Manhattan Beach

by Jennifer Egan

They all had their secrets in 1937. No one talked more than men on ships, but the point of the stories they told was to hide the ones they could never divulge to anyone.

To his original goal—granting men an honest audience with Lady Luck—Eddie gave not a thought during his wet, dark, ecstatic walk. What he felt was the sheer relief of having saved himself.

Eddie listened with his own story ready—I fell off a ship—but the question of why he’d been in the harbor never came. He understood. Knowing another man’s trouble made it yours,

She had danced that way with boys at Brooklyn College, but she’d never felt as innocent as these teenagers looked. She had always been hiding something. She was hiding something now.

“If wishing could make men die, there’d be nary a live one left.”