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A soft midday haze filters the sun as they disembark the ferry at the edge of Jamaica Bay, then hike over to the boardwalk at Rockaways’ Playland. They weave through a commotion of amusements and thrill rides—roller coasters, carousels, games of skill, curiosity shows. Kids run barefoot through the crowd with no obvious guardians in sight, laughing as they’re chased by leashless dogs with hungry looks. Peacocking young men walk arm in arm, singing drinking songs and gawking at women, who point and laugh derisively. There’s a long line for the Atom Smasher roller coaster, which Francis says he prefers to Coney Island’s Cyclone, and lots of customers milling around a row of toffee vendors, which Francis ranks from worst to best as they pass.

A sign advertises an elephant show. Eddie doubts they have a real elephant, until Francis confirms it. “And monkeys, too,” he says. “But for a bearded lady, you gotta go to Coney.”

They scramble off the boardwalk and onto the beach, populated by sunburned men with big bellies, women under wide-brimmed hats, and wiggly groups of squealing children toting buckets. Most seem to stick close to the boardwalk, close to the concessions. But the sand stretches east and west as far as Eddie can see. He peels off his worn black boots and rolls up his trousers to walk in the sand.

“We can do better than that.” Francis smiles. He holds up two pairs of black bathing trunks.

“Where did those come from?”

“Never know when you’ll end up at the seaside. Let’s go change.” Francis points at a big stone bathhouse just beyond the racetrack.

Inside, Eddie looks for a place to hide, to conceal himself as he changes. He opens a low locker door and awkwardly tucks himself behind it before swiftly dropping his trousers into a heap on the floor and stepping into the trunks. He is relieved once they’re on, and that somehow, they fit perfectly. Francis doesn’t hide, and he doesn’t rush. He slowly removes his clothes—all of them—carefully folding his shirt and socks and underwear neatly into a locker. Naked, he crosses the small changing room to a sink where he rinses his hands and splashes his face. Eddie watches him go, marveling at Francis’s body. So lean, sinewy, his pale skin smooth except for a small strip of hair just under his belly button. Droplets of water cling to his forearms, his stomach, his chin. When Francis turns, Eddie quickly lowers his gaze, as if he’s looking at the floor, but slowly raises his eyes, unwilling to miss a gesture. He fights an almost irresistible urge to reach, to touch, to feel Francis’s skin under his fingertips, to test the flesh of his beautiful chest, stomach, kneecaps.

Francis sees Eddie watching as he pulls up his swim trunks, not turning away. He smooths them around his waist and—still grinning—plunges his hands inside to adjust himself. “That’s better,” he says. “Now let’s get towels and then walk up the beach a bit. The boys are sure to be here somewhere.”

They hike along the water’s edge, leaving the nickelodeons and food carts behind. Whenever a wave of cold seawater splashes their feet, Francis squeaks, Eddie laughs, and they trot a few steps up into softer sand until the sea retreats again. As they pass the steeplechase track and the pavilion, Francis tells stories about life in New York, about his stint as an usher at a Times Square burlesque theater and about the time he spilled a milkshake on Pola Negri when he was working as a waiter at a fancy party uptown. Eddie laughs, pretending to know who Pola Negri is (he’ll ask Cookie). It feels so easy being with Francis, at least when they’re talking about Francis.

But when Francis says, “Tell me about you,” Eddie doesn’t know how to answer. His life seems so dull in comparison. A small, dusty, nowhere town, a nonexistent social life, a dead-end job. Here is Francis, a young man whose life is full of mystery and adventure and connection—and then here is Eddie, a young man who lives with a bedridden relative and whose days are defined by running errands and sipping sherry. What could Eddie say that would compare? Why can’t he mirror Francis’s ease? He’s spent a life creating elaborate fantasies in which he is brave, daring, desired. Why doesn’t he feel that way with Francis?

Happily, before Eddie thinks up something to say, a voice from up the beach yells: “FRANCESCA!”

Francis looks up and smiles. “This way!” he says, grabbing Eddie’s arm. They slip through a clutch of dune grass onto a much less populated stretch of beach, where small groups of two and three and four people with tin buckets and picnic baskets sit on blankets spread over the sand. A crowd of young men comes racing toward them.

