HOME OF BYRON AND DOLLY MAGNUSON
406 Jefferson Avenue, Pine Rapids
Friday, August 4, 1950

Thinking of the picture of Byron in his plaid mackinaw standing on the Battle Point depot platform inspired Dolly, and she told JJ that she had to be getting home. The final details of the Mickelson story could wait. She was going to cook Byron a fabulous dinner, wear her sexiest dress, and show him just how good life could be when they took the time to be with each other. She didn’t want to find herself in a position like Wilma Mickelson had, discovering a secret about her husband years after the fact. She had to work to ensure that she and Byron would again become as close and happy as they had been on their wedding night.

Well, maybe the day after the wedding night. She had been pretty nervous on the actual night. Still, though, he had been wonderful then, and she had imagined she could never feel closer to anyone—which could only mean the potential was there to feel that way again, if she just made the effort!

By the time she got the bungalow straightened, and the beef stroganoff simmering on the stove, she had worked up quite a sweat. She went to the bedroom and stripped off her clothes in favor of her robe, then headed for the bathroom to give herself a quick sponge bath. Every time she went into the bathroom she got furious at the sight of the wallpaper and the mismatched lime-green towels, but tonight she told herself to forget about it, and concentrated on thinking about all the good things about Byron. His constancy, the security he provided her. How cute he looked with his shirt off.

She brushed her hair, rolled the ends up in curlers, and dampened them with cologne. (If she did the curlers just right, her hair looked uncannily like Elizabeth Taylor’s in the new movie Father of the Bride.) She painted her toenails and fingernails with bright red polish, then made up her face—black mascara, red lipstick, and the whole bit. Next, she took out the curlers, combed her hair, and pinned her curls in place. She went to the bedroom and put on a bra and panty-girdle set she’d bought at Birnbaum’s last month, and thigh-high silk stockings, which she attached to the garters on her girdle. She added a short slip, a black sundress with white polka dots, and her high-heeled white sandals. Looking in the mirror on her dresser, she pressed her finger to her chin, posing, trying not to resent the extra snugness of the new girdle—at least it made her stomach and her rear look flatter than her older ones did. She thought Byron would also appreciate the effect of the stylish conical bra. Though she always thought her legs were too stocky, she had to admit that, with the aid of her new undergarments, the polka-dot sundress was quite flattering.