“I get it now. I know she wasn’t a virgin. But I have no idea why she lied to me.”

“Come on. For the same reason a man would lie about sex. More or less. To create or avoid reputation.”

“No, I don’t mean that. Although I did think Cindy and I were friends, and that she would have told me if she and Bruce were going all the way, I’m not all that surprised that she kept it from me. But that she went out of her way to advocate virginity as if it were her aim: that’s what I resent as a lie.”

“Is it possible her advocacy was rueful? Like, she knew from experience why virginity is valuable? That’s a common sort of testimony…”

“No, no. It was nothing like that. Picture us: it’s fall, late 1966, and Cindy and I are seniors at Redwood High. She’s cute; looking back on it, I’m probably attractive, but I sure didn’t appreciate that then. We’re in the college-track classes, and we’re neither popular nor pariahs.”

“Pari-ah-h-h-h-hs.”

“Be good, or go to your room. And I’ll take a little more of that coffee. Thanks. Where was I?”

“High school winter, I think.”

“Yeah. We used to take walks. My parents wouldn’t let me go out alone at night. It didn’t matter how safe it was outside; I was their only daughter and their oldest kid, and there was no way they were letting me out. So I had to find friends to walk with. And there was Cindy. I can’t say I really liked her. I mean, there was nothing not to like, but she wasn’t very interesting. I guess maybe I used her as a prop. Judy and Janet and Stephanie too. Greg and Wayne. They were all people who lived near enough, fellow walkers at night in Corte Madera. Not close friends. Available.

“During our junior year we’d sometimes meet in the sanctuary of the Presbyterian Church. Especially when it was cold or rainy. But starting in the fall of 1966 they began locking that church at night. I don’t know why; I never heard about any incident.”

“Fall of ‘66? Weren’t we into the thick of generational distrust then? Weren’t we erecting that wall around age 30?”

“Not quite. Not if I remember right. We were into Simon and Garfunkel and Paul Revere & the Raiders. The Beatles and the Stones, sure, but the Beach Boys too. Some of us were dealing a little acid, cutting white powder with Accent and shoveling the mix into clear capsules in front of my romantic eyes, but none of us were doing the drug, and pot wouldn’t be prevalent for another six months … We were starting to irritate our parents with clothing and hair then. The girls wore homemade cotton print smocks over black leotards and tights and crafted sandals. The boys stopped visiting barbers.

“We irritated our folks but we didn’t rebel. There weren’t any teen centers for us. So when they started locking the church we were forced to stay outside. I would take a walk with whoever was willing, and we’d talk about life, the universe, and other things. Sometimes the other person wouldn’t have anything to say on the subject. As you can imagine, that was never my problem. In fact, often it was kind of like talking aloud to myself, except I was ‘covered,’ if you know what I mean, by the presence of the other person.”

“I know, I know. The best example of that I ever saw – oh, I’m sure I must have told you about it – I was on the #15 Muni, and this crazy guy got on, and he carried an undoubtedly-broken cellphone. But he held the phone up to his ear the whole ride, conversing into and with it, sharing his cockeyed thoughts with it so all of us could hear. I never saw a cellphone put to better use.”

“Exactly. In our culture it is not okay to talk aloud to oneself when walking or dining in public, so we sometimes need prop people. Preople? But here’s the thing. Cindy was an actual interlocutor when it came to a couple of subjects, and it happened that premarital sex was one of them.

“I can see us in memory, walking south along Magnolia toward the S-curve at the old 7-Eleven …”

“How come there? You and Cindy must have taken other walks that year.”

“I know we did, and I’m sure we talked about guys, but I think I’m remembering this walk so vividly because it’s when we put the virginity subject to bed, so to speak. When we agreed to disagree about it. I remember where we were, our orientation, the same way I remember where on a book page I’ll find some text I recollect. There’s a spatial cue that gets connected to the words. In this case, Cindy and I are walking south, just after dark, probably around 7 o’clock on a fall night. She’s on the traffic side, to my left, and she’s just enough shorter so that I glance slightly downward when I look sideways at her. But most of the time we don’t look at each other; we’re walking briskly and we’re looking straight ahead. She’s wearing her hair down – I remember she had very thick light brown hair, shoulder-length and a little wavy – and I detect its swinging movement out of the corner of my eye. She says – ”

“ – You mean, ‘she goes.’”

“Huh?”

