'On the beach? By himself? Does he behave himself on the beach?'
'Mother,' said the girl, 'you talk about him as though he were a raving maniac--'
'I said nothing of the kind, Muriel.'
'Well, you sound that way. I mean all he does is lie there. He won't take his bathrobe off.'
'He won't take his bathrobe off? Why not?'
'I don't know. I guess because he's so pale.'
'My goodness, he needs the sun. Can't you make him?
'You know Seymour,' said the girl, and crossed her legs again. 'He says he doesn't want a lot of fools looking at his tattoo.'
'He doesn't have any tattoo! Did he get one in the Army?'
'No, Mother. No, dear,' said the girl, and stood up. 'Listen, I'll call you tomorrow, maybe.'
'Muriel. Now, listen to me.'
'Yes, Mother,' said the girl, putting her weight on her right leg.
'Call me the instant he does, or says, anything at all funny--you know what I mean. Do you hear me?'
'Mother, I'm not afraid of Seymour.'
'Muriel, I want you to promise me.'
'All right, I promise. Goodbye, Mother,' said the girl. 'My love to Daddy.' She hung up.
'See more glass,' said Sybil Carpenter, who was staying at the hotel with her mother. 'Did you see more glass?'
'Pussycat, stop saying that. It's driving Mommy absolutely crazy.
Hold still, please.'
Mrs. Carpenter was putting sun-tan oil on Sybil's shoulders, spreading it down over the delicate, winglike blades of her back. Sybil was sitting insecurely on a huge, inflated beach ball, facing the ocean.
She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years.
'It was really just an ordinary silk handkerchief--you could see when you got up close,' said the woman in the beach chair beside Mrs.
Carpenter's. 'I wish I knew how she tied it. It was really darling.'
'It sounds darling,' Mrs. Carpenter agreed. 'Sybil, hold still, pussy.'
'Did you see more glass?' said Sybil.
Mrs. Carpenter sighed. 'All right,' she said. She replaced the cap on the sun-tan oil bottle. 'Now run and play, pussy. Mommy's going up to the hotel and have a Martini with Mrs. Hubbel. I'll bring you the olive.'
Set loose, Sybil immediately ran down to the flat part of the beach and began to walk in the direction of Fisherman's Pavilion. Stopping only to sink a foot in a soggy, collapsed castle, she was soon out of the area reserved for guests of the hotel.
She walked for about a quarter of a mile and then suddenly broke into an oblique run up the soft part of the beach. She stopped short when she reached the place where a young man was lying on his back.
'Are you going in the water, see more glass?' she said.
The young man started, his right hand going to the lapels of his terry-cloth robe. He turned over on his stomach, letting a sausaged towel fall away from his eyes, and squinted up at Sybil.
'Hey. Hello, Sybil.'
'Are you going in the water?'
'I was waiting for you,' said the young man. 'What's new?'
'What?' said Sybil.
'What's new? What's on the program?'
'My daddy's coming tomorrow on a nairiplane,' Sybil said, kicking sand.
'Not in my face, baby,' the young man said, putting his hand on Sybil's ankle. 'Well, it's about time he got here, your daddy. I've been expecting him hourly. Hourly.'
'Where's the lady?' Sybil said.
'The lady?' the young man brushed some sand out of his thin hair.
'That's hard to say, Sybil. She may be in any one of a thousand places.
At the hairdresser's. Having her hair dyed mink. Or making dolls for poor children, in her room.' Lying prone now, he made two fists, set one on top of the other, and rested his chin on the top one. 'Ask me something else, Sybil,' he said. 'That's a fine bathing suit you have on. If there's one thing I like, it's a blue bathing suit.'
Sybil stared at him, then looked down at her protruding stomach.
'This is a yellow,' she said. 'This is a yellow.'
'It is? Come a little closer.' Sybil took a step forward. 'You're absolutely right. What a fool I am.'
