dazzled like jewels in the night.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"It's beautiful."
"I thought you might like it."
To our right the ocean roared in the darkness. I
embraced myself.
"Cold?"
"A little," I admitted.
"I bet you really wanted to go to that beach
party," he said.
"I've never been to one."
"All they do is smoke dope or drink around the
fire.
Some of them go off into the darkness, of
course."
"Don't you want a girlfriend some day?" I asked
him.
"When I find someone sensible, I'll speak to
her," he replied.
"No one's sensible?"
"And pretty, too," he admitted. He stood there
with his hands in his pockets, kicking the sand and
occasionally glancing at me and then at the ocean.
"What about you?"
"What?"
"Did you have a boyfriend back in West
Virginia?"
"For a while I was going steady, but after
Daddy died. . . I stopped going to school dances and
things."