My grandmother was right: the girl jocks took over the bathrooms in the Front Street house. There were wet towels everywhere; those vigorous girls were always taking a bath or a shower. My mom had designated my attic bathroom, adjoined to my bedroom, off-limits. She’d moved her things into my bedroom and was sleeping (as usual) in my bed with me. Molly was sleeping in my mother’s bedroom on the second floor.

“I’m not antisocial, Kid,” the night groomer told me. “I’m just too big to sleep on the ground in a tent with a bunch of women—talking all night about women’s stuff.” In the terrifying context of the unexplained yeast infection—its cause, its consequences, its potential as a contagion—my fourteen-year-old imagination would make too much of what Molly meant by women’s stuff. I’m not saying it’s the sole reason I waited so long to get married—almost as long as I put off going to Aspen—but, for some years, the repercussions of women’s stuff seriously affected my imagination.

My mom could sense I was disquieted by these things I was hearing about but not understanding: for starters, the wedding guests whose sleep and peace of mind were disturbed by Em’s soul-searching orgasms. And now came the dark and undisclosed mysteries and ramifications of Nelly’s yeast infection—the near drowning of the boyfriend who dared to speak of it, and Molly’s decision not to sleep in the tent with the girl jocks and their women’s stuff.

“In the first place, sweetie, you should stop thinking about Em—most of all, the unusual sounds she makes,” my mother advised me. “I can only speculate that Nora could be a somewhat traumatizing girlfriend experience—especially if Nora were your first girlfriend.” I could see this point, of course, though this did not relieve me from hearing Em’s unusual sounds in my imagination.

In a similarly dismissive fashion, my mom tried to reassure me about Nelly’s yeast infection. “Nelly’s going to be okay, sweetie—yeast infections usually aren’t life-threatening. Nelly just goes on and on about hers, but every woman has had one or will have one. It’s not a big deal,” my mother told me. “Okay, there’s pain, there’s itching, there’s the cottage-cheese discharge.”

“The what?” I asked her.

“From your vagina—you should stop thinking about it, sweetie.”

“I can see why Molly doesn’t want to sleep in the tent with the jocks, talking all night about the cottage-cheese stuff,” I told my mom.

“I need Molly near me, sweetie—not in the tent. I can’t get into or out of my wedding dress if Molly doesn’t help me,” my mother said.