Time Flies by Claire Cook Page A

and much soul-searching, you’ve finally moved on and you’re now actively but not exclusively dating again.”
    “If you’re not kidding, you are so dead meat.”
    B.J. laughed. We drove along the bumpy streets close to the water, the ones that flooded in practically every hurricane. Most of the houses had been lifted up on top of tall pilings, like stilts, with money from the same federal grants that rebuilt the seawallsevery time the ocean knocked them down. The people who lived here joked about opening all their doors in a storm and just letting the waves go in the back door and out the front.
    Growing up, we’d lived in a safer part of town, and I both envied these more adventurous families and wondered how they could decide which of their precious things to take when they evacuated for a storm. The diary with the heart-shaped lock or the autograph book from eighth grade? The 45s or the albums? Their favorite bell-bottom jumpsuit or the long hippie skirt made from thrift shop ties?
    B.J. pulled into the driveway of an old gray-shingled beach house with a big wraparound porch covered in flaked white paint. She put the car into park and we jumped out. The crushed mussel shell driveway crunched under our feet.
    “Just wondering,” I said, “but what did your profile say?”
    B.J. shrugged. “That I was in the process of inventing a second generation of virtual Post-its, but it was top secret and I couldn’t talk openly about it yet.”
    “Genius. Hey, are you sure this is the right place?”
    “Of course I am.” B.J. walked up to one of the salt-sprayed windows to get a better look inside.
    There was no sign of life at Jan’s beach house. No cars in the driveway, no answer to our repeated knocking. Both the front and the back door, which B.J. insisted on trying, turned out to be locked.
    “I used to have dreams about living in a beach house like this when we first moved to Atlanta,” I said. “Did you tell Jan what time we’d be here?”
    “Of course I did. At least I think I did. Let me try her cell.”
    I sat on the porch swing while B.J. dug through her purse and found her phone.
    “She’s not answering.” B.J. tucked the phone in the crook of her neck and bent down and picked up a corner of the weathered sisal welcome mat. “You’d think she would have at least left us a key under here.”
    “Like we would have just walked right in,” I said.
    “We could try the windows,” B.J. said, “but you’ll have to be the one who climbs in. These jeans are brand new.”
    “Sorry,” I said. “But I don’t do breaking and entering. Let’s just leave the car here and take a walk on the beach.”
    We crossed over to the water side of the street and walked until we found a beach entrance.
    I leaned forward to smell the beach roses in front of a dilapidated wooden fence that flanked the path. “I spent years trying to find a perfume that smelled like the beach—you know, a little bit of beach rose, a splash of salt air, a dash of suntan lotion. Bobbi Brown’s ‘Beach’ is pretty close, but I don’t think you can ever completely duplicate the real thing.”
    “So, move back,” B.J. said. “I mean, think of how much money you’ll save on perfume.”
    “Ha,” I said. “You make it sound so simple.”
    B.J. dropped her head and looked over the top of her sunglasses. “Your kids are grown, you’re self-employed, and your husband left you. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”
    “Leave me alone,” I said. “I’m not ready to think about it.” I loved B.J., but boundaries were not her strong suit.
    “I can’t leave you alone,” B.J. said. “I’m your best friend and I think it might be time to start pushing yourself a little bit.”
    I shook my head. “Why should I, when I have you for that?”
    B.J. grinned. “Love you, too.”
    I kicked off the flip-flops I’d been wearing since Atlanta and bent down to pick them up. “You know, flip-flops are truly the world’s best