“That makes me sad. I haven’t seen Eby in a while, but she was always nice to me. When I was in high school, she let me bring my boyfriends out to the lake, and we’d borrow one of her rowboats because she always said the middle of a lake was the best place to fall in love.” The girl absentmindedly began to pick at the clumps of thick mascara sticking to her lashes. “When is the party?”

“Saturday afternoon, I think.”

The girl nodded, then turned and grabbed a cardboard box from the stack behind her and went to get Lisette’s special-order groceries from the back.

“I think I may have inadvertently invited the girl at the front desk to the party,” Kate said, joining Bulahdeen and Devin in line. She took a few bottles from Bulahdeen’s load.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Bulahdeen said. “The more the merrier.”

“The more the merrier? What do you mean?” Selma asked, walking over to them. The four of them together drew some attention. They didn’t look like your average tourists: an older woman in a tight red dress and heels; an elderly woman with her arms full of wine bottles; a toe-headed girl in glasses, a tutu, and a bike helmet; and Kate. All before noon.

“The owner’s daughter. Brittany. She’s coming to the farewell party,” Bulahdeen said.

“That girl hates me,” Selma said.

“She might not if you stopped flirting with her daddy. You’re not coming anyway. What’s it to you?”

Selma shook her head and walked away. “It’s nothing to me.”

Chapter 6

6

Minutes later, from the shop across the street, Wes Patterson watched a tall young woman walk out of the Fresh Mart. Her brown hair was a mass of short layers that, as she walked, fell loosely into her eyes. She pushed it away with her fingers, stopping to look around the circle as she did so. For a moment, staring into the distance, her hand holding her hair back, she had that look people often have on the beach, looking out into the expanse of the ocean. Like she couldn’t believe there was just so much in front of her. She seemed a little lost. But she smiled and turned when the bag boy from the Fresh Mart said something to her. She opened the hatchback of a green Subaru, and the bag boy placed a large box of groceries inside for her. She tipped him, then helped an old lady carrying several bottles of wine into the passenger seat.