Kelsey stumbled in the restaurant’s gravel parking lot but caught herself as she was about to tumble onto the hood of the Toyota Camry that was their ride. She kept her balance with one hand on the car and then reached to open the front passenger door. May signaled to the back door, volunteering to sit in the middle.
“I can sit up front with him,” Kelsey said, smiling at the driver. May knew from her app that the guy’s name was Jackson. “You don’t mind, right?”
“It’s all good,” Jackson said, moving a Gatorade bottle and a stack of papers from the passenger seat to a pocket in his car door.
May snapped on her seat belt in the backseat and instructed Kelsey to do the same up front.
“Okay, Mrs. Nelson,” Kelsey said, the esses slurring slightly in the word Missus. “You’re really thinking about changing your last name?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s actually kind of dumb my mom and I are still Hanovers, but it’s my name, right?” That night in Bloomington, after May’s mother had told her and Kelsey so matter-of-factly that May’s father never wanted May to be born, she asked her mother why she had given May her father’s last name and had taken it as well. She replied without hesitation. I didn’t want my child to be seen as foreign, and I thought I deserved as much too.
“Luke wanted me to change my name,” Kelsey said, “and I wouldn’t even consider it. Maybe that was the beginning of the end.”
May looked to Lauren to see if she seemed concerned about the most recent downswing in Kelsey’s mood, but she was typing a message on her phone, her seat belt already secured. May spotted the name at the top of the screen. Thomas. So there was still something between her and Thomas Welliver.
They were halfway home when an Ed Sheeran song came on, and Kelsey turned up the radio without asking the driver. She waved her hands near her head and began to bounce in her seat. Ooh, I love it when you do it like that…
May could picture her Uber rating falling with every passing moment, but when she caught sight of the driver’s face in the rearview mirror, he was smiling.
At the house, Jackson the driver hopped out quickly after pulling into the driveway, rushing to get Kelsey’s door. May noticed that he’d cut the engine. May couldn’t find the buckle to unlatch her seat belt. By the time she managed to get out of the car, Jackson already had his arm around Kelsey’s waist and was leading her to the house.
“Door-to-door delivery,” Kelsey said. “Five stars for this man!”
“We’ve got her from here,” May said, catching up to them as Kelsey fumbled to get the house key into the lock.
“Why don’t you come inside,” Kelsey said. “It’s too nice out to be driving drunk people around all night. We’re really fun.” Just as Kelsey had predicted, any thoughts about becoming a single mom appeared to have floated away for the moment.
“Yeah, a real party,” Lauren said sternly, “which no one else will be joining tonight. But, yes, thank you very much for the ride and the assistance. Above and beyond the call of duty.”
Jackson hurried back to his Camry and disappeared into the night.
“Party poopers,” Kelsey said once the door was closed behind them. May reached for Kelsey’s arm to steady her, but Kelsey’s balance was suddenly solid. Sobered up, just like that. Her superpower was still intact.
“I think we should all slam some water and aspirin before we hit the hay,” May said.
“The only thing I’m hitting is the deck!” Kelsey said. “One day of our trip down and we haven’t even taken advantage of being right on the water. I brought stuff for s’mores and there’s one of those fancy smokeless-fire stoves on the back deck.” Kelsey had already pulled three wineglasses from a cabinet and was positioning a wine opener over a bottle of red. “Come on, May, you know you’re going to have FOMO tomorrow if you go upstairs already, and you hate FOMO.”
Lauren had kicked off her wedge sandals and was fiddling with a Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen island. Obviously May’s only choices were to stay awake or to leave the two of them to continue the night without her. FOMO wasn’t a word yet when they first knew each other, but even back then, everyone knew that May was the one who hated to be left out, and she had joked many times in the Crew thread about nights when she agreed to do things she didn’t even want to do just in case she missed out on something great.
“Success,” Lauren declared, as the speaker began to play Prince’s cover of a Joni Mitchell song. May had been the one to introduce Lauren to it, knowing that she loved Prince. May could still remember how pleased she felt with herself, impressing Lauren of all people with a piece of music.
