“Are we going to see the moon at all?” Ronnie asked the sky.

  “It’ll clear,” Joey assured her. “There are already stars showing out over the water.”

  But that was the opposite direction from the rising moon. Ronnie turned back to the west. There were still clouds out that way too, lightning flickering along the horizon. Closer, rose the pilings at Third Avenue, the tallest anywhere along the beach. They were thick wooden posts, gray from exposure to the elements, during the day; now that gray was becoming bck as the light faded.

  Some of the guys liked to surf here sometimes, because of the sandbars that built up around the pilings. These and other groins were meant to protect the sand of Naples’s beaches. Her dad said they were useless and a waste of the town’s money.

  Mostly the surfers stuck to the pier or went up to Doctor’s Pass. Neither at this time of year. The Gulf was a sheet of gss through most of the summer.

  “Did you remember your chain?” asked her friend.

  “Uh-huh.” Ronnie wouldn’t mention how long it had taken to find it. She hadn’t needed to lock up her bike in months. She would ride it more this summer. Maybe she would even take it with her to Gainesville, if she could figure out how. Strap it to the top of her little Simca?

  Both bikes secured to the metal signpost, the girls turned their attention back to the beach. An angler could just be made out, wading and casting beside the pilings. “After snook,” said Joey.

  Ronnie had fished for sheepshead around these pilings during sunlight hours. She couldn’t see herself wading out in the dark for a snook or any other fish. The ringing of a bell, faintly, brought her back from her contemption of the bck water.

  That bell was fastened to a small bicycle being pedaled toward them, Kris straddling its white banana seat. It looked green in the illumination of the street light but she knew it to be sky blue.

  “About time,” commented Joey.

  “I had to ride further than you,” Kris compined. It wasn’t really much further. Maybe not further at all than the distance from Joey’s home. “And my legs are shorter.”

  That was most certainly true. Kris chained her bike with the others. There wasn’t room for another against the post so she ran her chain through the frame of Joey’s bike. “It’s awfully dark,” she said when finished with the chore.

  “Joey guarantees a clear sky,” Ronnie informed her friend.

  “Well okay then. Joey’s word for it is all we need. Wanta walk down toward the pier?”

  That was nine blocks south. They could readily see its lights from here. “Might as well,” said Joey.

  “It would have been easier if I’d met you there! Let’s go.” Kris set off down the beach. Ronnie and Joey followed. In a few seconds, the trio were walking side by side on the sand. Pallid ghost crabs, little more than shadows, scuttled out of their way now and then. A pair of older beach-walkers passed, giving the girls friendly nods.

  “There’s no phosphorescence yet,” Ronnie noted.

  “Give it a month,” responded Joey. Beyond that, none of them seemed to feel much like talking. The moon broke through the clouds, turning the beach to silver.

  A month, thought Ronnie, and then another month and soon this summer would be gone. They would be gone, each on her own path, leading away from each other. It seemed unlikely that any of them would even live here again. Naples would be a pce to visit. Not home.

  Lights shone in only some of the houses along the beach front. Many of those who lived there did not summer in Florida. Naples wasn’t really their home either. That wasn’t true of the Summerlins. Preston Summerlin was a wyer with a practice here, a man who had long been a figure in local politics. They would pass their house shortly. It was an old pce, and not particur rge—another of those that stood on a lot that was worth far more than the house itself.

  There didn’t seem to be much going on at the Summerlin home either. The girls strolled on past it. They were close to the pier now.

  “Dad says that twenty years ago the tallest Australian pine on the beachfront rose right in front of the Summerlins’ house,” Ronnie said. “People who came to their parties by boat used it as a ndmark.” She looked toward the house again. “The tree’s gone now. Blew down in Hurricane Donna.”

  “Wouldn’t the pier have been enough?” asked Kris.

  “It would certainly get them close, wouldn’t it? I heard that a seapne flew in and nded here once, using that ndmark.”

  “Flying boat,” Joey corrected her. “Sea pnes nd on pontoons, flying boats nd on their hull.” Her smile could be made out by the lights from the houses. Joey loved to show off her knowledge of things the other two considered unimportant. “I’ve heard the story too. And it was the Sas house then. The Sas widow married Summerlin.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Kris became enthusiastic. “Her husband was gunned down by the mafia.”

  All three had heard some variant of the tale. Old news in a town that was busy forgetting its past. They walked on to the pier.