Lois Glover wrinkled her perfect nose and frowned at Betty, just the way she used to do when they were in junior high. Even then, she'd been used to getting her own way, which Betty supposed had something to do with the creamy skin, the big blue eyes and the long, glossy blonde hair. No one ever had the heart--or the nerve--to refuse Lois a thing, and Betty was no exception to that rule. She sighed.

"I know.... You just never said anything about going to the drive-in, Lois. I thought we were going to Wainwright's for cheeseburgers or something."

"Cheeseburgers? Really?"

That familiar sarcastic tone made Betty feel about three inches high, and just as she almost hit the point of thinking her friend really wasn't a very pleasant person at all, Lois spun away from the vanity table at which she sat and grabbed Betty's arm.

"Oh, come on! You have to. I told Hank I'd bring a friend. You don't want to make me look like a liar, do you? Anyway, I can't possibly go on my own, and you did promise me you'd come. Hmm?"

Betty averted her gaze, looking over the bottles of scent on Lois' vanity table, the small row of pink lipsticks and the big French powder puff, all soft and smelling of talc and lilac.

There used to be dingy yellow wallpaper with sprigs of blue flowers on it in here when they were younger. Lois had the room redecorated around the time of her sixteenth birthday, as Betty recalled. Her parents bought her all new furniture--this white wood stuff with the faux gold trim--and painted the walls a delicate shade of blush pink. Their little girl had become a young woman, they said.

Betty's folks didn't go much for furniture with trimmings or anything that hadn't come down either from Granny or one of the cousins. She had wondered, when she turned sixteen, whether she'd at least get a lick of paint on the walls, but since she was already planning to get herself into secretarial college over in Wyattville, they seemed to feel there wasn't much point in redoing what she would only have a year or so to enjoy.

Betty glanced at the rows of black-and-white pictures that Lois kept tacked to the walls. Ricky Nelson, Johnny Burnette, Frankie Avalon and Fabian, all lined up, perfect hair and gleaming white teeth. The stars smiled sightlessly back at her, and not a single one of them was a darn bit of good to her right now. Betty let a low breath seep out between her teeth.

"Oh, all right. But you know what they say about girls who let their fellas take them to the drive-in."

Lois giggled, and Betty wished she hadn't said anything. Now she felt like a three-inch-high prude. Lois squeezed her arm.

"Don't be such a square, Bets! See? This is why I didn't tell you. If you'd known, you wouldn't have agreed to come over, would you? Anyway, it's not like Hank even is my fella. It's just going to be a bit of fun. Okay?"

Betty grimaced. She still had the hot, greasy film of a late August afternoon all over her and would much rather have gone home for a cool bath and an evening with a good book, but.... Well, how bad could it be? She'd double-dated with Lois before, and some of those times hadn't been that awful--not that her folks knew about any of them. She supposed, all in all, she didn't really have the grounds to stay mad at Lois and--like she said--it was only a bit of fun. She should stop being such an old stick in the mud and just enjoy it. You were only young once and all that. Even so, she was tempted to prevaricate.

"Where did you meet him, anyway?"

Lois raised her eyebrows, as if she'd neither expected Betty to ask, nor really wanted to answer.

"Hank? Nowhere. Just at church. His mother has something to do with the War Widows' drive my mother volunteers for. Does it matter? The point is it's just for fun, Betty. So will you come?"

The rest of the day stretched out before Betty, irrevocable and inevitable.

She bit her lip. "All right. But what about my dress? It's not really...."

"Oh, shush." Lois stood back to regard her critically. "I'll fix your hair, and you can borrow some makeup, but--"

"Uh, I don't really use--" Betty began to protest, but Lois waved her into silence.

"Ah-ah! A little bit of lipstick isn't makeup. And I've got the perfect dress you can wear. It's like mine but pink. Pink suits you. C'mon, slip that thing off. Are you wearing a girdle?"

Betty blushed furiously as Lois' slim hands snaked around her hips and pinged at the elasticized fabric beneath her old green cotton sundress. She made to push the nimble fingers away, but Lois was already working on the dress's back zipper.

"Oh, my goodness! You are, aren't you? No wonder you get too warm. You ought to try a garter belt, like mine. Much more comfortable and so much more sophisticated. Heavens, Betty! The war finished more than ten years ago. You're a modern girl. You don't have to dress like your mother. You see? You have a lovely figure, and you ought to try showing it off sometimes. You're such a wallflower...."

As she talked, Lois all but forcibly dragged Betty out of the sundress. She crossed to her closet and took out a pink jersey cotton dress with a boat neck, a narrow white plastic belt and a full skirt cut just above the knee. Lois held the dress up against her body--she was right, it matched, apart from the color--and gave a slow twirl, pausing to pout over her shoulder like a pin-up girl.

Betty groaned, but she took the dress, and with some trepidation, also the petticoat, the nylon stockings, white garter belt, panties and Maidenform bra that Lois handed her. She was a little bigger in the bosom department than Lois, as she'd learned from years of gym class, and she'd never had to stuff anything with tissues the way Lois did ... nor had she seen the point. But, somehow, the thought of wearing her best friend's underwear made Betty feel a little odd. Like she was stepping into a different world almost or pretending to be a different person.

She stood with the garments in her hand for a moment, feeling rather limp and useless, until Lois hitched up the powder blue skirt of her dress to demonstrate how the stockings fastened to the belt.

"There. Like that," she said, snapping the little plastic clasp. "Easy."

"Right." Betty blinked, that momentary flash of white thigh totally distracting her from any further argument. "Um...."

"Oh, go and change in the bathroom! And hurry up," Lois called, as Betty made a grateful exit. "I don't want to miss the bus!"

Betty dove into the Glover family bathroom, with all its strange scents of aftershave and soap so different to the ones she was used to at home. Lois' father made a good living working for the gas company, and whatever Lois said, Betty knew acres of social difference still lay between them. Yet, as she nervously stripped down and redressed in her friend's clothes, it seemed to Betty that some of those differences fell away, too. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror over the sink, surprised to see she looked--if not older than usual--then at least more mature. Her heavy, pale breasts pushed up and apart by the bra she struggled into, took on an instant element of that sweater-girl appeal Lois had in bucketfuls, and Betty found she rather enjoyed the way the garter belt hugged her body. It was a strange adjustment after years spent in Playtex girdles that held her in from neck to nearly knee, but Lois had been right: she felt freer, more comfortable, and yes, even a little bit modern.

Like Lois. Maybe.