Chapter 7
Ocean Beach on a Saturday night was a beer-soaked Atlantis. The heart of town packed with restaurants, bars teeming with beautiful faces as music from live bands’ performances poured from cracked windows. All against the backdrop of the bay, the mainland a ferry ride away.
The Serendipity House had scored second place in the sandcastle contest. At first, the results were met with a chorus of boos, complaints that the first-place champion was in fact shaped like a mermaid, and therefore not a sandcastle at all. Yet when the jurors announced that the second-place prize was a hundred-dollar gift certificate to the Sandbar, PJ accepted the honors with a salute and a smile.
It was a given that the Sandbar would be the first stop of the night. Located right at the center of town, the crowded bar boasted a ceiling that was covered with colorful, glued-on flip-flops, signatures scrawled on the soles with names of patrons past. As the band onstage played “Jessie’s Girl,” the friends squeezed their way toward the bar. Robyn had already charmed the bartender during her happy hour excursion, so one signature smile was all it took to get his immediate attention. “Nine Rocket Fuels, please,” she said, as PJ exchanged the gift card. Their hands were soon filled with the free round of Fire Island’s drink of choice: rum, amaretto, pineapple juice, and coconut cream, blended and topped with Bacardi 151.
For now, it didn’t matter that Robyn was dancing with Mac, their hips pressed together, her lips on his neck, making their way up toward his ear.
It didn’t matter that Liz was still avoiding eye contact with Maggie.
It didn’t even matter when someone stepped on Maggie’s flip-flop-exposed big toe, and barely grumbled an apology as they shoved right on by toward the bar.
Maggie was singing along to her favorite songs, dancing, and yes, maybe she was also a bit more than tipsy, but it meant that her mind’s hamster wheel of worries had slowed at last.
For perhaps the first time since she’d arrived back in New York, Maggie felt free.
The friends formed a circle on the dance floor, singing at the top of their lungs. She blinked and saw that familiar memory reel from high school, a collection of Peters basement parties projected like a film. Nights would often end like this, with Mr. Peters’s karaoke machine plugged into the television set.
After Maggie moved to California, she searched and searched, but nothing compared to what she’d had with her East Meadow friends. The people who’d first drawn up their dreams together, who’d recorded custom music videos to catchy pop songs in the basement or played kickball for entire afternoons in backyards. The friends who’d learned to drive together, that special brand of trust to let teenagers take the wheel. The people who’d learned their powers together, but also their limits, like when they first held back each other’s hair after filling their stomachs with too much gin.
She looked around their circle, taking in their smiles with that sheen of Saturday night splendor. So maybe it was the Rocket Fuel, or the tequila shots back at the house, or the vodka water bottles on the beach, but when Maggie realized a face was missing, she felt an ache.
Mac.
She missed him. Even if they’d both moved on, she would never stop missing their friendship.
Tracking a gaze through the bar, Maggie’s eyes landed on Mac outside, smoking a joint. Alone. She glanced back toward the stage, where Robyn was now dancing solo, arms raised over her head, apparently clueless about her boyfriend’s whereabouts.
Maggie bit her cuticle. Closure with Mac was important if she was going to be living in the same city as him again, with Brenna and Quinn. If she was going to fix things with Liz, his sister-in-law to be. If she wanted to reside in the East Meadow circle. This weekend was an opportunity to move forward, even if he had found a new partner in Robyn. Conversation didn’t count as a crime. Right?
“I need to get some air,” Maggie shouted above the music. “Be right back.”
She left the dance floor and walked outside, but not directly toward Mac.
First, she popped into the neighboring Town Pizza and ordered two “cold cheese” slices, to go. During after-prom weekend, Maggie and Mac had ended each night with at least two of these slices, a Fire Island tradition. The pizza itself was a classic cheese, fresh from the oven, but coated in a layer of shredded cold mozzarella. She hoped a piece of it now might earn her some goodwill.
Pizza in hand, she crossed her fingers and found Mac. He’d settled onto the dock, looking out at the bay.
“Look what the tide brought in.” He greeted her with an easy smile, the kind that always gave her goose bumps when they were kids. Even when things were purely platonic, she wasn’t blind.
