The Progress of Love

you’re saying summer’ll be over,” Kelvin said. “You think before you talk. Did you hear about the young girl that was killed out in the country?” he said to Trudy.
    Trudy had started to mix two batches of frozen lemonade, one pink and one plain. When he said that, she smashed the spoon down on the frozen chunk so hard that some of the liquid spilled over.
    “How, Kelvin?”
    She was afraid she would hear that a girl was dragged off a country road, raped in the woods, strangled, beaten, left there. Robin goes running along the country roads in her white shorts and T-shirt, a headband on her flying hair. Robin’s hair is golden; herlegs and arms are golden. Her cheeks and limbs are downy, not shiny—you wouldn’t be surprised to see a cloud of pollen delicately floating and settling behind her when she runs. Cars hoot at her and she isn’t bothered. Foul threats are yelled at her, and she yells foul threats back.
    “Driving a truck,” Kelvin said.
    Trudy’s heart eased. Robin doesn’t know how to drive yet.
    “Fourteen years old, she didn’t know how to drive,” Kelvin said. “She got in the truck, and the first thing you know, she ran it into a tree. Where was her parents? That’s what I’d like to know. They weren’t watching out for her. She got in the truck when she didn’t know how to drive and ran it into a tree. Fourteen. That’s too young.”
    Kelvin goes uptown by himself; he hears all the news. He is fifty-two years old, still slim and boyish-looking, well-shaved, with soft, short, clean dark hair. He goes to the barbershop every day, because he can’t quite manage to shave himself. Epilepsy, then surgery, an infected bone-flap, many more operations, a permanent mild difficulty with feet and fingers, a gentle head fog. The fog doesn’t obscure facts, just motives. Perhaps he shouldn’t be in the Home at all, but where else? Anyway, he likes it. He says he likes it. He tells the others they shouldn’t complain; they should be more careful, they should behave themselves. He picks up the soft-drink cans and beer bottles that people have thrown into the front yard—though of course it isn’t his job to do that.
    When Janet came in just before midnight to relieve Trudy, she had the same story to tell.
    “I guess you heard about that fifteen-year-old girl?”
    When Janet starts telling you something like this, she always starts off with “I guess you heard.” I guess you heard Wilma and Ted are breaking up , she says. I guess you heard Alvin Stead had a heart attack .
    “Kelvin told me,” Trudy said. “Only he said she was fourteen.”
    “Fifteen,” Janet said. “She must’ve been in Robin’s class at school. She didn’t know how to drive. She didn’t even get out of the lane.”
    “Was she drunk?” said Trudy. Robin won’t go near alcohol,or dope, or cigarettes, or even coffee, she’s so fanatical about what she puts into her body.
    “I don’t think so. Stoned, maybe. It was early in the evening. She was home with her sister. Their parents were out. Her sister’s boyfriend came over—it was his truck, and he either gave her the keys to the truck or she took them. You hear different versions. You hear that they sent her out for something, they wanted to get rid of her, and you hear she just took the keys and went. Anyway, she ran it right into a tree in the lane.”
    “Jesus,” said Trudy.
    “I know. It’s so idiotic. It’s getting so you hate to think about your kids growing up. Did everybody take their medication okay? What’s Kelvin watching?”
    Kelvin was still up, sitting in the living room watching TV.
    “It’s somebody being interviewed. He wrote a book about schizophrenics,” Trudy told Janet.
    Anything he comes across about mental problems, Kelvin has to watch, or try to read.
    “I think it depresses him, the more he watches that kind of thing,” Janet said. “Do you know I found out today I have to make five hundred roses out of pink Kleenex for my niece Laurel’s wedding? For the car. She said I promised I’d make the roses for the car. Well, I didn’t. I don’t remember promising a thing. Are you going to come over and help me?”
    “Sure,” said Trudy.
    “I guess the real reason I want him to get off the schizophrenics is I want to watch the old Dallas ,” said Janet. She and Trudy disagree about this. Trudy can’t stand to watch those old reruns of Dallas , to see the characters, with their younger, plumper faces, going