guests, and their faces blur into one heady mix of toothy grins, beige pants, and expensive perfume. I only hope that I won’t be expected to refer to them by name.

No one else is fazed by the sight of the house or the idea of spending a week on a private island where the boats moored at the jetties are for their own personal use and the champagne is permanently chilled. It’s illogical to me that these people are so accustomed to this kind of wealth that they brought along their own tennis racquets and the correct attire for cocktails on the porch.

I don’t understand what sets them apart from people like me and my dad. How do they get to be so wealthy when my dad probably works harder than any of them? I’m not judging them, but as more people arrive with their Gucci suitcases, their Ray-Bans propped up on their heads rather than covering their eyes, and their cursory glances my way, the injustice of it all seems to swell inside my chest.

At the back of the house, the glass wall of the garden room—framed by theatrical gold-tasseled curtains—slides away to allow nature in, and the guests eat a leisurely lunch of cold meats, cheeses—some of which I’ve never even heard of—antipasti, and crisp green salad around a huge, polished table.

I build a fort in the den with cushions from the couches and cotton throws from the storage cupboards, and eat lunch with the three children, sitting on the floor with our legs crossed. We make up stories about pirates and mermaids and giant sea creatures, and lick strawberry juice and ice cream from our wrists rather than using a napkin.

They’re great kids, and I can’t help thinking that all the credit is due to Kelly—I haven’t even seen Damon interact with them yet.

When lunch has been cleared away, and the guests have all relocated to the picnic beach—Ruby and Sumaira take over with the children—Kelly and I sit on the porch with a pitcher of homemade lemonade and embark on Ruby’s little ‘project’.

The treasure hunt.

“So, does she want us to hide the treasure around the island?” I ask.

Kelly smiles at me, wide-eyed. “Oh no. This needs to be unlike any treasure hunt you’ve ever done before. The one thing you need to remember about Ruby is that whatever you expect, make it bigger, bolder, and grander, and then multiply it by ten.”

“Around the Keys then?”

Kelly nods. “We just need to figure out the logistics of planting treasure and leaving clues.”

I unlock my phone and type into the search engine: places to visit in the Florida Keys. It comes up with pages of websites all offering tour trips, but I skip those and instead I scan the travel blogs where the information supplied has been experienced first-hand. An idea is already forming in my head.

“What if we don’t plant treasure?” I peer at Kelly above my phone.

It’s crazy to believe that I’m here on Ruby Island, and crazier still to believe that I’m now planning a treasure hunt for a bunch of billionaires around the Florida Keys.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we could set the guests tasks like, I don’t know, visiting the key lime pie factory and taking a selfie with the owner as proof that they were there.”

A smile spreads across her face. “Brilliant. They can collect experiences rather than objects.”

“The quirkier the better.”

“We’ll sort the guests into pairs,” Kelly says, already on board with the suggestion. I thought she might’ve taken more convincing than this. “First pair to complete the tasks and return with the evidence wins.”

“What exactly do they win?” I sip my lemonade and try to calm the excitement gurgling in my chest. I haven’t done anything this fun since high school.

“I’m sure Ruby will be as generous as ever with the reward.”

I place my glass of lemonade on the low wicker table between our seats and sit back. “Will you be taking part?”

“I’ll stay behind with the children and help Ruby with the birthday meal prep. It’s fine,” she adds when she sees my furrowed brow. “This week is all about Ruby and Harry.”

We spend the next few hours like kids set loose in a candy store, giggling, and squealing whenever we find another task to set.

“How hard is it to produce a sound from a conch shell?” I ask, grinning at Kelly.

“Harder than it looks. That can be task number one.” She types the clue into a handheld device, chews her index finger, and then makes her eyebrows dance independently. “Not just a sound though. We want to hear a tune!”

I suck my bottom lip. “A tune that we can recognize, not just a few duff notes masquerading as a song no one had ever heard of. Recorded of course.”

