A young woman is driving up to San Francisco to visit her sister the summer before she begins her new job as a teacher. She is well educated and smart and is well aware of her place as an educated woman at a time when women have limited access to education and other positions of power. She stops at a restaurant for lunch even though she is already running late. A man there has been waiting all day trying to hitch a ride. The two men working at the restaurant tell her that the man outside is a good man and that she can trust him enough to give him a ride to the bridge he is trying to get to, ten miles away. She reflects on her relationship to men as an educated young woman and decides that she has a deep hatred of men. She eventually agrees to drive him, and the young man gets in the car. They engage in small talk and the girl feels like she has to be defensive, constantly on guard against something, although she can't identify what it is. The young man begins flirting with her and offers up the idea of going all the way to San Francisco with her. For a moment, she feels overcome with a deep longing for the man, envisioning his strong large body enveloping hers. She shuts him down and says she is only taking him to the bridge, internally reminding herself that she must not change and soften to him, revealing herself to be delicate and pure. As he steps out of the car at the bridge, she watches him greet a local he is friends with and leave in his wagon without ever looking back. She sits on the side of the road feeling relieved to be out of the man's presence, with some edge of yearning still present as she prepares herself to continue her journey to San Francisco.