“I can’t look,” Anita replied. “He fills my eyes with stars until I’m blind. Then it happens.”

“I see,” Maria said. “That’s why you go to the movies and can’t tell anyone what the picture was. Yes,” she continued, “now I understand what happens when you and ’Nardo sit in the balcony. I wonder if I should tell my mother and father why you know nothing about the movies?”

Anita fastened her fingers on the collar of the dress. “I’ll rip it to shreds,” she warned.

“Perhaps if you could manage to lower the neck…” Maria suggested, her eyes assuring Anita that she would never reveal so personal a secret.

“Next year,” Anita tried to look severe but had to smile. “There’s time enough.” For a moment her eyes were sad. “Believe me.”

Maria pouted and raised the dress a bit; there, her knees showed, that would have been a better length. “Next year I’ll be married and if I’m wearing a dress who’ll care how long it is?”

“All right,” Anita raised both hands in surrender. “How much do you want the neck lowered?”

“Down to here,” Maria touched her breastbone, then frowned at herself in the mirror. “I hate this dress!”

“Then don’t wear it and don’t come to the dance,” Anita said, and hoped Maria would take the suggestion.

Quite certain that no matter how she altered the dress, ’Nardo would find fault with it, Anita wondered why she had to put up with something like this when she could have been at home lying in a tub filled with bubblebath. She would have raised her legs and arms as if in a striptease, thinking the most delicious, immoral thoughts, which was a good way to get rid of the sadness and envy over Maria. Tell the truth—she told herself—you might’ve been like ’Nardo’s sister, but never looked it. Dress Maria in robes and she would look like the Madonna.

“Don’t come?” Maria was shocked. “You or no one else is going to keep me away. My mother gave me her permission.” Again she deliberated by tapping a fingertip against her lower lip. “Couldn’t we dye the dress red? You looked so wonderful in your red dress.”

“No we could not!” Anita was firm. “Maria, please. There is enough to do just to get the dress ready…”

“White is for babies,” Maria complained. “I’ll be the only one there in a white…”

“… if you’re going to be there, it’s going to be in a white dress,” Anita said. “So make up your mind, please.”

“The white dress,” Maria capitulated, “with the neckline lowered just a little bit.” She insisted upon this. Suddenly she grasped Anita around the waist and kissed the older girl’s cheek. “You’re so good, Anita, and I love you.”

The hard knocking on the front door gave Anita an excuse to free herself and avoid the shameful folly of tears. Possibly if she had been lying in the tub she might have thought about something else: how much time had passed since she had been like Maria. But she never had been, not from the first moment she had become aware that boys were different.