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willed and fearless. Growing up in the conservative Midwest, she quickly gravitated to the left. Her parents, who were devout Republicans, insisted that she chose her politics based on the number of potential arguments she could have per capita. In high school she was the editor of the newspaper and used her position to argue her causes. She was always the one standing outside school gathering names on petitions for the cause of the moment, and she was probably the only fourteen-year-old manning the polls on Election Day. Her parents never once praised her for her command of the issues, her initiative, or even her spunk. But the lack of encouragement never deterred Claudia.
    She had her heart set on going to Berkeley for college, but her parents insisted they could only afford to send her to an in-state school, so she went to the University of Kansas. Claudia managed to find a sufficient number of liberal, sensitive, artsy types, but none of them seemed to match her temperament as well as thebrash football players, the boisterous frat boys, and the pompous president of the Young Republicans club.
    Claudia was a striking presence at almost six feet tall, with long brown hair as thick as a Kennedy’s and almond-shaped brown eyes. She tried dating a slender boy who majored in ceramics and later the bookish editor of the college literary magazine, but while their intellects were in synch, their bodies weren’t.
    Every now and then, Claudia and her friends would venture to one of the fraternity parties, partly for the free beer but mostly to gather material for their late-night bitching sessions, where they lamented their lot in having to go to college in the farmlands of Kansas and plotted ways to transfer to Berkeley. One weekend they opted for a luau-themed party where everyone wore grass skirts and leis, but they defiantly did not.
    “Hey, baby, wanna get ‘lei-ed’?” asked a soon-to-be-wasted football player wearing a blue and yellow sarong and holding up a necklace of fake fuchsia flowers.
    Claudia looked at him blankly, considering whether to walk away or attempt a witty comeback that would most certainly go over his head. “Yes, I’d love to get laid,” she said, surprising even herself. For a split second she imagined this mammoth man seizing her, sure he could beat a lawsuit with those words ringing in his head, but then she relaxed, figuring she could handle even this meathead.
    “Awesome,” he said, placing the lei around her neck and walking on.
    Claudia smiled.
    “What’s so funny?” asked another guy, a little smaller than the first but still big, wearing only a grass skirt—his impressive physique on full display.
    “You guys,” said Claudia.
    “Oh, really? You find us funny?”
    “Yeah, extremely funny.”
    The boy paused, blatantly looking Claudia up and down. “You’re tall.”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “And pretty.”
    “If you say so.”
    “I’ve never seen you before.”
    “Not surprising, considering about twenty thousand people go here.”
    “My name’s Mike. What’s yours?”
    “Claudia.”
    “You want to go out on a date, Claudia?”
    A date? thought Claudia. People don’t go out on “dates” in college, unless, of course, they live in a frat house. There was something quaint about the notion.
    “Sure, why not,” said Claudia. And before she knew it, she was giving this stranger her phone number.
    Mike called the next day and arranged to take Claudia out that weekend. He picked her up in an old Cadillac convertible and took her to an Italian restaurant with velvet wallpaper and red leather booths. He wore a light blue polo shirt that showed off his bluish-gray eyes, and his thick black hair was still wet. After getting permission from Claudia to order for the two of them, he asked for a bottle of Chianti, fried ravioli for an appetizer, and chicken spiedini.
    “I feel like I’m going to the prom,” said Claudia.
    “Why? You never had a guy take you out before?”
    “Not