Monica disliked the taste of draft beer, Monica disliked the smoke in the air, but, well, after one or two steins at the County Line Tavern, one or two at Buddy’s Circle Café (where the hillbilly band Delaware Gap played weekend nights), after a nightcap at Flaherty’s on the way home south on Highway 30 . . . well, she didn’t quite care what she liked or disliked, it was all wonderful good fun, Sherrill Ann was indeed a “character,” and Mary Beth was no slouch either, she was beginning to loosen up.

The men had names like Grady, Buzz, Billy, Orrin, Mason, Ryan. They worked at the Massey-Ferguson plant in Bethany, or at a General Motors plant in Edgarsville, or they drove trucks, or had small farms, or were auto mechanics, or were “between jobs.” Most of them were married—to a degree. Unless they were divorced. They drank a good deal but they didn’t invariably get drunk though sometimes of course they did get drunk but that didn’t mean—didn’t always mean—they would turn difficult or nasty or maudlin or hopeful. They were likely to ask Sherrill Ann and Mary Beth if they wanted another drink, or maybe supper somewhere, or, maybe, would they like to dance . . . ?

“Sure,” said Sherrill Ann, wriggling her hips, “I’m game.”

(“How come you don’t want to dance?” one of the men would ask Monica, and Monica would say, embarrassed, speaking quickly, “I don’t know how to dance these dances,” and the man would say, “Hell it’s easy—I’ll teach you,” and Monica would say, “I’m afraid I just don’t like to dance, I’m clumsy on my feet,” and the man would say, smiling, baffled, sometimes glancing down at her feet, “You sure don’t look like you’d be clumsy—c’mon and I’ll show you.” And Monica would say, no longer laughing, “Thank you, but I’d rather not,” and the man would say “Your friend’s dancing, ain’t she?—Jesus look at her,” and Monica would say, sharply, to bring an end to it, “Yes but I’m not my friend, am I, I’m someone else.”)

If the men were initially attracted by Mary Beth’s wavy pale-golden hair and her reassuringly pretty face—the small upturned nose, the delicate features—they gradually came to prefer Sherrill Ann’s presence, her queer excited exuberant manner. Mary Beth might have been as young as twenty-one, Sherrill Ann might have been as old as thirty-five, but it scarcely mattered because Sherrill Ann was the live one; Sherrill Ann was hot.