Four days later, on Thursday morning, I cut all my classes and drove down to Rich’s department store and went shopping. I bought a white piqué dress with pearl buttons down the front and a white satin slip and a long white negligee and a gown. I bought some white satin slippers with fuzzy white balls on the toes. I bought a book on how to have sexual intercourse. I bought a gray and white striped sundress with a jacket and some red Capezio sandals and a tube of contraceptive jelly. I went downstairs to the coffee shop and bought two doughnuts and a cup of coffee and ate the sugar off the first doughnut while I read the book. It looked as though we had been doing it right. But the stuff about getting pregnant sounded bad. I polished off the doughnut and thought it over. The redheaded black girl behind the counter came over and stood beside me looking at the cover of the book. “Is that any good?” she asked. I was the only customer in the shop so she had time to chat.

“I guess so. Except about the contraceptives. It keeps saying something works fifty percent of the time or ninety percent of the time. But it doesn’t say which one is best.”

“What you been doing?”

“Nothing. I’m getting married tomorrow.” I looked around to make sure no one had come in. “We’re running away. My boyfriend and I. We’re going to Walhalla, South Carolina. So I thought maybe I should be finding out what to do.”

“Better late than never, I suppose. You better get you some rubbers and start to pray. Them babies have a way of finding their way into the world.”

“Have you got any?”

“I got three. Three more than I got any use for but I love them. Don’t be doing any of that rhythm business. That doesn’t work. Nothing works but rubbers and they don’t work too good. You ought to get you a pessary or a diaphragm.”

“There’s a part in here about them. I guess I could go to a doctor after I get married and get one, couldn’t I?”

“Honey, you don’t have to be married to get one. They give them to anybody.” She reached behind herself and got the pot of coffee and refilled my cup. “When’s the wedding going to be?”

“We’re going to drive up tomorrow and get married Saturday. You have to get the license, then you have to wait twenty-four hours before you can get married. Some friends of ours did it. So we know where to go.”

“Well, I wish you luck. What you got in all them packages?”

“A wedding dress and a trousseau. I thought I ought to have a trousseau.”