The dim light from the top of the basement steps, the gray concrete walls, soft dark shadows. Pink plastic bowls full of potato chips and pretzels on a wobbly, blue card table; a record player on the dryer spinning forty-fives. Randy Beatty and Trudy Bucy in the dark beneath the steps. Gwen watching the bottle, chewing her lip, the two of us shooting nervous glances back and forth.

Gwen and I had this thing for each other, and we worried about who we might be matched up with, who we might be expected to kiss.

Neither of us had ever mentioned the thing we had, but we knew from the looks and smiles given and got and from the way our elbows touched when we sat side by side in the school library. We'd rocked back and forth together with the Righteous Brothers at the ninth-grade dance, her hair as soft as dandelion fluff against my lips. We'd bumped hips, stepped on each other's toes, but we'd never kissed.

As the bottle slowed, Gwen glanced up the basement steps, I nodded, and we scrambled upstairs to bright lights and Dixie's father, who was watching the Ohio State basketball team play for the national championship. Gwen and I sat on the sofa, held hands beneath a cross-stitched pillow showing a cowboy roping a calf, and watched the game, throwing glances back and forth between us as quick and sly as the basketball passed between Havlicek and Lucas.

A month later Coke bottles caused problems again: my dad's promotion from Coke truck driver to bottling plant supervisor in Cleveland, a hundred miles away from Gwen and the small town of Pickerington.

We wrote back and forth, her letters filling a large shoe box beneath my bed. We promised to meet halfway between Columbus and Cleveland as soon as we could drive. We made plans to attend the same university. But distance and lack of money were obstacles we'd not anticipated, and, after a few years, the unkept promises embarrassed us, the letters became less frequent and eventually stopped.

And then, years later, I was at the NCAA Tournament games in Louisville, Kentucky, and the announcer on the public address system said: "Gwendolyn Stead, please report to the information desk." He repeated the message—otherwise, I never would have believed it—and I'd have gone to see if it was possible, if it was her, even though the score was tied with only two minutes left, except the guy next to me leaped into the air—a three pointer by Ohio State—and dumped a quart of ice-cold Coke down the front of my pants.

Another. 1984. I was standing on the hillside at the Blossom Music Center outside Akron, waiting for the John Denver concert to begin and scanning the crowd with binoculars, watching couples make out on blankets and families playing cards or having picnics. A helicopter landed behind the pavilion, supposedly delivering John Denver, and for a few minutes we all waited for him to step out while the helicopter blades slowly spun around and around. From time to time thunder rumbled in the distance, and everyone would look at the dark wall of clouds building in the west, then go back to eating, kissing, dealing cards, or whatever.