Stranger at the Door. Laura Abbot

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      EVEN THOUGH TWINK’S parents had bought an antebellum Southern mansion and drove the latest model cars, they were carpetbaggers in Springbranchian eyes. Mr. Montgomery had made his money in stocks, a specious enterprise in our part of the agricultural South. Mrs. Montgomery, called “Honey,” defied convention by hosting cocktail brunches on Sunday and driving to Shreveport to have her hair done.

      I reveled in the sense of the forbidden whenever I was in their home, where full liquor decanters and a silver cigarette box sat on a table right in the living room. If my mother had known, she might have forbidden me to be friends with Twink.

      Best of all was the gazebo at the back of the Montgomerys’ deep yard. Shaded from view by hundred-year-old oaks, it was our secret hideaway. One hot July afternoon following our eighth grade year, we took lemonades and a Monopoly set out there. But before we set up the board, Twink looked around, making sure she wasn’t being observed, and then pulled a soft-covered book from beneath her sleeveless camp shirt. “Want to see what I found?” In her expression excitement mingled with disgust.

      Prickles traveled down my spine. “What?” I pulled my legs under me and waited.

      “This was in my mother’s dresser drawer, way in the back underneath her nightgowns.” As if it were a hot potato, she handed me the slim volume.

      I had intended to ask why she’d been snooping in her mother’s bedroom, but I couldn’t. Not after reading the shocking title. Sexual Secrets of Happy Marriages.

      “Open it.” Twink’s voice sounded tinny.

      I gripped the book between my fingers, sensing I was on the brink of a fateful decision.

      “Go ahead, Izzy.”

      Twink’s use of the special nickname committed me in a way nothing else could have. “Okay.” I turned to the middle of the book, then blinked, certain I could not be seeing what was there on the page in black and white. “Twink?” Light-headed, I held out the book for her inspection. “Are they doing what I think they are?”

      “Yes.”

      Incredulous, I studied the photograph of the naked couple. I knew vaguely about sperm and eggs and ovulation, but no one, not my mother and not the health teacher, had ever explained in detail about the sex act.

      “See—” Twink pointed to the picture “—the man puts his thing in her. Listen here.” Turning the page, she read me a graphic account of the mechanics, then flipped to photos of other contorted positions.

      “Twink, this is revolting.”

      “It’s icky to think about our parents doing this, isn’t it?” she said in a hushed voice.

      “My parents!” It’s a wonder the neighbors didn’t hear my shriek of outrage, but the mental image of Irene and Robert Ashmore coupling was utterly incomprehensible.

      Twink and I never opened the Monopoly set. Instead we spent the afternoon devouring every lurid detail, alternately horrified and titillated.

      Only later, walking home, did the full import hit me. Husbands and wives did this. That’s how babies were made. I would someday have to do that thing myself. I remember leaning against the trunk of a tree, on the verge of being sick, trying to catch my breath.

      Then another thought came. Grandmama and Mother kept asking me whether I had any beaux. But if they knew what men and women did…

      In bed that night, I thought about Laidslaw Grosbeak and Jimmy Comstock. Even Tab Hunter. Then I made a solemn promise to myself. I would die an old maid before I would ever do that.

      One afternoon with “the book” had shattered the idealized image of Southern womanhood for me. However, all that knowledge couldn’t prepare me for what was to come, and before too long, I discovered life always has the capacity to blindside us.