“She goes, you go: that’s how the young people report dialogue nowadays. You’ve gotta say, ‘first she goes … and then I go …’ and so on.”

“Young people? Nowadays?”

“Well …”

“Calling them ‘young people’ makes me feel older than ‘ma’am.’ And actually, I think you’re a bit behind the times with your colloquialisms. The young I hear lately, on the local buses and around the bike messenger wall, are using ‘like.’ Thusly:

“Cindy is like: I think there’s no sweeter gift you can give your husband than your maidenhood.

“And I’m like: You mean ‘maidenhead.’ And I think the idea is overly romantic. The man that I marry will want an experienced woman. We’ll want to know that the sexual part of our union works too.

“And Cindy is like: But of course it will work. When two people love one another …

“And I’m like: Get out of here! Now you sound like our mothers! I may not have any experience, but I’ve read as much as I could get my hands on and I’ve thought about it a lot. I think there’s four ingredients necessary to make a good lover. Ready? They’re consideration, imagination, coordination and practice. Maybe in that order. I want to bring all of that to my love, including the practice part.

“And she’s like: But think what a gift you could bring to your beloved. To assure him that no other man had ever been there; I think it’s romantic. It’s like a thoroughbred horse that will only allow one rider.

“And I’m like: Listen to you! You’re talking about yourself as if you’re property or livestock. That is not romantic. I think it’s more romantic to aim to be some kind of femme fatale: you know, get to be so good at sex that you can control men with it … That will take practice.

“And she’s like: Well, I intend to save myself.

“While I’m like: Lots and lots of practice …

“I can replay that, or something very close to that, like a movie. I swear she asserted her intention to be a virgin bride. And right about then, Bruce pulled up in his little Austin. Rick was with him. We piled in the back seat and drove to the headlands.”

“Wasn’t that your and Rick’s big moment?”

“Yeah, if you count three kisses and a fumble. We started that night and we ended when I removed his left palm from my right breast. And the tragic thing, when I look back on that evening, was that I had no objection to that sort of groping. But I was so self-conscious about my breasts then. I thought they were too small and I knew my nipples were neither prominent enough nor sufficiently reactive. I actually removed his hand to spare him disappointment! If I had even an inkling then of what I now understand of adolescent male libido (talk about fishing in a barrel!) …”

“And Bruce and Cindy?”

“Oh I discovered nothing that night. They made out, sure. We were all used to that. No. Cindy and I didn’t revisit the sex subject the rest of our senior year, and then I went off to Cal and she to Sac State. The other half of the conversation didn’t occur until December of 1967, when we were home for our first winter break from college. And she didn’t even participate in it.”

“Come again? And shall we walk?”

“Yes, let’s. If I have any more coffee my teeth will float.

“Cindy didn’t participate in the conversation because she wasn’t in the room. By then I was smoking pot, and I think we drank mulled wine that night too, so my memory is a little foggy. We were at Stephanie’s house. She and Janet and I were in the basement family room and Cindy and Judy were upstairs in Stephanie’s bedroom. The basement talk turned to sex. I was still a virgin but had almost immediate expectations with regard to my new college boyfriend. Stephanie was headed for be(maiden)heading too, but Janet had succumbed to Greg’s chronic complaints about blue balls and done the deed.

“We were full of questions for her. She left us with a favorable impression of the sport. But I’ll never forget laughing with her and telling her she’d have to fill Cindy in on the advantages; then Cindy might change her mind about preserving her hymen. Janet gaped at me. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked. ‘Cindy lost her virginity back in Hawaii, before she even moved here. Didn’t you realize that she and Bruce were having sex regularly even when we were juniors?’

“I remember feeling foolish. I wondered aloud why Cindy hadn’t told me. Stephanie said something about me thinking I had to be in on everything, how the world went on without me, you know. I was even more confused. I sensed her resentment and I didn’t understand its basis.”

“Oh you poor baby; I hope you got out of there soon.”

“I think so. I can’t remember anything about the evening after that, and I don’t think I’ve seen Cindy or Stephanie or Janet since. Not that I’ve avoided them or anything. I just lost interest. It was a confusing conversation though. Like they were trying to shame me. And I never knew why. It left a bad taste.”

“Want a mint?”

“Sure. Why the …? oh, the new case.”

“Yes. Wintergreen. But tell me, isn’t it delightful to be a fool sometimes?”

“Positively a privilege, nowadays. Good mint.”