I made it to the top of the stairs before she saw me. She came up and we looked down over the railing into the empty hallway. It was warm on the second floor. We were damp from the rain and the heat felt good. For once my house felt cozy. I pretended to be looking all the way down but I was really looking at her sneakers and the little peds she had on with fuzzy balls sticking out the back. I looked up to tell her one was hanging on by a thread and she kissed me. Or maybe I kissed her, which is what she always said when we relived that moment afterward. I had always dreaded my first kiss, knew it was long overdue but had no idea how it would ever come about. I’d had intensely sexual dreams by then, but they never gave me any indication of how such things would begin, how I was to make even kissing happen. Although I had never said it in so many words to myself, I would have preferred to be a girl in those situations. But there was something about having Grant and Ed below—hearing their noises, the popcorn starting to bounce in the pan, Ed yelping to Grant about something—that gave me courage. You know what you’re doing, the noises below seemed to be saying. We know you’re up there with her and we’re hoping for the best for you. I felt my tongue go into her mouth, felt her tongue hesitate then meet mine, felt she had no more experience than I did, felt her neck and her hair, felt for the first time that I was feeling what I should be feeling, as if for once all the sharp awkward fragments of my life suddenly fell into their proper slots.

The TV went on. Ed and Grant started laughing, which made us laugh. A navy blue light was coming through the small high windows in the hallways. I’m not sure I was ever so happy.

“You smell like a wet dog,” she said.

“You smell like a wet mongoose.” And we laughed and kissed, feeling like we were doing something dirty by talking while we were kissing, talking of wet things.

And then we went downstairs and ate popcorn and her cheeks were flushed and her lips bright red and it was raining hard now outside and I knew Ed and Grant knew everything, and everything—everything—made me happy.