They smelled the bonfire before they saw it lighting up the sky, flecks of charred wood flying toward them even before they rounded a corner, smoke filling up the sky like a pagan sacrifice was underway. Surrounding the bonfire was a semicircular white cloth-draped bar, numerous stacks of logs, music blasting from an unseen speaker. It was like this was the Sanderses’ idea of something casual.

People were milling around the fire, hair and outfits aglow in the light, embers shooting out of the pyre into the heavy night air. Peri squeezed Odilie’s hand, her long nails pinching Odilie’s lifeline. Then they entered the light, shadows dancing on the sand.

Odilie recognized some people right off the bat, people who were Wyneck summer regulars, whose houses her dad helped rent out, helped them buy, sometimes, but rarely, helped them sell. She wavered about saying hi; these were people she’d spied on for years, from the corners of beaches, from across the street in town. They definitely didn’t know she existed, or if they had noticed her in passing once upon a time, Odilie was sure that her face could easily be mistaken for someone else’s, that she was just as replaceable in these people’s memories as one grain of sand is for another.

She watched Peri decide on her next move. Her eyes were roving over the crowd, possibly trying to find Annabella Sanders. To Odilie’s surprise, it wasn’t a Sanders who came up to them first, but another summer resident with bright red hair. Caroline Perkins. The name came to Odilie in a flash.

The old Odilie would have slunk off toward the edges of the party, social anxiety getting the better of her. The new Odilie, however, well, she had the gumption to introduce herself.

She was about to extend her hand, when Caroline embraced Peri, her elbow unintentionally untangling Odilie’s and Peri’s linked arms. “Per! Thank God you’re here. I was getting so bored without you.” The women started chatting, dropping names and places Odilie didn’t know, a language Odilie wasn’t fluent in. Gossip about who had a drinking problem, whose bachelor party was happening when. A few people’s promotions, someone’s boyfriend’s stock portfolio. A house someone had recently bought in Lyford Cay.

She stood patiently by Peri’s side, waiting to be introduced, trying to cut in during any pause. But there weren’t many. A few other women joined, all of them hugging Peri like she was a long-lost friend, pecking her on the cheek, telling her how gorgeous she looked. Odilie felt herself slowly but surely being edged out of the conversation, succumbing to the shadows, to the parts of the beach from which they’d come, that weren’t lit.