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“Forget them. Caleb, we just spent thirty minutes with two men from one of the most iconic groups of the twentieth century. I’m buzzing. I don’t even care anymore about the paper’s missing ads.” Emery started typing in her Notes app. She’d just thought of a great opening line for her story.

Caleb announced his need for concessions and headed off, returning with hot dogs, chips, and two large souvenir tumblers of Diet Coke. She took a bite of her dog and a sip of her drink before going back to her notes.

“I can’t think with all this noise. I should listen to the recording, but I didn’t bring my AirPods.”

“Want me to tell everyone to pipe down?” Caleb said.

“Would you?” She patted his arm without looking up. “That’d be great.”

“Em, you’re in an outdoor amphitheater with ten thousand people waiting to hear the Beach Boys. Stop working. Have fun. Soak up the atmosphere.”

She looked up, smiling. “I’ve not had a story this fun since my crime and corruption piece on Ohio’s Speaker of the House.

” She started typing, then looked up at him.

“I don’t want to forget anything, hearing how it was in the early days of rock-n-roll, how they developed their sound, how it feels to have such an enduring legacy.

I’m going to weave in a bit about Delilah Samson. ”

An older couple took the seats on the other side of her. The man leaned in to say, “We fell in love dancing to the Beach Boys. Fifty-eight years later, asking her to dance was the best decision of my life.”

S he shook his hand. “Emery Quinn, editor of the Sea Blue Beach Gazette . Can I ask you a few questions?”

She interviewed two more couples before the opening act, Dave Mason, brought the crowd together. The noise amplified, so Emery tucked her phone away and tried to escape into the music, but the story— the story —beckoned her.

When the Beach Boys took the stage, she tried for photos from her seat—she should’ve hired Kadesha again—but the angle was weird. She nudged Caleb to get some shots of the crowd.

“Can’t we just enjoy the concert?” he said.

“Darn it, I wish we had a Monday edition,” she said, snapping a picture of Mike Love, then tapping a note on her phone. “The crowd went wild when they sang ‘wish they all could be Florida girls’ instead of ‘California girls.’”

When the opening chords to “Good Vibrations” hit the air, even Emery couldn’t resist the energy of the crowd, and the way the Beach Boys transported so many of them back in time when the post-war world was changing.

The couple next to her danced a slow dance in the aisle to “Surfer Girl,” and Emery snapped a couple more photos and jotted in her notes.

She lost herself in “Fun, Fun, Fun” and danced the swim in front of the stage with a couple of well-dressed, gray-haired women who were probably former prom queens.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard her mother’s subtle advice. “Be present , Emery. Everything comes in good time. If it doesn’t , it was never yours.”

Too soon it was all over, and she walked with the energized crowd to the parking lot, singing “wish they all could be Florida girls.” Heading home, Caleb stopped at 7-11 for a couple of waters.

“I needed tonight,” she said after a long drink. “Wasn’t it fun? Meeting Mike and Bruce, talking to couples who grew up in that g eneration, feeling the vibe of the crowd, and hearing the music. I really have to get Delilah to talk to me.”

“You’ve got a great story for the Gazette ,” Caleb said, not matching her enthusiasm. Somewhere toward the end of the concert, he’d gone quiet on her.

At the Sands Motor Motel, the courtyard was lit by the fire and the lights strung from cottage to cottage, the Beach Boy’s music playing from mounted speakers.

“All right, Ransom, what’s up?” she said as he walked her to her door. Delilah’s cottage was shut tight, but Emery sensed the ambiance of the courtyard was her doing.

“All right, since you asked. First, I had a blast. Thank you for inviting me.” He walked toward the firepit, then turned back to her.

“You know how the couple next to us danced to ‘Surfer Girl’? I, um, wow, now it sounds silly, but I wanted to dance with you to that song.” He laughed.

“Ever since you invited me, I had it in my head, some romantic notion of—” He waved off his comment.

The bass chords and the harmonic “oooohs” of “Surfer Girl” dropped into the atmosphere. He glanced at her and laughed softly. “I think Delilah is spying on us.” He held out his arms. “Can I have this dance?”

“All you had to do was ask,” she said, resting her cheek in the strong spot of his chest, listening to his heartbeat as she followed him through the rhythm of the music. “At the concert, I mean.”

