The last days of August were identical, blistering mornings fading into white-hot afternoons. At the start of the day, the girls sat by the pool, trailing their fingers in the water and shooing the seagulls away. At lunch time, they bothered Raymond, who seemed much too handsome to be as nice as he was. He never minded when Hailey and Claire sat at the counter for hours, drinking lemonade and watching him read. In past summers, there had been flocks of teenaged girls hanging around Raymond, but all those girls’ families had joined town pools or rented summer houses, and only Hailey and Claire remained to admire him. Late in the afternoon, when it was almost time to go, the girls walked along the beach. Sometimes Hailey went in for a swim to cool off, but Claire stayed on the shore, adding to her collection of stones and shells.

And so every day blended into the next, until one morning there was a storm with gusts of sixty miles an hour and extraordinarily high tides. The girls had to stay home that day, and they shivered at the nearness of September. They barely said a word all afternoon. That night, in houses right next door to each other, neither one could sleep. The wind was so strong, it knocked on the rooftops and rattled the stars up above. Both Hailey and Claire had the feeling that something was about to happen, in spite of how much they wanted their lives to remain the same.

When they arrived at the beach club the next morning, they found that the storm had left its mark. The wooden paths were littered with purple snails. Starfish and scallops were trapped in the fountain at the center of the patio and the snack bar was missing its roof. The pool had been roped off and a NO SWIMMING sign had been hastily installed by the owner, who hardly even bothered to visit the club anymore.

The water in the pool was as thick as soup. Seaweed clogged up the filter. Barnacles clung to the blue-and-white tiles and luminous moon jellyfish slowly drifted by. Hailey, who had learned how to swim in this very pool when she was only a toddler, was outraged at what a mess it had become.

“What difference does it make?” Claire said. “After next Saturday, they’ll drain the pool and bulldoze it, too.”

Even though she had never dared swim in the pool, there were tears in Claire’s eyes as she gazed into the murky waters. For the first time in a long while, she had no idea of what to do next. Maybe that was why Hailey ducked under the ropes to take a closer look.