“Call me paranoid, but dare I say that you’ve been avoiding me?” Mac teased.
“Once a diva, always a diva.” Maggie laughed, snatching the joint from between his fingertips. “I could say the same thing about you,” she said, as she let her legs dangle above the bay.
“All right, Hollywood.” Mac smirked. “Easy now.”
“I brought pizza.” Maggie presented the box.
Mac whistled forlornly. “I wish. That’s the best slice in all the tristate. But Robyn’s off dairy this month, so I said I’d join in solidarity.”
“What?” Maggie could feel her eyebrows lifting to the sky. “Oh, I get it, you’re joking.”
“Don’t tempt me. I’m not allowed to touch the stuff.” Mac laughed as he pushed the box away, filling Maggie with a flash of regret. Now she felt like an idiot holding two slices of cheese pizza no one wanted. Would it be worse to take a bite or to leave them in the box?
“How’s Eastern Standard Time treating you so far?” Mac asked.
“Honestly, it’s changing by the hour.”
“Is that the truth, or just a really bad time pun?”
“Ha ha.” She dared herself to knock her knee briefly against his. “Brenna told me about your knee, by the way. Those where the stitches are?”
“I prefer the term ‘battle scars.’?”
“Valiant. Nice.” Mac had torn up his knee in January, or so Brenna and Quinn had told Maggie on the train ride over. He hated talking about it, and hated when his friends talked about it, but she had pieced together certain details: an indoor soccer game, torn cartilage, and a warning to never play competitively again. She wanted to take his mind off it, the way she would have in high school, when they were still close.
“Well, injury or otherwise, the water looks amazing right now. In fact, I just might have to dare you to stick your foot in, see what the temperature feels like.” She elbowed him teasingly in the ribs.
It was dark outside, but Maggie swore she saw Mac’s eyes light up, exactly as she’d hoped.
“Do my ears deceive me, or is this the makings of an M-and-M dare?” he asked.
“Figured we were overdue.” She grinned.
The summer going into their senior year of high school, Maggie and Mac had worked together at the Bellmore Playhouse movie theater. They called it their MM shift, because of their initials, but also because of their dares.
It all started with MM’s. The first dare was to steal a pack of the candy when their supervisors weren’t looking (they’d always put a few dollars in the register beforehand). Then, it was eating an entire pack of MM’s as fast as possible. Then it was tossing said MM’s into the garbage can three feet away, the goal to score more hoops than the other. No matter how quiet the midday shifts could be, Mac and Maggie would end up laughing until their abs were sore. When they returned to East Meadow for their final year of high school, MM became their dare to cut class.
To escape for a moment, together.
Now in Ocean Beach, they were sitting next to each other again, a dare on their lips, smiles again on their faces. Maggie bumped her shoulder against his. “If you’re going to use stall tactics to get out of this, just admit it.”
“No delay, no delay.” Mac laughed. “It’s just been a while. I have to pump myself up.”
“I’ll mark that down as a forfeit, then.”
Mac smirked, and in one swift motion, slid off his sneaker and plunged his foot directly in the bay’s water.
“Christ, that’s cold.” His voice was loud, but it was happy, too.
“Aren’t you an athlete? I thought ice baths were, like, a customary ritual.”
“I see you haven’t learned a thing about sports since you left.” Mac kicked water in Maggie’s direction. “All right, M, up to your shin. Dare you.”
“Easy,” she teased, removing both her flip-flops before she dipped her legs firmly into the water. She went past her shins, up to her knees, so the water was almost at the hem of her white denim shorts. The water was freezing, but that wouldn’t stop her competitive nature from kicking firmly into overdrive. “I could do this all day,” Maggie said, hoping Mac couldn’t tell that her teeth were threatening to chatter.
But all she heard was the sound of his laughter. “All right, all right, you win.”
“Like always.” She smiled, pulling herself back up and next to him on the dock.
“Though I feel like we both pulled the short straw with this one,” Mac said, motioning toward his sopping wet foot.
