Nancy thought a moment. “I’d try the door first.”

“What if somebody’s home?”

“Oh, I thought you meant the lodge.”

“Anyplace, if you wanted to break in.”

“I guess,” Nancy said, “I’d still try the door.” She smiled a little. “Very quietly.”

“What if it’s locked?”

“Then I’d try a window.”

“And if the windows are locked.”

“I don’t know; I guess I’d break one.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Hey, but in the summer you wouldn’t have to,” Nancy said. “You could just cut a hole in the screen.”

“If there’s a window open.”

She sat up. “Let’s do it. Break into somebody’s house.”

“What for? There’s no reason.”

“For fun.”

And Leon Woody said, “Like, man, a game?” And he said to Leon Woody, riding along in the carpet cleaning truck, “Yeah, sort of a game.”

Ryan said, “Have you ever done it?”

Nancy shook her head. “Not really.”

“What do you mean, not really? You either have or you haven’t.”

“I’ve looked through people’s houses when they weren’t home.”

“And you think it’s fun.”

“Uh-huh, don’t you?”

And Leon Woody said, “Do you know what you get if you lose the game?” And he said to Leon Woody, “That’s part of it. The risk.”

“How do you know if you have the nerve?” Ryan said to her.

“Oh, come on.” Nancy reached toward the umbrella table for a cigarette. “What’s so hard about sneaking into a house?”

There.

Ryan waited. He watched her light the cigarette and exhale smoke to blow out the match. He waited until she looked at him and then he said, “Do you want to try it?”

“No rocks tonight,” Ryan said. “Okay?”

“No rocks,” Nancy said. “I’ve decided if there aren’t any lights on, no one’s home. It’s dark enough but it’s too early for people to be in bed.”

“Maybe they’re on the porch.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Of course where the lights are on, they might still not be home. I always leave a light on.”

“I guess most people do.”

“So we’ll have to go up close and take a look.”

She was at ease, Ryan could feel that. He couldn’t imagine her not at ease. But she still could be faking it. It was still talking and not doing and there were a few miles of nerve between the two.

“Which house?” Ryan said.

“I was thinking that dark one.”

“Let’s go.”

He would remember, after, that he’d said it. She didn’t have to plead with him or push him. She stood relaxed, watching him, and when he said, “Let’s go,” she smiled-he would remember that too-and followed him across the beach, up into the tree darkness that closed in on the houses, out of the trees and across a front lawn and up the steps to the porch of the house that showed no lights, doing it now and not fooling around, hoping he was shaking her up a little.

Ryan pushed the doorbell.

“What do you say if someone comes?” Her voice was calm, above a whisper.

“We ask if they know where the Morrisons live.”

“What if that’s their name?”

He rang the bell again and waited, giving them enough time to come down if they were upstairs in bed. He waited another moment, putting it off, then opened the screen and tried the door. The knob turned in his hand.

“I told you it wasn’t hard,” Nancy said. She started past him into the house.

“Wait till I look.”

He went in, through the darkness to the back of the house, to the kitchen, where he looked out the window and saw the rear end of the car in the garage. He moved back through the house.

Nancy was sitting on the porch rail smoking a cigarette. He took it from her to throw it away, but he saw the way she was looking at him and he took a drag on the cigarette and handed it back to her.

“Well?”

“They’re close by. They won’t be gone long.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. Okay?”

She shrugged, standing up. He saw the movement and maybe a faint smile, though in the dark he wasn’t sure of the smile. She came down the steps after him and they crossed the lawn to the beach.

“If the car’s there,” Ryan said, “they’re not far away.”

“I’ve been thinking, Jackie. If we go in where we know they’re not home, what’s the fun?”

Ryan stared at her and he heard Leon Woody say, “You go in when they’re not home, when you know it and have it in writing they’re not home.”

He kept looking at her until she was about to say something, until he said, “Come on,” and they went up from the beach into the trees again, moving in on the house closest to them that showed lights, running hunch-shouldered-the same way they had gone in to throw the rocks-keeping to the trees and bushes and deep shadows until they were next to the house and could edge up to a window and look in.

“Playing cards,” Ryan said.

“Gin. She just went down and he’s mad.”

“Come on.”

There wasn’t anything to see. There wouldn’t be, either, Ryan was sure of that. Not when you were expecting something. Like the carpet cleaning job, expecting to see the broads going around without any clothes on. They moved along the beachfront from one house to the next. They saw people playing gin, people reading, people watching television, people eating, people drinking, people talking, and more people drinking.

“Maybe we’ll catch somebody in bed,” Nancy said.

“If they’re in bed, they’ll have the lights off.”

“Not everybody.”

“Would you like somebody watching you?”

“I’ve never thought of it,” Nancy said.

They saw people playing bridge and people sitting, not doing anything. They saw a woman alone, reading, and Nancy drew her fingernail down the screen. The woman jumped visibly and sat staring at the window, afraid to move.

When they were in the trees again, Ryan said, “That was fun. Maybe we can find some old lady with heart trouble.”

Ryan didn’t recognize the brown house when they came to it. If they had come up from the beach, he would have, even in the dark. He knew the house was along here, but he wasn’t looking for it and by the time they were across the side yard and to the porch, he was too close to the house to recognize it.

They moved around the far side, past dark windows, and came to the back porch and he still didn’t recognize the house. He was watching Nancy now as she walked out to the garage and looked in.

As she reached him she said, “There’s no car in the garage, but let’s go in anyway.”

Both the front and back doors were locked, but it was still easy. They went in through a living room window off the porch after Ryan poked a hole in the screen with a stick and flicked open the latch; Ryan first and then Nancy. She followed him to the front hall and stood close while he checked the back door, opening it and closing it quietly, feeling better now with a way to go out on three sides of the house.

The light, throwing a shadow on the wall, startled him, turning him from the door.

Nancy had opened the refrigerator.

“Beer?” She was hunched over, looking in, offering him a can of beer behind her back. “They don’t have a whole lot to offer.”

“They didn’t know we were coming,” Ryan said. He popped open the top and took a good swallow of the beer.

“Salad dressing, mustard, milk, pickles, jelly, mustard-they’ve got enough mustard, God-four jars, and catsup-two, three-they must live on mustard and catsup.”

“Maybe they had a party.”

As he said it, moving toward the doorway to the hall, he knew where they were and was sure of it even before he stepped into the hall and saw the stairway on the right and the faint outside light coming from the two windows on the landing.

“Kitchens aren’t much,” Nancy said. She was behind him now. “I like bedrooms the best.”

It was funny being here. At first, realizing where he was gave him an uneasy, on-guard feeling, as if something were wrong. But it was all right. So it was the same house. It could be the one next door or down the beach; it was a house. Going into it again didn’t mean a thing. Right? And Leon Woody would say, “Right, man, it don’t mean anything. You just walk in the same house and don’t know it.” But kidding. He wouldn’t really mean it.