“Of course.”

The second task is to visit No Name Pub on Big Pine Key, take a selfie with the famous dollar bills pinned to the walls of the pub, and guess their combined total.

“Someone is bound to cheat,” I say, “and ask the owner.”

“Yep. Brandon is a sore loser.”

“We’ll contact the owners in advance and ask them not to tell anyone.”

We add several more tasks to the treasure hunt over the course of the afternoon. By the time the guests return from the beach, shielding their eyes from the sun with their hands, and swaying slightly from the champagne, we’ve settled on finding a sombrero (and wearing it) on Sombrero Beach, buying the most unusual object they can find in Rain Barrel Village, and bringing back a slice of pie—intact—from the Blond Giraffe.

I wish I was taking part too but remind myself that I’m lucky to even be here in this paradise, and that if I’ve helped Ruby Weiss’s guests to make some special memories, then I can walk away with a smile on my face when the celebrations are over.

“Where did the Scottish castle come from?” Brandon finds me when I’m preparing tonight’s choice of cocktails for Ruby: Gin Sour, and the classic gin and tonic.

“Scotland?” I say, glancing sideways at him.

He’s wearing another polo shirt with a designer label stitched onto the breast pocket, and I can smell his aftershave, subtle but obviously expensive. We’ve not spoken since yesterday’s cocktail hour. I was worried that he would be angry and ask his mom to stop me from interfering in conversations that don’t concern me, but Ruby hasn’t pulled me aside for the difficult chat. Yet.

“Very funny.” He isn’t laughing. “I meant how did you know that was something my father would enjoy?”

“I didn’t.” I straighten and look him in the eye. For once, I’m not holding anything spillable, and he seems a little less wary of me than on previous occasions. “I just wondered what you could possibly gift the man who has everything. And being a king—even if it’s only make-believe—popped into my head.”

He nods. “I found a castle, by the way, just so you know that I followed through on your suggestion.”

“You’re welcome,” I blurt out without thinking.

I chew my bottom lip to stop myself from saying anything else I might regret. It feels like we’ve reached a kind of understanding where we can at least look each other in the eye without wanting to yell or throw something hard and heavy, and I don’t want to spoil it.

He opens his mouth to speak and then changes his mind.

“Thank you are the words you’re looking for.” Me and my big mouth.

“Do you make a habit of spending other people’s money like that?”

I don’t understand him, I really don’t. One moment, he’s acting like he’s almost normal, and the next, he’s the tyrant sitting in his high tower again. “You would’ve bought a gift, anyway, wouldn’t you?”

Our eyes lock and it feels like he’s trying to get inside my head and poke about with a stick to figure out what’s going on. I’m starting to think that he spends so much time in the boardroom that he doesn’t know how to speak to women.

“What do you want, Rose?” he asks quietly.

“I…” I shake my head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“I mean what are you hoping to get out of this?”

“This?” I spread my hands and peer around the kitchen.

“My family,” he says. “My mom. Playing with her grandchildren and jumping in feet-first with Scottish castles. What are you trying to prove—that she can’t exist without you?”

“I… No.” Tears well in my eyes and I blink furiously, praying that they won’t spill. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I was just trying to help.”

He cricks his neck from side to side like he’s trying to ease the ache in his muscles. “I don’t need your help, Rose. We managed just fine before you came along, and we’ll manage just fine once this is over. My mom won’t even remember you this time next year.”

I sniff loudly and suck in my lips. Don’t cry, I tell myself. Don’t cry!

He turns around and walks away because that’s what men like Brandon Weiss do. They have the last word, keep people in their place to make sure they always stay on top.

“It’s not a crime, you know,” I say, and he freezes in the doorway with his back to me. “Helping people out and wanting nothing in return.”

“Maybe where you come from.” Then he’s gone.

