Her comment breached the blockade of my self-discipline, and as I reached to press a palm on her winner, she said gleefully, “Race ya,” and sprinted up the stairs, crossing the threshold ahead of me.

Her room occupied the entire third story, and after turning on the overhead fixture, a four-pronged Japanese lantern with red, green, yellow, and blue bulbs, Glenna stepped over the hillocks of laundry on the floor and demonstrated a flair for understatement by saying, “I probably should’ve straightened up.”

Her room looked like it had been robbed—by amateurs. Clothes spilled out of the open drawers of an old cherrywood bureau, and a metal desk was cluttered with medical tomes, spiral notebooks, half-filled mugs of tea, a tall, greenish-gold bottle of Jean Naté after-bath lotion, two smaller exotic-shaped bottles of Shalimar perfume, and a lamp missing its shade. A rubber tree stood in one corner; in another, there was a potted palm and Glenna used both as racks for her bathrobe and towels. At the foot of the unmade bed—a double mattress and box spring—was a midget-legged bamboo table that held a stereo with albums crammed underneath.

Glenna put on Rubber Soul, and then we sat on the striped Mexican blanket covering the bay window’s recessed seat. This high up you had a view out across the Hudson River, and beyond the water I could see the lights above the Palisades on the Jersey shore.

John was singing “Norwegian Wood” when Glenna said, “Room’s a mess, but the view’s cool.”

“I can’t complain. I live with my folks.”

Hanging from ceramic planters above the window were spider plants and asparagus ferns, shedding their hairy leaves. Glenna brushed a few from my shoulder, then ran her fingers down my arm until she was holding my hand.

“You can stay here,” she said, studying me, her green eyes warm as summer seaside light.

“Maybe this works out better if we don’t rush it.”

“Maybe it does,” she said, and smiled. “But I think you want to remain a mystery.”

“An enigma wrapped in a mystery.”

Glenna laughed. “You’re an enigma wrapped in a blintze. But I’ll wait. I’m a good sport. And I’ll try anything once.” She laughed again when she saw me pondering her last remark. Then she said, “Only kidding. You’ll kiss me, won’t you?”

I kissed her, and she shimmied over to sit on my lap. Leaving was becoming an increasingly arduous concept to put into action, but then she broke off the kiss.

“Good night,” she said, and smiled at me, a complicated smile. A smile that made me think she might not be such a good sport after all.

Chapter 7

MY NYMSRAL PIECE was published as the abortion controversy heated up. Governor Rockefeller pledged to sign a reform bill if the legislature forwarded one to him, and the traditional liberalism of Long Island and New York City—bastions of civil-rights support and war protest—was on a collision course with the Catholic Church and its devout flock in the boroughs and upstate.