So she had a job.

It didn’t make her feel that much better.

She walked down A1A. She tried not to look behind her because the thing about Buddy was that he had always been behind her, and now he wasn’t.

Up ahead, past Mr. C’s, there was a phone booth. Beverly looked at it, glittering and flashing in the sun. She had the idiotic thought that what she should do was call Buddy.

Buddy.

Who was a dog.

Who had been a dog.

Buddy.

Who was dead.

She went up to the phone booth and pushed on the door and went inside. It felt like stepping into a tall, narrow oven.

Beverly pulled the door shut.

Her mother answered on the first ring.

She didn’t sound too drunk.

“It’s me,” said Beverly.

“Where are you?” said her mother.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Beverly.

She heard the snick of a lighter. She heard her mother inhale.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay,” said Beverly.

“You’re okay? That’s what you called to tell me? That you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Whoop-de-do,” said her mother. “You’re okay.”

Beverly leaned her head against the glass of the phone booth. “I got a job,” she said.

“Anyone can get a job,” said her mother. “I’ve had a job my whole life, and you can see how much good it’s done me. Where are you?”

Beverly said nothing.

“Fine,” said her mother. “Don’t tell me.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay,” said Beverly.

She hung up the phone.

She closed her eyes. She kept her head against the oven-door warmth of the glass. She could hear the cars going down A1A, and underneath that, there was the sound of the ocean — bright, hopeful, relentless.

Sweat was running down her face.

She kept her eyes closed for what seemed like a long time. When she opened them and lifted her head, she saw words glinting in the glass above her.

She read the words out loud: “In a crooked little house by a crooked little sea.”

It was like the beginning of a story.

In a crooked little house by a crooked little sea.

She reached up and touched the words. Someone had scratched the letters into the glass with something sharp.

Beverly thought about Raymie.

Raymie was her best friend.

Raymie would like these words.

But Raymie — constant, reliable Raymie, Raymie who had never failed her — wasn’t here, was she?

She was back there, back where Beverly’s old life was.

Back where Buddy’s grave was.

Beverly traced her finger slowly over the words.

How could a sea be crooked?

That was stupid.

She stood up straight. She opened the door to the phone booth. She started walking down A1A again, back the way she had come. She walked past Mr. C’s.

She walked past the Seaside End Motel.

She walked to the Seahorse Court. The woman was still standing out in front of her pink trailer. She was still watering her stupid flowers.

She saw Beverly. She waved. “Howdy, howdy!” she shouted.

The woman was like something that would spring out of a cuckoo clock, shouting her stupid greeting on the hour and the half hour.

Beverly sighed. She turned down the seashell path and walked toward the pink trailer.

She couldn’t say why.

“Howdy,” she said when she was closer to the woman.

And then she said it again.

“Howdy.”