closely, and then put it back down. Cleo was watching her, probably wondering if she was a secret pothead, and Claire was just about to make a joke about it, when she heard someone calling her name.
She turned to see a girl in a jeans skirt and bikini top running toward her. “Claire!” the girl called out. “Claire, hi!” It took her a second to realize that it was Heather Foley, a girl she used to babysit for, and before she had a chance to say hello, Heather had thrown her arms around Claire’s neck and was squeezing tightly.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she said. “I didn’t even know you were here.”
The Foley family owned the house next to the Coffeys’ and had been going to the shore for as long as Claire could remember, before they even had any kids. For a couple of summers, Claire had been a mother’s helper for the family. It was a job she liked, holding the children’s hands as she walked them toward the ocean, making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for lunch, putting them down for naps in their stuffy summer rooms, promising that they could go back down to the beach as soon as they woke up.
Once when she was trying to get Bobby Foley ready for bed, begging him to put his pajamas on, he’d declared, “No pajamas. I want to sleep naked like my dad does.” As soon as Bobby finished saying this, Claire looked up to see Mr. Foley standing in the doorway. He’d walked away as though he hadn’t heard anything, and Claire almost died of embarrassment. To this day, when she saw him at the shore, she always thought, I know that you sleep naked. It seemed too much information for her to handle, too personal for her to process.
Heather finally released her grip and Claire stepped back to look at her. “Oh my God, Heather. Look at you!” She sounded like an old person, but she couldn’t help it. Heather looked so grown-up. She’d just finished her freshman year at GW, she told Claire. She’d gained a little bit of weight in her hips and breasts and had that happy, pudgy look that freshman girls get. She was deeply tan, almost unnaturally so, like she’d been working on it all summer long.
“This is Cleo,” Claire said. “Max’s girlfriend.”
“Hi,” Heather said. Claire could tell she was trying not to stare.
“So what are you up to this summer?” Claire asked.
“I’m waitressing at the fishery. It’s so fun. There’s tons of kids working there that I know from high school and stuff.”
“That’s great,” Claire said. She was about to ask how her first year of college was, just to make sure that she sounded completely like an old lady. But she noticed that Heather was looking at something, her face getting red. Claire turned around to see a college-age guy in a bathing suit, taking huge bites out of a cheeseburger, as though it were just a little snack.
“Oh my God,” Heather said.
“Who’s that?” Claire asked.
“Bradley.” Heather was barely whispering and Claire had to lean in to hear her. “He works at the restaurant with me. We’re sort of—I don’t know.”
“Ohhh,” Claire said. She smiled. She remembered summers at the shore, running around with her friends and chasing boys. Every day exciting, not knowing who you were going to see or what was going to happen. Claire hadn’t felt like that in a long time. She hadn’t even wanted to feel like that, which was maybe more disturbing. The thought of dating again, of getting back into that whole mess, was so tiring. But watching Heather skitter around, trying to pretend like she wasn’t watching Bradley, almost reminded Claire of why it was so fun. Almost.
When Heather was about three, she always wanted to brush Claire’s hair, which really always ended up getting it in knots. But one time, she’d sat there patiently, letting Heather run the brush back and forth so that her hair covered her face. All of a sudden, Heather had started laughing, really laughing, like she’d seen something so funny she couldn’t believe it.
“What?” Claire had asked her. She peeked out from behind her hair and saw Heather lying on her side, still laughing.
“You look like a donkey,” Heather said, and she rolled back and forth on the floor.
That was how Claire always remembered her. And now, here she was all giddy and excited about a guy, a Bradley. How had that happened?
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, THEY