Page 2 of The Beach Shack Legacy

Stella lifted her camera again and took three quick shots—Bea’s hands on the map, Anna reading with her chin propped on her fist, Tyler behind them both with the ocean in the window over his shoulder.

“What about meal plans?” Joey asked, and got out the notebook again.

Margo came through the front door carrying her canvas tote, wearing her painting smock over a cotton blouse. She scanned the room—quick, left to right, grill to counter to booths—and her eyes landed on the packet spread across the table and Bea’s face above it.

“Well,” Margo said. “Look at that.”

Bea held up the housing form. “I have a roommate. Her name is Sage.”

“What does Sage do?”

“Ceramics.”

“Good. Ceramics people are steady.” Margo set her tote on the counter and came over to the table and stood looking down at the campus map with her reading glasses pushed up on her head. “Your great-grandfather wanted to go to art school, you know. His father called it unserious.”

“And he opened a restaurant on the beach instead,” Bea said. “Much more serious.”

“He did.” Margo looked at the map a second longer. “I suppose it worked out.”

Anna’s eyes were bright. She pressed her fingers together and cleared her throat. “I’m really happy for you, Bea.”

“I know, Mom. You’ve said that fourteen times.”

“Fifteen. I’m counting.” Anna pulled her in again, shorter this time, and kissed the top of her head.

Bernie looked up from his crossword. Just a glance—over his reading glasses, the only one who needed them actually wearing them, across the room—and then back down. He wrote something in a box.

Bea refolded her campus map and stopped and looked at Stella.

“Wait. We’re picking up caps and gowns today. After lunch. You remember, right?”

Stella’s face went blank.

“You forgot,” Bea said.

“I didn’t forget. I just—it wasn’t on my⁠—”

“You forgot we’re picking up caps and gowns. For graduation. The graduation that’s in three weeks. That graduation.”

Joey looked up from his notebook and followed this like a tennis match.

“In my defense, I’ve been very focused on the⁠—”

Bea didn’t give her a chance to finish. “Stella Walsh, you forgot about graduation.”

“I forgot about the caps and gowns! That’s different!”

“How is that different?” Bea put both hands flat on the table.

Tyler, who had drifted back toward the dining room with his towel, said without turning around, “I skipped mine.”

Every head in the room swiveled.

“Your graduation?” Anna asked. “You skipped your high school graduation?”

“The surf was up. It was a four-foot south swell.” Tyler shrugged, still wiping. “You don’t waste a four-foot south swell on a gymnasium.”

“Tyler James Walsh,” Anna said.