We talked, as kids do and adults seem to forget that they ever could, about everything and nothing, and the boys couldn't take their eyes off of me. How foolish I had been, to spend so much time getting nowhere, when there were so many other possibilities to pursue, I thought. I would not be returning to the temple of the ancient hens.

Much laughter, but that look, always that look, from so many. It was a good look, right? What did it mean? A kind of recognition, was it? "Nice flat", one of the girls said. I thanked her. "How do you afford it? Does your mom help? Because mine is on me all of the time about moving out, and I just don't know how to afford that."

Good places cost good money, I told her. The trick was to find a bad place that one could live with. Looks of skepticism all around. "Sweat equity, guys" ... find a solid rat hole, some place that looked bad enough to scare off people so rich and busy that they wouldn't take the time to make anything but a snap judgement, buy it for nothing, and fix it up. "Oh, and I found that the back passage made a great display area. Mom was always worried about me spending so much time in art class, instead of doing something 'practical', but with half of the city redecorating, this was practical. Plus, I got a little more money on the side, because I found that I could use this place as a performance space."

"I'll say!", said one of the guys, before getting hit by his girlfriend. It didn't look like a love tap. "What's that supposed to mean?", I asked. Silence. Dead, uneasy silence. "Nothing", he said, "just ... nothing".

"Remember me?", asked one of his less bruised friends. "I think I bought your very first piece, the very day you opened. A 3-d painting, you called it, acrylic set in glass?"

Yes! Of course. How silly of me. Past customers ... how many of those had come through that gateway? I started remembering past sales and wondered where I had gotten the idea that there wasn't anybody my age around here. They were all over the place. Is there such a thing as losing a strike, I wondered? Perhaps everybody here had been to my gallery? How could I have been so forgetful as to not remember all of these people? People who had such kind things to say? I don't mean to sound like one of those swelled heads, one of those artists who just wants the whole world to talk about her, but you know what? Until now, I lived in one of those worlds in which nobody seemed to talk about me, nobody seemed to notice me at all, and getting out of that world was a nice feeling. What are we doing anything for, if we don't want to be valued?

And how they valued me, each talking about the pieces he or she loved the most, until one of them started talking about an electronic piece I had done ... wait a second! How could he have possibly seen that? "The solar powered thing that sparkles at night? I hope I'm not putting you on the spot, I could see that you're still working on it and probably have a lot of creative choices to make ...", he said, before I cut him off.

"No!", I said, "How could you have seen that at all? I closed up the gallery right after I met Crazy Boy Jr. and got nervous. I didn't start work on "Fireflies" until a few days later. I saw it, Mom saw it ... how did you see it?", I asked, finding myself facing a lot of confused guys, and a bunch of women with that look on their faces that said "so that explains it." Explains what?

"But the gate wasn't closed ..." one of the guys started feebly, so feebly. "I mean, you have to have known ..." "Known what?", I had to ask. "Do you want to tell her what you did, or should I?", his girlfriend asked. "But I didn't do anything", he protested. "I didn't do anything wrong. I just went to look at some art and some of that art crossed a few boundaries, but isn't art supposed to do that? Make us question those boundaries?" I think he was squeaking at that point. One octave higher, and the dogs would have started answering him.

"You are so full of it", his girlfriend said. "You or me, buddy. Either you tell her or I will." "I don't think that you need to ..." "10" "... make such a huge fuss ..." "9" "... out of such a little thing ..." "8" "... that didn't diminish ..." "7" "... the respect we felt for ..." "6" "... her in the least." "5"

"FINE!"

He composed himself, hand held up in the air, palm facing his very angry girlfriend. "Meg, I really do respect your art and the gate really was open. It's been open for weeks."

My eyes went wide. The other women looked more understanding than ever, and the guys more like little boys who had been caught playing hookie, their feigned innocence failing to cover a guilt they were only beginning to understand. "So, we figured you had a showing, and discovered that you were showing more than we ever hoped you would." "You mean ..." Barnacle was starting to get it.

"I was clothed in the night air. Yes, Bernard."

"Wow. I need to get more into this art stuff", he said, saluting my beauty in a manner I really didn't need to see. Down, boy. "I think I need to go", he said, rising, his embarassment seeming to exceed mine. "Or come, as the case may be", said a certain guy, who got hit again. A little more of that, and he'd need an ice pack. Barnacle sat back down, taking off his coat and laying it over himself as if it were a blanket. As if that would help.