I’m still smarting from his words when I serve drinks on the porch. I sense everyone’s eyes on me, which makes me even clumsier than usual, and when I spill Harry Weiss’s gin and tonic down the front of his shirt, the tears finally erupt.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I say, finding a napkin and trying to dab up the worst of the spillage. My fingers brush his chest and I flinch as if burnt. I finally understand what Brandon was trying to say—he thinks I’m after their money.

“It’s fine, honey.” Harry Weiss stands and wipes the front of his own shirt, while his friends watch with bemused expressions. “I have two sons. You think I never got a drink spilled on my shirt before?”

I swallow. “Let me pour you another drink.”

“That would be fantastic, honey.”

Their voices follow me back to the drinks trolley, but I can’t hear the words. Are they laughing at me? No doubt, Brandon will seize the opportunity to get me off the island now and replace me with someone competent. Why did it have to be Harry Weiss?

I return with a second drink which I manage to hand over intact and refill his friends’ drinks. The buzz of excitement from planning the treasure hunt is gone, and I feel like an emotional husk brimming with hot stinging tears.

Back at the drinks trolley, I take some deep breaths, and scan the horizon for an escape route. How long would it take to swim to the nearest island? Perhaps I could borrow a boat when everyone else has retired for the night and leave it at one of the Keys with some money and a written apology.

Ruby’s manicured fingers wrap gently around my arm, and she says, “I swear this island has the best view of all the Keys. It’s why I persuaded Harry to buy it. I always knew that one day, I’d be standing here on my porch, breathing in the sea air and enjoying a cocktail with my friends.”

“I’m so sorry, Ruby,” I say. “The last thing I want to do is ruin your evening.”

“Rose, sweetie, it would take a damned sight more than a spilled gin and tonic to ruin my evening. Everyone in the world who is important to me is here right now. What more could a woman want?”

I glance over my shoulder at the guests. No one is looking at me; no one is talking about me in hushed tones; no one is begging Ruby to fire me on my first full day on the island. It’s just me being oversensitive and letting Brandon get to me.

Where is Brandon? My gaze roams the gathering on the porch for a glimpse of him, but he’s nowhere to be seen—he’s probably inside making an important call while everyone else enjoys a drink before dinner. I promise myself that I’ll stay out of his way from here on, get through the week, and forget that Brandon Weiss exists, just like he’ll forget about me when this is over.

No one seems to be in a hurry to eat this evening.

For the next hour, I manage to replace drinks without spilling another drop, while the hum of voices grows louder, and the laughter more raucous. Ruby has the kind of infectious laugh that makes everyone around her smile, and I can hear it even when I’m inside the house.

“How are you getting on?” Kelly, wearing a white halter-neck dress and no jewelry, seeks me out on the porch while Ruby regales her guests with a story about a fellow traveler going missing during a recent cruise around the Caribbean.

“Better.” I flash her a grateful smile and wish that I had a quarter of her confidence and poise.

“The trick is to remind yourself that they’re only human.”

I glance around to make sure no one can hear us. “You know these people,” I say. “They don’t…” I hesitate, wishing I’d kept quiet. I like Kelly, but she is one of them.

“Look down on me?” she finishes for me. “You’re right. They don’t, now. ”

I study her profile. What does she mean: they don’t, now ? Did they treat her differently when she first became part of the family?

“Because you’re married to Damon?”

She shrugs. “It’s a long story. I’ll let you in on a secret—at these gatherings, I remind myself that Ruby and Harry’s friends all have their own flaws, and it helps to keep them in perspective.”

“Such as?”

“Such as”—she leans closer— “the man sitting on Harry’s right has a habit of scratching his balls every time he stands up.”

I snort with laughter and cover my hand with my mouth, turning away so that I don’t stare at the man in question.

“The woman in the red silk dress which, by the way, clashes dreadfully with her hair, once got so drunk that she puked all over Ruby’s shoes.”

I can’t hide the grin on my face. “How do you know this?”

“I pay attention,” Kelly says. “Or these dinner parties can get so stuffy.”