Walking all the way to the end of Naples pier was like entering another world. Before one y nothing but the dark Gulf of Mexico and the darker sky. The lights of Naples seemed far away behind them.

  A few fishermen leaned on the railings; it was still a little early for many of the all-nighters to show up. Joey’s father had been one of those. When she was little, she had just thought he enjoyed fishing. Now she was aware that he had been avoiding being at home.

  Eventually, he chose to avoid it permanently.

  “So, do we go any further?” she asked.

  “All the way to Mexico!” decred Kris. “You jump in and lead the way.”

  Instead, they sat and looked out over the water for a couple minutes, wordless. At st, Joey said, “That’s enough of being awestruck for this evening. What now?”

  There was no answer. The trio began walking back toward the beach. The snack bar and bait shop, located halfway out the pier’s length, were closed and dark, but a light shone down onto the water there. They watched fish, mostly bait-sized, swim in and out of its illumination, before moving on.

  Down the stairs to the sand they went, the same white sand on which they had stretched many a sun-drenched day. Now the full moon shone on it, still low enough in the sky for long shadows to extend across the beach, the shadows of palms, of Australian pines, of the old two story homes that had stood here for decades. They didn’t look like the homes people built in Naples these days.

  “Back to the bikes?” asked Ronnie.

  None of them seemed to wish to walk further south, beyond the pier. “Might as well,” Joey said.

  A couple blocks north they could see the tiny glow of someone’s cigarette, someone seated in the sand a little further up the beach, almost at the edge of the sea grape bushes that grew there. They paid no attention; it was common enough, night or day.

  “Hey, Joey!”

  She turned toward the voice. All three did. “And Kris! And—um.”

  “Ronnie. Ronnie Deerfield.”

  “Really? Damn, you’ve changed.”

  “You haven’t seen her in years, Jam.”

  The young man ughed but declined to rise. “Only in Naples do I get called that. I guess I don’t mind any.” He took another drag on his smoke. They all could tell from the smell as they drew closer that it was not tobacco.

  Ronnie looked like she might panic. She was not the sort to be calm when someone was breaking the rules. Even more so when they were breaking ws that could nd them in prison.

  Kris sat down beside James Summerlin and held out her hand. He passed the cigarette to her. A long pull and she gave it back. Joey was tempted to take a seat and share, too, but decided it was not the time nor pce for it. Moreover, she had decidedly mixed feelings about the boy she knew as Jam.

  “So, do your folks know you sneak down here to smoke dope?” she asked.

  “Probably. They haven’t told me I can do it in the house, anyway.” He smiled somewhat beatifically. “You know, it was fairly common in the part of the world Mother hails from. Though perhaps not exactly legal.”

  Ronnie smiled at that. “The wyer’s son.”

  “Oh, God, is that what I sound like?” He passed the joint to Kris again.

  After handing it back, she said, “Your mother? She’s from Cuba, right? Did she leave when Castro took over?”

  Both her friends had to ugh. “Long before then,” said James. “Her family was big stuff there.” A shrug. Almost a smile. “Until they got on the bad side of Batista.”

  “Oh. Okay, so Kris is stupid. Is Angelica here?” she asked, rising.

  “Yeah, but over to Miami tonight, with the rest of the family. They’re picking up Lin.” His gaze slowly passed over the three, not settling on any one of them, and then beyond, to the darkness over the Gulf. He took another pull on his smoke and said, “We’ll have a party on Saturday. You have to come. All of you.”

  “Afternoon?” asked Kris.

  “And on into the evening. Show up anytime.”

  “Okay,” said Joey, though she doubted she would. “We’d better get Kris back to her bicycle while she can still ride.”

  “A little more of that and I can fly home!” decred Kris. Exaggerating, of course. One had to tolerate a bit of that from ones friends.

  They were barely out of James’s earshot when Ronnie said, “His hair is really long. He would have been kicked out of Naples High.”

  “He hasn’t been in any school this past year,” Kris informed them. “He finished up a year early and spent the time since goofing off. So my mom says.”

  “He’ll have to do something now,” said Ronnie. “Go to college or be drafted.”

  “Or go to Canada,” added Joey.

  “Or even where his mama comes from.”

  The Summerlin kids filled Joey’s thoughts as they walked north. Lin wasn’t a Summerlin. Her father was Enrique Sas, the man who had been gunned down in the streets of Havana. Some said by the mafia, some said by agents of the Batista regime. He was just as dead either way. Lin—Linda Sas—was six years older than her half-siblings, the twins Angelica and James.

  Angelica had become ‘Jelly’ at some point and, inevitably, ‘Jam’ had attached itself to her brother James. It is unlikely their parents could have foreseen this. Both had attended St. Ann’s for a while, before being sent off to separate boarding schools—that was why Joey knew them.

  They must have all had their own thoughts for nothing much was said until they reached the Third Avenue pilings. The fisherman was gone. No cars were parked at the end of the street; nothing was there but the three bikes.

  “This might have been a bit of a bust if we hadn’t run into Jam,” said Kris, unchaining her little bicycle from the other two.

  Joey disagreed. “It’s a beautiful moonlit night,” she said. “That’s enough for me.” She removed the chain from her own bike and straddled it. “Be careful riding home,” she said, and pedaled away. She was to the corner before thinking she should have waited for Ronnie and ridden along with her.

  She stopped and waited for her friend. Both pedaled on.