“THERE IT IS,” Billy Ruiz said. “It’s brown, you can’t see it much in the trees.”

“I see it,” Ryan said.

“The people with the sailboat? They’re from the house. And the ones making the fire, I think.”

“How many would you say?”

“I don’t know. Twenty cars. Frank say they must have start coming before noon.”

“I like it so far,” Ryan said. He was smoking a cigar, a thin one that was now half smoked. He looked all right with it because he was at ease; his jaw clamped it lightly and he didn’t fool with it or keep blowing out smoke.

They were walking along the shoreline where the water would wash in and leave a strip of sand wet and smooth. They walked barefoot with their pants rolled to their knees and sneakers in their back pockets; they wore sunglasses and peaked fishing caps and walked along taking their time, taking it easy, two guys from one of the cottages or the public beach out getting a little exercise, looking around at the boats and the people on the beach, looking at the cottages that were up on the slope, back a good two hundred feet from the water. By now most of the swimmers and sunbathers had gone in, though there were children still playing and digging in the sand and a few people walking along the shore.

“How would you like some of that?” Billy Ruiz said. “The red two-piece.”

“Maybe in a couple of years,” Ryan said.

“Man, young and tender.”

“There’s one.”

The girl was coming down from a beach-front store. She wore sunglasses and a white sweatshirt that reached to her tan thighs and covered her bathing suit.

“You can’t see what she’s got,” Billy Ruiz said.