Sherri found out a few things about Rebecca right off the bat, after they settled themselves into their beach chairs (Rebecca had brought one for Sherri) and watched the girls run off with boogie boards. Rebecca worked in a nearby town as a second-grade teacher. Her older daughter, Alexa, was almost eighteen, headed to Colby in the fall.

In Sherri’s old life her best friends had been the wives of the guys Bobby worked with; they’d been tossed together by circumstance more than temperament or choice. Jennifer with the stables. Lauren with the acrylic nails. Amber with the indoor swimming pool. She’d sometimes wondered what it would have been like to choose her own friends, women she’d met at work (difficult, since Sherri didn’t have a job) or in a book club (impossible; Sherri had never been in a book club). She hadn’t made a friend from scratch in a very long time—since high school, really, and she’d lost touch with most of those friends when she’d started up with Bobby. None of her friends had liked Bobby.

Rebecca reached into her cooler (it had the word yeti printed across the center, just like all of those coolers lined up at the surf-camp beach) and pulled out two cans of something. “Black cherry or ruby grapefruit?” she asked. Seltzer! Just the thing on a hot day. Sherri had brought only water to drink.

“Either,” said Sherri. “Thank you. Unless you’re saving one for Morgan.”

Rebecca let out a friendly sounding snort and handed Rebecca a can. “Uh, I don’t think so,” she said. “Morgan’s not exactly drinking age.”

Sherri took a closer look at the can. White Claw Hard Seltzer. Five percent alcohol. One hundred calories. Sherri thought of Brooke and her rosé by the pool. Did these women drink all day, every day? Well, all right. Sherri could hold her own. She opened her can and took a long sip of the seltzer. She didn’t taste rum, or tequila. Maybe it was vodka? She took another sip, then another. The sun was so lovely. She could almost feel the vitamin D seeping into her bones. She was filled with a sensation of peace and tranquility such as she hadn’t felt since . . . well, in a very long time.