1. What is the tone of the narrator's description of people in Gold Coast apartments having sex?
(a) Effusive.
(b) Derisive.
(c) Ghoulish.
(d) Wry.

2. Gin mentions her "nonna's cottage" (240). Whose cottage is this?
(a) Her aunt.
(b) Her sister.
(c) Her mother.
(d) Her grandmother.

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

4. 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?
(a) She wants to tell him that she loves him.
(b) She needs to get her blanket back from him.
(c) She want to know if he is going to tell anyone what happened.
(d) She wants to know if he needs an umbrella.

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

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 title of the poem used as an epigraph for this story?

3. In the story's opening, what details are related to the passage of time?

4. To what does the narrator compare Gin's mother's rosary?

5. Who is the author of "We Didn't"?

(see the answer key)

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