Mallory turns around. Leland and Fray are nowhere to be seen, and she’ll never find them in this crowd. Jake is right behind her and suddenly his hand lands on her hip, then lifts. Mallory isn’t sure what to do. Should she turn around and raise her face to his, or is that too obvious? She decides to act natural. She dances like no one is watching.

Everything is still okay. After last call, the lights come up and the crowd spills out of the bar onto Dave Street.

“Are you all right to drive home?” Jake asks.

She’s fine. She had two Coronas and half of a third, but she’s sweated most of it out.

When they reach the Blazer, they find Fray sitting in the back seat polishing off a beer.

“Where’s Leland?” Mallory asks. She has known Frazier so long that she can tell just by the set of his jaw that something is wrong.

“She left.”

“What?” Mallory says. “Where did she go? Did you two have a fight?”

“She bumped into a group of people she knew from New York,” he says. “They invited her to go to a bar downtown and she said yes. She didn’t want to stay here, it was too crowded, they don’t have chardonnay or whatever she drinks now.”

True, Mallory thinks. No chardonnay at the Chicken Box. That’s kind of the point.

“Didn’t they invite you?” Mallory asks.

“They did, reluctantly, but these weren’t our type of people, Mal. These were New York people, Bret Easton Ellis people.”

“Ah,” Mallory says. “Okay. Well, she’s a big girl. She’ll find her way home.”

Everything is still okay, sort of. Mallory drives safely back to the cottage. She hopes that Leland has the phone number with her, otherwise…well, big girl or not, she’s going to have a difficult time finding the cottage on the no-name road.

Mallory pulls into the driveway; Frazier jumps out while the car is still moving and storms into the house. By the time Mallory and Jake get inside, Frazier has the bottle of Jim Beam by the neck.

“She’s not here,” he says. “I’m going for a walk.” He leaves; the screen door bangs shut behind him. Mallory watches Fray drop onto the beach and head right. The darkness swallows him up.

“He probably shouldn’t be by himself,” Mallory says. “I’ll get Coop.”

“I can go after him,” Jake says.

“No, let’s get Coop,” Mallory says. “He’s known Fray forever, he’ll talk some sense into him.”

(Later, she’ll hate herself for not letting Jake go after Frazier. But in that moment, all she wants is to be alone with Jake.)

Cooper’s bedroom is dark; the door is open a crack. Mallory pokes her head in. “Coop?”

No answer. Mallory turns on the light. The room is empty.

Empty? Mallory notices his duffel bag is gone and then sees the note on his pillow.

Sorry, Mal, I took the last ferry back. It’s not worth doing this to Krystel. She threatened to call off the wedding if I didn’t come home.

“What?” Mallory shouts.

Jake steps out of the bathroom. “Something wrong?”

Mallory shows him the note.

It’s not worth doing this to Krystel.

It’s not worth doing this to Krystel? They aren’t doing anything to Krystel! They’re enjoying a weekend at the beach. Krystel threatened to call off the wedding if Cooper didn’t go home? Krystel is holding Cooper at emotional gunpoint?

“I don’t know Krystel,” Mallory says to Jake. “And now I don’t want to.”

“I’ve met her.” Jake sighs. “I don’t normally comment on other people’s relationships, but…”

“Say it.”

“It probably won’t last,” Jake says. “She’s very pretty—blond hair, dark eyes, amazing body…but that’s all there is. Once you get past the shiny wrapping paper and the fancy bow, the box is empty.”

“Ouch,” Mallory says. “Should I…what should I do?”

Jake sweeps Mallory’s hair out of her eyes. “Kiss me,” he says.

It’s rapture—Jake’s mouth, his lips, his tongue, his face, his arms. He falls back onto the sofa and pulls Mallory on top of him. She stretches out each kiss like it’s taffy. But there’s something else tugging at her. What is it?

“Wait,” Mallory says, surfacing. She blinks, looks around the room. “We have to check on Fray.”

On the beach, Mallory calls Frazier’s name and Jake jogs along the waterline. The waves slam the shore with uncharacteristic force, or maybe it just seems that way because it’s so late and so dark. There are some stars, but clouds cover the moon, and there are no other homes on this stretch of beach, no homes until Cisco, nearly a mile away. Mallory has never realized how isolated her cottage is.

Jake calls her; he’s picking something up. It’s Frazier’s clothes—jeans, the Nirvana shirt.

“Did he?” Mallory looks at the water. “Did he go in?”

Jake drops the clothes and strips down to his boxers.

“You’re not.”

He charges into the water.

Mallory starts to shiver. The night has suddenly turned sinister. She thinks back to the moment they were all sitting around the dining table toasting Cooper. Everyone was comfortable, safe, together.

But then Leland and Fray had crossed arms. Bad luck, if you believed her mother.

Mallory keeps Jake in sight, his dark head, the sleek curve of his back when he dives into an oncoming wave. She scans the water to the right and the left. She screams down the beach, “Fray! Fray! Fray!” Her voice sounds like something broken or ripped. “Frazier Dooley!”

Jake staggers onto the beach, out of breath. “Leave his clothes where we found them,” he says. “Go call 911.”

Mallory tells the dispatcher that she lives in the cottage on Miacomet Pond and she has lost a friend in the water. An eternity—four and a half minutes—passes before she hears sirens, and another minute passes before she sees lights. One ambulance pulls up; it’s followed by a truck towing a trailer with an ATV. Jake leads the rescue team—one uniformed officer and two divers in wetsuits—down to Frazier’s clothes. The team members have lights; they have boards and rings and buoys.

One officer stays at the house. He’s beefy, with reddish hair and freckles. He’s…familiar-looking?

“I’m JD,” he says. “You were my server last week at the Summer House.”

“I was?” Mallory says. She’s too panicked to go back and search her memory.

“How long ago did he leave?” JD asks. He has a clipboard. He’s the information man.

“I’m not sure,” Mallory says. How long were she and Jake kissing? “Half an hour?”

“Had he been drinking?”

“Yes,” Mallory says. “Beer and…Jim Beam.”

“Why didn’t you try to stop him?”

“I didn’t know he was going swimming,” Mallory says. “He told us he was taking a walk. I thought he wanted to be alone.” She drops her face into her hands. Why did Fray go swimming in the middle of the night? Why did he drink so much? Why did Leland go to town with her friends from New York? She could have seen them Sunday when she got home for her friend Harrison’s rooftop thing or whatever. Why did Cooper leave? His best friends were here! The weekend was for him!