On the other side of the fence is old Mr. Manfred, sharpening his lawnmower. She puts down her ball and watches him cautiously, his round back, his chin full of gray teeth, the cloud of white hair resting so lazily on top of his head, and the wayward, unquenchable dullness of his eyes. Twice in the past he has offered her peppermints, and twice, mindful of her mother’s warnings, she has refused. “No, thank you,” she said each time. But it had been painful for her, saying no. She had felt no answering sense of virtue, only the hope that he might offer again.

Tonight Mr. Manfred walks over to the fence and tells her he has a secret. He whispers it into her ear. This secret has a devious shape: grotesque flapping ears and a loose drooling mouth. Mr. Manfred’s words seem ghosted by the scent of the oil can he holds in his right hand. In his left hand, in the folds of his cotton work pants, he grasps a tube of pink snouty dampish flesh. What he whispers is formlessly narrative and involves the familiar daylight objects of underwear and fingers and the reward of peppermint candy.

But then he draws back suddenly as though stung by a wasp. The oil can rolls and rolls and rolls on the ground. He knows, and Georgia, aged ten, knows that something inadmissible has been said, something that cannot be withdrawn. Or can it? A dangerous proposition has been placed in her hand. It burns and shines. She wants to hand it back quickly, get rid of it somehow, but etiquette demands that she first translate it into something bearable.

The only other language she knows is incomprehension, and luckily she’s been taught the apt phrase. “I beg your pardon?” she says to Mr. Manfred. Her face does a courteous twist, enterprising, meek, placatory, and masked with power, allowing Mr. Manfred time to sink back into the lavender twilight of the uncut grass. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear.... ”

Later, twenty-three years old, she is on a train, the Super Continental, traveling eastward. She has a window seat, and sunlight gathers around the crown of her hair. She knows how she must look, with her thin clever mouth and F. Scott Fitzgerald eyes.

“I can’t resist introducing myself,” a man says.

“Pardon?” She is clearly flustered. He has a beautiful face, carved cheeks, crisp gray hair curling at the forehead.

“The book,” he points. “The book you’re reading. It looks very interesting.”

“Ah,” she says.

Two days later they are in bed together, a hotel room, and she reflects on the fact that she has not finished the book, that she doesn’t care if she ever does, for how can a book above love compare with what she now knows.

“I’m sorry,” he says then. “I hadn’t realized I was the first.”

“Oh, but you’re not,” she cries.