She headed for the bar, but Meredith noticed she was smiling.
Between sets, they grabbed water and more beer. Carrie's cheeks were flushed, her hair escaping from its clip in ways she would have fixed an hour ago. Jen was grinning like she used to when every weekend felt like an adventure. Even Olivia seemed lighter, the tension in her shoulders gone for once.
"Remember junior year?" Lori said, wiping her forehead with a bar napkin. "That bar near campus, the one with the terrible wings and the DJ who only played house music?"
"Main St.," Jen supplied. "We practically lived there."
"We definitely shouldn't have," Lori said.
"The wings gave me food poisoning twice," Olivia said. "And I kept going back."
"Because the bouncer never checked IDs," Carrie said.
"Because we were young and stupid," Meredith corrected. "We didn't need better reasons."
The conversation wound back through shared history. The time Lori accidentally set off the fire alarm in the dorm, the road trip to the Shore that ended with Jen's car on the side of the Parkway, the night before graduation when they'd promised to stay friends and then actually done it.
"Twenty-seven years," Carrie said. "That's a long time."
"Longer than most marriages," Lori said.
"I forgot this," Carrie said, pressing a cold glass to her forehead. "I forgot we could do this."
"You didn't forget," Lori said. "You just stopped."
They drifted out to the Sandbar, hoping for air, but it was just as packed. People crowded around the outdoor bar, sand underfoot.
They'd barely found a spot when Lori grabbed Meredith's arm and ducked behind her.
"What are you doing?" Meredith asked.
"Don't turn around. Whatever you do, don't?—"
Naturally, everyone turned around.
John had just stepped out onto the Sandbar, scanning the crowd. He wore a chambray button-down untucked over jeans, his ponytail loose against his collar. A woman Meredith didn't recognize was beside him. Fifties, silver earrings, put together in a way that looked effortless.
"Oh wow, is that him?" Jen craned her neck. "The bookstore guy?"
"Stop looking!" Lori was trying to make herself smaller, which wasn't easy when you were five-eight. "Why is he here? He doesn't seem like the OD type."
"Maybe he contains multitudes," Olivia said. "Who's the woman?"
Lori peered around Meredith's shoulder. John and his companion had found a spot near the bar, their heads bent together in conversation. "I don't know. She looks like she has her life figured out."
"So do you," Carrie said.
"I'm sweaty and my hair is doing something tragic and I have beer on my shirt." Lori looked down. "When did I get beer on my shirt?"
"You look great," Meredith said. "Like you've been having fun. That's allowed."
"I didn't want him to see me like this. I wanted—" She stopped, shook her head. "I don't know what I wanted. I hadn't gotten that far."
"You like him," Jen said.
"I barely know him. I've talked to him twice. Three times if you count buying a book."
"And yet here you are, hiding behind Meredith," Jen said.
