Among the Hawaiians watching, Sharkey still felt like a skinny white kid. He laughed nervously as he signed, paid his fee for competing, filled out the forms. Walking away, he realized that though he had laughed a little, he had not said a word.

When he arrived home that night—past eight o’clock, because of traffic—Sharkey’s mother was waiting, looking stern, something on her mind, the muddled severity she often displayed when she was drunk.

“Sit down, Joe, please,” she said, sounding sober. But he knew her tipsy tone. She spoke more daintily and slowly when she was very drunk.

She had an envelope on her lap, her splayed fingers pressing it flat. As she spoke she lifted it and picked the flap open, her head wobbling as though with effort. She drew out a folded sheet of paper and opened it in a stagy way. Drinking turned her into a ham actress.

“‘Dear Mrs. Sharkey,’” she read, with an exaggerated fluting of concern. “‘It has come to my notice that your son Joseph has been absent from school since classes resumed after the Christmas break. As it is now January twenty-fifth and his absence continues, I must request that you meet for a conference in my office.’”

And then she fluttered the letter like a hankie and said, with emphasis on each word, “Where have you been?” Belching slightly, a burp that jogged her head, she rapped on the arm of her chair, disturbing a pair of white gloves folded there.

Sharkey wanted to say, “Where have you been?” but he knew: she’d been dating Major Crandall once again—she’d disposed of Captain Van Buskirk. And it had been a great convenience to him that she’d been preoccupied, out early in the evening, home after midnight, asleep when he set off for the North Shore. He did not want any details; the very sight of the men his mother dated made him squirm.

“Did you hear me?”

She was dressed to go out, in a costume that was so odd in the heat, a green silk dress with a lacy collar, frilly sleeves, the white gloves on the arm of her chair, black heels. She was white-faced—masked with powder—and had a pillbox hat on the side table, where her empty glass sat, its rim smeared with lipstick. She selected a cigarette from a tray near the glass, twiddled it in her fingers, and poked it between her lips.

“I’ve been training.”

She twitched at the unexpected word, as though he had flicked her face with his insolent finger, and she snatched the cigarette from her mouth.

“Training—for what?”

“Surf meet.”

“What do you know about surfing?”

“A few things.”

She nodded at this disapprovingly. “Ronald said it’s dangerous.”