Next we heard that Tyler immediately started dating Zoe Butler-Gray, whom he’d taken to Blue Inn earlier in the summer.

We also heard that he’d never taken Zoe Butler-Gray to Blue Inn.

We heard that Zoe Butler-Gray worked at Blue Inn and Tyler had given her a ride one day—they were old family friends.

We heard that Blue Inn was closing.

And also that it was expanding.

And that Alexa, with her Silk Stockings money, was one day going to buy Blue Inn outright.

After that, when Alexa wasn’t with Cam Hartwell she was often spotted around town with her little sister, Morgan, and Katie Griffin.

Speaking of Cam Hartwell. We did seek out Cam’s checkout line when he was working at Market Basket that summer. He was incredibly efficient with the scanner, and managed to make a little conversation at the same time, which wasn’t easy. It was a real shame, what he got caught up in later in the summer.

August

49.

Rebecca

“There are way too many people using plastic straws around here,” said Morgan severely. “Don’t they know that the Pacific garbage patch is now the size of Russia?”

Rebecca, who had been planning on indulging in a cold brew at Commune, respectfully reconsidered. After shopping they were planning to go for poke bowls at Lolo Poke. Rebecca understood the folly of this endeavor—Morgan would get a build-your-own bowl but would build it with only rice and cucumber—but she herself wanted the signature Kai bowl. She’d noticed that since she’d begun dating Daniel her appetite had begun to return, tiptoeing in quietly like a teenager home past curfew.

They were on Pleasant Street, coming out of Pretty Poppy, where Morgan wanted to look at earrings and scrunchies. She was clutching her wallet but in the end had decided against parting with any of her allowance—she was actually rather tightfisted. They had parked Bernice outside, her leash looped around a pole.

“Can we get Bernice one of those dog cones from Harbor Creamery?” asked Morgan. “Just as a little treat?”

“Honey, no,” said Rebecca. “You know we have to be careful with her caloric intake. It’s not good for her heart or her joints to be overweight.”

“Also it’s bathing suit season,” agreed Morgan. To Bernice she said, “I’m sorry,” and rubbed the top of her head. “I know, the struggle is real.”

Rebecca was only half listening, because she had caught sight of a calendar item on her phone: first tuition payment for Colby due on the fifteenth of August. She hadn’t gotten a bill, though. It must have been sent through the student portal—she’d heard another parent complaining recently about how colleges communicated with students more than parents even though parents were obviously the ones paying. It was ironic, since the complaint about this generation of parents was that they did too much for their children.