Wartime or not, high school goes on.

I didn’t go with Chip to the winter dance that year. But he didn’t give up, and by the end of the second semester I agreed to go to his senior prom with him. My friends said I was lucky he even asked me after I’d been so weird to him. And what was the big deal, anyway? It was only a dance, after all. What harm could there be in a little school prom?

Soo Chee borrowed a dress from her older sister for me. A tight, pink silk tube, it wasn’t like the dresses other SHA girls picked out at Godchaux’s, but it was sleek and flattering in an Oriental kind of way. The high-heeled shoes I got from Christy Lee, the beaded handbag from Anne Harding. The afternoon of the dance, they all came over to my room to help me get ready.

“He’ll have whiskey and try to get you drunk,” Christy Lee warned, working on my hair. “Don’t let him.”

“And don’t eat too much at dinner, no matter how good the food is,” said Soo Chee, fussing over my dress. Her mother worked as a seamstress, so Soo Chee knew how to take up the hem. “Don’t forget your toothbrush. You keep it in your handbag with your makeup. Take a handkerchief, too, so you can wipe your hands when they get sweaty. Boys hate sweaty hands.”

“Should I bring money?”

“God no. You’re the date,” said Anne. “You’re like the princess for the evening. Don’t pay for anything.”

“Make him grovel,” said Christy. “Make him beg.”

My roommate, Melissa, watched from the side of the room, fascinated. “Have you seriously never been on a date before?”

After they finished, my friends stood back to admire their handiwork. Soo Chee adjusted the dress so it fell properly. “Now you look good.”

“Stand up straight,” Anne said. “Don’t slouch.”

Christy took photos of us all, Anne cried a little, and I promised to tell them everything that happened that night. When word came that Chip had arrived and was waiting outside, my friends followed me down for more pictures. Sister Hagatha-Agatha watched us suspiciously from the door of the convent building. The school had waived the usual curfew for boarding students attending the prom, and even though a whole slew of teachers and parents would be on hand to chaperone the dance, Hagatha-Agatha made it plain she didn’t approve of this much liberty for young Catholic ladies. Chip good-naturedly made a show out of pinning on my corsage, then offering me his arm, then holding open the door of his car for me. Before climbing into the driver’s seat, he called out, “Don’t worry, Sister. I won’t let her take advantage of me!”—daring to do what none of us girls ever did, which was to try to joke with Sister Agatha. He honked the horn, and as we drove off waving goodbye from the windows I felt, if only for a moment, like we really were royalty.

•   •   •

Do boys and girls your age go out on dates like this anymore, Liz? I’ve only heard you talk about hanging out and hooking up, which doesn’t sound much like what Chip and I did that evening. But who knows. Maybe the difference is only in the details. Maybe when you hang out and hook up you feel the same nervous excitement that I felt then, seventeen years old and on my first real date.

Chip had made dinner reservations for us at the Riverside Hotel downtown, the one that used to have the revolving restaurant at the top. We headed straight there in his ship of a car. It was his father’s car, actually, but I could see that Chip had taken pains to get it ready for us. He had washed and polished it, inside and out, and sprayed it with pine-scented air freshener. On the transmission hump between our legs sat a small caddy holding a fresh miniature box of Kleenex and two new rolls of peppermint Life Savers. He worried over the radio and air-conditioner controls. “That’s not too cold on you, is it?”

The Cadillac Sedan DeVille was different from the Coupe DeVille in that it had four doors instead of two, he explained when I asked. His mom hated two doors, so that’s why they always got four doors. I nodded and expressed interest in whatever he said and kept asking questions, as I’d been coached by my girlfriends. “And this car was made when, exactly?” I asked, and, “What other lines of cars are you fond of?” We went on like this for ten or fifteen minutes until Chip, exasperated, said, “Oh for Christ’s sake, can we forget about the car? Who gives a damn about the car anyway?” I laughed and felt the weight fly off my chest, and knew that we’d do just fine that evening.

The maitre d’ at the restaurant was Chip’s cousin, so we not only got a table by the window, we got wine with our dinner, too. I tried to act nonchalant about the wine, the candles, the beautiful china and silverware, and the shockingly high prices on the menu, but it was the nicest restaurant I’d ever been to in my life. My parents had never brought me to a place like this before. I ordered the sirloin strip because Chip ordered the sirloin strip, and the Caesar salad because he ordered the Caesar salad. “No, no, I like that, too,” I insisted.

