It began to hail as we reached the open door, pebble-size chunks of ice that struck the granite with a rattling sound. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Astrid yelled . . . but she was laughing at the same time. She darted in. I followed just as the lightning flashed again, artillery on some apocalyptic battlefield. This time it was preceded by a snap instead of a click.

Astrid seized my shoulder. “Look!”

I’d missed the storm’s second swipe at the iron rod, but I clearly saw what followed. Balls of St. Elmo’s fire bounced and rolled down the scree-littered slope. There were half a dozen. One by one they popped out of existence.

Astrid hugged me, but that wasn’t enough. She locked her hands around my neck and climbed me, her thighs locked around my hips. “This is fantastic!” she screamed.

The hail turned to rain, and it came in a deluge. Skytop was blotted out, but we never lost sight of the iron rod, because it was struck repeatedly. It would glow blue or purple, then red, then fade, only to be struck again.

Rain like that rarely lasts long. As it lessened, we saw that the granite slope below the iron rod had turned into a river. The thunder continued to rumble, but it was losing its fury and subsiding into sulks. We heard running water everywhere, as if the earth were whispering. The sun was still shining to the east, over Brunswick and Freeport and Jerusalem’s Lot, where we saw not one or two rainbows but half a dozen, interlocking like Olympic rings.

Astrid turned me toward her. “I have to tell you something,” she said. Her voice was low.

“What?” I was suddenly sure that she would destroy this transcendent moment by telling me we had to break up.

“Last month my mother took me to the doctor. She said she didn’t want to know how serious we were about each other, that it wasn’t her business, but she needed to know I was taking care of myself. That was how she put it. ‘All you have to say is that you want it because your periods are painful and irregular,’ she said. ‘When he sees that I brought you myself, that will do.’”

I was a little slow, I guess, so she punched me in the chest.

“Birth control pills, dummy. Ovral. It’s safe now, because I had a period since I started taking them. I’ve been waiting for the right time, and if this isn’t it, there won’t ever be one.”

Those luminous eyes on mine. Then she dropped them, and began biting her lip.

“Just don’t . . . don’t get carried away, all right? Think of me and be gentle. Because I’m scared. Carol said her first time hurt like hell.”

We undressed each other—all the way, at last—while the clouds unraveled overhead and the sun shone through and the whisper of running water began to die away. Her arms and legs were already tanned. The rest of her was as white as snow. Her pubic hair was fine gold, accentuating her sex rather than obscuring it. There was an old mattress in the corner, where the roof was still whole—we weren’t the first to use that cabin for what it was used for that day.

She guided me in, then made me stop. I asked her if it was all right. She said it was, but that she wanted to do it herself. “Hold still, honey. Just hold still.”

I held still. It was agony to hold still, but it was also wonderful to hold still. She raised her hips. I slid in a little deeper. She did it again and I slipped in a little more. I remember looking at the mattress and seeing its old faded pattern, and smudges of dirt, and a single trundling ant. That she raised her hips again. I slid in all the way and she gasped.

“Oh my God!”

“Does it hurt? Astrid, does it—”

“No, it’s wonderful. I think . . . you can do it now.”

I did. We did.

 • • •

That was our summer of love. We made it in several places—once in Norm’s bedroom in Cicero Irving’s trailer, where we broke his bed and had to put it back together—but mostly we used the cabin at Skytop. It was our place, and we wrote our names on one of the walls, among half a hundred others. There was never another storm, though. Not that summer.

In the fall, I went to the University of Maine and Astrid went to Suffolk University in Boston. I assumed this would be a temporary separation—we’d see each other on vacations, and at some hazy point in the future, when we both had our degrees, we’d marry. One of the few things I’ve learned since then about the fundamental differences between the sexes is this: men make assumptions, but women rarely do.

On the day of the thunderstorm, as we were driving home, Astrid said, “I’m glad you were my first.” I told her I was glad, too, not even thinking about what that implied.

There was no big breakup scene. We just drifted apart, and if there was an architect for that gradual withering, it was Delia Soderberg, Astrid’s pretty, quiet mother, who was unfailingly pleasant but always looked at me the way a storekeeper studies a suspicious twenty-dollar bill. Maybe it’s all right, the storekeeper thinks, but there’s just a little something . . . off about it. If Astrid had gotten pregnant, my assumptions about our future might have proved correct. And hey, we might have been very happy: three kids, two-car garage, backyard swimming pool, all the rest. But I don’t think so. I think the constant gigging—and the girls who always hang around rock bands—would have broken us up. Looking back, I have to think that Delia Soderberg’s suspicions were justified. I was a counterfeit twenty. Good enough to pass in most places, maybe, but not in her store.

There was no big breakup scene with Chrome Roses, either. On my first weekend home from school in Orono, I played with the band at the Amvets on Friday night and at Scooter’s Pub in North Conway on Saturday. We sounded as good as ever, and we were now hauling down a hundred and fifty a gig. I remember I sang lead on “Shake Your Moneymaker” and played a pretty good harp solo.

But when I came home for Thanksgiving, I discovered that Norm had hired a new rhythm guitarist and changed the name of the band to Norman’s Knights. “Sorry, man,” he said, shrugging. “The offers were piling up, and I can’t work in a trio. Drums, bass, two guitars—that’s rock and roll.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it.” And I did, because he was right. Or almost. Drums, bass, two guitars, and everything starts in the key of E.

“We’re playing the Ragged Pony in Winthrop tomorrow night, if you want to sit in. Guest artist kind of thing?”

“I’ll pass,” I said. I’d heard the new rhythm guitarist. He was a year younger than me, and already better; he could chickenscratch like a mad bastard. Besides, that meant I could spend Saturday night with Astrid. Which I did. I suspect she was already dating other guys by then—she was too pretty to stay home—but she was discreet. And loving. It was a good Thanksgiving. I didn’t miss Chrome Roses (or Norman’s Knights, a name I would never have to get used to, which suited me fine) at all.

Well. You know.

Hardly at all.

 • • •

One day not long before Christmas break, I dropped by the Bear’s Den in the University of Maine Memorial Union for a burger and a Coke. On the way out, I stopped to look at the bulletin board. Among the litter of file cards advertising textbooks for sale, cars for sale, and rides wanted to various destinations, I found this:

GOOD NEWS! The Cumberlands are reuniting! BAD NEWS! We’re short a rhythm guitarist! We are a LOUD AND PROUD COVER BAND! If you can play Beatles, Stones, Badfinger, McCoys, Barbarians, Standells, Byrds, etc., come to Room 421, Cumberland Hall, and bring your ax. If you like Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, or Blood, Sweat, & Tears, stay the f**k away.

By then I had a bright red Gibson SG, and that afternoon, after class, I toted it over to Cumberland Hall, where I met Jay Pederson. Because of noise restrictions during study hours, we played tennis-racket style in his room. Later that night we plugged in down in the dorm’s rec area. We rocked the place for half an hour, and I got the gig. He was a lot better than me, but I was used to that; I had, after all, started my rock-and-roll career with Norm Irving.