Natalie Meyer* had pale skin, finely chiseled lips and a shock of black hair that trailed down her back. She wore purple or dark brown nail polish. It was 1969, a year when the L.A. fashion for young straight women was crossing-the-prairie country-girl dresses or flowing skirts made of Indian-print bedspreads. Lesbians tended toward flannel shirts and old straight-leg jeans, more patches than pants, held up with suspenders. Natalie dressed like a call girl: long, black wrap-around dresses, tight in the bodice, or tight pants, leotards, no bra.  She was as smart as she was beautiful.

         Her first move on me was to ask me to remove the book of matches buried in the front pocket of her jeans. She was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a lit Marboro in the other. Dinner was over, and I wanted a cigarette. She knew I didn’t have a light. We were both sixteen. I had been living in a group home for abused and neglected teens for six months.  Natalie was the new girl.  I had been told by the staff social worker to keep her under my wing. 

         We lived in a place called Hamburger Home on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Camino Palmero, a Spanish-style mansion perched temple-like at the top of a broad stone staircase. Once a refuge for homeless immigrant working girls, the residence, named for donors Asher and Hannah Hamburger, sheltered perhaps two dozen twelve to eighteen-year-olds. The girls were culled from foster homes and juvenile hall. Some came directly from families who had given up on them.  If you went to school or worked, you could leave during the day.  There was a nighttime curfew, but it was erratically enforced by the housemothers. 

         After the dining room tables were cleared, James Brown, or Smokey Robinson and the Miracles spun on the turntable downstairs, where the girls transferred in from juvenile hall taught the newest dance steps. Natalie and I ran to my room on the second floor and locked the door.

* * *

         I had myself placed in Hamburger Home when my mother and father became unable to care for me. They both had trauma-induced schizophrenia, and their illness had gotten worse every year. I was afraid to live at home and didn’t know how to live on the street. Hamburger Home seemed like a good choice.

         Natalie, on the other hand, had been labeled incorrigible and sent by her parents against her will. I didn’t understand why. She was soft-spoken, and there was a kind of fragility about her. She gave me scented soaps from Spain and left tiny love notes before going out. Compared to the other girls, she seemed sophisticated. Especially late in the day, when she stepped into her black platform shoes and painted on mahogany lipstick and eye makeup that matched her nail polish.

         I never knew where she went in the early evening when her friend Mo came to pick her up. Mo was similarly attired with a blonde shag. Natalie came home loaded on alcohol and reds, with a wad of cash.

         “I didn’t have to do any thing for it,” she said. And I believed her. We made love in my room after the eleven-thirty bed check. But she passed out. 

         “How many downers did you take?”

         “ I don’t know. Only three or four.”

         “And how many drinks did you have?”

         “Only a couple…”

         I don’t know why I thought to do this, but I poured half a glass of milk down her throat and waited for her to throw up. Please God, I thought, let her throw up. Let her throw up before the mixture of downers and drinks becomes deadly, before the housemother finds out and calls the ambulance, before the police show up and take Natalie to juvenile hall.  

         “Come on, you have to drink this.”

         “No, I’m alright.” She was half-sitting, half-lying on my bed, leaning into me. She fell in and out of sleep, her lips paling. I coaxed her into drinking more milk until she wretched and threw up everything in her stomach. I held her and washed her face when she was done. Then I cleaned up the mess before anyone found it. Because I was in love with her. Because I had never kissed a woman before I kissed Natalie. Because she asked me to get the matches from her pocket.

* Not her real name.The name was changed to protect this person's privacy.