She packed two sack lunches with turkey sandwiches, grapes, and carrot sticks, then quickly straightened the room. Their unit was so tiny and otherwise grim-looking that the only way Letty could stand to return to it in the evening was knowing it was neat and tidy.

Ava was waiting for them when they got to the office. A shopping list in one hand, her purse slung over her shoulder.

“Good morning, ladies,” she sang out. “Letty, the coffee’s made. I’m headed out to run errands. We’ve got the Carlisles checking into unit two this afternoon, but those weirdos from Orlando are still taking their own sweet time about packing up and getting out. I knew it was a mistake renting to those people.”

Ava disliked what she called “short-termers”—guests who only checked in for a few days, as opposed to her long-term seasonal renters who booked rooms for weeks and months at a time. But since her motto was “heads in beds,” when she had a rare midweek unit become available she reluctantly lit up the vacancy sign out front.

“Anything I can do to hurry them along?” Letty asked, settling Maya at her table and unpacking her art supplies and Ellie.

“I told ’em checkout’s at ten sharp,” Ava said. She turned and gazed out the plate-glass front window in the direction of unit 2, one of the original, smaller postwar cottages. It was painted soft coral, with a turquoise door and window shutters. “Don’t see any signs of life over there.”

“Not surprised,” Letty said. “I heard them partying ’til late last night.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ava said. “Ruth Feldman called and woke me up at midnight to report that those people were still playing loud music and splashing around in the pool. I had to get up, get dressed, go over there, and tell ’em to shut it down. You won’t believe this, Letty.”

She looked down at Maya, who was preoccupied with drawing flowers, and lowered her voice.

“The two of them were butt naked and goin’ at it like a pair of rabbits. Right there in the shallow end of my pool. In public!” Ava’s face was pink with a mixture of outrage and embarrassment.

Letty started to giggle.

“Frolicking around like it was nothing,” Ava went on. “I’m just glad Isabelle didn’t see them.”

“What did you do?” Letty asked.

“I yelled at them to get dressed and get the hell out of my pool,” Ava said. “And then that man—I bet they aren’t even married—got out of the pool and had the balls to stand there—stark naked with his wangdoodle hanging out—and try to tell me I should calm down and mind my own business!”

Maya looked up, suddenly interested. “Miss Ava, what’s a wangdoodle?”

Letty clamped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“It’s uh, a uh…”