Machine Dreams

smiling. “Gracie was like that, wasn’t she? She used to say I’d have no self-respect if my posture wasn’t perfect. Drove me nuts, lecturing about such things while we milked the cows.”
    “Are the two of you going to this party?” Mitch stood in the hallway, his hair still slicked and wet from the shower, knotting his tie. He smelled of Old Spice and pretended to scowl impatiently. Their collective joke was that he, the man of the house, made heroic efforts to keep the two women on an even keel.
    “We thought we might go,” Gladys said coolly, her brows raised, “if Prince Charming could ever let anyone else in the bathroom.”
    The three of them rode through the snow in the Nash, seated in their usual formation: Mitch driving, Jean in the middle, Gladyson the passenger side, her window open a crack to vent the smoke of her cigarette. The night was dark and the storm worsening; the car seemed to coast like a sled on the deepening snow of the unplowed streets. Electric candles were triangular dots of light in the windows of houses.
    “People ought to leave Christmas decorations up all winter,” Gladys said. “Makes the cold more cheerful.”
    “And the utility companies richer.” Mitch pumped the brakes gently as the car swerved around a turn.
    “Oh well,” Gladys said contentedly, “if they don’t get money one way, they’ll get it another.”
    “You should have seen the VFW club in Washington during the war, when I was in that nurses’ training program.” Jean heard the animation in her own voice, then spoke more softly. “We girls went every weekend. That place was always lit up like a birthday cake—mostly with candles, so as not to waste energy. It was an old hotel, and the floors of the ballroom were marble.”
    The car was silent. Jean had completed a few months of training, then come home because of her mother’s illness. If things had been different, she would have gotten the degree. Maybe she would have lived in a big city. How exciting, to think of Baltimore, Washington, maybe even New York, where she’d never been.
    As though in response to Jean’s thoughts, Gladys spoke up in her arbitrary fashion. “Being a nurse is no kind of life.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Mitch said.
    Of course, he was talking about Red Cross girls he’d known in the war. They were brave, Jean supposed, and pretty; the men had all admired them. Did anyone, ever, admire a secretary? Well, she wouldn’t be a secretary all her life, that was certain. Someday, she’d find a way to finish college. Now, in the gently moving car and snow-blurred dark, the future seemed far away.
    “Everyone and his uncle will be at the VFW tonight,” Gladys said. “People this town hasn’t seen for years. It’ll be a madhouse.” She waited for her proclamation to take effect, then proceeded. “Marthella Barnett will be there. I wonder how Cora Jonas will like that.”
    “Hell, Gladys,” Mitch said, “it was twenty years ago Marthella knew Reb. High school stuff.”
    “High school stuff is the stuff that lasts.” Gladys straightened her wristwatch. “I don’t care what anyone says.”
    Jean turned away from Gladys and looked at Mitch. “Didn’t you go out with Marthella a little?” she asked quietly. “I mean, the summer we met.”
    “No, she was in town that summer for the first time in years, and I took her down to the dance. I never knew her so well—she’d been Reb’s girl. She left Bellington clear back in ’28, the year we graduated.” Mitch shifted his weight on the seat and Jean felt his movement.
    “She
certainly never graduated,” Gladys said. “Quite a story that was. She must be in her mid-thirties by now, and already divorced twice.”
    “Gladys,” Mitch told her, irritated, “you have a mouth like a bell clapper.”
    Gladys smiled. “I say what I think, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Hell, maybe everyone doesn’t want to hear what you think.” He slowed a little suddenly as they came to a stop sign, and the car slid to the left.
    “If ‘everyone’ lives in my house,” Gladys said, unruffled, “they’re going to have to hear—though of course they don’t have to listen.”
    “I wish you wouldn’t argue before we even get to the party,” Jean said.
    “It’s not an argument.” Gladys chuckled. “This is how we have fun. Isn’t that so, Mr. Hampson?”
    “We’re here.” Mitch was parking the Nash. He looked at Gladys patiently and arched one eyebrow, then