Page 37 of Ten Beach Road

“That’s great,” Avery said. “The more grunts the better.”

Madeline aimed a look at Nicole, who gave her one back.

“I don’t know,” Nicole said. “This was not a particularly great day; there aren’t a whole lot of good moments to choose from.”

“It doesn’t have to be great,” Avery said.

“And you only need one good thing,” Madeline agreed. “There must have been at least one.”

Nicole shook her head, but Madeline could see she was thinking.

“All right,” Nicole finally said. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t perform cataract surgery on the cashier in the middle of the grocery store like I wanted to.”

There was laughter as they clinked their glasses again. “A very good thing,” Madeline said as they turned to Avery.

“Let me see.” Avery paused, her head cocked. “All right, the good thing is that we’re just about done with the preliminary cleaning.”

A cheer went up.

“I’ll drink to that,” Nicole said.

“Me, too!” Madeline clinked and drank the rest of her rum and Coke then raised her empty glass up into the air.

“The bad thing,” Avery said once the cheers had faded away, “is that Chase Hardin will be on site full time as of tomorrow. It’s time to kick this job into higher gear.”

---