As positive as Mr. Barlow had been about my meeting Maud, he cautioned me not to make sexual presumptions. “Not only about Maud,” the snowshoer added. He seemed to be saying I shouldn’t presume my mother and Molly would welcome my spending a night on the futon in the TV room with Maud, simply because Maud had fallen in love with a girl at school.

In fact, when I first proposed bringing Maud to Vermont for an overnight during the Christmas holidays, my mom sounded somewhat less than welcoming over the phone.

“You don’t have sex with a girl who’s recovering from a nervous breakdown, sweetie,” my mother told me. “And Maud is still in a cast—she’s still injured, right?” My mom must have talked to Elliot—Little Ray may even have heard what Aunt Abigail and Aunt Martha were saying about Maud, I thought.

“Maud likes snowshoeing,” I said. “She can use one ski pole—that’ll be fine, if we go where it’s not too steep.”

“You don’t have sex with a girl who thinks she may like girls, sweetie. Let me tell you: if Maud isn’t sure, that’s really asking for trouble,” my mom said.

“We’re not having sex—we’re just friends!” I cried. “We talk about books!” I might have more truthfully declared that Maud and I had no idea what our relationship was.

“I’m sure she’s a very nice girl, sweetie,” my mother said. Maud was a very nice girl. She’d also had a nervous breakdown—Maud was definitely still on the verge.

What I shouldn’t have presumed was to think that Maud had any sexual experience with boys. She’d no more tried anything with a boy than she’d had a chance to try anything with Helen. Why did I assume Maud had fooled around with boys, at least a little? I guess I imagined she’d been underwhelmed by boys—hence her interest in Helen. The truth is Maud hadn’t fooled around at all, with anyone. Reading good novels can make young readers seem more experienced about relationships than they are.

I had no expectations that I would make out with Maud—I wasn’t even going to try. My penis bender with Caroline was recent enough to make a platonic relationship with Maud imaginable. Reading good novels can make almost anything seem imaginable.

Maud was in the bathroom when my mother gave me a handful of condoms in the kitchen. “Just in case, sweetie,” my mom whispered. I could see Molly in the background—I could read her lips.

“Sorry, Kid,” Molly’s lips were saying. Maud was in the shower—she didn’t need any help keeping her cast dry with a garbage bag. We’d had fun snowshoeing, though I’d struggled to keep up with her, and I had two ski poles.