“Gird your loins,” Francis says. “We’re being invaded.”

Suddenly, they are surrounded by a dozen laughing young men, some in long cotton trunks, others in tanked one-piece swimsuits, waving blankets and swinging tin buckets and tossing straw boater hats in the air in celebration. One carries a kite on his back, another has a picnic basket over one arm, another has a towel wrapped around his head like a turban. They swarm Francis, grabbing his arms and kissing him on both cheeks. Eddie recognizes Buzzy, George, and Vincent, but not the others. Like birds, they chat and chirp and sing over one another, jubilant voices spiraling frenetically, a whirlwind. Eddie struggles to keep up.

“What took you so long, La Divina Francesca?” Buzzy asks. “We’ve been here for hours! Charlie here, I mean Carlotta, made us catch the seven thirty train.”

“That’s Queen Carlotta to you,” says the boy Buzzy is pointing at. “And someone needed to get you fairies out here.”

“Fairies on the ferry!” Vincenza shouts. “The ticket taker sneered at us. Sneered! Twice!”

“At least he was a spruce,” says Georgie. “But the way you sat there batting your lashes at him, Vincent? Scandalous. No wonder he sneered.”

“He loved it. He couldn’t get enough of my fetching features.”

“Oh, Vincenza. Not everyone’s a fairy, dearie.”

“They are once I get to ’em!”

“Gabriel here says he saw the same guy at Webster Hall last Thanksgiving.”

“Really, Gabby? The night when you wore that majestic Diamond Lil getup?”

“Oh, don’t remind me!” Gabriel, or Gabby, responds. “But I did see him there! He looked ducky.”

“I hope he comes to the next ball. I will sing to him, until he falls in love with me.”

“Oh, Vincenza. You can’t even catch a tune, let alone a man.”

“Now, Carlotta, be sweet to our Vin. He’s just had his heart broken again. Third time this week.”

“By the way, has anyone heard from Clem? I haven’t seen him in an age.”

“Clementine? She went to Boston, remember?”

“Boston? Humph. Never heard of it!”

“It’s just past the Bronx. And she had to go somewhere after the brawl at the automat! Nearly killed that man who propositioned her, you know.”

“She did not. She just knocked him out, that’s all. A mere Jack Dempsey uppercut to the chin.”

“I heard her gown was ruined.”

“What’s a gown when virtue is at stake?”

“Gowns are all that ever matters, dearie!”

“By the way,” whispers one boy. “Did you horties hear about Robin? Welfare Island for a week!”

“What do you expect? He made a pass at that sailor down at Frank’s Place!”

“Oh please, Frank’s is right next to the Navy Yard. Sailor trade is the whole point of that place.”

“Until the sailor changes his mind.”

“Enough!” Carlotta says in a forceful voice. This time the breathless banter stops for good.

Eddie welcomes the pause in the action. All the names! All the slang! And she is he and he is she and this one met a sailor and that one skipped town and someone wants to sing to a bus driver and whew.

Suddenly, all the boys are looking at him, as if they’d just noticed someone new was there.

“And who is this?” someone asks in a bemused tone.

Eddie feels the cool scrutiny underlying the question. There is a right answer, he suspects, and a wrong one. But what is it? “I, um,” he starts.

“Well?” It’s the one called Carlotta, hand on hip.

Francis, sensing Eddie’s anxiety, leaps into the moment. “A friend,” he says. “A friend from out of town. You met him the other night, Buzzy, and so did you, Vincenza. Don’t you recall? This is Eddie.”

Silence. Everyone stares. Eddie swallows.

Francis breaks the silence a second time. “Isn’t he charming?” His voice is tinged with authority, and in response, the boys melt around Eddie, clapping his back and tugging at his hands.

“Welcome, Edwina!” they shout in unison, and Eddie, belonging to them now, belonging here now, bows in response. They form a ring around him and dance, just like the girls he saw playing outside Jefferson Market. Spanish dancer, turn around! Spanish dancer, touch the ground!