“Sounds like it’ll be a fun day, Logan, “ Bette answered with a smile, “but we may start heading back before lunch tomorrow.” She looked at Tina. Tina nodded, “Yeah, it’s probably going to be jampacked on the roads heading back to the city tomorrow. And we’d rather not get caught in the Memorial Day traffic over the bridges. Bette and I will have to make an early morning appointment on Tuesday, so…”

The rest of her sentence was cut off by a male voice in the dark who had called out, “Hey Tina!”

They whirled around, looking in the general direction of where the voice seemed to have come from. Through the occasional bursts of fire leaping out from the large bonfire, they saw William, who was now waving at them, dwarfed by the group of men standing around in a circle with him. This group was standing around one of the cocktail tables, and closer to where the lawn dropped to the beach, further away from the water’s edge.

“Oh, hi William!” Tina responded in a surprised voice and waved back. She gave Bette a quick peck on the cheek and squeezed Logan’s hand before suggesting, “Why don’t you both go on ahead of me and join Marissa? I’ll go see William. I didn’t know he would be here tonight.” She gave Logan a questioning look.

“Yeah, I think he arrived about half an hour ago, when you and Bette were with Angelica. He showed up together with a friend of mine who owns the steak restaurant in town — the one that catered tonight’s dinner,” Logan explained briefly, and waved in the direction of William’s group. One of the portly men standing next to William waved back at him.

“Okay baby,” Bette answered, and pulled Tina’s hand up to her lips and kissed it. “We’ll look for you later?” Tina nodded, then reluctantly let go of Bette’s hand as they turned to walk in opposite directions, fingers lingering in touch even as Bette and Logan headed toward Marissa, and Tina walked to where William continued to wave at her from.

Logan and Bette continued to chat about the day’s festivities as they walked. Somewhere in her subconscious Bette registered that the men standing near Marissa had broad enough backs that they obscured her view of who else was in the crowd. She figured there were about 15 people standing in a broad, loose circle in that crowd, some engaged in one-on-one conversations, others in a group conversation. She guessed they were friends of Marissa and Lauren, as she and Tina had seen Lauren was standing next to Marissa in the circle when they’d quickly returned Marissa’s wave earlier.