Monica who was Mary Beth, Mary Beth who was Monica . . . now a little drunk, borne along by a faint buzzing sensation in her head . . . but holding herself steady . . . perfectly in control . . . Monica who had done her eyes up cleverly too, black mascara and greeny-silver eyeshadow, Monica with her wavy hair, her watchful intense look . . . she was learning to loosen up, relax, have a good time. She wasn’t a prig, surely, why just look at her: laughing at the jokes: humming with the music: sliding an arm around Sherrill Ann’s waist as, laughing, swaying, Sherrill Ann slid an arm around hers.

She wasn’t drunk but she laughed loudly, her hair falling in her face.

She wasn’t drunk but it did strike her as funny—the seriousness with which men looked at her, and at Sherrill Ann in her satin blouse and bouncy ponytail.

It was funny . . . the fact that, years after his death, Elvis Presley was still king of the jukebox, with eight songs listed including one called “America” which Sherrill Ann professed to love. (Mary Beth’s own favorite was “Huggin’ You” by Billy Joe. There was also a rock-and-roll number by a band called Forced Entry, a guitar number by a band called Jump-in-the-Saddle, a breathy love ballad by the Pindee Sisters—all jukebox favorites.)

Funny too were the Christmas decorations at the Circle Café (blinking red and white lights, tinsel looped across the walls like festive cobwebs, green plastic trees above the bar, florid-faced Santas advertising Pabst, Schlitz, Miller High Life, Miller “Lite,” Coors). Black Billy’s had a near-life-sized plywood Santa’s sleigh, complete with reindeer, nailed atilt on its sloping roof; Hedy’s had frosted windows with red candles painted on the glass; tinsel was draped across the twelve bowling alleys at Walt’s, just above the pins.

And here was Sherrill Ann dancing and cavorting like a girl of sixteen, Sherrill Ann clowning as she bowled (her freestyle technique, all legs and elbows, resulted in both gutter balls and spectacular strikes, to everyone’s amusement), Sherrill Ann mock-serious about a game of pool, a white camellia pinned drooping to her hair. She prided herself on keeping pace with Grady and Ben and Buzz and Orrin, matching them drink for drink—or almost. She argued the finer points of horse breeding with them, she commiserated with their angry tales of “unfair” alimony and child support payments, the custody rights they had to live with. The courts—the lawyers—the welfare workers—were all biased against men, against men who were fathers but ex-husbands: that was a fact of life! that couldn’t be denied! It’s just what they can suck out of you, Grady, or was it Buzz, complained to Sherrill Ann—after they decide they don’t want you no more; and Sherrill Ann, feeling subdued that evening, said, People shouldn’t get married, maybe, in the first place, “—Hell, just look at me.”