Cornsilk is how her hair looked when I first met her. We were 16, and the century was 66 years old. Now we’re into a new millennium, and Carol’s hair isn’t long or silky any more.

It’s still blonde. She sees to that every month or so. But it’s gone from that soft-sun color to lemony then streaky all over and now this butterscotch. It’s gotten shorter every year. And it’s somehow thinner but coarser. Carol’s hair isn’t pretty any more.

I liked the way her hair looked when I met her, but I didn’t like her. She talked too much. She had opinions about everything and made them sound like facts. Her face was nice enough, I guess, but she had thick ankles and no breasts; at 16 I wasn’t sure whether I was a leg man or a breast man but I sure wasn’t an opinion man. I can’t even imagine how my life would have been if I’d stayed with that first impression.

We hung out on the edges of the same crowd the last two years of high school, and I must have gotten used to her, because I’d moved from dislike to indifference by the time we ran into each other at Cal orientation. Finding an acquaintance there was a comfort; we went to a few parties together. And she must have been working out or something; her body had more shape and I kind of started noticing. I did admire that hair. She usually wore it hanging straight down her back, but sometimes she twisted it up on top of her head and these wispy tendrils looped and curled down around her neck and ears. I liked that.

Still, she had all those opinions. When she got wound up, she became loud and strident. I’m not sure anything would have happened if it weren’t for the fleas.

Back then school life was looser. Students could smoke in class. Shoes weren’t required. Pets were allowed. A lot of us had dogs. Our dogs had fleas. Our mattresses had fleas. We had fleas. There was no Advantage or other miracle-medicines then; we had ineffective powders and sprays.

That’s when I found out that I have an allergy to one type of flea. It’s a West Coast native and I was born in New York; the Cal doctor told me my immune system finds that intolerable. The rash got worse with each bite.

Carol solved my problem. I remember her saying the only thing that really worked on an infested mattress was oil of eucalyptus. We looked it up and read that the tree has strychnine in it, which is why nothing grows in eucalyptus groves except eucalyptus. She suggested that we make my dog a flea collar out of eucalyptus nuts. The idea appealed; the nuts look nice and smell good, and the concept was natural and organic.

We tried stringing the seeds on cotton and on sisal. No go: either the rough edges of the nuts or the scratching of the dog broke the strand. A leather thong of sufficient strength would be too thick to pull through the big seeds without drilling them, and we didn’t have a drill. No one had fishing line. We finally succeeded when we used dental floss. The collar held and the fleas died.

We were 18 then. Our acquaintance led naturally to sharing drugs, treason and of course sex. Before I knew what had happened, Carol and I were an item.