Why don't you dance?

1) Raymond Carver uses different sights like the stripes on the mattress and the reading lamp on the bedside.  He also took about 2 paragraphs just to set the scene so the reader would have a visual idea of the story.

2)-That it is nighttime because she could see stars.

   -That it is nighttime because they could see all the houses turning on their lights down the street,      which you can only do when it is dark outside.

3) "He looked at them as they sat at the table. In the lamplight, there was something 

about their faces. It was nice or it was nasty. There was no telling."

-It shows it was dark with just lamplight which gave a lighting so you are unable to see the their expressions.

"Arms about each other, their bodies pressed together, the boy and the girl moved 

up and down the driveway. They were dancing. And when the record was over, they did 

it again, and when that one ended, the boy said. "I'm drunk."

-The two were dancing on the driveway (most likely at night), and the boy got drunk.