The Bench Seat

It's May 25, 1981, and I'm driving Phoebe to the airport not far from the Midwestern college I graduated from the day before. From there, she will fly back to Boston. 
Phoebe had gone to the college and we'd been friends since early freshman year. She transferred to Boston University halfway through sophomore year to enroll in its nursing program. We'd kept in touch and I'd visited her a few times. Our friendship was firm and platonic. She'd come out to see me graduate and for a last look at the campus, the friends she'd made and people she knew. I'd reserved a room for her in one of the now empty freshman dorms. She looked bemused when I told her that. We had shared rooms and beds previously out of necessity. Her room in the monstrous Warren Towers, a dormitory shaped like the letter W that housed a population greater than my college's; the small apartment in Brookline that seemed to be made entirely of wood and had a narrow stairway. But my parents are at a hotel a few miles away for graduation and the room is inexpensive. I assume it's what she wants. I assumed wrong. Phoebe stays with me. 

It is a nice spring in the region. It's cool and dry. The rains that water the surrounding cornfields are holding off, the sun is strong and bright, reddening Phoebe's shoulders. There are many activities during the days leading to graduation and packing to do. I have chosen to move to Minneapolis after the ceremony. The decision is a random one made because returning to Philadelphia would have set a script for my life I wasn't ready to subscribe to at that time. 

We spend the days eating, going to parties, talking to friends. There are presentations, concerts, a play. On the first night Phoebe shares my narrow bed. Despite the full day, we are not tired. We talk. Our voices drop an octave as we relax. At some point, a tease from her is answered by a playful nudge from me, reciprocated with an extended touch. Touches lead to caresses. A kiss. Longer kisses as we embrace. Abruptly, Phoebe rises, gets her diaphragm from her suitcase and goes to the bathroom where she inserts it. I don't let myself think about whether she brought it with her with me in mind or just out of habit, as you'd expect from an intelligent healthcare worker. This era is before AIDS, and condoms are not available everywhere at any time. 
I've had intercourse just twice and with one woman. Phoebe is far more experienced, having had a long-term boyfriends and several lovers. She is firm when correcting my mistakes, which are ones of manners due to immaturity on my part. Do not a touch a breast that way. Do not put your finger there. I do enough correctly that we spend hours each of the three nights she's there having sex. My mother senses this, probably my father does too, but it's clearer to me that she does and that she approves. I have been bad enough with women my entire life that she's relieved to find that at least one thinks I'm worthy enough to have sex with and she likes Phoebe. 
The days are happy and packed from morning to morning thanks to Phoebe. By the end of it, I'm happy but exhausted and the anxiety of what comes next—moving to a city I've never been to, have no friends in, no job or place to stay—combines with the lack of sleep to weaken my defenses. I get a bug of some kind that I can feel coming on by graduation day. A dry rasp in the back of my throat.  By the time I leave the virus has taken hold and I'm feverish. I drive through three states barely conscious of them. Not weaving or anything, but not as aware as I should be. 

When driving Phoebe to the airport, she does something no one had done before and would be impossible to do now: She slides over and sits to my right, touching me. This is possible because my car is a 1971 Ford Torino, a four-door passenger car with a V-8 engine and bench seats in front and back. Bucket seats make this impossible. So do seat belt laws, but those were non-existent at that time.  
I see her off and drive back to the college, where I'll spend one more night after graduation in my dorm room, a thing that was hard to arrange with the college, which just wants everyone out so it can take up its summer of maintenance and use the dorms to host conferences.