Over dinner, Chip told me about his acceptance at Tulane University in New Orleans for the fall. He wasn’t sure yet if he would major in business or premed, he said, but he figured he had a semester or two to decide. He’d live on campus his freshman year since that was easiest, and then probably move into a frat house his sophomore year. Some of his buddies were talking about pledging Phi Kappa Alpha, but Chip’s father had been a Kappa Sig, so there was a good chance he’d end up there, too. He might’ve been talking about studying in Paris at the Sorbonne, it sounded so elite to me.

“God, that’s just so …” I said.

“What?”

“I mean, in Zachary hardly anyone goes to college. If a boy’s very ambitious, he might go to ag school at LSU. But then he’d drop out after the first semester because what’s the use in learning all that chemistry when everything you need to know about farming you can learn from your daddy?”

Chip chuckled.

“And if you’re a girl, well, forget it. Your choice is basically to get married or not.”

“And if you’re a girl named Laura Jenkins?”

“If you’re a girl named Laura Jenkins …”

“Yeah. What’re her plans?”

From the window of the revolving restaurant I watched the state capitol drift by over Chip’s right shoulder, followed by the gas jets of the oil refineries lighting up the night sky like Roman candles. Down below, the shiny black river caught the reflected glare of the fires as it streamed past Baton Rouge, on down toward New Orleans and points farther south, where the waters spilled into the Gulf of Mexico to merge at last with the great wide ocean beyond. As we floated high above it all at our white-draped table, the world seemed to open itself up like a gilt-edged invitation to a life full of promise and glamour.

Chip watched me from across the table. “Some deep thoughts going on there.”

“Not so deep.”

“What is it, then?”

I twisted the stem of the wineglass in my fingers. Why shouldn’t we talk about this? We were adults, after all, having an adult conversation over a steak dinner in this very sophisticated restaurant. And Chip looked so handsome in his rented tuxedo, and his expression was so earnest and open.

“Well,” I said. “If you must know. There’s this boy.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, a friend, he’s a good friend. He’s in Vietnam now. I met him two, almost three years ago, in Zachary. Before I came here. We kind of, you know, we dated. But then I got sent to Sacred Heart and he enlisted.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize…. How old is he?”

“Um, twenty.”

“And you’re … He’s your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know. Yes. I mean … he was my first. You have to understand. I was fifteen years old, he was a senior. I had never met a boy like Tim before.” I explained how we got to know each other, how my parents hated him, how Tim’s letters practically saved my life during my first year at Sacred Heart. And how, just as I needed him then, he needed me now while he was in Vietnam.

I looked up at Chip. “He wants us to get married when he comes home.”

“Gosh. Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Chip took a big gulp of his wine. “I didn’t know any of this.”

“I know.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“He reenlisted. He’s got about six more months.”

“And then?”

“And then …”

“And then you’ll get married?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, Chip. I’m not even a senior yet. How can I get married? But Tim wants to. He says it’s all he thinks about now. He’s saving his money to buy us a house in Zachary.”

“Jesus, Laura.”

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No, I’m glad you did. I’m glad.”

He frowned as he grabbed a dinner roll and began buttering it. He didn’t look glad. I sipped water, and as the restaurant took us on another tour of Baton Rouge I waited to see who would speak next. I was afraid I’d ruined our evening by introducing Tim. It was like I’d summoned him right into the restaurant, and now he was standing by our table in his muddy combat boots, his rifle slung on his back, staring down on our dinner looking hurt and betrayed. I couldn’t pretend he didn’t exist. But what was I going to do? Tell him “We’re having dinner. Go away, please. Leave us alone. Go back to your war”?

Later, after Chip had paid for our meal and pulled out my chair and was leading us through the elegant old lobby of the hotel, I linked my hand in his arm.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“No. Really.”

“I just want us to have a good time tonight,” he said, rubbing his toe on the pavement as we waited for the valet to bring the car.

I gave his arm a squeeze. “Don’t worry, we will. I promise.”

•   •   •

Remember what I said about you learning from my mistakes? About how the whole moral purpose of this story is to help you lead a better life than I did? Well. Keep that in mind.

