Serendipity

Chapter 1

After six years in California, Maggie was surprised. She didn't expect to feel so charmed by the beach.

Surprise was an all too familiar feeling for Maggie these days, though. Recently, it seemed all her would-be plans had stood up and flung themselves out the window, leaving rushing emotions in their wake. She rotated between bemusement and bewilderment, shock and fear, and hope and panic. But Maggie was a writer, a master of spin, so the word she chose to encapsulate it all was simply surprise.

It had a better ring to it.

For instance: In the past week alone, Maggie had chosen to feel not depressed but surprised as she handed in her security pass at the studio lot, saying goodbye to the Melrose office she'd spent more time in than her own home while working as Kurt's assistant for the past two years. She was not ashamed but surprised as she packed up her month-to-month rental in Los Feliz afterward, throwing what few belongings she had into cardboard boxes and old suitcases, loading the luggage into the trunk of her bright blue Ford Escape. Its bumpers were still scratched and peeling from Los Angeles parking mishaps. (She never quite mastered the art of the parallel park.) Maggie was surprised, and definitely not regretful, as she pulled out of her driveway for the last time and made her way onto the darkened highway headed east, leaving visions of moviemaking glory in her rearview for good, like roadkill on the 405.

No, she was none of those things, those misfortunate mindsets. She couldn't be. She was simply surprised.

And well, perhaps the biggest surprise of all was happening right now. Maggie, sitting at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, toes in the sand, as the sun began to set on the first evening of an extraordinarily unexpected weekend in Fire Island, New York.

Talk about a plot twist.

A return to Ocean Beach had no place in Maggie's original summer plan, so how had she gotten here?

Technically, she'd taken the Long Island Rail Road from Penn Station to Bay Shore, followed by a five-minute shuttle bus to the docks and a half-hour ferry to Ocean Beach, her favorite of all the Fire Island towns.

Metaphorically, she'd made a thousand wrong turns until the universe somehow brought her back to where it all started.

Back, against all odds, on Long Island.

Brenna and Quinn had been nothing but kind since Maggie reached out with the news of her sudden LA departure and the announcement that she was moving back home. On that same awful morning, the one when she realized her career was over before it had even begun, she had logged on to Facebook with tears still pooled in her eyes. Like kismet, she saw that Brenna and Quinn had posted with a crowdsourced plea for a subletter to fill the vacant space in their Murray Hill apartment. "ASAP, ASAP," the status had read.

The post felt like a billboard for Maggie to follow. She brushed off their numbers in her phone contacts and within hours, a subletting arrangement was formalized. To New York she'd go. Home for the summer-she told herself that it felt like the premise of an early-aughts comedy, hijinks and humor around the corner.

It was a classic rewrite, something Maggie had found herself doing since her teenage years, back when disappointment had started to take permanent root on her parents' faces. She had learned to rewire her emotions, her wants, to preclude failure. Maybe because she had grown up on movies, had practically been raised by love stories like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, Maggie developed what seemed to be a perpetual predilection for happy endings.

Even if it meant reframing the plotline completely.

A failure in LA? A week spent sobbing in bed? Who wanted to watch that film?

Not Maggie.

Instead, she used the lonely hours on her one-woman road trip from LA to NY to smooth out her narrative. She decided to see this as a gift from the universe. A chance to start over. To start anew. The better movie, the better life, had to be right around the corner. Right? When Maggie's phone then pinged with the invitation to join the Ocean Beach weekend, she knew she'd been correct.

But now reality had set in, and Maggie ran her fingers through the sand, trying to quell the anticipatory nerves that started unwillingly swirling in her stomach. The travel fatigue was fading, the newness wearing off, and she finally had a chance to ask herself whether this might have been misguided. Not just moving home, but voluntarily trapping herself on an island with old friends who felt a bit like ghosts. No cars on Fire Island meant that the only way back to civilization was via ferry. What if she needed to escape?

It was too late for that type of thinking, Maggie reminded herself. Regrets would get her nowhere. She knew this by now.

