Page 57 of Songs of Summer

Maggie and Matt ran back upstairs.

“Do you really think she could have drowned?”

“I highly doubt it. She’s probably asleep on the beach somewhere.”

“Would it be wrong to note that you definitely have the more popular wedding date?”

Matt threw her a sweatshirt and pulled one over his head.

“Just put this on,” he laughed, secretly satisfied that she spoke the truth.

Instinctively, Maggie reached for her phone. “Oh no! I left my phone charging at the hotel. Where is my brain?”

“We’ll get it later. Come on.”

Outside they slammed right into Bea, who collapsed in tears in Renee’s arms.

“I killed her. She drowned herself.”

“Take her home. She’s hysterical,” Jake instructed Renee. Maggie instinctively reached out to Bea and hugged her, and Bea sobbed on her shoulder. Jake switched things up. “Maggie, go with Renee and Bea. Dylan, you go with Matt.”

Within minutes, a chopper from the Marine Bureau was overhead, its enormous floodlight searching the vast ocean. Jake headed west and sent Matt and Dylan east. It was cool and dark. They linked arms and searched the shore with their flashlights.

After an hour of looking, they retraced their steps and rested in front of the dunes near their home block. The helicopter was still following the shoreline, while in the distance two police boats were scouring the ocean.

“It’s OK to rest,” Dylan said, “but we should try to stay awake.”

Matt had no idea how they would stay awake. The adrenalinethat had fueled the first hour of their search had now faded. It felt like coming down after a sugar high.

A few minutes in, Dylan spoke.

“Hazmat?” she asked, in homage to her childhood nickname for him.

“Yes, Dyl pickle,” he responded in kind.

“Remember the summer we tried to stay awake on the beach to see the Red Moon?”

“Yes, we didn’t make it—we were, like, twelve.”

“We played that Oreo hand game over and over till our palms were chafed to stay awake.”

“I remember.”

“The game or playing it?”

“Both.”

“Me too.”

After a minute more, Dylan asked, “Would it be wrong to play it now, under these circumstances?”

“Not if it helps us stay awake.”

Dylan crossed her legs and turned to face him. He did the same. And they began, as if that Red Moon were yesterday.

“Do you know exactly how to eat an Oreo? Well, to do it, you unscrew it, very fast, ’cause the kid who eats the middle of an Oreo first can save the chocolate cookie outside for last!”

They messed up a little with the hand motions, causing Dylan to insist they do it again. After four times they got it down perfectly, and even under the awful circumstances, they both crashed down into the sand laughing.

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