“Oh, you and long-­distance. Really, the way he throws money around,” Billie said to Ethel. “He never thinks of saving. The times he called me up all the way from San Diego . . .”

“That isn’t why I called from San Diego, just to throw money around. Did you think it was?”

“Well, you could have written more often. Letters mean—well, don’t they, Mrs. Grandin. They give you something to put your finger on, like. Honestly, I never could remember after we hung up what we’d said at all. Could you, Cliff?”

The day was fine and cloudless, but unbearably, dangerously hot. It was as though—unless one moved fast: swam, ran, played in the sand (but few felt like doing that)—actual danger lay just beyond the shade of the sun umbrella. A heat as stifling as the heat beating down from the sun rose from the beach; all of them lay in a kind of atmosphere of torrid suspense, relieved only occasionally by a coolish breeze blowing from offshore or by a faint spray of sea water from the crest of a breaking wave. Sometimes the crashing surf sent small vaporous clouds along the sand, and tiny rainbows moved with them in the sun.

The Howards lay covered up under a sunshade touching the Grandins’; the two umbrellas formed a little tent for the party of six. Nearby, on the carpetlike towel beside his mother, Mr. Eklund regarded them inquiringly, as if awaiting an invitation to join them. John Grandin avoided his glance.

“When we get back, Johnnie,” Hauman said, “you must come up to Bridgeport right away and see us. You’d love my daddy. Wouldn’t he, Billie?”

“Sometime,” Grandin said. “We’ll see.”

“My daddy would love to have you as much as we would. He loves company. You’d have a whole room all to yourself, Johnnie, any time you like. You don’t need to give us any advance notice, even. I sure hope you’ll come out and see us. . . .”

Ethel and Mrs. Howard were to leave on the eleven-thirty bus for Nantucket, where they had appointments at two o’clock with the hairdresser. From the time they had got up that morning, Ethel had seemed to take it for granted that it was all set about the Yacht Club dance, though he had not discussed it further. There was little he could do but agree to go. Much as he dreaded the evening, it would have been an open declaration of trouble if he stayed behind while all the others went to the dance.

Bill Howard sat up. “How about a swim, Sadie?”

“No time. We’ll be leaving in a minute.”