Maggie clucked her tongue as she tugged off her cropped cardigan, revealing a black camisole underneath. She used the sweater to wipe the droplets off her legs before offering it to Mac for him to dry off. He smiled as he did so, though Maggie could have sworn she felt him sneaking glances at her calves, her legs, as she slid her flip-flops on. It felt like they’d traveled back in time.
“I’ve missed this,” he said, having tied his laces. Reading her mind.
“Me, too,” she said. There was an easy silence, a blissful beat.
Was this her chance to apologize for her recent distance, to explain herself, to restart with Mac on the right page? “Listen—”
But Mac had the same idea. He started first: “I don’t know what made you decide to move back home. And you don’t have to tell me. But I’m really glad you did.”
Her heartbeat picked up. “Yeah?”
“Of course.” He smiled. “The crew is back together.”
“I don’t think everyone would agree.”
“Is it Liz you’re worried about? She’s just protective, you know that,” Mac said.
“From where I’m sitting, you’ve never needed protecting.”
He cocked his head and squinted his eyes and suddenly Maggie felt a shiver explode through her spine. She thought about the MM’s in the grocery order. The way Mac had always felt like an extension of herself. He was part of her story, her history. Was this Maggie and Mac’s second chance?
“I mean it, Mags,” he said, his voice low. Electric. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Was this a move? Was he leaning in? Was she?
Maggie didn’t have time to consider the answer.
“Macky!”
Robyn’s voice filled the air, drowning out the waves themselves. Music poured from where she stood at the Sandbar’s exit, door propped open with her high heel behind her.
For a moment, Maggie had completely forgotten about Robyn.
“They’re playing our song! Come dance!”
Maggie tried not to let her heart break into a million pieces. This was what she deserved.
What had she been thinking?
Mac was dating Robyn. Mac had a song with Robyn.
“That’s my cue,” he said with the slightest, subtlest wince. “See you on the dance floor, M?”
“Sure thing.”
He patted her on the shoulder twice, before pushing himself up and off the dock’s edge and back into Robyn’s orbit. The door slammed shut, muffling the music, cutting off the sounds of glee and leaving Maggie in silence.
It was better this way, Maggie thought. This wasn’t her.
This wasn’t who she wanted to be.
She pulled out her phone.
I didn’t move home to be a homewrecker. No matter how home sweet home he feels. Maybe it’s time for a demolition. To start with new framework. To build something with new bones?
“Where’d he go?” a voice said from behind Maggie.
She looked up over her shoulder and saw PJ, silhouetted by the sky.
“Back inside, dancing to his and Robyn’s song,” Maggie replied.
PJ rolled his eyes and sat down in the space left vacant by Mac, started to rummage in his pocket. “I’m always getting ditched in pursuit of a woman.”
“Tale as old as time,” Maggie said. In the company of someone else, she wanted to recalibrate to a better version of herself. Not the heartsick Maggie, but the genial one. “Can I offer you a slice as a consolation prize, at least?” She remembered the pizza, handed the box to PJ. “It would be a crime to eat this all alone.”
“Twist my arm,” he said. He raised a slice in one hand, a freshly lit joint in the other. “To new pizzas, and new friends.”
Maggie took a bite of hers and moaned. “My god. How can something so simple be so delicious?”
“The best things in life are simple,” PJ answered between bites. “Especially on vacation.”
Simple. Maybe PJ was right.
Maybe Maggie didn’t need to make everything so complicated.
She was home to unwind. To find herself, to start from scratch. Why not let herself go with the flow? She looked at PJ, who was smiling into the bay. Content from pizza and good weed and a Saturday night. His cheeks were rosy, his hair long and brown and effortlessly cool. Maggie blinked and saw his biceps from earlier on the beach.
PJ. Interesting.
Was this her new story?
“To new adventures, too,” she said, voice daring.
PJ turned and looked at Maggie with a glint in his eyes. She felt her heart skip.
What would Mac say?
What could Mac say?
She didn’t know what Mac would say, because Maggie wasn’t Mac’s girlfriend.
Maggie was lonely and tired, and tired of feeling alone.
So when PJ leaned in to kiss her, she let him.
She didn’t care if it might end in a mistake.