“Let’s always do this,” he whispered close to her ear.

When she looked up at him, he bent toward her until his lips found hers. It was the first, next kiss, in a sixteen-year gap. New and exciting, yet familiar and known. Everything she remembered about that summer.

When the song ended, they continued in a slow sway, stealing kisses and forgetting a world beyond the Sands and Sea Blue Beach existed.

“ Maybe you’ll knock on my window tonight like you did that summer?” She laughed as if she were teasing but she felt the eagerness in her voice.

“Maybe I will. Your dad’s not here to put some Krav Maga move on me.” Caleb kissed her one last time as she leaned against the doorframe. “But I still fear the Boyfriendinator.”

EMERY

Then . . .

When she came in from the beach holding Caleb’s hand, Dad was once again pulling burgers off the grill, and Emery Quinn made a decision. Actually, two.

One, she loved Caleb Ransom. At sixteen, almost seventeen, she’d found her forever man. Wow! She’d never, ever, ever imagined she’d like a boy so much to think he was The One. Not until after college. But why not?

Grandma and Grandpa Force, Mom’s parents, met at sixteen, married at eighteen. Caleb told her his Ransom grandparents fell in love at fourteen and married after his grandpa came home from Korea.

As Dad would say, “There’s precedent for it.”

Two, she was never leaving Sea Blue Beach.

That’s as far as she’d gotten with that one.

The logistics were complicated. What about Dad’s professorship at Case Western?

Or Mom’s power job at the bank? Or Emery starting as point guard for Hawken School?

Details, details. Florida had universities.

And banks. Nickle High had an exceptional girls’ basketball team.

Emery had meet several of the players this summer. They were super cool.

I n six-and-a-half short weeks, she’d become a bona fide member of Sea Blue Beach. Even a queen, according to Caleb’s friends. Queen of Operation Revenge. Two nights ago, when Caleb worked the Starlight, Emery went skating with Shift’s sister and her bestie. Had a blast.

“Young Mr. Ransom,” Dad said, trying to sound stern but fooling no one. Last night he told Mom how much he was going to miss “that boy.” He hoped Emery would find a nice kid like him back home. But there was only one Caleb Ransom.

“Tell your father thanks for the grilling tips,” Dad said. “I’ve become the grill master I’ve always wanted to be.”

“Hayden Ransom is your guy, Mr. Quinn.” He released Emery to help Dad with a platter of meat.

“After dinner, can I go to the Starlight with Caleb? He’s not working, and it’s eighties night.” Emery tossed her beach towel over one of the Adirondacks. She’d become more tan and more lean over the last month from all the beach volleyball and bike riding.

“We thought we’d have a family dinner tonight.” Dad motioned her inside. “Just us three.”

“Okay, but can’t Caleb stay?” He was family to her. She reached for his hand after he handed the platter to Dad. “There are six burgers here. We can’t eat all of them.”

“Another time,” Dad said, smiling. But there was something sad in his eyes. “Caleb, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Emery walked him out to his truck. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why he’s being so weird.”

“I get it,” Caleb said, popping open his truck door. “He wants a family dinner. I’d want that too if Cass wasn’t a freakazoid.” He kissed her quickly on the cheek. “See you tomorrow.”

She waited as he drove off, waving one last time.

Back in the cottage, Dad set out the mustard and ketchup and a plate of sliced onions and tomatoes. Mom set the seventies-style dishes on the table. They were eating at the table? Guess they were serious about this family dinner.

Dad put Emery in charge of the potato salad, coleslaw, and baked beans. He filled glasses with ice, and Mom poured the sweet tea.

Oldies played softly on the kitchen radio, but dinner wasn’t their usual lively affair with Dad telling corny jokes and Mom trying not to laugh, Emery sharing anything and everything about her day.

Dad was preoccupied. Mom looked more tired than usual. Emery couldn’t stop thinking about Caleb and their inevitable good-bye as she choked down her hamburger, which sat in her stomach like a rock.

At the end of the meal, Dad wadded up his napkin and said, “Let’s sit in the living room.”

“Here, Em.” Mom patted the settee, a rectangular velvet box resting in her lap. The Force family pearls. “I want to give you these.”

“The pearls? Why?” Emery wasn’t partial to pearls.

