Henry shook his head, 'I was drunk,' he said, trying to sound both ashamed and firm in this belief. He remembered the rosebush incident very clearly, of course, but he knew that sneaking into the bedroom window of his fiancee's little sister wasn't something he wanted to explain to his father. Sometimes, Henry reflected, being taken for a perpetual drunk was sort of convenient.

As she always did on any really important day, Penelope Hayes wore red.

Interesting" people were her favorite hobby. She collected them: the type who did gay things late at night and smoked cigarettes in mixed company, those would have most scandalized her own mother.

She considered herself unconventional.

The world is such a marvel - it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation.

Her life, she realized, had all the charm of a steel trap.

That is what I want to tell you about: the girls with their short skirts and bright eyes and big-city dreams. The girls of 1929.