“I’m not sure there’s much to tell. I’ve lived here all of my life.” The words made her tongue sting, a bad taste searing her molars. Why was there nothing else to say? And she wasn’t lying, either. She didn’t have a story to tell. Why did Peri expect anything more of her? And why was this simple, uncomplicated life story not enough?

“That’s something. I moved to New York from Florida. This whole summer house thing, it’s fairly new to me.” The waiter brought over their drinks. “Cheers to you.” They both took a sip.

Odilie fiddled with the beaded bracelet on her arm. “You said I had gumption. When we first met. But I’m not sure what you meant.” Peri leaned back, looked over Odilie’s head to the few people steadying themselves as they disembarked from a sailboat, barefoot, back onto the dock.

She looked back at Odilie. “You have this look to you, like you want something different. That you’re already doing things a little differently than your friends, your parents. That if we dug into you too deep there might be a steel trap. That you’d bite.” Peri eyed her over her glass, her gaze traveling up and down Odilie’s face, poring over it like she was studying something, a scientific experiment.

Odilie swallowed more spritz. She wanted to know more about this woman who had occupied her thoughts so heavily, who said all these fantastical things about her like they were fact. Who seemed to suggest that Odilie didn’t know herself as well as she thought she did. “Do you have that bite?”

And Peri danced her fingers on the tabletop. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s more of a claw.” And then she began to speak and Odilie hung on to it, every word of Peri’s life story like it was scripture, like she would repeat it back to herself at bedtime, a nightly prayer.