The Progress of Love

food—Sylvia had set a pile of plates and forks and even paper napkins beside the cardboard cartons—and Ross was eating a pizza, which Sylvia had ordered especially for him because he didn’t like Chinese food.
    Glenna suggested that Ross might like to come to the drive-in with them that night, and he did. The three of them sat on top of Colin’s car, with Glenna in the middle, drinking beer.
    It became a family joke. What would have happened if Glenna had met Ross first?
    Colin wouldn’t have had a chance.
    Finally, Colin had to ask her, “What if you had met him first? Would you have gone out with him?”
    “Ross is sweet,” Glenna said.
    “But would you have gone out with him?”
    She looked embarrassed, which was really all the answer Colin needed.
    “Ross isn’t the type you go out with.”
    Sylvia said, “Ross, someday you are going to find a wonderful girl.”
    But Ross seemed to have given up looking. He stopped calling up girls and crowing like a rooster into the phone; he no longer drove slowly along the street, trailing them, sounding the horn as if in Morse code. One Saturday night, at Colin’s and Glenna’s house, he said he had given up on women, it was so hard to find a decent one, and anyway he had never gotten over Wilma Barry.
    “Wilma Barry, who was that?” said Glenna. “Were you in love, Ross? When?”
    “Grade Nine.”
    “Wilma Barry! Was she pretty? Did she know how you felt about her?”
    “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
    Colin said, “Jesus, the whole school knew!”
    “Where is she now, Ross?” said Glenna.
    “Gone. Married.”
    “Did she like you, too?”
    “Couldn’t stand me,” said Ross complacently.
    Colin was remembering the persecution of Wilma Barry—how Ross would go into empty classrooms and write her name on the blackboard, in little dots of colored chalk, or little hearts; how he went to watch the girls’ basketball games, in which she played, and carried on like a madman every time she got near the ball or the basket. She dropped off the team. She took to hiding in the girls’ washroom and sending out scouts to tell her if the coast was clear. Ross knew this, and hid in broom closets so he could pop out and whistle mournfully at her. She dropped out of school altogether and married at seventeen. Ross was too much for her.
    “What a shame,” said Glenna.
    “I did love that Wilma,” Ross said, and shook his head. “Colin, tell Glenna about me and the piece of pie!”
    So Colin told that story, a favorite with everybody who had gone to high school around their time. Colin and Ross always brought their lunch to school because their mother worked and the cafeteria was too expensive. They always had bologna-and-ketchup sandwiches and store pie. One day, they were all being kept in at noon for some reason, Grades 9 and 10 together, so Ross and Colin were in the same room. Ross had his lunch in his desk and right in the middle of whatever lecture they were getting, he took out a big piece of apple pie and started to eat it. “What in the devil do you think you’re doing?” the teacher yelled, and Ross without a moment’s hesitation thrust the pie under his bum and sat on it, bringing his sticky hands together in a clap of innocence.
    “I didn’t do it to be funny!” Ross told Glenna. “I just couldn’t think what to do with that pie but stick it underneath me!”
    “I can just see you!” said Glenna, laughing. “Oh, Ross, I can just see you! Like some character on television!”
    “Didn’t we ever tell you that before?” said Ross. “How come we never?”
    “I kind of think we did,” said Colin.
    Glenna said, “You did, but it’s funny to hear it again.”
    “All right, Colin, tell her about the time you shot me dead!”
    “You told me that, too, and I don’t want to ever have to hear it again,” said Glenna.
    “Why not?” said Ross, disappointed.
    “Because it’s horrible.”
    Colin knew that when he got home from Sylvia’s Ross would be there ahead of him, working on the car. He was right. It was nearly the end of May now, and Ross had started his car-wrecking and combo-building in Colin’s yard as soon as the snow was gone. There wasn’t enough room for this activity at Sylvia’s.
    Plenty of room for it here. Colin and Glenna had bought a run-down cottage set far back from the street, in the remains of an orchard. They were fixing it up. They used to live over the laundromat, and when Glenna had to quit work—she