“Vague, unclear. In other words, Edna, time passed pulling up your own knickers doesn’t guarantee your maturity.”

She and I laughed.

“Daisy is exactly right. We’ve all learned the science about making love, but when you’re an adult, you realize that’s hardly enough. You can’t learn all you need to know from boring old books in order to conduct a satisfactory romance. Most of what’s really important is, as I said, natural instinct. That’s how it comes to me and hopefully someday soon will come to you. You grow into it, ripen like an apple or a grape.”

“What exactly are we to expect?” Agnes asked. She had small eyes as it was, but when she squinted, they looked like pinholes. “I mean, how would we know when it’s come?”

Two swallows flew close to us and then turned off to the right.

“It’s like birds,” I continued. “Female birds don’t go to a school for birds to learn how to attract male birds and create new ones, do they? They do what they must to make it happen. It’s in you, in your very female bones,” I said. “Things just . . . explode inside you.”

“Explode?” Agnes asked.

I raised my eyes and coached myself to have more patience. Then I glared at her.

“Don’t you have new and different feelings, Agnes? No tingles, no urge to touch yourself? You have had your period. You shouldn’t act like a child and cover your eyes at the sight of a penis.”

“The sight of what?” Agnes looked like she had swallowed one of the swallows.

“Some girls are ashamed to admit their feelings. But we’ve all agreed to be honest with each other. Right?”

“Absolutely,” Agnes said.

“Well?”

She looked at Edna.

“Yes,” Edna confessed. “I have seen only my little brother’s penis, but I’ve had those feelings.”

“There. And there’s nothing evil about it, Agnes. One day, the man you love or marry will be touching you in exactly the same places you’re touching yourself. And don’t deny you do,” I quickly accused like a head-on-fire minister.

I thought she would faint. Her face reddened until it was as crimson as fresh-spilled blood.

“I’m sure your father touches your mother there, too. Or if he doesn’t, he finds another woman to touch.”

Daisy laughed, and Agnes’s jaw dropped.

Edna shook her head. I think she wanted to put her hands over her ears, but she was entranced. I smiled to myself. If only my mother could see how infatuated most of my girlfriends were with me, she might appreciate me more. After she had her heart attack learning I conducted these secret womanly talks, of course.