the bumpers while Ayers racks her brain for how she knows this woman.
She leans over to hug Ayers. “I suppose you’ve heard that Brent and I are getting a divorce?”
Who’s Brent? Ayers thinks. The woman pulls a cigarette and a lighter out of a pair of teensy white shorts lying at her feet and Ayers realizes the woman is Swan Seeley, the mother of Colton Seeley, Maia’s little friend. Swan has traded in her reusable shopping bags and sustainable vegetable gardening for day-drinking and lung cancer.
Ayers laughs. This is fabulous! She always liked Swan best when she was breaking the rules anyway. But a divorce is sad, right? “I’m sorry to hear that,” Ayers says.
Swan waves the sentiment and her exhale of smoke away. “Don’t be,” she says. “He’s got a gambling problem. I had to cut bait before he sank us.”
“Good for you, then.”
Swan smiles. “There are eligible men everywhere,” she says. “Just look at this place!” Her eyes scan the now-impressive raft of boats. “What about Skip? He’s single, right?”
“He’s single,” Ayers says. “But I’m not sure he’s your type.” Or anyone’s type, she thinks. Although who’s to say that Skip, who’s coming off his weird thing with Tilda, and Swan Seeley, freshly separated, wouldn’t be a good match for each other?
“There’s the hottest new dad at the school,” Swan says. “He’s brand-new to the island, relocating from Houston. I saw him last week when I was picking up Colton. Maia seemed to know him, though of course I couldn’t ask who he was with Colton in the car.”
Hottest new dad. That would be Baker. Ayers feels herself bristling. Naturally Swan Seeley and all the other Gifft Hill mothers will pant over Baker. Ayers wants to inform Swan that Baker is taken, by her, but she can’t very well do this when she’s here with Mick.
At that moment, who should step onto Swan’s boat but Skip, holding a chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon and a bouquet of plastic flutes.
“Champagne, ladies?” He pours some for Swan and some for Ayers. “This storied bubbly has notes of Canadian pennies, your dad’s Members Only jacket, and…” He glances over Ayers’s shoulder. “‘We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together.’”
Why does he keep doing this? Ayers wonders, but Swan laughs. “Ha! You can say that again!”
Ayers turns to see a cute little speedboat pull up. Tilda is at the wheel and Cash is next to her.
Ayers is seized with panic. Cash is here? What’s Cash doing here? It’s obvious, hello, that he came with Tilda, that’s her parents’ little runabout, though they also have a sixty-two-foot single-hull sailboat. Tilda and Cash? Yes, Baker told her this the other night. It’s good, it’s great, Tilda and Cash together isn’t the problem—except, maybe, for Skip. The problem is that Cash will see Ayers here with Mick and report back to Baker.
Ugh! Arrgh! What can she do? Can she pretend she’s here with Swan? Maybe Cash and Tilda won’t stay; there are a lot of boats here already, maybe they want privacy, maybe they’ll head over to Mermaid’s Chair where they can be alone. Or to Dinghy’s on Water Island.
Go to Dinghy’s! Ayers thinks.
But Tilda has earned her place at this party; she works just as hard as everyone else. Ayers notices she gets a sadistic grin on her face when she sees Skip. She must want to gloat.
Cash and Tilda raft up with Mick. Ayers watches Mick and Cash shake hands. Ayers offers a lame little wave.
Captain Stephen starts playing the guitar and singing “Southern Cross.”
Think about how many times I have fallen…
Mick’s hand lands on the back of Ayers’s neck. He knows how much she loves this song.
The pizza arrives—one carbonara with lobster, one bloomin’ onion drizzled with lemon aioli, and Ayers’s ultimate splurge, the chocolate-banana Pizza Stix. She drinks her champagne—Skip has, generously, left the bottle for her and Swan to split—and she eats some pizza, plays tug-of-war with the crust with Gordon, and dives off the boat for a swim.
Tilda and Cash have noodles. They’re floating in the water, interested in no one but each other.
Mick is gone somewhere. Ayers cranes her neck to see if, by chance, Brigid has arrived on any of the boats. Captain Stephen stops playing and there’s the spine-chilling shriek of microphone feedback, then she hears Mick’s voice.
“You guys, can I have your attention please? Hey! Everyone, please quiet down.”
Ayers sees Mick heading toward her with the microphone. Is he going to sing to her or