The Progress of Love

world.” Mary Jo did not defend Dr. Streeter just because he was a man, and a father, not at all; it was not for those reasons she thought his wife should have instilled some respect for him in his children. It was because he was the best cardiologist in that part of the country, because he gave himself over every day to the gray-faced people in his waiting room, the heart cases, people living in fear, in pain. His life was given over.
    In spite of the helmet, some of Rhea’s hair had got wet, and she was shaking raindrops over Mary Jo’s desk.
    “Rhea, watch it, please.”
    “What is your world, Mary Jo?”
    “I haven’t got time to tell you.”
    “You’re so busy helping my dad.”
    Mary Jo has been working for Dr. Streeter for twelve years, living in the apartment upstairs for ten. When Rhea was younger—a boisterous, overweight, strenuous, but likable teenager—she used to like to visit Mary Jo in the apartment, and Mary Jo would have to be sure that all signs of Dr. Streeter’s regular, though not lengthy, times there were out of the way. Now Rhea must know all about that, but does not make direct investigations. She often seems to be probing, skirting the subject. Mary Jo remains bland and unforthcoming, but sometimes the effort tires her.
    “It’s nice you’re going to Tahiti, though,” said Rhea, still smiling in her dangerous way, her hair and eyes sparkling. “Have you always wanted to go there?”
    “Of course,” said Mary Jo. “Who wouldn’t?”
    “Not that he doesn’t owe it to you. It’s about time he paid you back some of your devotion, I think.”
    Mary Jo, without answering, went on writing up her records. After a while, Rhea calmed down and began to discuss the possibility of getting some money out of her father for repairs to her motorcycle—which was what she had come into the office for in the first place.
    Why is it that Rhea always knows the tricky question to ask, in spite of her predictable mockery, lectures, and propaganda?“Have you always wanted to go there?” Tahiti is, in fact, a place where Mary Jo has never thought of going. Tahiti to her means palm trees, red flowers, curling turquoise waves, and the sort of tropical luxuriance and indolence that has never interested her. The gift has something unimaginative but touching about it, like the chocolates on St. Valentine’s Day.
    A winter holiday in Tahiti! I bet you’re excited about it!
    Well, I certainly am!
    She has told patients, and her friends, and her sisters—whom she suspects of thinking she doesn’t have much of a life—how excited she is. And she couldn’t sleep last night, if that counts for anything. Before six o’clock this morning—it seems a long time ago—she stood at the window of her apartment, wearing new clothes from the skin out, waiting for the taxi to take her to the airport. A short, bumpy flight to Toronto, a longer flight from Toronto to Vancouver, and here she is, launched over the Pacific Ocean. A stop at Honolulu, then Tahiti. She can’t go back on it.
    Greece would have been better. Or Scandinavia. Well, perhaps not Scandinavia at this time of year. Ireland. Last summer, Dr. Streeter and his wife went to Ireland. His wife is “working on” some Irish poet. Mary Jo does not for a minute suppose that they had a good time. Who could have a good time with such an unkempt,capricious, disruptive woman? She believes they drank quite a bit. He went salmon-fishing. They stayed in a castle. Their holidays—and his holidays alone, usually fishing trips—are always expensive, and seem to Mary Jo ritualized and burdensome. His house, too, his social life and family life—it’s all like that, she thinks, all prescribed, bleak, and costly.
    When Mary Jo started working for Dr. Streeter, she had had her nursing degree for three years, but she had never had any extra money, because she was paying back money borrowed for her education and helping her sisters with theirs. She came from a small town in Huron County. Her father worked on the town maintenance crew. Her mother had died of what was called “heart disease”—something Mary Jo later knew was a heart problem that Dr. Streeter could have detected and recommended surgery for.
    As soon as she had enough money, Mary Jo started getting some work done on her teeth. She was self-conscious about them; she never wore lipstick and was careful of how she smiled. She had her eyeteeth pulled and the front teeth filed. She still