The Agreement
by Douglas Taylor

THE STORY: Sal, a writer, and Jenny, an aspiring actress, dream and work for the day when their talents will be recognized and rewarded.

Sharing a cold water flat, they have devised an agreement by which their love and their careers remain separate.

But then, one day, Jenny comes home during Sal's writing time, and he senses that a change has come over her—a change which threatens to challenge and disrupt their carefully arranged understanding.

She seems strangely elated—yet quarrelsome too—as she announces that she is quitting her acting class.

With growing apprehension Sal draws out the reason for her behavior: she is pregnant, and wants them to marry.

At first it appears that he will do as she wishes, but gradually he makes his feelings all too clear to her.

He cannot accept the life that marriage and parenthood would entail.

It would mean the destruction of the comfortable cocoon he has escaped into, and the loss is one that Sal cannot face.

But for Jenny life is something that must go on, and she will find the courage to move with it—alone if this must be.

Sadly she packs her few things and leaves, while Sal turns to the solace of his typewriter and to the hollow comfort of a life that he can only write about but never truly know.