“You’re still pretty,” Katie said. “You’re just much less fancy.”

“You’re not fancy,” said Sherri, smiling now, indicating Katie’s grubby shorts.

“I know,” said Katie. “But I was never fancy.”

Reasonable enough. Maybe Sherri could try a little harder. Lipstick, at least. She left the bedroom and padded into their shared bathroom, where she dug around in a drawer to see what she could find. Katie followed her and watched her the whole time: sternly, unnervingly, lovingly.

5.

Alexa

It was your typical summer high school party, except that it was out on the farthest reaches of Plum Island, which was a pain to get to. There was a fire pit on the back deck. Some kids had wandered off to the dunes to make out. Zoe Butler-Gray, valedictorian and resident of the house, was in the kitchen holding forth on Trump’s immigration policy, and nobody seemed to be listening. Zoe didn’t appear to care. She was headed for Dartmouth; she knew her real audience was waiting for her there.

Alexa, sitting on a couch in the living room, wished she could be elsewhere. How many parties had she attended over the course of her high school career, each one the same as the last and the next? Tyler handed her a plastic cup. She could tell by the shiny look in his eyes that he had been drinking a lot already, or smoking weed, or both, and she wondered how she’d get home. She wondered how he’d get home. The cops had been out in full force on the causeway this summer and Tyler couldn’t risk getting caught. She should take his keys and get them both a ride.

She took a sip of the drink. Vodka and cranberry. Tyler had been kind enough to put a slice of lime in it for her but even so she could hardly stomach it. The taste of cranberry juice reminded her of a series of urinary tract infections she’d had when she was young, nine or ten, when her mother poured her a glass every morning and wouldn’t let her leave the table until she’d finished it. It was a gesture that came from a combination of love and Internet medical knowledge, no harm intended, but still Alexa was positive cranberry juice was a drink she would never enjoy in this lifetime. She had told Tyler this more than once.

“You can’t drive,” she said combatively. “And I want to go home.”

“Let’s just crash here. Come on, babe.” Tyler snaked his arm around her waist. Alexa disliked the word “babe” almost as much as she disliked cranberry juice, and Tyler knew this too, but sometimes when he was drunk or high he forgot.

She removed his arm and sat back on the couch. “Negative on that,” she said.

“Why not?” He returned his arm to her waist, tighter this time. “We can sleep on the beach!”