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of flavored oatmeal, I call Aunt Clara. She answers on the second ring. I picture her still at her table, holding one of the three daily newspapers she reads cover to cover without fail.
    “Hello?” she warbles, and I have to move the phone away from my ear a bit.
    “Hi, Aunt Clara, it’s Mandy.”
    “Amanda. I worried about you last night when you didn’t call me.”
    “I’m sorry, I was out to dinner and I didn’t get back ’til late. Will you be home this morning, if I come by?”
    “I’ll be here, honey. There’s a luncheon at eleven thirty, but I’ll be here ’til then. What time do you think you’ll be?” She has a very active social life at the senior center. She’s been living in the senior housing for only five years. Before that she was all alone on the ranch. She’s directing many of the center’s social functions now. As busy as she is, not to mention elderly, she always wants an exact time frame for everything.
    “I can be there in a half-hour. Is that good for you?”
    “All right, honey, I’ll see you then.”
    * * * *
    Washing and styling my hair, I debate whether to ask Aunt Clara for advice. She’s world-wise and quite liberal for a woman her age. Most old women would recommend letting men sow their wild oats and turning a blind eye, so long as they didn’t drink away the family money or lose the farm gambling. Aunt Clara has been widowed for the last sixty years, and was the subject of many a hot rumor in her day. Though she’s actually Mike’s great-aunt, I’ve known her my whole life, and am closer to her than he is.
    Mike grew up near Denver and moved here after high school to work for his dad’s cousin, Clara’s son. My parents’ ranch was near Aunt Clara’s. It was she who introduced me to Mike all those years ago.
    I was going into my senior year in high school the first time I met him, and I thought he was as close to a god as a carpenter could be. Mike has dark hair, and, by some miracle, peacock-blue eyes. He was buff, and hardly ever wore a shirt when working at Clara’s. I made it a point to ride by on my bike and observe him as often as physically possible. I had the legs of an Armstrong Racing Team member by the end of that first summer. Looking at Mike made me tingle all over, woke up sexual feelings I hadn’t ever had before.
    After I’d graduated the next summer, I saw Mike a couple of times at bonfire parties, but I was always with my boyfriend. When we danced at his cousin’s wedding, it felt like he was upholding an obligation, and I was so nervous I barely talked. Then I went away to college.
    By Christmas, I thought I had a lot of experience with guys. My boyfriend and I had called it quits before we left for our respective schools, and I made good use of my freedom that semester. Shy Mandy was history. When Clara hosted her usual Christmas party, I employed my sharply-honed flirting skills and carried on a smart, innuendo-ridden banter with Mike. We ended up all but having sex in the barn, and finished the job the next night after a movie date. We saw an awful lot of each other for the next week. It was all fun and games for me, though. I was proud to have landed him at last, but I had every intention of tossing him back in the pond.
    Mike had different feelings, as I’d soon learn. He wrote letters several times a week, and showed up at my dorm in Fort Collins one weekend, to surprise me. When he found me sporting a hickey from another guy, he almost cried. He asked me for an exclusive relationship. Seeing how much it mattered to him, I agreed.
    By spring break, he was coming up every weekend, at least for a night. He had the phone number to the local radio station, and every Wednesday evening he’d make the long-distance call and request Manilow’s Mandy for me. The DJs got a big kick out of it; I’m pretty sure it was the only time they ever played that song.
    I almost didn’t go back to school the next August, but Aunt Clara talked me into