He didn't expect me to say yes, and I wouldn't. It seemed bad manners somehow, and it wouldn't change anything. What was done was done. But I wanted to go home. I wanted to be alone. Only then could I start to catalog the changes that had occurred in me.

"No." I mumbled against his shoulder.

He patted my back some more. "It'll be better for you the next time. I promise. My last girlfriend was a virgin, and it took a few times before she started to like it."

I stiffened a little. No girl wanted to hear about a previous girlfriend at such a time. And although I wasn't surprised that Luke had had sex with a virgin before, it rankled. It seemed to lessen the value of what I'd given him. As if being someone's first lover was a commonplace occurrence for him, Luke, the kind of boy virgins threw themselves at.

"Please," I said, "take me home. I'm so tired..."

"Of course, baby."

On the way back to Bluebonnet Ranch, Luke drove with one hand and held mine with the other, often giving it a small squeeze. I wasn't sure whether he was offering reassurance or asking for it, but I squeezed back every time. He asked if I wanted to go out to eat tomorrow night, and I automatically said yes.

We made some conversation. I was too dazed to know what I was saying. Random thoughts went through my mind in the darting, irregular patterns of mourning doves. I was worried about how bad I was going to feel when the numbness wore off, and trying silently to convince myself there was no reason to feel bad. Other girls my age slept with their boyfriends.. .Lucy had, and Moody was seriously considering it. So what if I had? I was still me. I kept repeating that to myself. Still me.

Now that we had done it once, was it going to happen all the time? Would Luke expect every date to end with sex? I literally cringed at the thought. I felt stings and twitches in unexpected places, and the pinch of strained muscles in my thighs. It would have been no different with Hardy, I told myself. The pain, the smells, the physical functions would have

been the same.

We pulled up to the trailer, and Luke walked me to the front steps. He seemed inclined to linger. Desperate to get rid of him, I put on a show of affection, hugging him hard, kissing his lips and chin and cheek. The display seemed to restore his confidence. He grinned and let me go inside.

"Bye. baby doll."

"Bye, Luke."

A lamp in the main room had been left on: but Mama and the baby were asleep. Thankfully I went to get my pajamas, carried them to the bathroom, and ran the hottest shower I could tolerate. Standing in the near-scalding water, I scrubbed hard at the rusty smears on my legs. The heat eased the clustering aches, water pouring over me until my skin no longer seemed imprinted with the feel of Luke. By the time I stepped from the shower. I was parboiled.

I dressed in my pajamas and went to my room, where Carrington was beginning to wriggle in her crib. Wincing at the soreness between my legs, I hurried to get a bottle ready. She was awake by the time I came back to her, but for once she wasn't screaming. She was waiting patiently, as if she knew I needed some forbearance. She reached for me with chubby amis and clung to my neck as I brought her to the rocker.

Carrington smelled like baby shampoo and diaper cream. She smelled like innocence. Her small body conformed to mine exactly, and she patted my hand as I held the bottle for

her. Her blue-green eyes stared into mine. I rocked in the languid motion she liked best. With each soft forward pitch, the tightness in my chest and throat and head disintegrated until tears began to leak from the outward corners of my eyes. No one on earth, not Mama. not even Hardy, could have consoled me as Carrington did. Grateful for the relief of tears. I continued to cry silently as I fed and burped the baby.

Instead of putting Carrington back in her crib, I took her in bed with me, putting her on the side against the wall. It was something Miss Marva had advised me never to do. She had said the baby would never willingly go back in her crib alone again.

As usual, Miss Marva was right. From that night on Carrington insisted on sleeping with me, erupting in coyote howls if I ever tried to ignore her upraised arms. And the truth was. I loved sleeping with her, the two of us snuggled together beneath the rose-patterned duvet. I fieured if I needed her. and she needed me. it was our right as sisters to comfort each other.

CHAPTER 9

Luke and I did not sleep together often, both from lack of opportunity—neither of us had our own place—and because it was obvious that no matter how I pretended to enjoy it, I didn't. We never discussed the situation directly. Whenever we did go to bed together, Luke would try this or that, but nothing he did seemed to matter. I couldn't explain to him or myself why I was a failure in bed.

"Funny," Luke commented one afternoon, lying with me in his bedroom after school. His parents had gone to San Antonio for the day, and the house was empty. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever been with, and the sexiest. I don't understand why you can't..." He paused, cupping his hand over my na**d hip.

I knew what he meant.

"That's what you get for dating a Mexican Baptist," I said. His chest moved beneath my ear as he chuckled.

I had confided my problem to Lucy: who had recently broken up with her boyfriend and was now going with the assistant manager at the cafeteria. "You need to date older boys," she had told me authoritatively. "High school boys have no idea what they're doing. You know why I broke up with Tommy?...He always twirled my ni**les like he was trying to find a good radio station. Talk about bad in bed! Tell Luke you want to start seeing other people."