Thirty days. They’d spent the time living with a sour-faced older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Boggs, who dragged them to a fundamentalist church three times a week. They weren’t allowed to attend the local school, which the couple considered “ungodly,” and instead were forced to work in the couple’s garden for hours in blazing heat. Tanya had taken a beating when she refused to give up her beloved pierced earrings. It wasn’t until they’d managed to call their grandmother one night, when the couple was out of the house, that they’d been returned home to Terri, who reluctantly kicked her boyfriend to the curb.

Maya, Letty vowed, would never go through what she and Tanya had endured.

The server brought her check and offered her a to-go cup of iced tea. Remembering her own not-so-long-ago waitress days, Letty left a big tip and headed off to the patio-furniture clearance center.

She wandered around the enormous showroom in a daze. There were more picnic tables and umbrellas, lounge chairs, swivel chairs, sectionals that seated twelve, entire outdoor kitchens, and firepits than she’d ever seen in one place. The selection was overwhelming.

Finally, she found a display of lightweight but sturdy aluminum-frame lounge chairs. They had heavy plastic strapping in pastel-candy shades of yellow, coral, aqua, mint, and pink, almost the exact colors of the units at the Murmuring Surf. She flipped the tag on one of the chairs and winced. They were 150 dollars apiece.

“Too much,” she muttered, anticipating her employer’s reaction to such a hefty price tag.

Just around the corner from that display she found the warehouse’s Last Chance clearance center. Shoved in the corner were two stacks of the same chairs she’d just spotted—but in an unfortunate shade of brown. A bright orange starburst sticker was hand-labeled with the price. Eighty-five dollars. She found a salesman and asked about delivery options, then texted photos of the chairs to Ava.

“My God, those are ugly,” Ava said, when she called back. “But I guess they’ll do. When can they deliver?”

“Not until next Monday,” Letty said. “And there’s a pretty hefty delivery fee.”

“I’ll call Joe,” Letty said. “He’s off this afternoon. Can you hang around there until he arrives?”

“Is that necessary?” Letty asked. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Joe this soon again after their awkward parting on the beach. “I should probably get back to Maya.”

“Maya’s right here, stringing beads with Isabelle. Please just wait for Joe and make sure those folks load everything you’ve bought.”

Joe pulled the truck up to the clearance center’s loading dock, where Letty was waiting.

“These?” He pointed at the stacks of lounge chairs on a shipping cart. “You bought these butt-ugly chairs for the Surf? Has Ava seen them?”