“They’ll what?”

“I meant—”

“Or they’ll wind up like Vicky?”

“Like Vicky,” I said.

“That’s true. So why don’t you want me to do it?”

I could have responded with my old story that I wanted her hanging out with me, not Biff, but that wasn’t the case, not now. My objection was that for rookie do-gooders like Biff and Glenna, jail and the loss of their medical careers were as hypothetical as death is to teenagers—a fate that befalls the calamitously unlucky and incurably dumb. But since Biff didn’t know squat about being an outlaw, I presumed that the cops would bust him as they’d busted Andy Westrich, and my goal was to protect Glenna from going down with him. Yet, I hesitated mentioning it because I felt she’d see my protectiveness as an affront to her independence, and she’d ridicule me for it, for feeling as I believed I should feel.

Which is precisely what she did. I explained that I didn’t want her to get into trouble, and she laughed. “You’re goofy, Gordo. If you didn’t want me to get into trouble, you should’ve stayed away from me.”

“I don’t want you to get into any trouble I can’t get you out of.”

“My hero,” she said, and then we stood in the fog, our arms around each other, and listened to the rain falling through the trees.

THE WOMEN Glenna worked on were in their late teens and early twenties. She said that they came in flipped out, chattering about having met a guy at a bar or party, and winding up at his place, smoking a little weed, drinking a little sangria, you know how it is, don’t you? You’re making out, and that’s cool. But before you know where your head’s at, he’s got your clothes off. It isn’t like you planned it or anything, and I guess everybody does it. Maybe it’s a downer, but you’re supposed to do it, aren’t you? It’s not like we do it because they want us to. Women can do what they want—not like our moms. Guys don’t have more rights than we do, and besides, they won’t kiss you if you don’t fuck them. All through it, though, I’m trying to remember when I had my last period. Some big turn-on, hunh? Then after it’s over, and he’s asking you to swear to God that this stupid one-night stand was the best sex ever, I’m saying to myself, I need to get on the pill. Fast. But like that was then and this is now, and I’m late. I don’t wanna know if I’m pregnant, except if I am I don’t wanna be, so please, won’t you please help me?

And help them Glenna did. Usually, she said, the girls weren’t pregnant, only freaked about missing their periods, and Glenna performed four or five endometrial aspirations a week. Neither of us anticipated that treating these women, witnessing their terror and listening to their stories, would touch Glenna in ways she found inexpressibly painful, and at first, there was no sign of her distress. Glenna took me to Pearl’s in the city for Peking duck when I had a near miss with a short story at Esquire—an encouraging note from the editor who rejected the story but asked me to send him another. We went to Shea with Dad and Uncle Jerr and saw Tom Seaver throw eight and a third perfect innings against the Cubs. A single broke it up in the ninth, but the Mets won, drawing to within three games of the first-place Cubbies. We drove out to Manhattan Beach to swim and went to the Wollman Rink in Central Park to hear Van Morrison. Glenna’s room wasn’t air-conditioned, and many evenings we opened the windows and fired up a joint as we lay on the quilt and listened to music, our skin on fire, and the faint breeze sighing through the screens carrying the happy scent of honeysuckle.