Beverly and Elmer walked down to the beach afterward.

They sat in the sand. Elmer sat close to her, his arm brushing up against hers.

“That made her happy,” said Beverly.

“Yeah, well,” said Elmer. “It’s not that great a drawing.”

“No,” said Beverly, “I mean all of it. Us being there.”

“Us?” said Elmer. He lay back. He put his arms behind his head.

“Us,” said Beverly. “You and me. Elmer and Beverly. Beverly and Elmer. However you want to say it.”

“The sun and the moon?”

“Right,” said Beverly. “Sure.”

She lay back in the sand, too.

There were stars in the sky — not a lot of them, but enough to convince you that there was something bright somewhere behind all of that darkness. And there was a moon, or a part of a moon, shining dimly.

“I have this friend who disappeared,” Beverly said, not sure why she was even saying it. “Her name is Louisiana Elefante, and she lived with her granny, and a few years ago, she and her granny just disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” said Elmer.

“Disappeared. Just gone, you know? We went looking for her. Me and this other friend, Raymie.”

For some reason, it felt strange to say Raymie’s name out loud.

She said it again. “Raymie.”

“Raymie,” repeated Elmer.

“Yeah, Raymie. She’s my best friend. Anyway, we went to the house where Louisiana and her grandmother lived, and it was empty. You could hear your voice echo. I mean, it was always empty — they didn’t have any furniture. But this was a different kind of empty. You could tell just by the way the house felt that they were gone, you know? It was terrible, walking through the house, looking and not finding anybody. I’ll never forget that feeling.”

“What happened to her?”

“She’s in Georgia now,” said Beverly. “She found a family.”

Elmer didn’t say anything. She could hear him breathing. Even with the crash and mutter of waves, she could hear Elmer’s breath.

“What about your family?” he said.

“I used to have a dog. Buddy. He was from the pound. Me and Louisiana and Raymie rescued him. Anyway, Buddy died. And I buried him in the backyard, and then I came here because I couldn’t stand it — that empty feeling.”

“What about your mother?” said Elmer.

“What about her?”

“Does she know where you are?”

“I called her. I told her I’m okay.”

“Are you going back?” said Elmer.

“I don’t know,” said Beverly.

“My parents are really glad that I got this scholarship to Dartmouth,” said Elmer, “and they’re really glad that I get to go away to school. But my mother cries about it all the time, too.”

“Because you’re leaving?”

“Uh-huh,” said Elmer. “I’m her baby.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not my mother’s baby. And she’s fine without me. She’s drunk most of the time anyway. She doesn’t know if I’m coming or going.”

“I bet she pays more attention to you than you think,” said Elmer.

“I doubt it,” said Beverly. “At work, there’s this woman named Doris. She’s the cook. She keeps an eye on me. She’s always giving Freddie — the waitress — the business, making sure that Freddie tips out with me. Doris keeps talking about equity. Equity is her favorite word. I was thinking about that — how no matter what, things are never fair.”

Elmer turned his head and looked at her. “Yeah,” he said. “But I guess you have to keep working to try and make them fair, don’t you? Otherwise, what’s the point in being here?” He turned his head back and looked up at the sky. “I can see stars,” he said.

“I know,” said Beverly. “I can see them, too.”

“‘The little stars were the herring fish that lived in the beautiful sea,’” said Elmer.

“What?”

“That’s part of ‘Wynken, Blynken, and Nod’— that poem. The nursery rhyme.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“‘Now cast your nets wherever you wish — never afraid are we!’ And ‘“Where are you going and what do you wish?” the old moon asked the three.’ I just know bits and pieces. I don’t know the whole thing.”

“When Buddy died, when we buried him, we said some poetry. Raymie said we had to. It was that one about slipping the surly bonds. Do you know that one?”

“Yeah,” said Elmer. “I know that one. I like that poem. I like poetry. I don’t write it, but I like it a lot. That’s something you’re not supposed to say out loud if you’re a guy. In case someone like Jerome hears you. And then beats the crap out of you, for being a poetry-loving sissy.” He sat up suddenly. He shouted, “I like poetry!”

He turned to her. He was smiling. She could see his teeth, white in the darkness. “That felt good,” he said. “You should try it. Shout the truth about something.”

Beverly sat up. She wasn’t going to shout that she loved poetry, because she wasn’t certain that she did. What was the truth? The truth was that she missed Buddy. She missed Raymie. She missed Louisiana.

“I miss everyone!”

That’s what she ended up shouting.

And then, “I miss my father!”

It felt strange to say it, shout it, admit it.

“Where is he?” said Elmer. “Your dad?”

“Gone,” said Beverly. “I don’t know. New York. At least that’s where he was last time I knew anything about it. He slipped the surly bonds.”

“Right,” said Elmer. He lay back down. “Those good old surly bonds. Do you know what the janitor said to me?”

“What janitor?”

“Mr. Jerowski. The guy who yelled at me in Polish when he found me tied up in his closet. After he was done yelling, he took all the duct tape off, and his hands were shaking. He was crying. He kept saying, ‘Fast, fast. I do it fast. It hurts less fast.’

“I wanted to tell him that it was okay, that I was fine. But I couldn’t make myself say it. And he kept crying and saying, ‘I’m sorry to hurt you. I’m sorry to hurt you.’ Like that, over and over.” Elmer shook his head. “He cried. And I cried.”

Beverly reached over and grabbed Elmer’s hand. She didn’t hold on to it. She just squeezed it and then let it go.

“How does it go with the herrings again?” she said.

“‘The little stars were the herring fish that lived in the beautiful sea.’”

“Yeah,” said Beverly. “That is incredibly, incredibly stupid — fish being stars.”

“Most everything is incredibly stupid,” said Elmer. “Speaking of which: Wanna go to a dance?”

“Sure,” said Beverly. “We could maybe win the world’s largest turkey.”

“We could,” said Elmer.

Beverly sat with her arms wrapped around her knees and looked up at the stars — or the herring fish, or whatever they were — shining up there.

“And the part about the nets?” she said. “How does that go?”

But Elmer didn’t answer her. She looked over at him. He was asleep.

“It was like, cast your nets wherever you want,” she said. “Right? Don’t be afraid to cast your nets, and you will maybe catch yourself some herring fish that twinkle like stars.”

She lay down next to him.

She listened to the ocean, to Elmer breathing.

The sand was still warm.