To See You Again by Alice Adams Page A

Yvonne treated him—like someone with a serious disease. She was affectionate and solicitous, and very slightly distant, as though his illness were something that she didn’t want to catch.
    One March evening, after a bright, harsh day of intermittent sun, rain and wind, Matthew came home for dinner a little late, with a look on his face of total and anguished exhaustion. Handing him his gin—they were in the kitchen; she had been tasting her good lamb stew, a
navarin
—Yvonne thought, Ah, the girl has broken it off, or has given him an ultimatum; such a mistake. She thought, I hope I won’t have to hear about it.
    All Matthew said during dinner was “The Boccherini project is sort of getting me down. My ideas don’t come together.”
    “Poor darling,” she said carefully, alertly watching his face.
    “I should spend more time at the factory.”
    “Well, why don’t you?”
    As they settled in the living room for coffee, Yvonne saw that his face had relaxed a little. Perhaps now he would want to talk to her? She said, “There’s a Fred Astaire revival at the U.T. tonight. I know you don’t like them, but would you mind if I go? Ah, dear, it’s almost time.”
    Not saying: You unspeakable fool, how dare you put me through all this? Are you really worth it?
    Alone in the crowded balcony of the University Theatre, as on the screen Fred and Ginger sang to each other about how lovely a day it was to be caught in the rain, Yvonne thought, for a moment, that she would after all go home and tell Matthew to go to his girl, Susanna. She would release him, with as little guilt as possible, since she was indeed fond of Matthew.
Je tiens à Matthew
.
    Tenir à
. I hold to Matthew, Yvonne thought then. Andshe also thought, No, it would not work out well at all. Matthew is much too vulnerable for a girl like that. He is better off with me.
    Of course she was right, as Matthew himself must have come to realize, and over the summer he seemed to recover from his affliction. Yvonne saw his recovery, but she also understood that she had been seriously wounded by that episode, coming as it did so early in their life together. Afterward she was able to think more sensibly, Well, much better early than later on, when he could have felt more free.
    That fall they left for Italy, where, curiously, neither of them had been before—Yvonne because her Anglophile parents had always taken her to the Devon coast on holidays, or sometimes to Scotland, Matthew because with drunken Flossie any travel was impossible.
    They settled in a small hotel in Rome, in a large romantically alcoved room that overlooked the Borghese Gardens. They went on trips: north to Orvieto, Todi, Spoleto, Gubbio; south to Salerno, Positano, Ravello. They were dazed, dizzy with pleasure at the landscape, the vistas of olive orchards, of pines and flowers and stones, the ancient buildings, the paintings and statuary. The food and wine. They shared a mania for pasta.
    A perfect trip, except that from time to time Yvonne was jolted sharply by a thought of that girl, Susanna. And, looking at Matthew, she wondered if he, too, thought of her— with sadness, regret? The question hurt.
    She would have to ask Matthew, and deliberately she chose a moment of pure happiness. They were seated on a vine-covered terrace, at Orvieto, across the square from the gorgeously striped cathedral, drinking cool white wine, having made love early that morning, when Yvonne asked, “Do you ever wonder what happened to that girl, Susanna?”
    Genuine puzzlement appeared on Matthew’s distinguished face, and then he said, “I almost never think of her. I don’t have time.”
    Knowing Matthew, Yvonne was sure that he spoke the truth, and she wryly thought, I undoubtedly think more often of that girl, that episode, than Matthew does.
    And so she, too, stopped thinking of Susanna—or almost, except for an occasional reminder.
    Leaving Rome, they traveled up to Florence, then Venice, Innsbruck,