“Nothing,” Carys said with a shrug. “It seemed pretty happy where it was. But it was freaky.”

Greta made a mental note to never go canoeing in the bayou. The alligator had closed its eyes, and Greta crept closer. There was a small lookout area that bumped out into the water, and she turned into it and crouched low, peering at the alligator through the wooden slats. The animal opened an eye lazily, and its jaw followed. The teeth didn’t look as sharp as Greta would’ve thought. Then its jaw clamped shut with the force of a bear trap and she shuddered.

A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped.

“Sorry,” Carys said. “Just me.” She held out a hand to help Greta up.

“Thanks.”

Carys didn’t let go of her hand when they started down the boardwalk again, and Greta squeezed it. Carys squeezed back.

“So what are you gonna do, Gretzky?” Ramona asked, using the silly nickname Greta hadn’t heard in years. For the first six months of their acquaintance, Ramona had used a different nickname for her practically every day.

“Do about which particular fuckwad of my life?”

“Uh. All of them? Any of them?”

Greta didn’t have an answer.

“Are you at least gonna get off that damn island where your family runs your whole life? You’ve heard about her family, right?” Ramona said this last to Carys, who nodded.

“I want to.”

“Well then,” Ramona said, as if simple desire was all it took to remake a life.

As if to underscore the point, Greta’s phone rang.

“Hey, Maggie,” Greta said. “What’s up?”

Ramona made a face to Carys that said Did I tell you or what? and she and Carys walked a few steps ahead of Greta.

“What’s up is I need you to weigh in on this whole Greg situation, because if I have to talk about it for one more single minute with Sadie, I’m going to perish.”

“What’s the Greg situation?”

“Omigod, Addie didn’t tell you? So Tillie’s bringing Benjamin to Chanukah, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Benjamin was Tillie’s husband.

“And Naveen is coming to hang out with me.”

Naveen was Maggie’s best friend/maybe-boyfriend. She’d never admit he was, but they seemed more intimate than friends sometimes.

“So Sadie has decided that she and Addie should bring dates.”

She said dates like it wasn’t a real thing. Which, on Owl Island, it kind of wasn’t.

“O-kaaay?”

“Obviously Addie isn’t gonna.”

“Obviously.”

“So now Sadie is saying she’s bringing this Greg person, and I guess he works in the post office, but…”