“They were married there. That night I was arrested, it was too late to find a judge and have bail set, so the boys were sent upstairs and Gloria and I were taken into the city to the women’s jail. In the morning the police were able to convince the owner of the car not to press charges. In those days the police did what they could to keep new kids out of court.”

“They still do,” he said.

“So nothing was done, but they frightened the hell out of us, which was right. When I got home my father made me take off my skirt and and he beat me across the legs with his belt. I’ve never screamed as I did that day.”

“Okay,” Leland said. He did not want to see it, even in his mind. The waiter came for the empty dishes. Her hands clasped in her lap, Norma MacIver took the moment to think of what she had said. She had her head back and the skin on her neck was sallow. She had stayed close to home since the death of her husband. She looked at Leland.

“They watched me pretty carefully after that. I wasn’t allowed to go out after dark, but that didn’t make a difference. It didn’t take me long to fix on a fellow, and he and I would use Gloria’s apartment. At first he was just fooling with me, I know, and seeing another girl at night. Then he stopped seeing her and there was just me. Of course that was gratifying, even though he was getting something from me that he didn’t get from her. We didn’t last long, a couple of months. It had to be that way at our age—and we were Catholic. I had my qualms, but he had worse. He went back to the church and confession and the whole business. It hurt me when I found out. I hated him sneaking behind my back and letting the priest call me a whore. We knew what the priests said about the girls.