Free To See You Again by Alice Adams

carbohydrates for me.”
    At least, this time, she didn’t cry.
    At some hour in the middle of the night, or early morning, Dylan woke up—a thing she rarely did. Her ears and her mind were full of the distant sound of the sea, and she couldsee it as it had been in the afternoon, vastly glittering, when she had been preoccupied with her wet shoe, with Whitney’s not kissing her. And she felt a sudden closeness to him; suddenly she understood what he had not quite said. By “implications” he had meant that the time and place were wrong for them. He was shy and just then not especially happy, what with his divorce and all, but he truly cared about her. If he had felt less he probably would have kissed her, in the careless, meaningless way of a man on vacation kissing a pretty waitress and then going back to his own real life. Whitney was that rarity her mother despaired of finding: a truly nice man. On her way back to sleep Dylan imagined calling him. She could go up to see him on the bus, or he could come down, and they could go out together, nothing to do with the Lodge. Could talk, be alone.
    However, Dylan woke up the next morning in quite another mood. She felt wonderful, her own person, needing no one, certainly not a man who had not bothered, really, to claim her. Looking in the mirror, she saw herself as more than pretty, as almost beautiful; it was one of her very good days.
    Flower, too, at breakfast seemed cheerful, not hung over. Maybe there was something in the air? Passing buttered English muffins to Dylan, Flower took none, although she loved them. “Tomato juice and eggs and black coffee, from here on in,” she said. She did not take any pills.
    Later, walking toward the Lodge, Dylan felt light-hearted, energetic. And how beautiful everything was! (Whitney Iverson had been right.) The sloping meadows, the pale clear sky, the chalky cliffs, the diamond-shining sea were all marvelous. She had a strong presentiment of luck; some good fortune would come to her at last.
    At the sound of a car behind her she moved out of the way, turning then to look. She had had for a moment the crazy thought that it could be Whitney coming back for her, but of course it was not. It was a new gray Porsche, going slowly, looking for something. Walking a little faster, Dylan began to adjust her smile.

An Unscheduled Stop
    Suddenly, on a routine flight between Atlanta and Washington, D.C., a young woman who has been staring intently out of her window bursts into violent tears. No turbulence can have upset her—the air is clear and blue and calm—but in an instant her eyes clench shut, her hands fly up to cover her face and her shoulders convulse in spasms.
    She is seated near the front of the plane and the seat next to hers has not been taken. No one is aware of this outburst but the two men across the aisle from her. Because she is good-looking, in a dark, rather stylish way, these men have been observing her since she got on the plane with them in Atlanta; they like the somewhat old-fashioned smooth way her hair is knotted, although, good old Southern boys at heart, they are not so sure about the look on her face, what they could see of it, before she began to cry: wide-eyed and serious, she hardly smiled. One of those women too smart for their own good, they think.
    The attention of the men has in fact been divided between the young woman and the landscape below, at which they, like her, have been intently peering: pinewoods,mostly; some exposed red clay, along winding white highways; a brown river; red fall leaves. Just before the woman began to cry, one of the men observed to the other, “Say, aren’t we passing over Hilton right about now?”
    “Sure looks like it. Yep, I bet you’re right.”
    At that moment the woman’s tears begin, and after a startled minute or two they start to whisper. “Say, whatever’s eating her, do you reckon?” one of them asks.
    “Haven’t got the foggiest notion; she sure don’t