Still, I think Carolyn suspected something must have happened that summer. In one of her letters, she had asked, Are you dating anybody?

I answered with a lie: No. I explained there was a group who would sometimes go to a movie or take walks together or meet in Arch’s to have milk shakes and to talk. I told her the only date I had had was not a date at all, but a favor for Harry Burger, and he had paid me for the experience. And it was true. It was also the reason that I began to be with Amy.

Harry had been raving about his two teenage nieces, who were to visit him for a weekend. They were beautiful, he assured me. I would be begging to take them to a movie, he predicted, but I would agonize over which to choose. “Angels,” Harry sighed with pride. “Like models in great magazines.”

Carter knew them. He laughed foolishly and said, “Bobo, you are talking about the two ugliest girls in the state of New York, and, just possibly, the northeastern United States. They were here last year.”

“Harry said they were beautiful.”

“What did you expect him to say? They’re his nieces, and he’s Jewish.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, Bobo, but the Jews tend to have a little pride. If those girls weren’t Harry’s nieces, he’d swear they were freaks from a sideshow, but blood, like love, is blind, boy, blind. Harry thinks he’s got Jane Russell and Betty Grable on their way here.”

“Harry wants me to take them out,” I told him. “He said to find somebody to go with me and he’d pick up the tab.”

“And you’re asking me?” Carter said suspiciously.

“No,” I replied sarcastically. “I thought I’d ask Ben Benton.”

“Ben would slit your throat,” Carter said. He pondered a moment. “All right, I’ll do it, but this is what you’ve got to tell Harry: twenty bucks apiece, plus expenses.”

“I can’t do that,” I protested. “Not after all he’s done for me.”