Cybill kept talking about the night before in this cryptic language that only Jude could understand, cracking jokes meant only for his ears. Basically, she was speaking to him in code. At first Charlie tried to be a good sport and enter into the spirit of the hilarity, get her bearings. Like when she asked Cybill to explain the story behind “things are getting interesting,” a phrase Cybill repeated to Jude throughout the afternoon, always to great effect. “There was this billboard above the Lincoln Tunnel for this low-rent champagne-y, cognac-y type drink and—” was as far as Cybill got before dissolving into a fit of giggles. After a while, Charlie stopped asking. She knew Cybill was just trying to make her feel excluded, and it was working.

After Cybill made her third reference of the hour to Hostess cherry pies, Charlie shed her sunglasses—the identical style and brand as Cybill’s and Jude’s, bought for her by Richard the same day he bought her the iPhone—and stood.

“I’m going to take a dip,” she said.

As she dove into the green face of a tall wave, she decided she was going to make her move tonight. Screw Cybill.

It was time to advance the plot with Jude.

• • •

At ten that evening, Charlie, pleading a minor headache, trudged upstairs to bed. She waited in her dark room until she heard the doors to Maggie and Richard’s room close, the door to Alice’s room close, and then waited for nearly an hour on top of that (Alice never went to sleep straightaway, always read first) before sneaking down the stairs and out the back door, tennis gear in hand. It was a warm night, the air hot and heavy. And the moon hung low in the sky, full and fat, a bright, buttery yellow. She walked to Jude’s house, about a quarter of a mile down the beach in the opposite direction of the club. Not that she remembered walking. She was too anxious and excited and panicked and eager for her brain to function properly. But she knew she must’ve because suddenly she found herself there.