“Hell, what are they going to do, arrest me?”

“The brand name is Kotex.”

George nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

His bravado did not last long. When he reached the drugstore he felt stricken with embarrassment. He told himself to shape up. So, it was uncomfortable. Men his age were risking their lives in the jungles of Vietnam. How bad could this be?

The store had three self-service aisles and a counter. Aspirins were not displayed on the open shelves, but sold from the counter.

To George’s dismay, feminine sanitary products were the same.

He picked up a cardboard container with six bottles of Coke. She was bleeding, so she needed fluids. But he could not postpone the moment of mortification for long.

He went up to the counter.

The pharmacist was a middle-aged white woman. Just my luck, he thought.

He put the Cokes on the counter and said: “I need some aspirin, please.”

“What size? We have small, medium, and large bottles.”

George was thrown. What if she asked him what size sanitary towels he wanted? “Uh, large, I guess,” he said.

The pharmacist put a large bottle of aspirin on the counter. “Anything else?”

A young woman shopper came and stood behind him, holding a wire basket containing cosmetics. She was obviously going to hear everything.

“Anything else?” the pharmacist repeated.

Come on, George, be a man, he thought. “I need a box of sanitary napkins,” he said. “Kotex.”

The young woman behind him stifled a giggle.

The pharmacist looked at him over her spectacles. “Young man, are you doing this for a bet?”

“No, ma’am!” he said indignantly. “They are for a lady who is too sick to come to the store.”

She looked him up and down, taking in the dark-gray suit, the white shirt, the plain tie, and the folded white handkerchief in the breast pocket of the jacket. He was glad he did not look like a student involved in a jape. “All right, I believe you,” she said. She reached below the counter and picked up a box.

George stared at it in horror. The word Kotex was printed on the side in large letters. Was he going to have to carry that out in the street?

The pharmacist read his mind. “I guess you’d like me to wrap this for you.”

“Yes, please.”

With quick, practised movements she wrapped the box in brown paper, then she put it in a bag with the aspirin.

George paid.

The pharmacist gave him a hard look, then seemed to relent. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said. “You must be a good friend to some girl.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he hurried out.

Despite the October cold, he was perspiring.

He returned to Maria’s place. She took three aspirins, then went along the corridor to the bathroom clutching the wrapped box.

George put the Cokes in the refrigerator, then looked around. He saw a shelf of law books over a small desk with framed photographs. A family group showed her parents, he presumed, and an elderly clergyman who must have been her distinguished grandfather. Another showed Maria in graduation robes. There was also a picture of President Kennedy. She had a television set, a radio, and a record player. He looked through her discs. She liked the latest pop music, he saw: the Crystals; Little Eva; Booker T and the MGs. On the table beside her bed was the novel Ship of Fools.