Of all of the things I could have remembered at the time when my dignity was so in doubt, I found myself remembering the time Mom decided to show that she knew what being a teenager was like, a few days before my bat mitzvah, at a time when I wasn't sure of what being a teenager was like, having only been one for a few weeks. She brought over an ancient whinefest from her era, in which some kids of that time showed how rebellious they could be by running around the halls when the principal wasn't looking, and sobbing about how much their lives sucked - which we watched while I tried very hard to not mention that in our schools, we had metal detectors because rebellion in our day consisted of trying to kill the principal, not of mouthing off to him. This is what I had to remember. Couldn't have been some classic piece of noir? Or something by Kurosawa? Anything but a teen angst movie, making me feel even more absurd than I already had, while reminding me of a night I had tried so hard to forget, almost as hard as I'd be trying to forget this one? No?

Great. In the scene I remembered, the school princess had just been asked if she was a virgin, the school headcase observing that this question was a two edged sword. If one said "no", one was a slut. If one said "yes", one was a prude. How could you win? By not answering the question at all and seeming like you had. That was my situation. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw every man and boy out of here, even sweet old Mr. Abrahmsen and this was his place! He'd probably have gone, too. Nicest guy who ever lived. Nicer than me, that was for sure.

And what would happen, once they were all gone? Here Mom and I would be, alone again, more furniture piled up against a much more solid door than mine, but other than that? Isolated. Vulnerable. Alone. No, we needed those guys here, those leering pervs, and not just because they were keeping us safe. Because, if I was going to be honest, I wasn't sure that they were pervs. If some cute guy had been strutting his stuff somewhere, I wouldn't have looked? Really, Meg? Not at all?

I had one person to be mad at, just one - whoever opened that gate. After that, guys were going to be guys, and at least these guys were apologizing. "Meg, really, I thought it was a modern dance thing" ... yeah, right ... but what was the damage? A hit to my reputation, if I handled this badly, and that was it. This was on the verge of becoming strike three, and as messed up as this latest development was, it had been a good evening, if you left out the way it had started. I didn't want to blow this.

I couldn't seem like I didn't mind, because that would make me an exhibitionist - yes, "a slut", thank you. I couldn't seem like I did mind, because that would make me into an uptight bitch, "a prude". I had to scream without screaming, showing disapproval without admitting it, and without anybody failing to understand. Except maybe Barnacle. People would understand about Barnacle.

"So", I said in a voice at once icy and playful, "Did you boys like what you saw? Were the hours convenient, or might I schedule a matinee?" Good, they were looking really nervous, now. "So, who's our locksmith?", I asked, noticing that Barnacle had just looked up. "You, Barney?" "Hell no", he said. "I just wanted to see who did it, so I could stop talking to the guy." Like he was ever talking to you, Barnacle - but it was a nice thought.

Weeks? Weeks. If these guys has just walked in, who else could have done the same, and why didn't anybody seem to know who had picked that lock? I would have assumed that he'd be here, tonight, to get a closer look and claim a few bragging rights - but all around me, I saw confusion, not confidence. As many kids are were working jobs in the hardware stores, wouldn't at least one of the neighborhood kids have seen our party buying something that he shouldn't have needed? Whatever that would have been - what did one need to pick a lock? Wouldn't the guy have bragged about his exploits to somebody? Wouldn't word have gotten around? The more I thought about this, the weirder it got. I did know that locks weren't easy things to pick, and these guys ... an artist notices these things. The way they picked up things and handled them. They weren't very good with their hands, our boys. They were OK, just not very good. So who ...?

"Excuse me", I said, getting up and hearing a chorus of slaps as I left. "Mr. Abrahmsen", I began, in apologetic discomfort, because he was still deep in eyelock with Mom - what was that - "... could you do me an impossibly big favor, and not get hurt doing it?" Eyebrow raised, he asked what it was. A few minutes later, he and a few of his friends were back. "I didn't need a detective to figure this one out, Meg. That locked wasn't picked. It was smashed open. You can see where the metal got bent. You're just going to have to get a new gate. I can't picture anybody being able to fix that."

Holy ... !