The Progress of Love

at the local hospital. Their mother was dead; their father had remarried.
    MaryBeth was a short girl, rather chubby but graceful, with large eyes that shaded from hazel-green to dark brown, an almond-colored skin free entirely of spots or freckles, and a pretty mouth that often had a slightly perplexed and pouting expression, as if she recalled a secret hurt. I could smell the flowery soap she washed with. Its sweetness penetrated the layers of dust and disinfectant and sweat, the old school smells—the dreamy boredom, the stale anxiety. I felt astonished, almost dismayed, at being chosen. For weeks afterward, I would wake up in the morning knowing I was happy and not knowing why. Then I would remember this moment.
    MaryBeth and I often spoke of it. She said that her heart had been pounding as she skittered over to my seat, but she told herself it’s now or never.
    In the books I had read all through my childhood, girls were bound two by two in fast friendship, in exquisite devotion. They promised never to tell each other’s secrets or keep anything hidden from each other, or form a deep and lasting friendship with any other girl. Marriage made no difference. They grew up and fell in love and got married, but they remained first in each other’s heart. They named their daughters after each other and were ready to nurse each other through contagious illnesses or perjure themselves in court on each other’s behalf. This was the solemn rigmarole of loyalty, the formal sentimentality that I now wanted, or thought appropriate, and imposed on MaryBeth. We swore and promised and confided. She went along with it all; she had a tender nature. She liked to snuggle up when she thought of something sad or frightening, and to hold hands.
    That first fall we walked out of town along the railway tracks and told each other all the illnesses or accidents we had had in our lives, what things we were afraid of and what were our favorite colors, jewels, flowers, movie stars, desserts, soft drinks, and ice-cream flavors. We decided how many children we would have and which sex, and what their names would be. Also the color of our husbands’ hair and eyes and what we would like them to do for a living. MaryBeth was afraid of the cows in the fields, and possible snakes along the track. We filled our hands with the silk from burst milkweed pods, the softest-feeling thing there is on earth, then let it all loose to hang on other dry weeds, like bits of snow or flowers.
    “That’s what they made parachutes out of in the war,” I told MaryBeth. That wasn’t true, but I believed it.
    Sometimes we went to the house where MaryBeth shared a room with Beatrice. We sat on the porch sewing or went up to their room. The house was large, plain, painted yellow, and had an uncared-for look about it. It was just off the main street. The owners were a blind man and his wife, who had a couple of rooms at the back. The blind man sat and peeled potatoes for his wife, orcrocheted the doilies and dresser runners that she took around to stores in town and tried to sell.
    The girls in the house might dare each other to run down and chat with him when his wife was out. They dared each other to go down in their bras and panties or with nothing on at all. He seemed to guess what kind of game was going on. “Come over here,” he would say. “Come closer, I can’t hear you.” Or, “Come and let me touch your dress. Let me see if I can guess what color it is.”
    MaryBeth would never play that game; she hated even to hear about it. She thought some girls were disgusting.
    The girls she lived with were always in a ferment. They had feuds and alliances and fits of not speaking. Once, a girl pulled out a clump of another girl’s hair because of an argument over some nail polish.
    Brisk and ominous notes were taped to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom:
Sweaters should be dried in a person’s own room because of the stink it makes with wool drying. Attention, A.M. and S.D .
To Whom It May Concern, I have smelled my Evening in Paris on you and I don’t appreciate it. You can buy your own. Sincerely, B.P .
    Things were always being washed: stockings and brassieres and garter belts and sweaters—and, of course, hair. You couldn’t turn around in the bathroom without having something flap in your face.
    Cooking was done on hot plates. Girls who were saving money to buy things for their hope chests, or to move to the city, cooked Kraft Dinners. Others