1. What does the narrator speculate that the lightening across the water might be doing?
(a) Setting Indiana barns on fire.
(b) Chasing the seagulls out of the sky.
(c) Making sea glass on Michigan beaches.
(d) Lighting up the paths of far-away freighters.

2. What kind of buildings are on the lovers' lane?
(a) Run-down cottages.
(b) Giant warehouses.
(c) Bars and strip clubs.
(d) Abandoned factories.

3. What does Gin mean when she tells the narrator that she knows the dead woman?
(a) The woman was from her neighborhood.
(b) She dreams about the woman.
(c) The woman is a distant relative of Gin's.
(d) The woman was not much older than Gin.

4. Why does the narrator say that Lake Michigan "became" the Pacific Ocean (235)?
(a) The sound of the waves is exaggerated by his excitement.
(b) He is experiencing a feeling of being lost in space and time.
(c) Gin has always imagined losing her virginity on a California beach.
(d) He is referencing the film From Here to Eternity.

5. What is the title of the poem used as an epigraph for this story?
(a) "The Mirror."
(b) "In Darkness and in Light."
(c) "We Did It."
(d) "Water."

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the rhetorical purpose of including the detail "the skinny rails of your legs" (235) when the narrator is talking about taking off Gin's bikini bottom?

2. What is the rhetorical purpose of the anaphora in the narrator's description of the Gold Coast residents having sex?

3. What does Gin believe is true about the dead woman on the beach?

4. Gin mentions her "nonna's cottage" (240). Whose cottage is this?

5. After the narrator drops Gin off at her building on the night of the incident at the beach, why does she run back outside and call after him?

(see the answer key)

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