Instead, she focused on how elated, truly elated, Brenna's and Quinn's faces had been when they'd swung open the door to their apartment just yesterday. Reunion initiated with music on the Bluetooth speaker backtracking the move-in-process, friendship picking up where it had been put down, no matter the time in between. Brenna and Quinn had always been the easiest, the most naturally disposed to goodwill (and forgiveness) of the friend group. The banner her new roommates had hung across the kitchen-Welcome home, Maggie!-had been constructed with printer paper and Sharpie, but it still made her lower lip quiver.

Next Maggie reminded herself of the way Georgie had run across Manhattan's Penn Station terminal to greet her mere hours ago, lifting her in his arms like he always used to. He seemed even taller, his face even more freckled, his hair even curlier than she remembered, but his smile just as wide as when they were kids.

From Georgie's arms, she had looked down at the new face of the weekend, PJ, the only member of the trip who hadn't gone to East Meadow High School with the rest. PJ had met the Peters twins, Cam and Mac, at UVA, and then joined their larger friend group after college when he followed the brothers to Manhattan. Maggie had extended her hand from on high (still in Georgie's arms) and noticed how PJ's eyes glistened despite the train station's fluorescent lighting. "Nice to meet you, Maggie," PJ had said. "So pumped you're joining this weekend."

The reunions were off to an ideal start.

So why did Maggie's stomach still feel so shaky?

The faces of Mac, Cam, and Liz blipped into her mind.

Right.

She swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry, and opened the Notes application pinned on her iPhone's home screen. Her digital diary. When she was a kid, Maggie's yellow No. 2 had practically been a sixth finger on her right hand. She'd scribble on any spare paper she could find. Words had always been her comfort, and even then she'd known she was born to be a writer. Now, like most mid-twentysomethings, she had replaced her pencil with her phone. She bit her bottom lip and typed:

Ocean Beach. It sounds like it could or should be some sort of oxymoron in name, though it's so enchanting in its essence. Maybe that's why I can't help but feel a bit moronic for being here? Is it too late to run away and hide?

She sighed and deleted those words. Rewrite, rewrite, she reminded herself. Trying again, she typed:

Ocean Beach, I promised to be positive, to pivot like it's no problem at all. This is going to be my summer. This is going to be my chance, to see what might have been if I'd never moved at all. My West Coast experiment has ended. The Hollywood lights let down. East Meadow friends, I'm home again. It's time for a new chapter to begin.

Then her typing was interrupted by a shout:

"Come on, Mags! It's time for a cheers!" Brenna called out, beckoning from the corner of sand where their group had made camp.

"Thanks again for bringing the snack spread of my dreams," Georgie added.

"Nothing better than happy hour at the beach," Maggie replied as she made her way toward her friends. Their towels were now circled around a charcuterie platter Maggie had surprised the group with, as well as a speaker blasting a "Feel-Good Indie Rock" playlist and water bottles filled to the brim with tequila and La Croix homemade cocktails. Ocean Beach had a rather strict No Alcohol on the Beach rule (which, as PJ pointed out, Georgie had reminded them of only after they'd paid the nonrefundable deposit for the rental), but when Maggie suggested the good-ol' water bottle trick, everyone agreed.

"To Ocean Beach!" Quinn kicked off, those same water bottles now dispersed and held in the air.

"To Ocean Beach!" The friends echoed the toast.

"And to Maggie finally moving home!" Quinn clinked her drink against Maggie's.

"Thanks for having me," Maggie said with a smile. "Can't believe I've barely been in New York for forty-eight hours and I'm already in Fire Island."

"It's bolted and we love it," Quinn said, a reference to one of their favorite high school terms. Maggie had coined bolted as a breakneck decision to do something wild, something fun. It was her favorite behavior, and she was usually leading the charge. Maggie loved eleventh-hour adventures, whether skinny-dipping in Cam and Mac's pool or buying last-minute tickets to the Scream marathon on Halloween weekend, with Ghostface masks for everyone that she'd picked up at Party City hours before. On principle, Maggie loved a theme, a celebration. She was first to bake surprise cupcakes for birthdays or demand cocktail attire to watch the Oscars from the couch. If life was a movie, Maggie wanted hers to shine.

