“What’s so funny?” He jumped up and ran after the surfboard before the sea reclaimed it, returning to me shaken and out of breath. “What is so damn funny?”

“The rolling-on-the-beach scene in From Here to Eternity! I always hoped I’d find a man who made me feel like that, and look, I have!”

“What are you talking about, girl! I could have died out there! And look at you! Flopped here like a piece of seaweed.”

“Yes! Don’t you see? That’s why it’s perfect!”

Terrence didn’t. The humor lost some of its luster when I had to explain the scene and the movie, and finally I just gave up. Terrence’s life, clearly, wasn’t reflected in film. Mine was.

We took long, almost-daily sunset walks on the beach, ignoring the stares of people—white people, who naturally were the only sorts of people there. Terrence made me think: Why is that only natural? Why does a Negro on the beach at Malibu so defy expectations? But mostly I was too happy to give a damn what anyone thought. And though I had not forgotten what Diana Jordan’s transgressions had cost her, I banished such thoughts and reveled in the summer days and summer nights.

On our sunset walks, Bruno always jumped the low fence and tore down the beach to be with us. Terrence knelt and rubbed his ears. “Hey, boy. Good dog. Good dog, Bruno.”

“He likes us better than he likes the Wilburs,” I said. “They’re small-minded and mean-spirited and Bruno knows it.”

“We’re young and beautiful, and in a hurry,” Terrence said, giving me a slight nudge with his hip.

“We are! And we’re going to do great things!” I cartwheeled twice down the beach, then returned to him, breathless and happy. “I’m going to find the next Casablanca, and you’re going to win the Pulitzer Prize.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, laughing and tucking my arm in his, “a black reporter winning the Pulitzer will be for his coverage of hell freezing over.”

The sun sank at the horizon, leaving a gleaming path across the sea, and I went into the kitchen to make us something to eat that wouldn’t tax my limited repertoire. I had pretty much mastered scrambled eggs, and I knew not to burn the bacon. From the living room I heard Terrence give a loud groan. I went out to see him sitting in the big chintz chair, the script of Fly Me to the Moon in his hand.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”