I am standing on the terrace of the Alumnae House, listening to a classmate from Pem East whom I remember chiefly for her gentle wit and acne—which has cleared up completely after 25 years—and the egg stains on her pale blue woolen bathrobe.

Suddenly I notice a familiar face from the Class of '47. (They're the ones with owl-shaped name tags; ours are round with "25th" in large Gothic print.) It is a fairly long face, with a nose that is too large for the close-set eyes above it and skin that has been leathered by the sun. From the simple dress the woman's wearing—lime green linen—and gold bracelets on her wrists, I can tell she's rich and social—the Miss Porter's type that always slightly frightened me.

As she leans her shingled gray head back to laugh, she shows a set of teeth which bite into my memory so deeply that I wince with pain. The same kind of pain I felt this morning when I walked through Pembroke Arch and passed the bicycle rack I fell backward over once when Hugh Patterson—the only man I've every loved in the reckless, headlong way that Cathy loved Heathcliff—was kissing me goodnight.