"It means she's not going to yell at me," Sophie said.
"Low bar."
"It's a bar I appreciate."
Lily came down next, then Max, the two of them arguing about something that had happened in the pool last night that neither of them would fully explain. Olivia followed, phone in hand, expression guarded.
Ethan appeared last, tall and tanned from yesterday's beach day, hair still messy from sleep. He moved past the group to the Keurig and started a cup without saying anything.
"Sophie got the job," Lily announced, as if he hadn't heard it through the walls.
"Yeah, I heard." He leaned against the counter, waiting for the cup to fill. "Congrats."
Sophie looked at him. "Thanks."
"When do you start?"
"Tomorrow. Training first, then real shifts by the weekend."
He nodded. "That's cool. You'll be good at it."
And then, before anyone could ask him about his own search, he grabbed his coffee and headed for the back door. "I'm gonna go for a walk."
The screen door closed behind him.
By evening, they'd left the kids at the house and claimed a corner table at La Finestra.
It was BYOB, so Jen had brought two bottles of red. They'd snagged a table on the second floor, white linen, ocean views, their server opening the first bottle while they settled in.
Five women, midforties, taking up space like they'd earned it.
Lori sat across from Meredith. Tan and athletic now, transformed since the divorce. She'd cut her hair into a choppy bob, dyed it a shade darker, started running and lifting. Six months after Kevin left her for a trainer, she'd finally joined a gym. But it wasn't about him anymore. It was about reclaiming herself.
Olivia had that Mediterranean beauty. Dark hair, olive skin, expressive brown eyes. She'd dressed carefully tonight, a silk wrap dress in deep green, delicate gold hoops. She was the kind of woman men noticed, though she'd stopped noticing them noticing her years ago.
The first half of dinner was easy.
They talked about the menu, about someone's sunburn, about whether Lily would actually apply to ice cream shops. Light conversation that didn't require anything from anyone.
"Sophie seems happy," Olivia said, when the conversation turned to the kids.
"She's thrilled," Meredith said. "First job jitters, but the good kind."
"Lily's jealous," Olivia admitted. "She wants to find something too, but she's only fifteen."
"Ice cream shops hire at fifteen," Jen said.
"That's what I told her. She said ice cream is beneath her."
"Beneath her?"
"She's fifteen. Everything is beneath her."
They laughed again. The wine was poured, refilled, poured again. The conversation moved the way it did when you'd known each other long enough that silence wasn't awkward and no topic was off-limits.
Except that wasn't quite true anymore, was it? Somewhere along the way, updates had replaced real conversations. They knew the surface of each other's lives, but not what was underneath.
Then Carrie reached for the bread basket and said, almost to herself: "I should probably skip the lobster. Given, you know, everything."
