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I first saw her red hair. Not ordinary red hair, but wild, bushy, like it was allergic to combs. Her eyes, piercing from under flyaway bangs, looked as if they’d seen Rome, London, Paris. Places beyond my new life in Park Forest, the “planned community” built to provide housing for World War II vets, made famous by William H. Whyte in The Organization Man. Her clothes—baggy jeans, plaid shirt, scuffed loafers—surprised me, a proud graduate of Stretch & Sew lessons.

Stopping abruptly in the doorway to that Marriage and the Family class, I straightened my homemade pink polyester pull-on pants and smoothed my blond pixie bangs. Suddenly, my Peter Pan-collared blouse felt too snug around my neck, and my white tennis shoes—I’d never owned a pair of loafers—looked way too clean.

“Red Hair” could be the friend I wanted. A friend with an insatiable mind for learning. Maybe Red Hair was a nurse like me. She looked my age. I wondered if she had taken classes before to spice up the housewife restlessness.

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