“Come on, May,” Kelsey pleaded. “We’ve only got you for the weekend. You can recuperate when you’re back home with boring Josh.” She immediately covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh my god, did I just say that out loud?”
“You think Josh is boring? You haven’t even met him.”
Kelsey looked to Lauren, and May did the same. Her lips were pressed together, eyes wide.
“You told her Josh is boring?”
Lauren winced and held up her thumb and index finger an inch apart, and then Kelsey burst out laughing.
Josh. Sweet, patient Josh. Josh, who had sent her multiple texts asking how things were going.
Hope you guys are having fun!
How’s the house?
How was dinner?
Gomez says hi, Momma. The accompanying photo was super cute.
Okay, you guys must be having a blast. Should I be jealous?
Sorry to text bomb you all day. Heading to bed now. Love you!
She had texted him good night from the Uber, but they normally made a point to call each other before they went to sleep when they were apart. It seemed awkward, though, to leave Kelsey and Lauren waiting for her while she called her fiancé when she only had a couple days with them. And if she called Josh, she might feel obligated to call her mother, too, who had also texted her multiple times to ask how she was “handling” the trip so far. Her mother had always treated her like a child, but she was even more protective since May had tried to explain the stress that had led to the whole subway incident.
“You’re right. Sleep is for the weak,” she said. Kelsey and Lauren shared a high-five to celebrate their win. “But one condition: House rules from the Arianna note say to use the plastic wineglasses on the deck.”
Kelsey reached for May and gave her a big hug. “I forgot how much I love you.”
As they huddled around the fire, May forced herself to eat a sticky, gooey marshmallow smeared on a graham cracker with chocolate, hoping that it might sop up some of the alcohol coursing through her body.
The cushion on her chaise longue, cool from the night air, felt good against her bare legs. She was resting her eyes, listening to the sound of the water beneath what Kelsey had dubbed her “bangers” playlist streaming across the speaker they had brought outside.
The water. Drinking. Laughing. Music. Her mind felt somewhere else. Not East Hampton. Not the present. Marnie. Has anyone seen Marnie?
The volume of the music increased. She opened her eyes and tried to stand up, or at least she thought she did.
The song from the Uber was back, Kelsey yelling the words into the sky. And when they say the party’s over, then we’ll bring it right back.
At Wildwood, Kelsey had been an average flutist at best, but she had always been a strong singer, just a few notes shy of a four-octave range. And apparently she could still crush a pop song.
The last thing May remembered was seeing her two friends dancing together without her in the firelight, the bay waves rippling behind them.
She woke on the deck to silence, a beach towel she didn’t recognize draped over her body. The lights in the house were on, but the speaker was gone. So were the wineglasses and bottles. Her legs felt stiff as she raised herself from the low chaise longue. She breathed a sigh of relief as the sliding glass door opened.
On the kitchen island, next to the speaker and Kelsey’s keys, she found a large glass of water beside a container of Advil. She recognized Lauren’s handwriting on the accompanying Post-it. Take 2 and all the water. We could NOT get you to come inside. She did as instructed and gulped down the water without stopping for breath, hoping it would prevent her from being a wreck tomorrow, and then refilled the glass to take to her bedroom. After checking all the locks on the doors, she turned off the kitchen lights, leaving the house in darkness. As she passed Kelsey’s bedroom on the way to the staircase, she thought she heard a voice. No light came from the crack beneath the closed door. She craned her neck and closed her eyes, trying to make out the words. Was she…crying?
She reached for the knob but suddenly froze. “Kelsey,” she whispered. “Are you okay?”
Silence. She stood there, monitoring her own breath, waiting to see if Kelsey would come to the door or invite her in. As she reached for the knob again, she felt a surge of water in her stomach and a sickly-sweet taste rise in her throat. She managed to make it to the bathroom upstairs and shut the door before she fell to her knees in front of the toilet.
Later, as the bedroom ceiling was spinning above her and she began to pass out, she wondered if she heard a car engine.