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about.
    And afternoons reading in the room or at the school library, reading and half the time not even knowing what you were reading, remembering how you used to be able to lose yourself in a paperback novel and wishing you could do that instead of wallowing in all this incomprehensible and totally uninteresting knowledge.
    And evenings—evenings that you spent studying sometimes, or maybe sitting around in the room talking to Ruth.
    Or going out on dates with Joe.
    Linda saw Joe Gunsway three more times the first week. One night they went to a movie in town and had a bite to eat at a local lunch counter. Another night they went for a long walk down one of the back roads, walking and holding hands and looking up at the stars in the sky. They walked slowly, a long way out and a long way back, and several times on their walk they stopped and he kissed her.
    That Saturday night his hall had a party and he took her to it. She met other boys and girls and drank several glasses of a punch called Purple Jesus, an innocent-looking concoction of grape juice and grapefruit juice and vodka that was much more potent than it appeared to be. She got a little bit high and enjoyed herself immensely, taking everything in and noticing with approval how heavy her feet were and how happily light her head was.
    After the party Joe drove out into the country, taking the same road they had walked along the night before. He stopped the car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and for perhaps five minutes they sat side by side, their bodies touching. Neither of them said anything.
    Then he turned to her and kissed her. She felt very passionate from the punch and from the gentle blackness of the night, and when he kissed her she put her arms around him and returned the kiss with an animal hunger she had never displayed to him before. She realized with a start that the way she felt that night she would let him make love to her if he tried, and she hoped that he wouldn’t try because she wasn’t ready, not entirely, and she didn’t want to spoil the closeness that existed between them.
    There was no cause for her to worry. He kissed her again and he kissed her all over her face and throat, but after the first few times the passion went out of his kisses and was replaced by tenderness. She knew then that it would be very easy for them to control themselves. The loveplay they were going through was not the intensive frenzy that had driven her and Chuck half out of their minds, but a calm, easy-going sort of petting that never threatened to burst into flames.
    When he touched her breast for the first time she felt not excited but restful, very restful. That was as far as he attempted to go that night, never fumbling with her clothing and never trying to do more than touch and feel the swell of her breasts through her dress. They sat together for a long time in the car, but for periods of time they stopped kissing and touching and sat very still together, close in each other’s arms and looking out at the night. The top of the convertible was down and the air was clean and the stars bright, and she decided that it was very good to be sitting in Joe’s arms and enjoying the night around her. Once when they were sitting like that his lips brushed her yellow hair and a warm, happy feeling ran through her body.
    After he had taken her home and kissed her a final time he drove off into the night and she watched him from the doorway until the car turned off on a side street and disappeared from view. Then she turned away and walked very slowly up the two flights of stairs to her hall. The room was empty; Ruth hadn’t yet returned from wherever she had gone that evening. She turned on the light and sat down at her desk, her head cupped in the palms of her hands and her eyes staring down at the desk-top.
    She sat that way for a few moments, letting her mind wander and not thinking of anything in particular. Then the first issue of The Clifton