Shot glasses were dispensed and filled up around the circle.
‘Most likely to be President in 2030,’ began Jeanne.
There was a chorus of groans, and everyone decided that the prospect of becoming even the manager of a Gap store seemed depressingly remote right now.
‘OK, OK,’ said Jeanne. ‘I get the message. You want me to spice it up a bit.’
The categories came thick and fast.
‘Most like to have hot monkey sex tonight,’ said Jeanne, getting more and more drunk by the minute. Even when she was not being nominated for a category she took a shot of tequila anyway.
Most people pointed at Rory and Gail, two of Jeanne’s neighbours who had spent half the afternoon making out on the beach.
‘I vote for Jim,’ smiled Tina suggestively.
Jennifer noticed her friend blush. Her own heart was thumping a little harder. Was Tina offering him a invitation? she wondered, hoping that Jim had been looking the other way or not listening. She took a shot of tequila even though she had not been picked by anyone, and prayed for the game to finish.
‘Most likely to get married . . . to one another,’ said Jeanne with a hint of mischief.
Jennifer looked around the circle. She was very drunk now. Having been voted most likely to end up on the New York Post’s Page Six and most likely to have a respectable job by Christmas, she’d had way too much tequila, and hadn’t drunk enough water in the heat of the day or eaten enough of the cake or cornbread.
She wondered where to cast her vote.
Jeanne had been coyly flirting with Pete all afternoon and she thought they would make a great couple if only Jeanne would stop playing at being ‘one of the boys’. But she didn’t want to embarrass her friend and in the end chose Rory and Gail, who picked up the entire bottle of tequila and said they were going home to bed.
‘Jim and Jen. That’s who I think are most likely to get married,’ said Jeanne from the other side of the campfire, waving a marshmallow on a stick. ‘You two are so sickeningly cute and gorgeous.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a Green Card,’ said Jim, grinning, then downing his shot.
‘You old romantic,’ Jennifer said, trying to hide her nerves. A flutter of awkwardness passed between them. Spots of rain began to fall.
‘You’re kidding,’ shrieked Jeanne, jumping to her feet and grabbing her blanket.
Within a minute it was raining hard. Everyone sprang into action, collecting their things and running barefoot from the beach, the sand growing colder and wetter under their feet by the second.
There were a few hotels and bars along the boardwalk. People seemed to be heading towards a neon-lit bar across the street, but Jim and Jennifer were right by the truck.
‘Jump in,’ said Jim, hurrying to get the door open as a crack of thunder rumbled through the sky.
They sat in the cabin, dripping wet. There was a strange tension in the air that was making Jennifer nervous.
‘I should probably get back,’ she said finally.
‘Well, I’m not sure I can drive us,’ he confessed. ‘Shouldn’t have won “Most likely to be on the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine”. It was a slippery slope after that.’
‘I wondered when you’d start bragging about that, pretty boy.’
‘They appreciated the music,’ he chided.
They listened to the shower pound against the windscreen.
‘Why don’t we sit it out? Go for a drink with the others?’
‘No, I should really get back,’ she said, thinking of her mother. Besides, she had no intention of seeing Tina again, could imagine her cornering Jim at the bar and didn’t even want to think where that might lead.
He glanced in his rear-view mirror and then jumped out of the truck. Jennifer shouted after him, but he was in the middle of the road, trying to hail a taxi in the pouring rain.
A cab screeched to a stop. Jim ran back, locked up the truck and helped Jennifer load her basket into the cab. As they set off, she gazed out of the window. The weather felt like a portent that all the good times she’d had over the summer were coming to a close.