“Sometimes,” said Joy, as nonchalant as you please. (All the time, she thought.) And it wasn’t just the sex! (Though that was at least thirty-eight percent of it.) Just the other day she’d been thinking about how Anthony let Maggie teach him how to clam, even though he didn’t eat clams. She’d been thinking too about the way he held the back of Joy’s neck when he kissed her, like if he let go she might fly away. She was thinking about the time Pickles had picked up a tick walking in Rodman’s Hollow and Anthony had gone out and bought a magnifying glass to make sure they’d gotten the legs out too. “I think we’re doing fine on our own, Mags.”

“I don’t,” said Maggie. “Not really.”

Maybe because she wanted to change the subject to something less close to her heart, and maybe because Maggie seemed open to conversation in a way she hadn’t been in a long time, Joy said, “Bridezilla changed her mind, Mags. She wants macarons for her wedding, not whoopie pies.”

Maggie looked up. “No! Really? That’s awful. From the Roving Patisserie?”

“Yup. Of course.”

“Ugh,” said Maggie loyally. “That’s a really bad idea.”

“Maybe it’s not,” said Joy.

“It is! Those macarons are terrible.” Maggie stood up and brushed her hands on her tiny shorts. “You have to do something! You can’t let her get away with that!”

“There’s not much I can do. The contract was only verbal, so I don’t have a lot of recourse. Except not to make that mistake ever again. Not to trust a verbal contract.” You couldn’t trust anyone, that was the real and true lesson of Joy’s summer.

“But you have to do something.” Maggie reached up and pressed a piece of the tape holding the cardboard on the window, while Joy closed the paper bag. The shop vacuum would be able to get the rest of the pieces. “Do what you always tell me to do.”

“What do I always tell you to do?”

“You tell me to figure it out!”

“Ah,” said Joy. “Excellent advice from the Phone It In School of Parenting.”

“It’s actually good advice,” said Maggie. “Anyway, I’m sure you will figure it out. You’re tough.”

“I am?” Joy looked around to make sure there wasn’t somebody else in the shop Maggie might be addressing. “Me?”

“You’re the toughest person I know.”

“Careful,” said Joy. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

Maggie rolled her eyes and said, “Well, it wasn’t.”

“What was it, then?”

“It’s just a fact.” Maggie bent over and inspected something on the floor, but even with her face pointed downward Joy could see that she was smiling. “It’s just a fact.”

Joy figured that in present circumstances that was good enough.

Chapter 65

LU

TWO DAYS AFTER the storm the ocean was still wild and angry. To Lu it seemed like it was holding a grudge. There were a few surfers visible far down the beach; Lu could see their wet-suited bodies appear and disappear with the movement of the waves. It was high tide—very high. Giant clumps of seaweed littered the sand where the Trusdale family was walking, and pieces of driftwood, and the occasional bird feather. The seaweed made it look like a bunch of mermaids had taken off their wigs and thrown them ashore.