My friend Christy was right. Chip had brought whiskey for the evening, a neat flask of Jack Daniel’s tucked in the glove compartment of his father’s car. When we arrived at the Hilton hotel, Chip stopped the car in a dark corner of the parking lot and took out the bottle. On the first sip the whiskey seared the inside of my throat. “You’ll want to go easy on that,” he said. “Just a taste on the lips.”

“I’m fine,” I said, coughing.

We listened to the radio as we passed the bottle. Chip began to tell me about a horse he once had. They used to keep him at the family farm—a farm that I gathered wasn’t like the farm I grew up on, but more like a summer home. The horse’s name was Geronimo, an American paint. Chip took good care of him, and the horse understood that he belonged to Chip and would become snappish whenever someone else tried to ride him. He was like Chip’s best friend all through junior high, until he got a brain disease that made his muscles go slack. At first he stumbled around like he was drunk, but then it got so bad that he couldn’t stand up and they had to shoot him. “Not me. I didn’t shoot him,” Chip said. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. His father had to do it.

Chip stopped talking and we sat a moment in silence.

“Gosh. That’s terrible,” I said. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It was a long time ago,” Chip said, and abruptly leaned forward to adjust the radio dial. “I don’t even know why I told you that. It’s not even a funny story.”

But his story, I felt, with its hint of loss and love, bound us together in some deeper way, adding an extra intimacy to the evening. It was this feeling, I believe, that would encourage me to do what I did later.

“You ready?” Chip said. “Let’s go.”

The theme of the CHS 1972 senior prom was “Nights in White Satin,” named after a ponderous Moody Blues song popular that year. Everything was draped in white satiny cloth, naturally, and a whole gang of boys had come dressed in matching white tuxedos, calling themselves the Knights in White Satin. We shared a table with Chip’s friends and their dates, some of whom I knew from Sacred Heart. No charity cases here, only teenagers dressed up in tuxedos and gowns, their shoes shiny, their hair shiny, a little bit tipsy, celebrating all their good fortune—fortune that came so easily and was so common here as to be all but unnoticed.

Some songs popular that year, in case you’re curious: “American Pie,” “Alone Again, Naturally,” “Lean on Me,” “I Can See Clearly Now,” and “Bang a Gong (Get It On).” We danced the shake, the hitchhike, and the otherwise general kind of flopping around we did in those days, working up a sweat that mingled with the smell of hairspray and deodorant to create a sweet, heady stew of teenage exuberance. Dropping back down in our chairs, we swallowed cups of Coke that had been spiked with rum under the table. When someone brought out a camera for photos, Chip threw his arm around me. A girl at the table remarked on what an attractive couple we made.

“Yeah, too bad she’s already taken,” Chip said.

“What? Who is it?” the girl asked.

“An older man. Major in the army,” Chip said.

“Not a major,” I said.

“I like soldiers,” another girl said.

“They’re gonna get married when he comes home.”

“Chip—” I said.

“Is that true?”

“Little home there in Zachary. Couple of broken cars in the front yard. Kids rolling around in the dirt.”

“Chip—”

“Are we invited to the wedding?”

“No,” Chip said.

“Yes. Of course. Why not?” I said. “You’re all invited. Please come.” Then I added, just to be funny, “Bring your own beer. We’ll decorate the trailer, get some balloons and crepe paper.”

Everyone at the table laughed.

“Zachary. Yuck,” a girl said. “You’ll be barefoot and pregnant before you’re twenty.”

“That’s me. Trailer bride,” I said, sipping my rum and Coke through a straw. “I can hardly wait.”

“How many kids?”

“Two. No, five,” I said.

“Make it seven,” another girl said. “One for each day of the week.”

“You can name them that way,” a boy said. “‘Monday, come over here! Leave Wednesday alone.’”

“We’ll grow snap beans up the side of the trailer,” I said, on a roll now. “I’ll plant petunias in old tractor tires.”

“Laura Loo! Get on here and snap those beans,” Chip said in a funny Cajun voice. “I want my okra. Now!” He hugged my shoulders. “Look, honey, I done shot a coon for the gumbo. Mm-mm good.”

“Gumbo. Yee haw!” a boy cried.

“Save the fur, honey!” I said. “I’ll make pants for little Thursday. He done worn his out rolling in the mud.”

This won me an even bigger laugh. Drunk and inspired, brilliant in our gowns and tuxedos, we went on making fun of poor Cajuns like Tim until the band started playing “Nights in White Satin” and we were obliged to dance.

