In a way, the party had only caused his thoughts to make a loop, from standing alone in the fog and musing on emotions he could not name, to the same fog, perhaps the same emotions. He couldn’t exactly remember the details of how he had felt those hours before. Feelings were like that— you were never sure if you had actually recaptured them.

It turned out that, the farther he went toward the waves, the more the sands sloped down, as if curving with the horizon. The beach was damp, then wet and packed, and the fog was no longer dense but more like a distant envelope. There were lights on a dock to the south, and one or two pulsing from a fishing boat. He saw a woman swimming. She was striding out of the breakers, then, as she found her legs, trotting until she was free from even the touch of seafoam. It was as if she had swum from across the ocean and he had discovered her.

She waved at him. It was Mildred. In her red swim cap.

She found her towel, and began to dry the black mohair bathing suit he had found so modest.

“Hello, Mildred,” he said, approaching.

“Hello, Mr. Chaplin.”

“You really can call me Charlie. I even prefer it.”

“Okay.” She dried her shoulders and legs in silence.

“Did you enjoy your swim?”

“Oh, yes. The ocean isn’t so cold when you bear up to it.”

“Unlike people,” he said. She cocked her head, a smile on her lips waiting for the moment when she understood. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m being stupid.”

“No, you aren’t. Are you enjoying the party?”

“Yes,” he said. “How long have you been swimming?”

“I took a long walk first, then … I don’t know.”

“I prefer it down here, too. I like places that are on the edge of things, like the map, or the last building in a neighborhood. Sometimes I stand on the beach like it’s the bow of a ship.”

“When I’m swimming, I don’t know why I like it so much. It might be that there are so many fish beneath me.”

Charlie laughed his rare, honest laugh: Heh. Heh-heh.

“What?”

“No, do go on.”

“I’m up at the top and there must be miles and miles beneath me with seals and dolphins and then at the bottom are little things like spiders and snails and crabs that live in coral.”

It was endearing and genuinely childlike. “You know what Dr. Freud says about swimming?”

She shook her head. “Can we walk while we talk? It’s getting late.”

They walked up the slope. “It suspends you gently, but also there’s a little bit of fear and excitement, because of the way the waves can suddenly take you.”

“Hmm. Yes, I think that’s right.”

“Freud would say that’s like sex,” he said.