No one her age wore them. But these were special.

A family heirloom, given to a Force woman for her wedding.

Tradition dictated that the bride’s mother hooked the choker necklace on the inheriting daughter the moment before her father walked her down the aisle.

“I like Caleb a lot, Mom, but I’m not ready to get married just yet.

” Her laugh sounded hollow. What was going on here?

“I want to give these to you now since I won’t—” Mom smiled faltered, and her eyes filled her tears. “I won’t be here to give them to you for your wedding.”

“What are you talking about?” Emery looked at Dad, then Mom. “Why won’t you be here?”

Mom gathered Emery’s hands in hers. “When you were born . .. I was so happy. Finally, I had my baby. We’d tried for so long.” Mom’s tears spilled over and slipped down her cheeks.

Emery pulled away, standing. “I don’t know what you’re going to say but—”

“Will you please sit down? I have this whole speech prepared, and I’m going to say it.

” Mom patted the cushion again, and Emery sat with a huff.

“Your dad and I always planned to give you the Force name. It’s your heritage and your character.

” She opened the pearl box for Emery to see the white strand resting against the black velvet.

“You come from a line of loving, kind women who understood the power of family and motherhood. They stood up for things even when it wasn’t popular.

Shelby Force Canton was the first to wear the pearls.

Her parents went all the way to Tiffany’s to buy them.

She gave them to Elizabeth Force Jones, who gave them to Grace Force Wilder, who gave them to me, Rosie Force Quinn.

” Mom set the pearls in Emery’s hand again.

“Now I’m giving them to you, Emery Force Quinn.

Be strong, Em. Be a force for good. Don’t look back, don’t give up.

Yet lean on those who love you and care for you. L-let God into your life.”

“All right, that’s enough.” Emery was on her feet again. “Tell me right now. Why won’t you be here when I get married?”

Mom wiped her wet cheeks with a wad of tissues. “Don’t wear them until your wedding. Have some woman you love hook them on for you. I don’t have a sister, nor does your father, but—”

“Mom! Stop talking about my freaking wedding and tell me right now. What’s wrong?” But she knew. She felt it in every part of her trembling being. “I won ’t be here to give them to you.”

“—whatever you do, don’t let your friends try them on or borrow them. They’re not for a prom. They’re for your wedding. But be generous whenever and wherever you can. As I don’t know what the future holds for you and your dad, you can share with—”

“ Me and Dad? Me and Dad?” Emery paced through the small living space, into the kitchen, back to the living room, gripping the side of her head, fingers twined with her hair, shaking so much she feared she’d lose it. Flat-out lose it. “Are you ... dying? You’re only forty-nine.”

“Em,” Dad began, sad and low, “your mom has stage-four brain cancer. The days we disappeared? We were checking with specialists in Jacksonville and at the University of Florida.”

“I knew you weren’t visiting old friends,” she whispered. She waited for him to say more. “And ...?”

“And there’s nothing they can do. She could go through surgery and chemo, but it will be hard on her physically and mentally. At best, she’d live three or four months longer, sick more than not the entire time. Mom has chosen to forgo treatment and be present with us for her final days.”

Emery snapped the pearl box closed and tossed it on the settee.

“So let me get this straight. You and Dad have been on a journey discovering you’re going to die without saying a word to me?

Letting me run all over Sea Blue Beach with a cute boy as if life was all sunshine and lollipops?

I feel like I’ve been living a lie. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?

I’m sixteen, not six. When did you find out you had cancer? ”

“May,” Mom said softly.

“May? And you’re just now telling me? It’s mid-July.

” She faced her father. “So this whole summer was a fraud. We’re not here to make family memories.

We’re here to say good-bye to Mom. For you to give me the Force pearls.

Well, I’m not wearing them. Ever.” She ran out of Cottage 7, Dad’s voice calling after her.

“Emery, please come back inside.”

She crossed the courtyard and kicked a fallen pine cone. When her bare feet hit the beach, she ran toward the water, stopping o n the edge of the low tide, where the sands of Sea Blue Beach washed out from under her feet with each receding wave.

Tipping back her head, she screamed against the wind and toward the last bit of gold, red, and orange resting on the horizon, then raised her fist at the first peek of the full, luminous moon, the pearl of the night sky.

“You can’t have her. You can’t.”