Gregg grabbed Stella’s hand. “It’s not about the regrets. It’s how you deal with them.”

“And how you learn from them,” Stella said softly, squeezing Gregg’s hand, smiling into his face. “We’ve made lots of mistakes, and have hopefully learned a lot.”

“I have cookies,” Madeline said, and everyone stared at her in surprise because she never talked. “Oatmeal raisin. I made them myself. Nothing heals a heart faster than oatmeal raisin.”

So they sat around and ate cookies and drank herbal iced tea. Summer didn’t feel any better afterward but she felt far less alone. That afternoon, Madeline and Diana took her out. Not to a college party or the mall, but on a bike ride along the beach. That culminated with lying on the sand, soaking up some sun, eating ice cream, and talking about the male species. Diana confessed to having a thing for a guy who worked at the art gallery next to Creative Interiors, and Madeline for the frat boy who worked at the sandwich shop on the other side of the gallery.

“That’s because he smokes with you,” Diana said in disgust.

Summer went from relaxed to tense in zero point four. “You smoke?”

“I’m almost eighteen,” Madeline said defensively. “And besides, it’s my body.”

Diana rolled her eyes. “And my lungs.”

Summer kept her silence but her eyes cut to Madeline’s feet, relieved to see she had nowhere near a size men’s eleven and a half.

That evening after closing, Bill went with Summer to the bank. They’d been making the deposit in twos since the discrepancies had been discovered. Summer had barely begun to scratch the surface of figuring out how much money was missing, never mind who’d taken it. She had a lot of people interested in the outcome: Camille and Tina obviously, also the arson team, the police, and the rest of the staff. It was a big, black cloud hanging over all of them. A new nightmare.

“Are you getting anywhere with the records?” Bill asked her.

Summer lifted a shoulder. “Slowly.”

They stared at each other somberly, knowing no one was going to like what they found.

“It’s scary,” she admitted.

“No one would blame you if you left now,” he said very gently. “Your future isn’t here.”

“Really? So where is it?”

“None of us really know.”

“But most of us at least know what we want.”

He looked at her blandly.

“You don’t?” she asked in surprise.

“What, just because I’m old, I’m supposed to know what I want to be when I grow up?”

“You’re an artist.”