The spring sunshine was bright and the flirtatious west wind brought a whiff of salt air to her nostrils as Jill Conklin stepped out the door of the garrish pink stucco house on Bay Street and headed down the hill towards Aquatic Park, a battered wooden paint box and large sketch pad under one arm, a webbed folding chair and wooden stool under the other one. She felt an exuberance bubbling through her young body and a curious sense of anticipation, as though something were about to happen. She had felt it since she first awoke in the musty, rose wallpapered room she rented in the eccentric widow's home. Josephine was a "character", a non-stop talker who was into metaphysical digests and painting rocks for her baroque garden, but the rent was dirt cheap – fifty bucks a month – and Jill had kitchen privileges. Fortunately, Josephine retired to her own bedroom at 7:00 each night with a vintage Zenith black and white television set, so the young girl was spared hours of occult monologues – no one ever conversed with Josephine; one listened and nodded one's head.

Still, it was somewhat depressing being in the house, whose furnishings were redolent with time. The grand piano was sadly out of tune; the brocade divan was never sat upon. Josephine lived in the kitchen, where the gas stove provided the only heat in the house. For one so old, she apparently had good circulation. Jill nearly froze to death, and had to wear warm socks and flannel nightgowns to bed. At times, her fingers got so cold she could barely sketch, until she found a cheap old electric heater for $4.00 at a garage sale and ecstatically lugged it home. Josephine seemed almost hurt!

Now, as she walked purposefully past Ghirardelli Square, she felt relieved to be away from her often lonely and tomblike digs. The sun caressed her young scrubbed face, her glossy long brunette waves and the alluring curves of her nubile eighteen year old body. She couldn't fail to notice the admiring looks she drew from both men and women, as she strode proudly down the hill, her pert, braless breasts jostling provocatively under a saffron yellow tank top, and the ripe mounds of her buttocks swaying deliciously in the skin-tight, paint-spattered jeans.