The Progress of Love

up the tablecloth and looked at it as if examining the pattern. Then she draped it around herself, not very effectively and in no great hurry.
    “Thank you, Laurence,” she said. She had managed to arrange the tablecloth so that it flapped open at just the worst place. Looking down, she said, “I hope this makes you happier.” She started again on her story.
    No, thought Isabel, she cannot be that unaware. It has to be on purpose; it has to be a game. Crafty innocence. The stagy old show-off. Showing off her purity, her high-mindedness, her simplicity. Perverse old fraud.
    “Denise, run and get another cloth,” Isabel said. “Are we going to let this food get cold?”
    The idea was—Sophie’s idea always was—to make her own son look foolish. To make him look a fool in front of his wife and children. Which he did, standing above Sophie on the veranda, with the shamed blood rising hotly up his neck, staining his ears, his voice artificially lowered to sound a manly reproach, but trembling. That was what Sophie could do, would do, every time she got the chance.
    “What arrogant brats,” said Isabel, responding to the story. “I thought they were all supposed to be lovely and blissful and looking for enlightenment and so on.”
    “If only you had worn a bathing suit to go swimming, in the first place,” said Laurence.
    Then the trip to get the cake, the worry of getting it home intact, the need to nag at Denise so that she would keep it level. A further trip, alone, to the Hi-Way Market to get the ripe field tomatoes Laurence preferred to any that you could buy in the store. Isabel had to plan a top-of-the-stove menu. It had to be something that could be cooked or heated up fairly quickly when they all got home hungry from the trip to the airport. And it should be something that Laurence particularly liked, that Sophie wouldn’t find too fancy, and that Peter would eat. She decided on coq au vin, though with that she couldn’t be entirely sure of Sophie, or of Peter. After all, it was Laurence’s day. She spent the afternoon cooking, watching the time so that they would all be ready to leave for the airport early enough not to throw Denise into a fit of anxiety.
    Even with her watching, they were a bit late. Laurence, called to from the top of the steps, answered yes, but did not appear. Isabel had to run down and tell him it was urgent, that there was a surprise connected with his birthday and everything might beruined if he didn’t hurry—it was Denise’s particular surprise, furthermore, and she was getting into a state. Even after that, it seemed that Laurence deliberately took his time and was longer than usual washing and changing. He did not approve of so much effort going into preventing one of Denise’s states.
    But they had got here, and now they were all, except Isabel, up in the plane. That had not been the plan. The plan was that they were all to drive to the airport, watch Laurence get his blindfold removed and be surprised, watch him take off on his birthday ride, and greet him when he came down.
    Then the pilot, coming out of the little house that served as an office, and seeing them all there, had said, “How about taking the whole family up? We’ll take the five-seater—you get a nicer ride.” He smiled at Denise. “I won’t charge you any more. It’s the end of the day.”
    “That’s very nice of you,” said Denise promptly.
    “So,” said the pilot, looking them over. “All but one.”
    “That can be me,” said Isabel.
    “I hope you’re not scared,” said the pilot, turning his look on her. “No need to be.”
    He was a man in his forties—maybe he was fifty—with waves of very blond or white hair, probably blond hair going white, combed straight back from his forehead. He was not tall, not as tall as Laurence, but he had heavy shoulders, a thick chest and waist and a little hard swell of belly, not a sag, over his belt. A high, curved forehead, bright blue eyes with a habitual outdoor squint, a look of professional calm and good humor. That same quality in his voice—the good-humored, unhurried, slightly stupid-sounding country voice. She knew what Laurence would say of this man—that he was the salt of the earth. Not noticing something else—something vigilant underneath, and careless or even contemptuous of them, sharply self-possessed.
    “You’re not scared, are you, ma’am?” said the pilot to Sophie.
    “I’ve never flown in a small plane,”