She couldn’t remember her mother well. Her mother had died when she was five. Annabelle recalled her as a tall and rather nervous woman who had sometimes fondled her, and sometimes ignored her. Annabelle had actually been raised by a kindly old lady, hired as a housekeeper by her father. This old lady, Mrs. Norman, was a widow, and had raised a family and buried three husbands. She was big and firm and superstitious and authoritative, but Annabelle had loved her. Then, upon the death of her father, she had gone to live with her Uncle Allan, a kindly, but meek, rich business man. She grew up in a kindness of neglect. She had great freedom, and was allowed out on dates when she was fifteen. She had had several experiences with boys, and one with a business associate of her uncle, all by the time that she was eighteen.
In college, she had two boy friends, one a young fellow who smoked a pipe, wore tweeds, sported a slouch hat, and was heralded as a promising young writer. The other was a basketball player, a tall, fine-looking blondish lad who was kindly, gentle and unsophisticated. Many others tried to attract her, but she was always able to take care of herself. She was somewhat brisk in manner, a fair student, and had literary tastes that ran towards newer and modern writers. She refused to join a club, and was inclined to associate with the more bohemian students. She tried acting in the campus theatrical group and, while she was told that she was very promising, she didn’t believe this, and abandoned any hopes or dreams of a career as an actress. She wrote a few mediocre poems, one of which was published in a local magazine. Then, she realized that she was not a poet. By the time she was graduated, she had decided that she was not the type to have a career, and thought that marriage, on comfortable terms, would be the most satisfying way in which she could spend her life. But at that time, she did not want to have children. She wanted a gay and sophisticated married life, crowded with affairs, with parties, bridge, dances, trips, teas and the like.
Annabelle married Benny Hedges, a famous football player from a Big Ten university, a youth whose exploits had been heralded nationally in the press, and who had been responsible for his school winning the Big Ten Conference title. He seemed to be not only a great athlete, but also intelligent. He had made Phi Beta Kappa, read literature, and was, or seemed to be, more than an athlete. When they married, their friends commented on the appearance of the bride and groom, both tall, handsome and looking so healthy. But the marriage had been a miserable failure. Annabelle’s husband was shallow, and had been spoiled by his fame and his college success. He coached for a year, but was let out. He drifted about from job to job, working as a salesman, as an advertising copywriter and as a high-school gridiron official. He took to drinking rather heavily, became fat and bloated, and at home he constantly demanded attention. He liked to stand before her and elicit admiration.
She had decided to leave him before he was killed in an accident after he had gotten drunk at an old grad meeting. Driving recklessly, he had smashed into a truck, and his body had been mangled. Annabelle wasted no tears on her dead husband. She had come to feel that he was no good. She had already made up her mind to leave him.
Soon afterward, she had married an ambitious young lawyer named Harry Torenson. She seemed happy with him. He was struggling to get ahead on his own, but his family had money and their life was comfortable and easy. Of the plodding type, he was considerate, honest, fair in his dealings, and devoted to Annabelle. He never mentioned her first marriage, and showed no jealousy of the famous Benny Hedges. They went out a great deal, and spent weekends in the country near Chicago. In winter, they liked to go up to a cabin owned by Harry’s brother, to walk in the snow, drink, or sit watching the log fire. They seemed to be a happy couple.
Harry slowly developed his own practice. He became a moderately successful but unspectacular lawyer. As the years passed, and they both grew into their thirties, he became dull and predictable. He was always sweet, always considerate. Although he seemed to want children, he deferred to Annabelle’s wishes, and they had no children. Annabelle became bored and restless. She went away on several vacations to New York, to California, and to Florida. Each time, she went, hoping to have some romantic love affair, but she had none. She was afraid. On each of these vacations, she danced with men and allowed them to kiss her, but at the final moment, she would evade them, slip out of their arms, refuse them.
She returned from each vacation, looking wonderful in a physical sense, seeming young and healthy and as full of energy as ever. But inwardly, she was growing more and more dissatisfied with herself, and she was secretly beginning to resent her husband. She resented him doubly because she believed that he had trapped her with his sweetness and fairness, his trust and loyalty. He was just too goddamned good. And she decided that she wasn’t good.
Her marriage had become empty. She could not face the decision of telling Harry. She began to feel guilty towards him, as though she had betrayed him. And she developed a sense of insincere responsibility towards him. She believed that he depended on her, totally, and that if she were to be unfaithful to him, and worse, to leave him, he would be crushed. He might even never get over it.
She had a maid, and they had a big apartment. She had little to do. Sometimes, she cooked, and as often as they stayed home for dinner, they went out. She didn’t particularly like movies, but she saw many of them in the afternoons, just because she couldn’t think of any way to occupy her time. And she was given more and more to dreaming of illicit love affairs. How convenient it would be. She could have her lover come to her in the afternoons. There was no danger. Harry was always at the office. She felt that she needed an experience such as this in order to restore to her sense of life. She felt chained. She didn’t love Harry, but she respected him. He was kind and simple, trusting, and he was able to provide her with an easy life.
She didn’t know what to do. It was depressing to think not only of spending the rest of her life with him, but also of being loveless, and of never being held in the arms of any other man.
She had opportunities, but she was always frightened off. She always drew back when it came for her to say yes or no. And because she did, she began to look down on many men. Why did they take no for an answer? Why didn’t they demand yes? Why didn’t they keep insisting and persisting until she was overpowered, until she lost all reason and swooned into their arms? Men were a bad breed. They were not really lovers. And she wanted a lover.
2
Often, she would think of Arthur. Some time or other, she knew that she would meet him again. She was convinced of that. He would come to Chicago, or she would manage a trip to New York, and he would be there, and they would meet, and perhaps then, then she would be held by him and kissed by him. She had always been attracted to him. But he had been shy. He had not seemed to realize that she had liked him, had felt drawn to him. Of all the boys she had known back in her ’teens, she was inclined to believe that she respected him the most. On a number of occasions, they had sat together in the Coffee Shop, had walked on the campus or sat on the Midway, talking, but he had never made a move. They had treated each other as good friends, and as nothing else. Maybe if she had known how to give him encouragement, something might have happened. But perhaps it was all for the best, because if it had happened then, it might be washed out now. As it was she could dream and hope and imagine a meeting, a rendezvous.