Progress of Love by Munro Alice

Author:Munro, Alice [Munro, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1986-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

JESSE AND MERIBETH

In high school, I had a tender, loyal, boring friendship with a girl named MaryBeth Crocker. I gave myself up to it, as I did to the warm, shallow, rather murky waters of the Maitland River in summer, when I lay on my back, and just fluttered my hands and feet, and was carried downstream.

This began one day in Music period, when there were not enough songbooks to go around and we were told to double up—boys with boys, of course, and girls with girls. I was looking around for some other girl who didn’t have a special friend to sit with, and MaryBeth slipped into the seat beside me. She was new to the school then; she had come to live with her sister Beatrice, who was a nurse and worked 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.

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