“I love your shoes, Sabrina.” Edie gestures toward Sabrina’s sandals, which are a toffee color, with thin leather straps wrapping up the length of her ankles.
“Me, too.” Meredith nods emphatically in agreement.
“Thanks.” Sabrina smiles casually, flips her hair. “Confession? I totally copied Molly. She was wearing a similar pair the other day. I’m obsessed with her style.”
Meredith and Edie purse their lips, looking as perplexed as Molly feels. Molly does own similar gladiator sandals. Was she wearing them the other day when she ran into Sabrina at Dr. Ricci’s? She must’ve been.
Molly gives Sabrina a grateful smile. “Thanks. That’s sweet of you to say.”
Edie swallows a sip of iced tea, checking her phone. “All right, Mer, it’s almost ten. We should make sure the kids are ready to go.”
“Have a good one, ladies,” Meredith calls with a wave. “See you at the club, Sabrina. Molly, you know, if you’d like Colin and me to sponsor you for next year, all you have to do is say the word. Happy to get you in the door!”
Molly says nothing, smiling stiffly as Meredith and Edie disappear into the crowd of patriotic colors. If she were braver, bolder, she’d say the words gathering in her mind: No, Meredith, Hunter and I are not considering joining the Flynn Cove Country Club. We have a mortgage and tens of thousands of dollars of outstanding IVF bills and aren’t in a position to drop a hundred grand on the FCCC’s initiation fee. And neither of us even like golf.
Her insides twist into a hard knot at the new knowledge that Sabrina and her husband belong to the club. They’ve barely been in Flynn Cove five minutes, and already they’ve joined? Molly doesn’t want to feel disappointed, but she can’t help it.
At eleven on the dot, the parade begins. There’s the high school marching band followed by police officers and veterans in uniform waving, floats from local businesses like Gwen’s Café and Waterside Car Wash that toss out handfuls of candy, then the shiny red fire trucks, their sirens blaring. The bicycles are last, more than a hundred children pedaling through the streets, balloons and streamers fluttering in their wake.
Emma Duffy’s bike wins second prize. Stella doesn’t win a prize at all, but her face is steady as results are announced through the megaphone. Molly is proud of her daughter, who isn’t always so even-keeled in the face of disappointment, and grateful that they seem to have evaded a meltdown.
Hunter offers to take Stella home. “If you two wanted to grab an iced tea or something?” he adds, glancing from Molly to Sabrina.
Molly sees the effort in his face. He’s relieved his wife has a new friend, and he desperately wants them to hit it off.
“Or a drink?” One half of Sabrina’s pink mouth slides into a grin. “There’s a bottle of Whispering Angel in my car.”
“Even better.” Molly smiles. “Skipping Beach is only a few blocks away. We can drink it there? It’s so nice out.”
“I love Skipping Beach!” Stella chirps, wrapping her arms around Molly’s thigh. “Can I come? Please, Mommy?”
Molly glances at Sabrina, who winks at Stella. “The more the merrier.”
Fifteen minutes later, the women spread two yellow-and-white-striped towels over the sand. Skipping Beach isn’t yet crowded—most of Flynn Cove is still finishing up at the parade.
“Not too close to the water, Stell!” Molly calls to her daughter, who is already chasing a particularly large seagull toward the surf.
Sabrina pours the rosé into two plastic cups, the pale pink liquid clunk clunk clunking through the nose of the bottle.
She hands one of the cups to Molly. “I just thought … wine beats iced tea, especially on a holiday weekend, right?”
“Obviously.” Molly grins. “I haven’t met many women around here who would day drink. Everyone is so … by the book.”
“Ha. Connecticut is fucking boring.” Sabrina flashes Molly an apologetic look. “No offense.”
“None taken. You live here, too, now.”
“Touché.” Sabrina laughs. “So tell me honestly, do you think I’m a total snoot for belonging to that stupid club? My grandparents used to live in Flynn Cove, and I grew up visiting them here. They were very involved at the FCCC, so I felt like we had to join. But it’s kind of dumb. My husband doesn’t even golf.”
“Neither does Hunter, really.” Molly feels like Sabrina is reading her mind. “But no, if you have family ties, of course it makes sense. Hunter grew up here, and his parents were never FCCC members. His is a big boating family, they belong to the yacht club, over on Harbor Street? It’s smaller, there’s tennis, no pool, but it’s nice—Stella sails there, and she’s crazy about it. Hunter taught me to sail, too, so it’s become a big family activity.”