She worked at Grey Advertising, which made it so convenient to meet. Seeing her always filled him with pleasure, even when it became completely familiar. She was twenty-five and filled with life. That summer he saw her in a bathing suit, a bikini. She was stunning, with a kind of glow to her skin. She had a young girl’s unself-conscious belly and ran into the waves. He went in more cautiously, as befitted a man who had been a typist in the army and salesman for a dress manufacturer before coming to what he called Wall Street, where he had always dreamed of being and would have worked for nothing.

Westhampton, her tanned legs and pale heels. The feeling she gave him of being younger, even, God help him, debonair. He was playful. On the beach he wore a coconut hat. He had fallen in love, deeply, and without knowing it. He hadn’t realized he had been living a shallow life. He only knew that he was happy, happier than he had ever been, in her company. This warmhearted girl with her legs, her fragrance, and perfect little ears that were tuned to him. And she took some kind of pleasure in him! They were guests of the Senders and he slept in a separate room in the basement while she was upstairs, but they were under the same roof and he would see her in the morning.

— When are you going to marry her? everyone asked.

— She wouldn’t have me, he equivocated.

He realized then, as she sat there, a woman in his apartment at night, a woman he knew he loved, that she was really giving him one last chance. He knew he should take it.

— Ah, Noreen, he said.

After that night, she vanished. Not suddenly, but it did not take long. She married Bobby. It was as simple as a death, but it lasted longer. It seemed it would never go away. She lingered in his thoughts. Did he exist in hers? he often wondered. Did she still feel, even if only a little, the way he felt? The years seemed to have no effect on it. She was in New Jersey somewhere, in some place he could not picture. Probably there was a family. Did she ever think of him? Ah, Noreen.

He left through the same foyer with its worn mosaic tile and people coming in. It was still light outside, the pure full light before evening, the sun in a thousand windows facing the park. Walking along the street in their heels, alone or together, were girls such as Noreen had been, many of them. They were not really going to meet for lunch sometime. He thought of the love that had filled the great central chamber of his life and how he would not meet anyone like that again. He did not know what came over him, but on the street he broke into tears.