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He studied his empty cup for a moment.

“Why not?” he finally said. “Why not have a summer fling? I've never had a summer fling. I think my life has been deficient in fling.”

This also made me laugh. I stopped only when I realized how deadly serious Len was about this.

“Look Len, I know you think you want to do it with me. I almost fell into the same trap last summer with this guy.” I stopped to make an important correction. “Actually, he was a man. A totally grown-up man. And foreign.”

Len nodded his head, impressed.

“Anyway, there was this man I really thought I wanted to have sex with. And we got really close to doing it, but I stopped myself when I realized that the reality of sex with him would never, ever live up to the fantasy I built up in my mind all summer long. So I resisted the urge and avoided what probably would have been an awkward embarrassment.”

“So you didn't do it,” Len said.

“Nope.”

“And look how much better off you are now.” He smacked his lips together with self-satisfaction.

“Hm.” My abstinence argument was soundly trumped. I didn't know what else to say.

For a few seconds we just sat side by side and totally still on our swivel stools. And I don't know if it was Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, or all of the above, but their harmonies swiftly rose above the bar chatter and lifted my heavy, hardened heart.

“Carry on, love is coming . . . Love is coming to us all . . .”

And yet, this does not adequately explain why I ended up devirginizing Len Levy on the crusty couch in the basement storage room of Wally D's Sweet Treat Shoppe.

* * *

July 31st

Dear Len,

I'm sorry. It should have been with someone else. You deserved better than me.

Sincerely,

Jessica

* * *

the third

The news of yet another imbroglio broke in my bedroom. And as always, Bridget was beside herself.

“YOU DEVIRGINIZED LEN!!!”

I muffled her mouth. “My parents are downstairs!”

“Oh, come on,” she said, freeing herself from my grasp. “Your mother would be thrilled. She'd probably throw, like, a huge party.”

This was both unfortunate and true. It would be an elaborate theme party. With blown-up condoms for balloons and a cock-shaped ice-cream cake.

“So,” she said, a naughty gleam in her eye. “Was it any good?”

Was it any good?

This was a question I'd been trying to answer since it happened. I'd never been the more experienced one, so I kind of took over and did most of the work. Len came quickly, which is a fairly reliable indicator of a job well done. And I almost got off on the whole dominant woman-on-top power trip . . .

Bridget interpreted my silence as a no.

“Well, it doesn't matter whether it was good or not because he's going to remember you for, like, the rest of his life,” she said.

When I didn't respond, she repeated once more with feeling.

“For the rest of his life.”

“I get it.”

“It's just like, so deep,” she said. “Because he waited so long.”

“But it all seems like such a waste, doesn't it? To wait so long, and then just do it with someone who doesn't love him. He could have done that four years ago.”

It was all so sad. So meaningless. Not just the devirginization, but everything.

Life.

This isn't a startling insight. It's something I've recognized for quite some time, and can usually will myself to ignore. But after I dropped off Len the other night, there was a car with a Betty Boop decorative license plate cover in front of me at a stoplight. I thought about the type of person who would go out of her way to shop for a Betty Boop decorative license plate cover, and why this person would consider it necessary to express herself through said license plate cover. After contemplating these questions in the span of a red light turned green, I felt like crashing my car into the nearest telephone pole in despair.

Because it's not just the decorative license plate covers, it's also the designer checks you can special order because you think the cats-in-a-basket motif makes an important statement about your personal identity that the plain bank-issued