“Can we, Frank?”

“Just let me turn up the air conditioner,” he said.

“Frank,” I said, “will you help me in the kitchen a minute?” It was the most clichéd trick in the world, but it was all I could manage on the spot. The girl with the joints looked at me and smirked.

“We’ll wait till you get back,” she said to Frank.

As soon as we closed the door, I said to him, “I don’t want that stuff in the house.”

“Irene, it’s harmless. It’s like taking a drink.”

“Except that you can go to jail for it.”

“We’re in our own home. Do you think the police are out setting up dragnets for a little grass?”

“The neighbors have eyes. When they see a few carloads of people with long hair pull up to our house, they’re going to start wondering—”

“I’ve had long hair ever since you met me.”

“I like long hair, and as for them, I don’t care if their hair is green and pink. That’s not the point. The point is we don’t live on a desert island. We have neighbors with big eyes and bigger mouths.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Stop accusing me! What about that presumptuous bitch in there bringing that stuff into our house?”

His eyes narrowed. “That presumptuous bitch, as you call her, spent half an hour in my office today, crying. And do you know why? Not because her parents forgot to send her her allowance or because some sorority rejected her. She was crying because she loved a man she never met, a man she thought was vital to her country. And even though our opinions differ, I have to respect that kind of conscience.”

“Good for her. I hope her conscience keeps her company when she’s sitting in a jail cell.”

“Irene, this country’s in big trouble. If there’s going to be any change, a lot of people are going to have to take chances with their lives.”

“We’re off the issue. We’re talking about a chance that’s so foolish—”

“You like liquor, they like grass. Your preference is sanctioned, theirs isn’t. That’s what’s bothering you.”

“It’s my house. That’s what’s bothering me.”

He nodded. “Your house.”

“I don’t mean it that way.”

“I think you do.”

“All right,” I said. “Do what you want.”

His face lit up like a child’s. “You come have some too.”

“No; I’m going upstairs to read.”

He cupped my face in his hands. “I want you to try it. With me. I want you sitting right next to me.”

“Really, I don’t want to.”

“Please. In another hour, we’ll toss them all out and go to bed.”

I loved the idea of tossing them out, and I was reassured by the fact that he had suggested it.

“Fraaaank?” the girl called from the living room.

“In a minute,” he answered.

“Let’s get in there,” I said. “The natives are restless.”

“The natives can wait.” He kissed my eyes, my cheeks, my forehead, then filled my mouth with his tongue. “I know I ask to be indulged sometimes, but I indulge you too, don’t I?”