A LARGE WOMAN, her height and build are almost the same as mine. She tutors electric organ, but most of her free time she divides among swimming and skiing and tennis, so she’s trim and always tanned. You might call her a sports fanatic. On days off, she puts in a morning run before heading to the local pool to do laps; then at two or three in the afternoon it’s tennis, followed by aerobics. Now, I like my sports, but I’m nowhere near her league.

I don’t mean to suggest she’s aggressive or obsessive about things. Quite the contrary, she’s really rather retiring; she’d never dream of putting emotional pressure on anyone. Only, she’s driven; her body—and very likely the spirit attached to that body—craves after vigorous activity, relentless as a comet.

Which may have something to do with why she’s unmarried. Oh, she’s had affairs—the woman may be a little on the large side, but she is beautiful; she’s been proposed to, even agreed to take the plunge. But inevitably, whenever it’s gotten to the wedding stage, some problem has come up and everything falls through.

Like my wife says, “She’s just unlucky.”

“Well, I guess,” I sympathize.

I’m not in total agreement with my wife on this. True, luck may rule over parts of a person’s life and luck may cast patches of shadow across the ground of our being, but where there’s a will—much less a strong will to swim thirty laps or run twenty kilometers—there’s a way to overcome most any trouble with whatever stepladders you have around. No, her heart was never set on marrying, is how I see it. Marriage just doesn’t fall within the sweep of her comet, at least not entirely.

And so she keeps on tutoring electric organ, devoting every free moment to sports, falling regularly in and out of unlucky love.

IT’S A RAINY SUNDAY afternoon and she’s come two hours earlier than expected, while my wife is still out shopping.

“Forgive me,” she apologizes. “I took a rain check on today’s tennis, which left me two hours to spare. I’d have been bored out of my mind being alone at home, so I just thought … Am I interrupting anything?”

Not at all, I say. I didn’t feel quite in the mood to work and was just sitting around, cat on my lap, watching a video. I show her in, go to the kitchen and make coffee. Two cups, for watching the last twenty minutes of Jaws. Of course, we’ve both seen the movie before—probably more than once—so neither of us is particularly riveted to the tube. But anyway, we’re watching it because it’s there in front of our eyes.