Chapter 1 #2
She was halfway down the hall when she heard the back gate open, then Brittany's voice, then Ava's, then Lily's—a chain reaction of doors and footsteps that ended with most of the women standing on the side path looking at a twelve-by-twenty-four rectangle of blue water with a sun shelf on one end and two built-in loungers submerged on the other.
The pool sat in a private courtyard, tucked between the house and a low dune ridge thick with sea grass.
You couldn't see the ocean from here, but you could hear it.
The steady roll of waves just beyond the dunes.
The hot tub was nestled in the corner, half-hidden by ornamental grasses, and someone had strung market lights along the fence line.
"I want to be clear," Brittany said, "that I am getting in this pool before the end of the day."
"It's five o'clock," Lori said.
"Correct." Brittany was already eyeing the sun shelf.
Olivia crouched down and put her hand in. "It's warm."
"The sun shelf," Carrie said, pointing. "You can sit in there with a drink."
"That's where I'll be," Lori said.
At the pool's edge, Lily sat with her feet in. "Tonight?" she said, hopeful.
Meredith glanced at the pool, then at the six teens now assembled around it, all of them eyeing the water. "Tomorrow," she said. "Tonight we eat."
A unified groan. She ignored it.
She had almost reached the kitchen when she heard it—not a cautious feet-first entry but a full, committed, cannonball-grade launch. She turned around.
Max surfaced fully clothed, still in his shorts and T-shirt. He pushed his hair out of his face, looking around at the faces staring back.
"Had to be done," he said.
Lily put her face in her hands. Olivia closed her eyes briefly. Ethan, who had not smiled once since he arrived, laughed.
Lori, standing by the gate, went very still. Meredith caught her eye. Neither of them said anything.
"You're an idiot," Lily said.
"You're just mad you didn't do it first," Max said, floating on his back now, sneakers still on.
Meredith pointed at him. "Shoes by the door."
Over the next hour, everyone scattered.
Olivia spent most of that hour on the upper deck, book open in her lap but untouched.
Her phone was in her hand instead, and Meredith watched through the sliding door as she typed something, deleted it, typed again.
Not her husband—her face was wrong for Dan.
At one point her phone rang. She looked at the screen, set it face-down, and did not answer.
By six o'clock the kids had sorted themselves out—on their own, as expected. Lily and Sophie had taken over the top deck, and when Meredith passed by she caught a fragment: Sophie asking what it was like being a twin, Lily saying, "Like having a shadow that talks back." Both of them laughing.
Ava had set herself up on the far corner of the lower deck with her camera and a glass of lemonade, photographing everything except the obvious.
Not the waves or the wide open sky, but the small things.
The shadow the railing threw across the deck boards.
A seagull perched on a neighboring rooftop.
The screen door's mesh catching the early evening light.
Meredith had stopped at the Acme on the way in and picked up the basics—deli turkey, ham, roast beef, three kinds of cheese, two loaves of bread, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, mayo, a jar of pickles, and two bags of chips. She laid it all out on the counter and said dinner was ready.
"This is genius," Brittany said, building hers.
"This is a sandwich," Lori said.
"First night is always sandwiches," Meredith said. "I don't make the rules."
"You absolutely make the rules," Jen said, slicing tomatoes.
Carrie came in from the living room and surveyed the counter. "Did you get pickles?"
Meredith slid the jar toward her. "Whole jar."
"Then I'm good." She reached past Brittany for the rye.
They ate in the kitchen and on the sectional and out on the middle deck, plates balanced on laps, nobody sitting anywhere in particular.
After, Jen said she'd spotted a sign for ice cream earlier—was someone going to walk with her, or was she doing this alone?
Everyone went.
The house was two blocks from the southern end of the promenade—close enough that you could hear it before you reached it, the distant thrum of a cover band up near JFK, the hum of bikes going past. They walked up in a loose cluster, the kids pulling ahead, the women falling into the easy pace that came from years of knowing each other.
The promenade was lit and busy, Sea Isle on a summer evening—families walking, teenagers moving in groups, the ocean right there on one side and a long row of houses on the other.
Yum Yums was just off the promenade on JFK.
There was a line out the door; two of the women suggested turning back, but nobody actually did.
Jen got a waffle cone and ate it while walking and declared it one of the better decisions she'd made recently.
Lily and Sophie split a sundae. Ava got a single scoop of something dark chocolate and photographed it before eating it.
"You know you can just eat it," Brittany said.
"You know you can just not comment," Ava said, not looking up.
Brittany turned to Meredith. "I like her."
On the way back they took the promenade instead of the street. The air had gone cooler, the ocean shifted from blue to something darker. Nobody said much.
They were almost back to the house when Lily stopped and pointed west. The sky over the mainland had gone apricot and deep rose. "Okay," she said. "It's actually happening."
Someone said rooftop. That was enough—everyone moving, up the front steps, through the house, up the outdoor stairs, drinks retrieved along the way.
The western sky was on fire now—pinks bleeding into orange, the last bright band of gold along the horizon.
Behind them the ocean side still held that flat blue before dark.
The street below had gone quiet, beach crowd long since retreated, and the sound of the water carried in from the east. From a few streets over came the faint pulse of a restaurant patio.
A sprinkler somewhere nearby. A neighbor's wind chime making an effort.
Five women on a deck in Sea Isle City in June. Meredith took a sip of her wine and didn't try to name it.
"We should toast," Lily said, her glass of iced tea held up.
Brittany raised an eyebrow. "You want to do a toast?"
"Okay, someone should do a toast," Lily amended.
Everyone looked at Meredith, because everyone always looked at Meredith, and she felt the familiar pull of being expected to find the right words.
She raised her glass. "To Sea Isle."
It landed easily, and the women raised their glasses—Carrie from her chair, Olivia at the railing, Lori at the far end, Jen in the middle—and the kids joined in from the steps, ragged and good-natured. To Sea Isle.
The sky deepened another shade.
Meredith looked out over the street and thought about Tom, probably home right now with cereal beside his laptop, modeling whatever early retirement scenario he was testing this week.
Then Sophie, leaving in the fall, and how she was both ready and not, and how she had the whole summer to figure out what came after.
The colors peaked and then faded. No one moved to go inside yet. The first few stars showed up over the water.
To Sea Isle, Meredith thought, watching the sky go dark.