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mother—stonewashed jeans, a t-shirt with an advertisement on it, and high-top tennis shoes. They talked about Dr. Rad the first day.
    “Twice today he told me to do something, and then questioned me about it later, as if he had never told me to do it,” Lee told her.
    “This is my second summer,” she said. “Get used to it. He does that to me all the time. It’s just one of his many quirks. Wait until you’re here a month and he asks you what your name is. He still does that to me every once in a while.” She laughed. “Just go along with it. It’s easier.”
    “Has it been a good experience?” Lee asked.
    “My dad is the dean of students at U of I, and he thinks Dr. Rad’s a genius...a bit eccentric, but a genius. That’s why I’m here. My dad says you can’t get this kind of training anywhere else in this country.”
    And so Lee and Robin assisted Dr. Rad in his numerous vegetable, fruit, and red clover projects throughout the summer. They began work at sunup, stopped for a brief lunch, and worked until sundown. Their assignments varied. Some days they spent outdoors maintaining crops and occasionally field equipment. Other days they worked in the greenhouses harvesting seeds, tending to seedlings, assisting Dr. Rad with field experiments, and keeping the environment sterile. On lab days, they collected, recorded, and organized data.
    Lee and Robin often went into town for dinner, after which Lee would return to his room in the lab and Robin to her parents’ home nearby.
    The research projects fascinated Lee, and while Dr. Rad was generous with his time in explaining things, Lee often couldn’t understand some of it due to Dr. Rad’s thick accent and rapid speech, and there were only so many times he felt he could ask him to repeat himself.
    When Lee wasn’t thinking about the work he was doing, he thought about Robin. She was the first girl he had ever known as more than just a casual acquaintance, and he thought he might be attracted to her. He suspected other boys his age would have fantasized about being in bed with someone as pretty as Robin, but when he forced himself to think about what it would feel like to be close to her, really close to her, it did nothing for him. At first, he rationalized that by telling himself she just wasn’t his type. But that only triggered the question as to what was his type. I have no type .
    One day when Dr. Rad was away at a lecture, Lee and Robin took a longer-than-normal lunch break. Eventually, he got up the nerve to ask her if she had a boyfriend.
    “No, silly. I’m a homo,” she replied.
    What? He didn’t know any homosexuals, nor had he ever heard anyone utter that word before. Isn’t that just grand. The first girl I think I may like is a homosexual…the second girl, if you count Catherine.
    “I’m sorry...I mean...no, I’m not sorry. I mean...I am sorry but not that you’re a homosexual. Actually, I don’t know why I’m sorry.” He paused to catch his breath. “Can we start over?”
    Robin took it in stride. “I’m the one who should apologize. I know it shocks people to hear me say that. I just don’t hide it like some others do. I refuse to. If someone doesn’t like me for who I am—a homo —then that’s just too bad. I am who I am.”
    Lee liked her style and high level of self-confidence.
    “Can I ask you something very personal?” he asked. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so.”
    Robin nodded.
    “How do you know you’re a homosexual?” His stomach knotted up as he waited for her to answer.
    “First of all, you can say homo. Or even queer. And gay is okay even for girls, but I hate the word lesbian for some reason. Anyway, I knew from when I was just a kid I was different from the other girls. I didn’t know why. I just knew I was. Then in fifth grade, Bobby Wentworth kissed me. I didn’t see it coming. I was so appalled, I ran into the bathroom and washed my mouth out with soap. Looking back at it, I