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assimilated into her circle of friends, who were exclusively Mormon.The Mormon kids at her school were not a small population and were generally good students and well liked, and I found their approval and acceptance easier than that of the rich kids at Randolph. Jenny’s family was a first-generation conversion (someone her father worked with had convinced them to convert), and when, upon meeting me, her mother asked her in front of me if I was LDS, I had no idea what that meant. Jenny answered that I wasn’t and I let the matter drop, my happiness at being with Jenny blocking out the white noise around me. Her parents wouldn’t allow us to officially date until Jenny turned sixteen, so our courtship took place entirely at her house after school. The matter of where I lived never arose, and it was some time before it surfaced that my birth parents were dead and that I’d been shunted from distant relative to distant relative before landing in Phoenix at the home of my first cousin twice removed. That I attended an all-boys Catholic school didn’t seem to register with them, and I hid from them the fact that I’d recently been legally emancipated.
    Still, the ease and speed with which our relationship grew serious might’ve been alarming to Jenny’s parents, but their recent separation consumed them, and Jenny and I were essentially left alone, free to wander her family’s property, an unworked farm outside of Phoenix, a parcel among parcels in what was primarily farmland. We rode the family three-wheeler back and forth to visit her cousin, who lived on an adjoining parcel; sometimes we took her horse, who spooked me. Usually we watched television or listened to music while we shot pool in her living room, her pool skills far superior to mine. I was always aware that her mother was lurking around the house, though, maybe looking out a window, or listening for the quiet that portends making out. Her home was a sanctuary that offered us a place out of time in which to get to know each other. That she had never seen my house (her mother forbade her) or that we didn’t hang out with my friends (a small population, but still)was not a concern. We did manage outside dates of a sort: Every so often a couple of Mormon stakes (each church or ward was part of a stake; Jenny belonged to the Tolsun ward, which in turn belonged to the West Maricopa stake) got together and hosted a dance.
    Anyone could participate in the dances, regardless of religion; however, before attending your first dance, you had to acquire a dance card from the local bishop. I made the requisite appointment. The bishop, an older man with prematurely skeletal features, welcomed me and asked me into his spartan office. We exchanged a few pleasantries—I told him about how Jenny was my girlfriend and ran down the roster of my friends who attended the Tolsun ward—and then settled into business. The bishop handed me a small yellow piece of paper, the dance card I’d come for, invalid without the bishop’s signature, which he was happy to sign after I read and consented to the rules on the back of the card:
    1. Ages 14–18
    2. Valid dance card must be presented at the door for admission. (We will accept valid dance cards from other stakes.) Replacement charge for lost card is $5.00.
    3. The Word of Wisdom to be observed: No tobacco, alcohol, or drugs are permitted inside the building or on the premises.
    4. BOYS shall wear dress pants (no Levi’s, jeans, denims, or imitations of any color, or other non–dress pants). Shirts must have collars. No sandals are allowed. (Nice tennis shoes are OK.) Socks must be worn with shoes. No hats, earrings, or gloves.
    5. GIRLS shall not wear tight-fitting dresses or skirts or have bare shoulders (blouses and dresses must have sleeves). Hemlines of dresses are to be of modest length (to the knee). No dresses or skirts with slits or cuts above the knee.
    6. After