Sherri pulled the rubbery thing out of the box and used it, she hoped correctly. She thought that sex would be beautiful and easy. It wasn’t. She was disgusted by the dirtiness and smells, the cycles of her body, the fear of pregnancy. Sex had seemed so easy in books and on TV; she imagined it would be as clean and as odorless as it was in the magazine.

She looked at her watch: nine o’clock. Her shift would start in an hour. She dashed upstairs. The house was completely quiet and still. The living room was strewn with empties and smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Beyond the windows she could see the icy lake, half expecting to spy elephant tusks jutting out from the surface like the ribs of a shipwreck. She went door to door, swinging them open. All the bedrooms were empty until she got to the last one. That’s where she discovered Val curled up next to Danny in a giant four-poster bed with a rose-colored canopy. She was sleeping with Danny?

Val sat up straight and pulled the comforter up her chest. “Knock first, would you? Jesus!”

“I have to get to work. Please. I don’t know what to do.”

Val wiped her eyes and yawned. Her hair was a mess but she looked lovely, her skin rosy. The room smelled pungent, musky. “You should have told me you had an early shift.”

“I didn’t think we’d stay here.”

“Hey, Sher.” Danny set one hand on Val’s bare shoulder and pulled her close. Sherri saw something go soft in him. This was nothing like Sherri’s experience with Frank; Danny said he’d loved many women, and now it was clear that he was crazy about Val.

“Please.” Sherri’s eyes filled with tears. “If I’m late, Gloria will fire me. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t have this job.” Her stomach flipped. She raced out of the room, found the guest bathroom, and threw up again. She rinsed her mouth out and returned to Val’s room, but the door was locked. Sherri banged on it. “Please, Val. I don’t even know where I am.”

She could hear Danny saying, “I’ll drive her, I don’t mind.”

Bam, bam, bam.

“Oh, fine,” Val said, annoyed, but why should she be? It was her idea to go to the party, her idea to drive there. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”