A long time ago when I was happy, Bob Rosen held me in his arms outside a drive-in and laughed at everything I said and told me what to do, told me what the world meant and how to live in it and then we moved away. I wish “Moonglow with Martin” was on tonight. I wish I could send my mind across the miles to touch him. Somewhere, wherever you are, I’m thinking of you. And I still love you. I will love you until I die. I’m a mess right now, Roberto, but I won’t always be. Te amo, mio caro. Te amo, my one and only love. I’m going to get better. I’m going to grow and make you proud of me. And you will know it. You will know it even if you’re in a grave.

After a long time I slept. After a long terrible time my body curled down into the position it had known inside of Ariane and took its rest.

Of course Stanley never paid for the suit. Actually, I never heard from him again although I passed him several times on campus and we both looked away. The cuts on my feet healed in a week. Things heal on nineteen-year-old girls with the swiftness of divinity. If I were to envy the young for anything it would be for that. The way an injury can seal and cure itself almost overnight.

My feet healed and my heart pumped its miraculous message to my cells and the days began to unfurl the flag of the future. Irise came by to deliver an invitation to Georgia Tech and somewhere in Atlanta a boy with green eyes and better genes than Stanley’s was getting ready to be there when my panties finally began to fall. Was waiting to help me fulfill my destiny or seal my fate or just plain get laid at last, however you like to phrase it, whatever you think it means.