I took the photo again and studied his face. If there was one single type of face in the world designed to arouse instant dislike in me, this was it. Worse, something about him reminded me of a particular upperclassman in a high-school club of mine, a guy I hated—not a bad-looking type, but absolutely empty-headed and a real whiner. He had a memory like an elephant; once he had some picky thing on you, he’d never let go. He made up for lack of brains with this phenomenal memory.

“How many times have you done it with him?” I asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, blushing. “You don’t have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know.”

The second photo had been taken after the trip. It showed the computer engineer by himself. He wore a leather jacket and was leaning against a big motorcycle, his helmet perched on the saddle. His face had exactly the same expression as in San Francisco. Maybe he didn’t have any other expressions.

“He likes motorcycles,” she said.

“No kidding. I didn’t think he put on the leather jacket just to have his picture taken.”

Maybe it was another example of my narrow-minded personality, but I could never like motorcycle freaks—the way they swagger around, so pleased with themselves. I kept my mouth shut and handed the picture back.

“Well, then,” I said.

“Well, then, what?”

“Well, then, what comes next?”

“I don’t know. We might get married.”

“Has he proposed?”

“Sort of. But I haven’t given him my answer.”

“I see.”

“Actually, I’m not sure I want to get married. I’ve just started working, and I think I’d like to take it easy, play around a little more. Not go crazy like you, of course …”

“That’s probably a healthy attitude,” I offered.

“But I don’t know, he’s really nice. Sometimes I think I’d like to marry him. It’s hard.”

I picked up the photos again and looked at them. I kept my sigh to myself.

This conversation happened before Christmas. One morning after New Year’s, my mother called me at nine o’clock. I was brushing my teeth to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”

She asked if I knew the man my sister was seeing.

I said I didn’t.

She said she had gotten a letter from my sister asking if she could bring him home two weeks from Saturday.

“I suppose she wants to marry him,” I said.

“That’s why I’m trying to find out from you what kind of man he is. I’d like to learn something about him before I actually meet him.”