"There are six bedrooms." Meredith shrugged. "We'll make it work."
That settled things enough to get everyone moving. The next twenty minutes were a blur—doors opening and closing, someone asking where the extra towels were, footsteps in every direction.
Jen stood in the middle of the living room, suitcase still at her feet, watching it all unfold. "This is why I have a cat," she said to no one.
Sophie claimed the upstairs corner room, the one with the double windows, before anyone could argue. Brittany tossed her bag on the other bed—college sophomore and high school senior, close enough in age to coexist. Sophie was on the phone with Trevor before Brittany had even unzipped her suitcase. Lily and Ava ended up together in the room with the twin beds—Lily's idea, which Ava accepted with a shrug, though Meredith noticed Ava immediately began shifting the furniture while Lily narrated the whole operation from her side of the room. Max took the converted sunroom off the back of the main floor, smallest room in the house, its own side entrance. Ethan took the second bed. Meredith suspected Max had chosen the room in about four seconds flat, and Ethan had followed for exactly the same reason—away from the adults.
Olivia got her own room. Nobody questioned it.
Jen looked at Meredith. "So much for my single."
"You'll survive," Meredith said, dropping her bag onto the bed by the window.
Carrie and Lori took the room across the hall. Meredith could hear them negotiating closet space.
Once the bags were mostly where they needed to be, Meredith looked around. "Rooftop."
Nobody needed to be asked twice.
The outdoor staircase opened onto the terrace, and the group spread out across it slowly, the space bigger than they'd expected—each person finding the edge or the railing or a spot at the built-in bar, taking it in. The outdoor kitchen ran along the front wall: a full grill, counters, a mini fridge built into the base. A hot tub sat in the corner, jets off, cover still on. Teak lounge chairs lined the perimeter. And in every direction—ocean to the east, bay glinting to the west, the narrow stretch of the island in between—it was all open sky.
Brittany had her phone up, slowly panning. Lily stood at the railing, looking down at the beach. Lori leaned against the bar, speechless.
"The bar has a sink," Jen said, peering behind it. "And a blender."
"It has a blender," Meredith said.
"I'm just confirming." Jen opened the mini fridge. "Empty, but cold. Someone's going to need to make a store run."
"Tomorrow."
"Tonight," Jen said. "I brought rosé." She held it up. "First order of business is figuring out who has the best blender drink recipe."
"That is not the first order of business," Meredith said.
"It's in the top three," Carrie said.
They stayed up there longer than they meant to. Eventually people drifted back downstairs to finish unpacking, the rooftop releasing them one at a time.
Meredith stopped in Carrie and Lori's doorway on her way past with an armful of extra towels. Lori had wandered back to the deck, but Carrie was unpacking in neat stacks—shirts by color, shorts folded in even halves, toiletry bag hung on the back of the bathroom door.
"You okay?" Meredith asked.
Carrie didn't stop folding. "I'm really good." She pressed a shirt flat against the top of the dresser. "I brought four bottles of wine, two of which are from the Whole Foods sale section because I am trying to be financially responsible." She looked up. "And one extremely unnecessary cheese board from the specialty counter because I am also trying to live my life." She set the shirt in the drawer. "So, I'm somewhere in the middle."
Meredith leaned against the doorframe. "The cheese board sounds right to me."
Carrie laughed—a real one. "Good. Because I already opened it."
Meredith left her to it.
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.
