ABSTRACT

Mark is thirty years old. He is a journalist and a teacher. He met Joanne the summer before their senior year in college, but it didn't turn into a romance until the end of the following summer, and it was a full five years before they decided to get married. The slow pace of the relationship suited them both for different reasons—Joanne, because she loved solitude and insisted on independence, and Mark, because he was reluctant to commit himself to permanence.