I let myself in through the rattly porch door with the broken latch—the one Nic keeps saying he’ll fix—and the house is quiet, peaceful, so different from all the sound and drama in the tent.

Mom’s dozed off on the couch, her brow crinkled, still clutching a brightly colored paperback. Leaning over, I pull it out, dog-ear the page she’s on (which I can’t help but notice begins with “Begorrah, ye she-witch, I’ve half a mind to put ye over my knee”), then pull the quilt off the bottom and cover her up. I should wake her, coax her to sleep in her own bed, rather than in the dubious comfort of Myrtle’s exhausted orange plaid arms. But tonight, I want a room with only me and my thoughts.

I can hear the soft rumble of Grandpa Ben’s snores coming from the room he shares with Nic and Emory. I wish I could peel away the whole evening—last night too—like I do my sticky clothes, erase it in the outdoor shower the way I scrub off the smell of smoke and shrimp.

Chapter Eleven

“I was hoping it would just be us,” Viv mutters, after Grandpa Ben has squeezed between the front seats for a second time to adjust the radio to FBAC, “Your Station for the Best in Nostalgia.”

Grandpa’s drumming his fingers on the window, singing loudly to “The Way You Look Tonight,” with Emory gamely echoing him, “The way your smile just BEAMS . . . The way you haunt my DREAMS.” Both of them are beaming themselves, identical big-toothed grins. I try to shake off guilty resentment that they’re tagging along.

Yesterday was the longest day in history. I need girl-time with Viv. So I baked brownies early this morning with that sole purpose. My plan was to ply her with sweets at Abenaki Beach and get to the bottom of the ring thing. Viv will spill—I just need to get her alone.

But just as she was about to gun her mom’s car, Grandpa bounded down the steps with Emory, a large cooler (which I knew from bitter experience would hold a variety of highly idiosyncratic Grandpa Ben items), and a new(ish) metal detector slung jauntily over his shoulder.

“I feel lucky!” he announces now as we rocket down the hill to Abenaki, seemingly unperturbed by Vivien’s violent swerve to avoid an abandoned Razor scooter lying in the middle of the road, as though it had been tossed there by the tide. “Today, we make our fortune.” He brandishes the detector out the window.

* * *

Vivie and I sit on the short, silvery wooden pier, looking out at the ocean. It’s scattered with sailboats, spinnakers billowing. Grandpa Ben hunts for treasure on the wide sandy beach. Em sits cross-legged, totally preoccupied with a bucket of water and a shovel. I love this about him—that when he concentrates on one thing, the rest of the world fades away.

He’s wearing, as always, a Coast Guard–approved life jacket. Despite that, I keep clutching at the back of his T-shirt, or the elastic of his shorts when he bends over too far or tries to peer over the rim of the pier. I’ve had so many nightmares involving the top of his head disappearing beneath the whirling waves.

Particularly ominous today, the sky is gun-metal gray and the water correspondingly dark. Not the best for sunbathing, which is why we’re on the warm wood of the pier rather than the chilly sand. The occasional sun shooting out around the clouds is heated, but there’s a breeze whipping straight off the water and right into us.

Emory upends his shovel full of icy water onto my leg, making me gasp. “Em, no!”

He smiles at me, scoops, pours out another chilly trickle.

Viv stretches drowsily, her skin already lightly golden against the graying wood of the pier, her small spattering of freckles looking as though someone flicked a paintbrush over her nose. Nic calls it her “constellation” and is always pretending to discover new shapes in it, tracing them with a finger.

“Nic was so tense after catering. I had to drive him out to the bird sanctuary to . . . calm him down.” She points her toes, stretching further, then scoops her fingers around her instep, lengthening the stretch with a balletic grace.

“Uh-huh. My cousin, the ornithologist. I’m sure the binoculars got a lot of use.”

“Well . . . it is secluded there.” Her slightly wicked private smile overtakes the sweet and innocent one she uses in public. “Just Nic, me, and that crime-scene tape they use to keep us from disturbing the piping plovers’ mating season.”

“You, Nic, and the plovers doing the dance as old as time.” I start giggling. She lets go of her foot and gives my hip a gentle shove.

“It’s not like we can snuggle up in the bedroom Nic shares with Grandpa Ben and Emory.” She looks down at the tossing gray-green water, worrying her bottom lip, waxy with cherry ChapStick. The only thing Nic ever complains about with Viv is her addiction to that and sticky, flavored lip gloss. “I was probably more stressed than Nic, anyway.”

