With the advent of the fall semester, things in the Martin household settled down--if, in a place where everyone was sleeping with everyone else, it could ever be said that things were settling down. The bedroom arrangements were getting increasingly complicated, at least as far as Vanessa--the one most in demand by all three of the others--was concerned. Eventually a system was worked out whereby she was with Jack for three nights a week and Joanna and Eileen for two nights each. Jack had Joanna for two nights and (with his ex's grudging permission) Eileen for one night.

As she began her senior year, Vanessa felt increasingly confident that she...