“Come on, Laura Loo,” said Chip, taking my hand to lead me to the floor. “We gotta go fais do-do.”

•   •   •

Four o’clock in the morning. See us lounging in a suburban rec room, pale-faced and bleary-eyed in our striped bellbottom pants and denim vests. We’d done the postprom parties, the postprom party breakfasts, and now the girls’ hairdos had all gone flat, and the boys’ faces, slick with sweat and oil, had sprouted tiny whiteheads, budding up overnight like mushrooms after a storm. As Elton John played softly from a cheap stereo in the next room, boys began rummaging for their car keys and rousing their dates from sofas. Someone was busy cleaning up vomit in the bathroom. Someone else’s parents were calling on the phone, wondering where they were. Stumbling across dewy purple lawns, we shouted drunkenly affectionate goodbyes to one another; and even though we knew we’d all be seeing each other at school later that week, there was a rush of sentimentality as we threw our arms around each other and said how this night was the best of them all, we would never forget it, we would be friends forever, friends for life.

I leaned against Chip in the Cadillac Sedan DeVille, my arm hooked into his, as he piloted us slowly through town. The streetlights were still on, casting their watery glow across the flat yards and empty parking lots of Baton Rouge. Tired, happy, I was floating on that dreamy euphoria that comes from just the right blend of sleeplessness, alcohol, caffeine, and youth. You must have tasted it yourself by now, Liz, though you might not recognize it yet as something rare and special, and therefore to be handled with special caution.

At a park overlooking the LSU lake, Chip turned in and stopped the car. We talked a bit, snuggling up against each other. His button-down shirt felt dry-cleaner pressed, and his after-prom loafers held a deep burgundy shine. He smelled nice. Clean. Secure.

He pointed out his home across the lake. Following his finger, I could make out, framed by two enormous live oaks on the opposite shore, a white columned porch and a redbrick chimney. The lake was still and black, and the moon, sunk low behind us, laid a milky white path across the water. I had the fantastic notion that Chip and I could step from the car and walk hand in hand across that white road to his house and up the porch steps to the front door and keep walking forever into a rich, easy future. It would be that simple. Life would be that simple.

How do I justify what I did next? It would be easy enough to blame the alcohol, but there was more to it than that. There was genuine affection involved. I knew that Chip was graduating soon and going to Tulane. This was possibly our last chance to be alone together before he left. Certainly this was the only senior prom he would ever attend, and the only night after a senior prom he would ever know. And he was so kind and polite and decent. I thought of it as a gift I might offer him. “I want this night to be special for you,” I said, and meant it as sincerely as I had ever meant anything.

“My god,” he whispered. “What are you doing?”

“Shh—” I said.

“Laura—”

“Do you like that?” I found his right hand on the seat and held it in my left. He squeezed my fingers. I only wanted to make him happy. The radio dial cast a blue-green glow into the front seat, as if we were sinking underwater. Sounds became muted and distant, and all of our movements seemed to be in slow motion. His brass belt buckle glinted in the submarine light. The song on the radio, I remember, was “Close to You” by the Carpenters.

“Is that okay? Do you like that? Do you?”

“Oh my god,” he said, miles above me. “Oh dear god, yes.”

•   •   •

In case you’re counting, Liz, that was the third time I betrayed Tim that evening. In the days that followed the prom, it wasn’t the act itself, no matter how stupidly inappropriate it might have been, that caused me such remorse. Rather, it was how easily I had disowned Tim that racked me with guilt, making me feel lower than Judas, the lowest, most untrustworthy friend in the world. And as the weeks went on and Chip became more and more peculiar and unresponsive and eventually stopped talking to me altogether, I felt it was only fitting retribution for my unfaithfulness that he should turn away from me.

I don’t blame Chip. He was and always would be a kind and decent Catholic boy—that would never change about him. But as a kind and decent Catholic boy, he also had certain expectations about girls, and in particular the type of girl he might bring home to his parents one day, the type he might safely marry knowing that she was as pure and untested as his own mother had been on the day of her wedding. I, clearly, was not that girl. And it was only just, I felt, that in addition to the private guilt I suffered for my betrayal of Tim, I also suffered the public shame of soon being branded by my peers and classmates at Cathedral High School and Sacred Heart Academy as a low-class, easy slut.