“Any reason why?” Without looking at her, I dip my finger in Em’s bucket, trace a circular shape on a wood slat, press my thumb down in a diamond shape, a subliminal suggestion.

She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth as though she’s going to say something, then closes it again. “Nothing big,” she says finally. “Just . . . you know . . . Al . . . being all up in my face about forgetting to make sure everybody’s water glasses were full and so on.”

That makes me think of Spence’s dickish “team tradition” comment. “Did Nic tell you—”

“Nic always tells me to just blow him off,” Viv says. “And he’s right. So my stepfather is the poster child for Type A. Doesn’t mean I have to be the same. Even if I am taking over the biz when Al and Mom retire.”

“Yeah, about that,” I say. “You’re not an indentured servant in medieval times. You don’t have to be the heir to the throne at Almeida’s.” Dipping my finger into the bucket again, I write my name in cursive. Emory watches me, then writes curves and loops himself, but they don’t spell anything.

Viv shakes her head, her brow smoothing out again. “Aah, Gwenners, you know me. Not a brainiac like you. I couldn’t care less about college. Seems like a waste of time, considering the grades I get. It’s good to know where I’m going to be instead of flailing around looking for my place in the world. I’m lucky.” She sounds so cheerful at the prospect of spending the rest of her life putting together Dockside Delight picnic baskets and clam boils. That’s the thing about Viv—whenever Nic and I tip into glass half-empty, she can nudge us back to half-full—and the waiter will be along any minute to fill it to the brim. “Plus, I rock at management. Look at me with Nic.”

“Yeah, you’ve totally whipped that guy into shape. At least ten percent of the time he’s on time. Sometimes even wearing a clean shirt.”

“I like him without the shirt,” Viv says.

“Keep your twisted perversions to yourself.”

She laughs, sits up, and pulls the cooler closer, flipping open the lid. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t share that one, babe. I’ve watched you at meets, and whatever else you might say about Cassidy Somers, you can’t deny his assets there. That? The boy does well.”

I flush. Viv’s instantly contrite. “Sorry. I know you don’t want to talk about him. Think about him. Or whatever.”

“Just because you and my cousin have mated for life doesn’t mean I have to,” I say.

Viv raises her eyebrows. “I was just talking about noticing when someone was cute. You’re the one going straight from shirtlessness to mating. Interesting.”

“Stop it. Don’t go making me and Cass into you and Nic. Clearly, that’s not what’s going on here.”

“And that would be . . . ?” she asks, burrowing into the cooler, then making a face. “Goat cheese? Not in the mood. Is there a mood for goat cheese?”

I take the cooler from her, rustle around to find the foil-wrapped brownies, pass them to her. She puts her hand on her heart, mock sighing with relief.

“Maybe I’m just not the kind of girl who—”

Viv shakes her head at me. “Shit. Stop. I hate it when you do that. It’s not like you’re Spencer Channing with his five girls in the hot tub at once.”

“Is that story even true? Because when you think about it, it sounds like a ton of work. You’d have to feed them and talk to them and find a way to entertain the girls who’re waiting while you’re busy with one or two—”

“Right—so they don’t leave or . . . or molest the pool boy out of sheer boredom,” Vivie continues, smiling.

“Yeah, you’re getting tired . . .” I add.

“It’s more work than you expected,” she sighs, brushing chocolate off her fingers.

“Makes a great rumor . . .” I say. “Not much fun in action.”

She looks down at her hands, her face going serious. “Speaking of action . . . Gwen . . . do you think Nic really wants the Coast Guard? Or it’s just . . . an escape fantasy? Like touring around the state painting houses this summer, when he’s really better off working steady right here. Have you seen the things those Coasties do? They’re freaking Navy Seals. If he gets into the academy, that’ll be Nicky . . . all that stuff with helicopters and tow ropes. Why not just take a sensible job, like at Almeida’s?”

I try to imagine Nic going into the flower-arranging and food service business, for real. It’s so much easier to picture him dangling fifty feet above the churning ocean during a hurricane.

I’m distracted by something far out to sea. Moving. Bobbing. A seal?

We don’t see them often around here. The water’s too choppy—cold and unpredictable even at the height of summer, and there aren’t enough rocks. Straightening up and squinting harder, I follow the motion. Whatever it is disappears under the water with a flick of surf. A cormorant? No, no long neck.