Amy had a good time during her junior year in High School. She and Lulu
were invited to all of the Friday night parties. She was not as good a
dancer as Lulu, but she always had all of her dances taken. On Sunday
she and Lulu and two of the boys would go for a walk, calling at the
post-office for any possible mail and then stopping for sodas.
But that wasn’t life. Amy wanted something above Belleville and High
School parties and a father with a hardware store with red axes on its
windows. She read a great deal of fiction that year—everything in the
Fortnightly Library that had large print and wide margins. While she
read she remembered that, to her, too, romance would come, that her
life would be an interesting story.
She fell in love with Reed Maddon when she was seventeen. He was a
tall, black-haired boy. His father kept a leather and harness store. He
played on the Belleville High School football team and was rather shy.
He didn’t pay much attention to Amy, at first. It was pleasant, being
in love with him. He sat back of her in the High School study hall, so
she kept a little pocket-mirror in her desk and could find his face in
it whenever she wanted to.
She tried to make Reed be nice to her. Lulu saw through her little
tricks and laughed. Lulu, at seventeen, was already making eyes at
grown-up men.
Amy dreamed of Reed, thought of him all day. Being in love seemed a
beautiful prelude to living, to the story that was going to happen. She
pursued Reed so patiently that finally he did pay a little attention to
her. He took her to a couple of dances. One night, on the way home, he
put his arm around her and, in the shadow of the climbing rose on the
side porch, he kissed her.
His kiss lifted her into an ecstasy. She lay awake nearly all night
thinking about it, about his hair, the curve of his cheek, the feel of
his lips. She whispered “Reed, Reed, Reed,” over and over. Only once
more did Reed make love to her. That was a week later, when he came
to tell her that he was going to St. Louis to work for his uncle. He
put his arm around her as they sat in the hammock on the porch. Amy
trembled delightedly. She never remembered what they said.
She thought of Reed all summer. He wrote her a couple of letters with
no particular charm and sent her a poorly-taken picture post-card of
himself, which she cut to fit her locket.
Amy went to the state university when she was graduated from High
School. Lulu Brown went, too. Because of Lulu’s inferior social
position and a tendency to make amorous eyes at the boys, she was
not asked to join a sorority. Amy was, and she gloried in her social
supremacy, treating Lulu with great condescension, though they shared
letters from home and frequently spent a night together. Lulu was more
popular than Amy, but Amy thought some of the boys Lulu went with were
“fast.” She no longer regarded her as a rival and did not feel as
jealous of Lulu as she had in High School.
Amy watched, eagerly, for something to happen. At first, she was in
love with Reed, but the activities of the university made her a bit
dulled toward him. A letter from him, around Christmas of her first
year away at school, gave her only the smallest thrill. She could
think of his mouth and his eyes with great calm. She rather missed not
thinking about him.
Amy did not fall in love at the university, and no one fell in love
with her. She went to dances and the other entertainments, treated the
boys with the usual half-comrade, half-coy attitude of the other girls,
and was fairly popular.
But this was not life, really. It was just waiting for things to
happen. Things _must_ happen. She felt that. She was going to have a
real story happen to her—would probably have exciting adventures and
meet a wonderful man and fall in love with him.
In the evenings, at dusk, she would sometimes get away from the other
girls and take long walks by herself.
She would get so restless and eager for something to happen that
she wanted to cry out for it. Every new face might bring romance.
She almost trembled when she passed any one or when she made a new
acquaintance. She often woke up early, and, after trying to read, would
lie in bed, half-awake, and imagine things that might happen.
Life—what did it mean? Would she fall in love again? Being in love
with Reed had just been puppy love, of course. Was the real man only
a little way off? Was she destined for great happiness or great
unhappiness? Even that—
She learned little things about men, was even humble enough to
profit by Lulu’s wisdom, even while she disapproved of Lulu’s
unconventionality. Lulu seemed to know, instinctively, things that she
had to learn.
Two years at the university, a smattering of history and French and
German and literature, and Amy was home, ready for “society.” She felt
another ripple of triumph—Lulu’s social position would not warrant
formal social entrance—the Martins planned to introduce Amy with a
party at the Elks’ Club.
The party was quite a success. Mr. Martin, his chin and neck a bit more
indistinguishable, Mrs. Martin, smooth and sleek, buttery almost, stood
in the “receiving line,” together with several “socially prominent”
friends. Amy wore a white organdie that came from Chicago. There
was Robinson’s Orchestra and dancing. For supper, the local caterer
had sent to the city for fresh lobster, a delicacy unobtainable in
Belleville. The party was not surpassed by the other four débutante
parties of the season.
Amy went to innumerable social affairs that winter. When a theatrical
company came to Belleville she was always one of a box party, composed
usually of the débutantes and four of Belleville’s most desirable young
men, all in evening clothes, the girls in dresses bought at the New
York Store or made by Madame Jackson, Belleville’s one modiste, the men
in rather wrinkled suits, but unmistakably their own.
Something was missing, Amy felt that. Reed came back to Belleville, but
he was not attractive any more. He went with Claudine Harper, and Amy
did not care. Nothing thrilled her at all.
Sometimes, at a dance, an especially good dance with a good partner
would awaken her just a little. A chapter from a popular novel could
be mooned over half a day. A play sometimes had a moment which lifted
her above things. She read poetry, and soothing rhythms pleased her.
Sometimes she tried to write, but never achieved anything beyond a
vague scribbling about longings and life and love. This was not living.
She wanted to scream out, to batter down something which seemed to
stand between her and the story that ought to be happening.