She walked away and I followed.

“Hey, I’m kidding,” I said.

She stopped and glared at me.

“It was a joke,” I said. “Ha ha. You know, just … a … joke.”

“You’re a real funny guy,” she said dryly.

“Listen,” I said, “do you by any chance like to get high?”

We spent that period and almost every free period for the next two weeks sitting up on the mountain beside Thames Brook talking and smoking bones. I was in heaven. At first I behaved sort of dumb about being alone with her in the woods—I dusted off a boulder for her to sit on once—but the more we talked, the looser I got, and the better we got along.

Because we came from different backgrounds—Jane was from Toms Brook, Virginia—we had a lot to gab about. I’d never seen a herd of deer in my backyard and she’d never seen a pack of rats in hers. Jane had a good sense of humor so I told her all my Dirty Ernie jokes and she didn’t get offended. Also, I told her about my plans to move to Arizona and she seemed excited.

One day as I walked into the dining room for lunch, Jane waved me over to Rafferty’s table. It was against school rules to sit in an unassigned seat but I took it as a challenge and accepted.

For most of lunch I kept my trap shut. Then Olga started jabbering about the crumbling love affair of Jonathan Wheeler and S.D. Stuart. “Jonathan broke up with S.D. over Columbus Day weekend,” she announced.

“What a silly thing to break up over,” I said.

“It’s not funny, she’s heartbroken. Should see her. She cried for three days and couldn’t sleep a wink, so somebody gave her a bunch of Valiums and now she’s walking around like a zombie. She’s so depressed.”

“I guess it’s true then,” Rafferty said. “Depression is the better part of Valium.”

“You’re a real punster,” Jane said.

“What’s two-thirds of a pun?” I asked.

“What?”

“P.U.”

“S.D. is so in love,” Olga cooed.

“Good God, Ogre, don’t make us puke,” Jack said. “You don’t know what love is.”

“Oh, and you do?”

“That’s right,” Jack said. “Love is being able to tell your girlfriend she has a snot on her nose. S.D.’s just horny and insecure. It’s called withdrawal. She was getting the guy’s pork, and now she doesn’t know what she’s gonna do.”

“You’ve got some nerve,” Olga said. “For your information, they had a platonic relationship.”

“Yeah, right,” Jack said. “They’d fuck their brains out and then talk about Plato. Just listen to yourself. She’s walking around like a bowl of Maypo, right? She’s insecure.”