Alison plucked the one behind her ear and lit it for her.īeth smiled at Alison. Alison looked out toward the water.īeth sat down and asked for a cigarette. Beth was thin and strong and balanced on smooth calves. Or past that.īeth put one foot behind the other, extended her right leg, and lifted herself up on the toes of her left.

Beth had been married a little over a year to a man she had been with since college. Like Carrie and Alison, they were from Grand Rapids. Drew pretended he was from Chicago, Beth pretended she was from Boston. She had a plastic flower drooping behind her ear, and her dress was almost slipping off her cute, flat chest. “You have to consider all sides,” Carrie said.īeth, Drew’s sister who lived in Boston, swung through the screened door. “I can see why you think that….” She felt tender and protective of him. “I’m saying this because I’m drunk,” Alison said. She bunched it and sat on the banister, waving her legs in front of her, her feet near Carrie’s face. She stared at Alison’s deep-socketed face.Īlison pulled up her dress and tucked the hem into her underwear so the skirt billowed like a cushion. She had spent her twenties happy, fucking, and crying. She lit her cigarette and took a big exaggerated draw. “So we’re talking about Cass,” Alison said. She snapped her fingers for the pack and stuck one cigarette between her lips and the other behind her ear. “Yeah?” Alison said, wanting a cigarette. “The guy in the pictures would be Cass,” Carrie said. “Don’t think in terms of pictures,” Alison said. It pushed the water high on the tide, and Carrie watched the white beach getting pulled into the black Gulf. Tonight the wind bent the moon and seemed to terrify the palms. “It’ll be silvery in the rain,” she said. She told Alison she wouldn’t mind if it stormed the next day when she would marry Drew. Carrie jabbed the filtered end against her tongue, having some trouble lighting it in the wind. But most of their group had left, and outside the wooden bar they could cool off. Since the rehearsal dinner, she and Alison-long leaned-on, long necessary-had been having drinks. Late on the night before her wedding Carrie was drunk and had three cigarettes left.

Fulfillment susannah flood