Chapter II

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.