Spirit Lost Read Online Free PDF Page B

tennis and swum and ridden and skied enough so that she was perfectly at ease with her body. Willy moved through the world with a sort of lovely laziness, as if she never needed to be quick or alert.
    Anne secretly thought that Willy had a “midwestern face”—open, honest, healthy, with bright blue eyes and perfect rosy skin and a bland, rather undramatic bone structure. It was the kind of face that makeup couldn’t improve; but then it was also the kind of face that the lack of makeup couldn’t hurt. She looked as pleasant early in the morning as she did at a party. Her hair was the color of wheat, and it was thick and long; today Willy wore it pulled into an intricate clump at the back of her head. Willy tended to wear jeans and turtlenecks or pleated kilts and wool sweaters; if her face was midwestern, her overall image was more British, Anne thought, like one of those large, comfortablewomen who train dogs or horses.
    And Willy was all those things—open, honest, healthy, pleasant, comfortable, and large. But Anne had to admit that her friend had secrets.
    The first Anne had discovered eight years ago when Willy was given introductory passes to a new health spa in Boston. It was an especially cold winter, and Anne jumped at the chance to spend a few hours with Willy one Saturday, swimming, taking a sauna, sitting in the whirlpool, lying in the sun room. Anne didn’t know Willy well then; her husband and Willy’s had been childhood friends, had gone to BU together, but Anne and Willy had met only through their husbands. They had not had a chance to get to know each other. This was a good afternoon, a friendly, warm time when the women had relaxed in the swirling water and discussed freely all sorts of things: their marriages, their pasts, their work.
    They used the sun room last and had to take turns at it, and Anne went first. She was in the locker room, getting ready to take a shower and then dress, when Willy walked in from the sun room. She was naked, rosy, and relaxed from the heat, and as she entered, lazy in her nakedness, she reached up with both hands to release her hair from its pins. Her hair fell rich and thick, honey-colored, all around her face and shoulders.
    “My God,” Anne said, looking at her friend, “no wonder John’s so much in love with you. You look like some kind of …  goddess .”
    Willy did look like some kind of goddess. Her body, which seemed so practical , so plain in clothes, was downright fabulous naked. She was not fat, but she was large and full, with ample hips, long full thighs, and huge, firm breasts. Her waist was not small—nothing about Willy was small—but it curved in a lovely line from her rib cage in and out again to her hips, something else Anne had not realized because of the shapeless clothes Willy wore.
    Willy had smiled at Anne. “Well,” she said, only slightly embarrassed, “John likes me. That’s what matters.”
    “But, but,” Anne stammered, “how can you be so relaxed about it all? I mean, I’m always worrying about some part of my body, whether I’m too fat or too thin—”
    “You’re lovely, Anne,” Willy had interrupted, moving on into the shower.
    “Yes, yes, I know,” Anne had replied. “But I’m still always worrying about something. Aren’t you? Don’t you?”
    Willy thought about it as she turned on the water and soaped herself. “I used to,”she said. “Oh, of course, in the teenage years. What do you think, Anne, imagine how it was; I was always taller, bigger, than most of the boys. And my name! Wilhelmina! Even my nickname, which I prefer, isn’t pretty. So masculine. It took me a long time to get comfortable with it all, my size, my name, but I just don’t even think about it now. You know, since I’ve married John, I’ve gotten, well, satisfied with myself. And John certainly seems to be … satisfied with me.” Willy grinned.
    That was Willy’s first secret, that in spite of her rather plain appearance she