I met my almost first woman at our Fairfax High School’s 50th class reunion last month. Why “almost”? Because two L.A. cops spoiled what was about to be a magical senior prom evening for us. Or maybe they saved us a whole lot of trouble.

Penny and I were parked in an empty lot in the Hollywood hills, the shimmering lights of 1958 Los Angeles below us. We were in the front seat of my mother’s 1949 Plymouth. Penny was wearing one of those big, billowy 1950s prom dresses. While we were kissing, she let me touch her breasts, something I had never had a chance to do in all my 17 years. Soon she was sitting on my lap, facing me, passionately kissing me while at the same time rubbing my lower region with her hand. I had never been with a girl like this before, and boy, what a thrill it was. My zipper and her panties were the only things separating us from coitus. But then interruptus—two cops’ flashlights were glaring through my car’s steamed-up windows. It was a moment that probably changed the course of our lives.

I wrote a chapter about this incident and what led up to it in my novel Morning Pages. I brought several copies of the book to the reunion as a donation for door prizes. When I saw Penny (who still looked 17-years-old to me) I gave her a copy of the book and pointed out the chapter I wrote about her. I wanted her to know how special she was in my life. In a letter I received from her recently, she said she “flushed” when she read the chapter, then startled me with a confession.

She confessed that she and a guy by the name of Ronnie Separsky had set me up. According to their plan, Separsky was to shoot his mouth off to me in math class about his sexual exploits with her. In other words, he was letting me know how easy Penny would be so that when she asked me to the senior prom, I would not hesitate in accepting her invitation. In her letter, Penny explained that Separsky was her friend and dancing partner, nothing more. She had never had sex with him or anyone else in high school. She admitted that she had had a longtime crush on me and figured that their scheme was the only way she could get me to go out with her.

Their clever strategy worked. When she asked me to the prom, I of course accepted. What teenage boy who had never gotten to second base with someone of the opposite sex would turn down an invitation from a girl who was not only good looking but who, according to Separsky, was “hot to trot”?

But all of Penny’s and Separsky’s conspiring, all of her fantasies and mine were foiled by two flashlight-wielding cops.

In her letter, Penny divulged that she would have kept up with what we were about to do in my mother’s car if we had gone out again. But like the unthinking schmuck that I was back then, I never did call and ask her out. What if those two cops hadn’t interrupted us in the Hollywood hills? We might have started dating, gotten married, had kids and probably divorced. Or maybe she might have gotten pregnant, had an abortion in a sleazy Tijuana clinic and died two days later of an infection or hemorrhage.

Penny ended her letter saying it was best if we didn’t communicate again. She didn’t give a reason, but I hope it wasn’t what I wrote about her in my novel that turned her off.

I have only one regret: I never got to thank her for giving me the pleasure of her company on that senior prom night fifty years ago. She sure made it a most interesting and unforgettable evening for me.

So what does all this have to do with the writing process? That we never know the full story? That we never know what goes on in someone else’s mind? That everyone sees things from a different perspective? Or maybe it’s just because I felt compelled to write this little story today.