“We weren’t thinking. We were drinking,” Julia reminded her. They strolled back across the street and over the dune to the beach below.

“Listen,” Julia said suddenly. “What do you think is really going on with Dorie?”

“Dorie? Nothing. Why? What do you think is going on?”

“It hasn’t struck you that we’ve been here over three days now and she hasn’t once called Stephen?”

“Nooo,” Ellis said. “I guess she hasn’t. But maybe she’s just letting him alone so he can concentrate on his thesis.”

“Nuh-uh,” Julia said. “He hasn’t called her, either. I know, because her room’s right next to mine.”

“Maybe they had a fight. Maybe she’s pissed he decided he was too busy to come. I don’t know, Julia. But I don’t think it’s any of our business, whatever it is.”

“This isn’t Dorie,” Julia said stubbornly. “Something really bad has happened to her. Listen, at the movie the other day? She cried all the way through it.”

Ellis’s brow wrinkled. “It was a comedy! Nobody cries at a Ben Stiller movie.”

“She got up twice to go to the bathroom,” Julia said. “Didn’t want us to see her bawling her eyes out. Something is going on with them, Ellis. I can sense it.”

“Then do me a favor, Julia,” Ellis whirled and grabbed Julia’s wrist to make her point. “Leave her alone. I mean it. If she wants to tell us, she will. If she and Stephen are going through a rough time, the best thing we can do for her is just be here for her. You hear me?”

“Of course,” Julia said. “You act like I’m some kind of bully or something. I’ve known Dorie as long as you have. I love her as much as you do. I want her to be happy, that’s all.”

They were almost back at the beach. Something had been bothering Ellis. “Listen, Julia,” she said, slowing down so her friend would have to also. “Since we’re on the subject of happiness … What’s going on with you and Booker?”

Julia stopped walking and made an elaborate gesture of adjusting the oversized silk scarf she’d casually knotted around her waist. “Nothing,” she said. “Same old, same old.”

“You lie like a rug,” Ellis said. “Now come on, out with it. You’re not breaking up, right?”

“Not exactly,” Julia said. “It’s gotten complicated. And you know how I hate complications. Really, I don’t know why he wants to mess with a good thing. But that’s Booker. He never has been able to leave well enough alone.”

“What’s he done now?” Ellis asked.

“Oh Gawwd,” Julia said. “What hasn’t he done? Well, for starters, he’s gone and taken a real job.”

“In England?”

“No, and that’s the problem,” Julia said, frowning. “He’s head of the photo department at some magazine publishing company you never heard of in Washington. I mean, can you imagine? Booker, in a coat and tie? Actually punching a clock? It boggles the mind.”

“In DC?” Ellis said, her voice only an octave below a squeal. “But, Julia, that’s great. DC’s only a hop and a jump from Philly! You know, if I manage to find another job and stay in Philly. But whatever, right? I mean, you’ll be back in the States, that’s all we care about.”

“I wouldn’t start buying Amtrak stock just yet,” Julia said. She was walking, no, almost running now.

“What?” Ellis was out of breath from trying to catch up. “Hey, slow down. Julia!”

“Who says I want to move back to the States?” Julia turned and snapped. “Who says I want to give up my career for Booker? Who says I have to get married and start pumping out a baby a year like my poor mother? She basically lived in those fugly maternity clothes for seven years, all before she was twenty-five, and I never remember a time when she did anything for herself, her whole life. I’m only thirty-five, for God’s sake! I like my life just the way it is. All right?”

Ellis blinked. What would be wrong with having a life like that, like the one Julia’s mother had—with babies and a loving husband, and yes, spit-up and drool and even stretch marks? Julia said she couldn’t remember her mother having any time alone—Ellis had practically lived at the Capellis’ during her teenage years, and she couldn’t ever remember seeing Catherine Capelli when she wasn’t singing or laughing or telling a joke—surrounded by her noisy, adoring family.

“Nobody’s saying you have to do any of that,” Ellis said quietly.

“That’s what you think,” Julia said, her shoulders sagging. “Look, we’re at the beach. Can we not talk about this right now? I’m going for a swim.”

Ellis stood on the tide line, the place where the burning sand met the wet sand. It was strewn with broken shells and dried seaweed. She stepped out of her sandals and dug her toes into the cool sand. Her hand closed around the cell phone in the pocket of her cover-up. She had résumés out at a couple different places. A former colleague had sent her a promising lead about a job at a start-up financial services company in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh. She didn’t know a soul in Pittsburgh. Starting over in a new town? At a new company, a new job? Unbidden, she pictured herself, alone, in a new apartment, studying a stack of takeout menus, with an empty evening, an empty weekend, stretching out before her, in appalling, regrettable aloneness.

Worry, Ellis thought, hell yes. Worry didn’t begin to cover what she was feeling right now.

10

It wasn’t until her stomach rumbled that Maryn realized how hungry she was. She pulled the car into the next strip shopping center she passed. The place was called The Picky Pelican. Stupid name for a restaurant. But she was really, really hungry.

And she was desperate to talk to Adam. Her one friend. Funny, when you thought about it. Adam Kuykendall was the least likely candidate for a best friend that Maryn could think of. Short and stocky, with thinning blond hair, geeky glasses, and a scraggly soul patch on his chin, Adam and Maryn had bonded as soon as she’d started work at Prescott and Associates, a midsized family-owned insurance agency in Cherry Hill.

The other women in the office wanted nothing to do with Maryn, giving her disapproving sideways glances, pointedly excluding her from their lunchtime cliques and after-work drink outings. Most were older, married, with kids, even grandkids. Adam was the only male nonagent in the whole office.

So they were both outsiders. At first, Maryn had just assumed he was gay. But he was surprisingly good company, and he’d won her over her first week at work with his wickedly cutting comments about their bitchy female coworkers. Within a week of meeting, they’d established their rituals—lunch from the Italian deli around the corner, Friday night happy hour, Sunday movie matinees—chick flicks for her, slasher movies for him.

And then Don came into her life eighteen months ago. And everything changed.

She had to talk to Adam right away, warn him. Don knows. I’m gone. I’m afraid. Afraid he’ll come after me. Afraid he’ll come after you. Be careful. I’m gone.

Adam would have to wait, though. She yawned, got out of the car, locked it, and looked around, automatically tensing at the sight of a black SUV and, quickly, rebuking herself. This SUV was an Explorer, not an Escalade. Don Shackleford did not know where she was. Yet.

Inside the restaurant, all the tables were full. There was one seat vacant, at the counter, between a guy who looked like a construction worker and a young woman her age, with a sunburnt nose, who looked to have just walked in off the beach.

The restaurant smelled like hamburgers and French fries. Maryn’s stomach growled again. She needed food, a bed, a new name, new identity, new life. But for now, a seat at the counter at The Picky Pelican would have to do.

11

Dorie sat alone at the luncheonette counter. Even though it was nearly two, the place was still mobbed with a late lunch crowd. “Here ya go, hon,” the waitress said, as she carefully poured the chocolate shake from the stainless-steel shaker into the tall, frosted glass and then placed it on the fluted white-paper place mat. “Wait,” the waitress said. She turned to the back bar and returned with a can of whipped cream in one hand and a maraschino cherry in the other. “There now,” the waitress said, plopping the cherry atop the mound of whipped cream.