Inside, I heard someone stamping down a staircase, and then the door was opened by a chick in a waffled thermal-underwear shirt and bleached-denim overalls.

“I’m Robin. Glenna’s housemate. You met her already so you know you’ll have to wait. Hope you brought a book.”

I followed Robin across the warped pine floor into a living room with windows on either side of a fieldstone fireplace. The room was furnished with a shabby brocaded couch with carved walnut arms, a wing chair covered in the same shabby oyster-white cloth as the couch, two chipped walnut rockers—one of which I sat in—and a chipped walnut coffee table. A plaque proclaiming George Washington had slept over wouldn’t have been out of place were it not for the posters on the white plaster walls: the Stars and Stripes with a peace symbol stamped on it; Malcolm X leveling his forefinger during a speech; and a garish poster above the fireplace, with a black light gleaming on it, that depicted twelve sexual positions, each corresponding with a zodiac sign and dates.

Hopeful that this was Glenna’s contribution to the decor, I checked my sign, Libra. No sweat—basic doggie style. “When’s Glenna’s birthday?” I asked Robin. She was standing at a card table by the fireplace, running pages off a mimeograph machine.

“February nineteenth. Don’t worry. You have time to send her flowers.”

Glenna was a Pisces. Uh-oh. A position that would stump the Flying Wallendas.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“SDS is helping the Black Panthers publicize their free-breakfast program.”

Showcasing my wit, I said, “Which group do you belong to?”

Grimacing to let me know she thought I was about as droll as a malignant tumor, Robin replied, “Glenna said you were strange.”

From upstairs, Glenna called, “Gordon, I’ll be right down.”

Winking at me, Robin said sarcastically, “The anticipation must be killing you.”

I appreciated the implied conspiracy of her wink, as if we were allies, and she was rooting for me not to be intimidated by Glenna’s beauty. And her sarcasm was understandable; it couldn’t be much fun for her living with a stunner like Glenna; and I assumed that her envy overflowed on a regular basis. This isn’t to say Robin was unattractive. She had an exotic face with flawless olive skin and raisin-dark eyes, but it seemed as though she had decided to protest that she wasn’t as blessed as Glenna by making herself as unappealing as possible. She was a few pounds past zaftig, and her overalls didn’t help. Robin wore them a couple of sizes too big, so she appeared to be floating around inside a bleached-denim potato sack, and her long, thick raven hair, which would have been lovely had she bothered to tend it, was piled up carelessly on her head and clipped down with a plastic swarm of bumblebee barrettes.

Still, even with Robin as an ally, I felt lost in a fog when Glenna waltzed in with her hair falling past her shoulders like a silken cape. Getting up out of the rocker, I heard myself say hello and tried, with mixed success, not to gape at her sheer, white bell-sleeved blouse, with no bra underneath it, and the black velour bell-bottoms hugging her hips.