The Progress of Love

office. No matter what difficulties develop there, or how tired she is, she deals easily with any sort of strange or rude behavior, with unpleasant habits, sour smells, impossible questions. Something is wrong with her. She didn’t sleep. Her throat feels slightly raw and her head heavy. There is a hum in her head. She may be getting a fever. But it’s more likely that her body is protesting its removal too quickly, by ever-increasing distance, from its place of habitual attachment and rest. This morning, she could see from her window a corner of Victoria Park, the snow under the streetlights and the bare trees. The apartment and the office are in a handsome old brick house owned by Dr. Streeter, in a row of similar houses given over to such uses. Mary Jo looked at the slushy streets, the dirty February snow, the gray walls of these houses, a tall office block, with its night lights on, that she could see beyond the park. She wanted nothing so much as to stay. She wanted to cancel the taxi, change her new suède suit for her uniform, go downstairs and put on coffee and water the plants, prepare for another long day of problems and routine, fear andreassurance, dread to be held in check—some of the time—by talk about the dismal weather. She loves the office, the waiting room, the lights on in the darkening icy afternoons; she loves the challenge and the monotony. At the end of the day, Dr. Streeter sometimes comes upstairs with her; she makes supper, and he stays for part of the evening. His wife is out at meetings, classes, poetry readings; she is out drinking or has come home and gone straight to bed.
    When the stewardess gets around to asking her, Mary Jo orders a vodka martini. She always chooses vodka, hoping it’s true that you can’t smell it. For obvious reasons, Dr. Streeter dislikes the smell of liquor on a woman.
    Here come two new people down the aisle, changing their seats, evidently, creating problems with the drinks cart. Another stewardess comes fussing behind them. She and the woman of the pair are carrying shopping bags, a travelling bag, an umbrella. The man walks ahead and doesn’t carry anything. They take the seats directly across from Mary Jo, beside the Greek family. They try to stow their paraphernalia under the seat, but it won’t go.
    The stewardess says that there is lots of room in the overhead bins.
    No. Low growls of protest from the man, muttered apologies from the woman. The stewardess is given to understand that they intend to keep an eye on all their belongings. Now that the drinks cart has moved on, they can see a place where things might go—in front of Mary Jo, and behind the little jump seat used by a stewardess at takeoff and landing.
    The stewardess says she hopes that won’t be too much in the lady’s way. Her bright voice suggests a certain amount of difficulty already undergone with these passengers. Mary Jo says no, it will be quite all right. The couple settle down then, the man in the aisle seat. He gives another growl, peremptory but not ill-humored, and the stewardess brings two whiskeys. He raises his glass slightly, in Mary Jo’s direction. A lordly gesture that might be a thank-you. It is certainly not an apology.
    He is a corpulent man, probably older than Dr. Streeter, but more buoyant. An incautious, unpredictable-looking man, withrather long gray hair and new, expensive clothes. Sandals over brown socks, rust-colored trousers, bright yellow shirt, a handsome gold suede jacket with many little tabs and pleats and pockets. His skin is brown and his eyes are slightly slanted. Not Japanese or Chinese—what is he? Mary Jo has a feeling that she has seen him before. Not as a patient, not in the office. Where?
    The woman peers around his shoulder, smiling with her lips closed, pleasantly creasing her broad face. Her eyes have a more definite slant than his, and her skin is paler. Her black hair is parted in the middle and held with an elastic band in a childish ponytail. Her clothes are cheap and decent and maybe fairly new—brown slacks, flowered blouse—but not in keeping with his. When she came along the aisle with the shopping bags, she looked middle-aged—thick-waisted and round-shouldered. But now, smiling at Mary Jo around the man’s bulky shoulder, she looks quite young. There is something odd about the smile itself. What that is becomes apparent when she opens her mouth and says something to the man. Her front teeth are missing, all across