In One Person

she wear something?” Kittredge asked me, as if he hadn’t suddenly changed the subject.
    “She wears something,” I told him.
    “Well, that’s mothers for you,” he said. “Most mothers, anyway,” he added.
    “It’s almost eleven,” I warned him. “You don’t want to be late for check-in.”
    “Does Elaine sleep naked?” Kittredge asked me.
    Of course, what I should have told him was that my desire never to do anything to hurt Elaine prevented me from telling the likes of Kittredge whether she slept naked or not, but in truth I didn’t know if Elaine slept naked. I thought it would be perfectly mysterious to say to Kittredge, which I did, “When Elaine’s with me, she’s not asleep.”
    To which Kittredge simply said: “You’re a mystery, aren’t you, Nymph? I just don’t know about you, but I’ll figure you out one day—I really will.”
    “You’re going to be late for check-in,” I told him.
    “I’m going to the infirmary—I’m going to get this mat burn checked out,” he said, pointing to his cheek. It wasn’t much of a mat burn, in my opinion, but Kittredge said, “I like the weekend nurse at the infirmary—the mat burn’s just an excuse to see her. Saturday night is a good night to stay in the infirmary,” he told me.
    On that provocative note, he left me—that was Kittredge. If he was still figuring me out, I hadn’t yet figured
him
out. Was there really a “weekend nurse” at the Favorite River infirmary? Did Kittredge have an older-woman thing going? Or was he acting, as Elaine and I had been? Was he just faking it?
    I HADN’T BEEN BACK in our dormitory apartment for very long, not more than a couple of minutes, before my mom and Richard came home from the movie. I’d barely had time to take Elaine’s padded bra from my Jockey briefs. (I’d no sooner put the bra under my pillow when Elaine phoned me.)
    “You have my bra, don’t you?” she asked me.
    “What happens to the duck?” I asked her, but she wasn’t in the mood for it.
    “Do you have my bra, Billy?”
    “Yes,” I said. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
    “That’s okay,” she said. “I want you to have it.” I didn’t tell her that Kittredge had asked me if she slept naked.
    Then Richard and my mom came home, and I asked them about the foreign film. “It was
disgusting
!” my mother said.
    “I didn’t know you were such a
prude
,” I said to her.
    “Take it easy, Bill,” Richard said.
    “I’m not a prude!” my mom told me. She seemed unreasonably upset. I had been kidding. It was just something I’d heard Elaine say to Kittredge.
    “I didn’t know what the movie was about, Jewel,” Richard said to her. “I’m sorry.”
    “Look at you!” my mom said to me. “You look more wrinkled than an unmade bed. I think you should have that conversation with Billy, Richard.”
    My mom went into their bedroom and closed the door. “
What
conversation?” I asked Richard.
    “It’s about being careful with Elaine, Bill,” Richard said. “She’s younger than you are—it’s about being sure you’re
protecting
her,” Richard told me.
    “Are you talking to me about
rubbers
?” I asked him. “Because you can only get them in Ezra Falls, and that asshole pharmacist won’t give condoms to kids.”
    “Don’t say ‘asshole,’ Bill,” Richard said, “at least not around your mom. You want
rubbers
? I’ll get you rubbers.”
    “There’s no danger with Elaine,” I told him.
    “Did I see Kittredge leaving Bancroft as we were coming home?” Richard asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Did you?”
    “You’re at a …
pivotal
age, Bill,” Richard told me. “We just want you to be careful with Elaine.”
    “I
am
careful with her,” I told him.
    “You’d better keep Kittredge away from her,” Richard said.
    “Just how do I do that?” I asked him.
    “Well, Bill …” Richard had started to say, when my mother came out of their bedroom. I remember thinking that Kittredge would have been disappointed by what she was wearing—flannel pajamas, not at all sexy.
    “You’re still talking about
sex
, aren’t you?” my mom asked Richard and me. She was angry. “I know that’s what you were talking about. Well, it’s not funny.”
    “We weren’t laughing, Jewel,” Richard tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t let him continue.
    “You keep your pecker in your pants, Billy!” my mom told me. “You go slowly with Elaine, and you tell her to watch out for