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.
