She went back to the Seahorse Court. Iola wasn’t in the front yard. Beverly walked up the little steps and knocked on the door.

She waited. She knocked again. The door opened, and there was Iola — big-eyed, unsmiling.

“Hi,” said Beverly.

“Hi?” said Iola. “That’s what you’re going to say to me? Hi?”

“I guess so,” said Beverly.

“I’ve been waiting for you for I don’t know how long,” said Iola.

“I didn’t ask you to wait for me.”

“I even put those lips on,” said Iola, “and I just sat here and waited for you, thinking how it would make you laugh if you come up the drive and seen me sitting here with those waxy lips on my face. And when you didn’t show up, I just ended up eating them.”

“How did they taste?” said Beverly.

“Terrible!” said Iola. “Waxy. And not near sweet enough.”

Beverly stood on the steps, and Iola stood in the doorway.

Somewhere behind them, the ocean was muttering.

“Don’t wait for me,” said Beverly. “I can’t stand to think about you waiting for me.”

“I waited,” said Iola. Her glasses slipped down her nose. She pushed them up with one finger. “Just because you can’t stand to think about something don’t mean it ain’t happening, that it ain’t true. People wait on other people. People rely on other people.”

Iola’s glasses slipped down again, and again she pushed them back up.

The glasses looked bigger than they had the day before. It was like Iola was shrinking.

Nod came and squeezed through Iola’s legs. He went down the steps and into the yard, his tail high.

Iola stood at the door without moving.

Beverly didn’t move, either. She just stood there. The ocean kept muttering. The sky was turning some kind of ominous pink. But then, pink always looked ominous to Beverly. It made her think of princesses and beauty contests and her mother and lies.

“Well,” said Iola.

“Well,” said Beverly. “Are you going to let me in?”

“I’m always going to let you in, darling,” said Iola. “It’s not a matter of whether or not I’m going to let you in.”

Nod stood at the bottom of the steps and looked up at the two of them. He made a noise that sounded like a question. The sky above the trailer turned from pink to purple. Dark clouds were rolling in.

“That cat wants to come back inside now,” said Iola. “In, out, in, out. You can’t ever predict what a cat wants.”

“I made a friend,” said Beverly.

“What?” said Iola.

“I made a friend.”

“Oh, honey,” said Iola.

Beverly shrugged. “His name is Elmer. It’s a stupid name. He works at Zoom City.”

“Oh, honey,” said Iola again. “I’m so glad.”

Nod came bounding up the steps. He wound himself through Beverly’s legs, working to trip her. She could hear him purring. The sky was dark with clouds now. “You stupid cat,” said Beverly.

“It’s fixing to rain,” said Iola. “Come on, now.”

She took hold of Beverly’s hand, and Beverly bent down and picked up Nod.

They went into the trailer that way — the three of them together.

Iola immediately set to work making Beverly a tuna melt. How was it that Beverly hated fish and worked at a fish restaurant and ate tuna fish every day of her life? How had that happened?

Rain was beating hard on the roof of the trailer. Beverly sat down at the little kitchen table and saw that there was a piece of paper placed right in the center of it. The paper was white with a border of little purple flowers, and there was an envelope with little purple flowers sitting on top of the paper. And on top of the envelope, there was a pen. The envelope had a stamp on it.

“What’s this?” said Beverly.

“Well, what does it look like?” said Iola. She fussed with the toaster.

“Stationery,” said Beverly.

“That’s right,” said Iola. “You said you wanted to write a letter, and I forgot about getting you what you needed. And then I remembered, and now there it is. Right in front of you.”

Nod leaped up on the refrigerator. He put his back to them. He studied the wall as if it contained some great mystery. His tail swung back and forth. Maybe someday, Nod would solve the mystery. Maybe a door would slide open in the wall, and Nod would leap through it and not come back.

But for now, he was here.

Beverly picked up the pen.

Dear Raymie, she wrote.

She sat still for a minute. She listened to the rain.

And then she bent her head and wrote:

There is this phone booth here that is just kind of on the side of the road, but also not very far away from the ocean, and someone has scratched some words inside it, on the glass. I don’t know who did it, but I guess that doesn’t matter.

What I wanted to tell you is that if you don’t know to look for the words, you could miss them. You could end up not seeing them at all. The thing is that you have to turn your head just the right way.

Don’t worry. I’m going to tell you what the words are. There’s a lot I’m going to tell you. But first, I want to ask you a favor.

Could you go and visit Buddy’s grave?

Beverly wrote for a long time. She used both sides of the paper. She had to ask Iola for another piece, and she still wasn’t anywhere near done.

She sat in the crooked little kitchen by the crooked little sea and wrote and wrote.