"We're glad you're here." Brenna gave her arm a squeeze. "Glad you're home."

"So, Mags, why the sudden move back? Not that we're complaining," Georgie said.

"Just felt ready for a change," Maggie answered. It wasn't the full truth, sure, but she knew that nobody wanted their first afternoon of a beach weekend ruined by a career sob story. "Plus, when I heard you were throwing an after-prom reunion weekend, I couldn't miss my chance to crash."

"Seven-year reunion! I told you! It's a thing!" Brenna's face lit up.

"It's not a thing," Quinn groaned.

"This feels right," Maggie said, laughing. "So, what else have I missed? Fill me in on everything." She propped herself up on her elbows, letting her arms be anchored by the sand as she listened to her friends share stories. Mac and Georgie had finally gotten rid of the mice in their apartment, just in time for summer cockroach season. Brenna and Quinn were both doing well at their jobs, Brenna in HR and Quinn in software engineering, but together they secretly dreamed of starting a dog-astrology website. A new tiki bar had opened up below PJ's apartment and he'd already cemented a handshake deal with the owner for discount drinks for him and his friends. The updates went on and on.

Maggie grinned through it all. She had forgotten how much she loved the pace of this group's banter, the way they talked over each other while understanding every word. It was like Maggie could have blinked and fallen back in time to their high school days. Even their body language felt the same, and the way they were all sharing towel space and soaking up the sun, ankles crossed over each other's, snacks spread out in the middle. It had the distinctly nostalgic flavor of after-prom on Fire Island.

When Maggie had first walked into the Serendipity House earlier that afternoon, she'd felt similarly flooded by the memories. The same patio where they'd counted stars. The same bathroom where they'd slathered aloe lotion over inexcusably bad sunburns. The living room couch where they'd squeezed as many bodies as physically possible to rewatch the senior class highlight reel Maggie had filmed all year and then played at prom.

It was only when she walked by the door at the top of the stairs, though, that she felt goose bumps explode across her skin. That queen bed was the one she'd shared with Mac, her high school boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Their romance had started in the winter of their senior year but climaxed in Ocean Beach, pun very much intended. It had been a season of teenage flirts and daring firsts, but that weekend was when they'd finally slept together. After a night out at the Ocean Beach bars, Maggie lost her virginity to her down-the-street neighbor, one of her lifelong best friends.

She'd spent the rest of that summer loving Mac.

Seven years later, Maggie looked at the bed and could have fainted.

Despite the distance, despite the fact that she'd broken up with Mac a long time ago (for reasons she'd once felt certain of but somehow couldn't remember now), she was shocked to learn that even the thought of him could still conduct the beat of her pulse. He could make her entire body freeze with anticipation. Mac's arrival was right around the corner. Their reunion, imminent.

They say you never forget your first, and Maggie had spent hours on her road trip hypothesizing, wondering if this weekend, this surprising summer spent back home, was the start of a romance of her own. If after years of watching romantic comedies, writing stories about falling head over heels, she was ready for her fairy tale to really begin.

Was a second chance with Mac what all these twists and turns had been leading to all along? To be back in Ocean Beach, together?

Of course, it wouldn't just be Mac and Maggie reuniting this weekend. Liz and Cam were set to arrive any minute, too. Liz was Maggie's very first friend, her kindergarten playmate-turned-pseudo-sister. Cam was Mac's twin brother, and Liz's high school sweetheart. The four friends had grown up in the same part of Long Island, dubbed the Tree Streets for their arboretum-inspired names, ridden the same bus. The group formed the backbone of Maggie's youth. While best-friendship was a tier, it was no secret that Maggie and Liz and Mac and Cam had a next-level, a family-level friendship.

Before, of course, it all came crashing down.

Quinn must have read Maggie's mind. "What time are the others getting in?" She popped a cracker stacked with cheese, prosciutto, and a spicy Wickles pickle into her mouth.

"I think Liz said they were taking the six p.m. ferry?" PJ said.

"They really should be here by now, then," Brenna said, biting her lip ever so slightly. "I'll text them that we're at the beach."