Page 32 of Beachfront Pages

"Fiona." Cassidy waved her over from a long table near the windows. She'd pushed two tables together, lined up the chairs, set out napkins in a way that looked effortless but absolutely was not. "We saved you a spot. Come sit by Emily."

So much for slipping in unnoticed.

"It smells incredible in here," Fiona said, because it did, and because it was easier than admitting she'd thought about turning around in the parking lot.

"That's the grouper." Bryan came around the counter with a platter held high. Broad-shouldered, sun-bleached hair, hands that looked like they'd hauled a lot of nets. "Caught it this morning. You want a beer? We've got the Seaside Wheat, brewed right here in town."

"Just water for me."

"Water." He shook his head like she'd ordered something tragic. "City people."

"She's barely city anymore," Cassidy said. "She's been here three weeks. That's practically a local."

Three weeks? How did that happen? Had it really been that long?

She sat down by Emily and the food came out in waves. Grouper and hush puppies. A slaw Cassidy swore was Bryan's grandmother's recipe. Bryan cooked and carried and never once sat, which seemed to be how he liked it. Winnie took the chair at the end of the table, the way a person does when the seat has always been theirs.

Fiona ate and watched.

She couldn't help it. It was the thing she did, the thing she'd always done, the reason Drake said she was never fully in the room. She watched people the way other people breathed.

"So the show's the second Friday," Emily was saying. She had paint under one fingernail she hadn't quite scrubbed out. "Grant's giving me the whole back wall. Eight pieces. I haven't shown eight pieces at once since Chicago."

"You'll fill it," Grant said.

"I might not fill it."

"You'll fill it." He said it without looking up from his plate, easy and certain, like a fact about the tide. "You've already got six. The other two will paint themselves."

Emily made a face at him, but she was smiling. "He's very calm about my deadlines."

"One of us has to be."

"You should come, Fiona," Emily said. "The opening. There's wine. Grant pretends to not like wine, but he drinks it."

"I like wine," Grant said.

"He sips it like a tea taster. It's the most pretentious thing about him, and he has a lot of competition."

Fiona laughed, and it surprised her. A real laugh.

But under the laugh was a small ache of it all. The way Grant knew Emily's work. The way he'd counted her paintings without being asked.

Drake had never once counted her chapters.

She picked up her water and took a sip.

"Melissa, did you bring them?" Cassidy leaned across the table. "She said she'd bring them."

"I brought them." Melissa wiped her hands and pulled out her phone. "Sam and I drove up the coast Tuesday. There's an old cannery about to fall into the water. I wanted it before it goes."

She passed the phone down the table. Fiona took it when it came to her.

The photo stopped her. A ruined building, all gray board and broken glass, shot at the hour when the light goes long and forgiving. The thing should have looked like a wreck. It looked like a held breath instead.

"Melissa, this is gorgeous," Fiona said, and meant it.

"That's the one for the cover, I think. Sam wants the lighthouse on the cover. I keep telling him the cannery's stronger."