A Life of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring

was so frikken cool, Button. We were all brothers and sisters—no judging, no greed, no meanness—just peace and love. Acid was being passed out like Halloween candy, and the air was so thick with pot smoke that you could get high just breathing. Even the pigs just let us be.”
    I was holding on to the frame of the window seat like it was the edge of a cliff. “Did
you
do those things?”
    “Which things? The acid, the weed, or the sex?”
    “Any of them.”
    “I didn’t drop any acid. Tried it once before Woodstock and had a bad trip. Who needs
that
shit? I smoked a lot of joints, though. And had a lot of sex.”
    “You didn’t,” I whispered, horrified, yet intrigued.
    Winnalee laughed. “Everybody did!”
    I could hear Ma’s voice saying, “If everybody jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?”
    “Freeda had a shit fit when I got back and told her where I’d been, but I didn’t care. I’d gone, and that’s all that mattered.”
    Winnalee picked up her stack of albums and asked where my stereo was. I took her into my sewing room, where Jo’s soiled wedding gown and the near-finished bridesmaid’s dresshung. “Holy shit, what’s all this? You aren’t getting married, are you?” She looked relieved when I told her no.
    I explained the bridal shop and how I worked for Linda now, as Winnalee pulled a few vinyl records from their covers. “No kidding? Cool! I couldn’t do something like that. Look at this …” She pulled the bottom of her dress up and flopped the hem over to show me the gnarled zigzag of black thread. “I did this myself. Looks like a squished tarantula, doesn’t it?”
    Winnalee dropped her skirt and lifted the stack of 45s sitting near my stereo, swishing through them like a card player looking for an ace. One of the red snap-in inserts necessary to fit the 45s on the skinny turntable spindle fell out of the hole and rolled under the table. Winnalee didn’t seem to notice. “Simon and Garfunkel … The Carpenters … Three Dog Night … The Bee Gees …” She glanced up, giving me the kind of smile people gave Boohoo when they thought his babyness was cute. But she gave me a real smile when she came across John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” Winnalee set down my 45s and picked up one of the few albums I owned. “Creedence Clearwater. Cool,” she said. “They were awesome at Woodstock.” I didn’t even know they
were
at Woodstock, but I was glad to hear it. I didn’t want Winnalee thinking I only listened to bubblegum music—even if I mostly did.
    Winnalee stacked a couple of her albums on the turntable, cranking the volume up high so we could hear the music in the bedroom. Then it was my turn to grin, because Winnalee sounded like Boohoo mimicking a cartoon bad guy as she sang along with husky-voiced Joplin with her still-little-Winnalee voice.
    Winnalee paused at my vanity and pulled Jesse’s picture from the edge of the mirror. “Is this your boyfriend?” she asked, flipping the picture over, seeing the back was empty, then turning it back to his face again.
    “No. That’s Jesse,” I said. “We’re just friends.”
    “You sounded sorry when you said that. Course, can’t say I blame you. He’s cute. Well, if the Army hadn’t butchered his hair … which is a far cry from what will end up getting butchered in the end. I hate that goddamn war.”
    Winnalee flopped on the bed, her legs bent, her dress falling away from knees that were round and smooth and small. I turned away, because if she wasn’t wearing underwear, I didn’t want to know.
    “I can’t believe you had sex,” I said aloud, even though I’d meant to only think it.
    “Haven’t you?” she asked, her face going into shock mode.
    I felt myself blush and I looked down. Up until that moment, I hadn’t known it was possible for a girl to be embarrassed because you
hadn’t
had sex yet. In my school, there were only a handful of girls who’d lost their virginity, and that