Chapter 1

Katie was my first real girlfriend. We dated when we were seniors in high school. We both turned eighteen the summer before, so we got fairly serious that year. When we received our college acceptances, we knew we had a problem. She planned to go a few hundred miles out of state to a prestigious college that offered her a scholarship in her chosen major. I was headed for a campus near home. We had a serious discussion one night in the back seat of her dad’s car.

She wiped the last traces of our love-making from herself with a tissue from her purse, fluffed her strawberry blond pubic hair, and pulled her panties on. “I don’t know what to do, Ed.”

“Yes you do.” I found my underwear on the floor of the car.

“I never thought I’d get the scholarship.”

“When they read your essay, I’m sure the decision was easy. This is your first choice college, Katie, one of the best journalism schools in the country. You can’t pass that up.”

She clipped her bra in front of her, turned it around, and fumbled with the straps to position it over her small breasts. “With that scholarship, I won’t be buried under student loans forever. All I’ll have to pay for is room, board, and books. I can borrow enough for that and pay it back pretty fast when I get a good job.”

“You said you weren’t sure you could get a loan for tuition and everything anyway.”

“It was only a dream without the scholarship. With our family budget I was going to be lucky to borrow enough for a state school. Dammit, I hate being poor.”

“You’re not poor, Katie. If you were, you would have qualified for a needs-based scholarship.”

“Okay, my parents both work, so we’re not poor, but the cost of keeping Billie in that institution means there’s never money for anything. Saving for college for me was out of the question.”

“How far is it to campus?”

“It took us six hours each way when we visited, so I guess you won’t be able to come see me much.”

“We can call.”

“There are pay phones in the halls of the dorms, but the long distance charges will be ridiculous.”

“We could write.”

She put her hand on my leg. “Is that realistic? We’ll be six hours apart, never seeing each other. College will be different worlds for both of us.”

“Do you want to break up?”

“No, Ed, that’s not what I want at all, but I don’t see how we can continue. I guess you despise me now.”

“I could never feel that way about you.”

She kissed me, and soon our clothes were on the floor again.

We dated after graduation but agreed to end things. It was the only logical thing to do, which meant there weren’t many tears. The last time I saw her was at someone’s New Years Eve party when we were both home for winter break freshman year. We kissed under the mistletoe, but we did more reminiscing about old times than renewing the relationship, so that was it.

I got my Bachelor’s Degree in a major that turned out to not be marketable. My college career placement office was no help. There was absolutely nothing available that was technically in my field paying more than minimum wage to people without an advanced degree, so I went back to my summer job full-time and read the help-wanted ads in the newspaper every evening. With my crappy paycheck, I had no choice but to move back in with my parents.

I was a young man, fresh out of college, facing the prospect of living in my childhood bedroom. Sleeping next door to my folks was bad enough on breaks from college. I wasn’t prepared to do it full time at that age. Mom and Dad took pity on me and let me have the finished family room and its folding sofa-bed in the basement as my quarters.

There was a powder room down there too, which allowed me to piss and brush my teeth before bed without risking waking anyone since my folks went to sleep early. I was too old to have a curfew, but it was easier lying about what time I got home if I used the downstairs door.

At dinner one evening, my dad asked, “Do you remember a man named Clifford Schmidt?”