The night Anthony had left for camp Gloria wasn't able to pull herself together.

• Even though her and Anthony were not happy for over a year, that didn't matter to her. She was hopeless without him.

Her first letter to Anthony professed her love to him, and quote, "If you hated me, if you were covered with sores like a leper, if you ran with another woman or starved me or beat me - how absurd this sounds - I'd still want you, I'd still love you. I know, my darling!" (291).

With Anthony gone, Gloria began to reflect on the people she knew. The men she had kissed before Anthony - all either married, in France or dead. The women she knew, those who were jealous of her beauty, became "people".

Gloria and Rachael meet up and have tea together at the Ritz and discuss about their military husbands.

• Then, Rachael invites Gloria to come over for dinner since she's having men (who are about to go overseas) over.

This "dinner" appeared like a date. And Gloria wasn't entirely sure how to feel about it. There were two officers flirting around with married woman, and for some reason this was okay.

• As the night progressed the officers get widly drunk.

• Officer Collins at one point put his arms around Gloria, in which Gloria didn't care - she was used to men doing that all the time even before Anthony came along - she didn't take it as an out-of-place gesture.

• Collins also tells Gloria that he wishes she wasn't married and that if she takes another drink she'll be "awfully nice." Gloria doesn't care, and has him pour her another drink.

• He then continues holding her and getting near her cheek that Gloria - disgusted - began to push him away.

• In the corner of her eye she spots Rachael kissing the other officer. (And Rachael is married, btw.)

• Gloria ends up leaving because she couldn't gather herself together to do what Rachael was doing.

The idea of cheating for Gloria was different the second time around. An old flame, Tudor Baird, had come to visit.

• Gloria enjoyed his company, and Tudor began to fall in love with Gloria all over again.

• Feeling sorry for him, Gloria thought it was reasonable to give him a kiss. "Afterward she was glad she kissed him, for next day when his plane fell fifteen hundred feet at Mineola, a piece of gasolene engine smashed through his heart" (298). (Well, this escalated quickly..)

Gloria also began to look for work in the movie business, but a lot of these agencies appeared dead. Also, Bloeckman was in Europe - so he couldn't help her out in finding a job.

Gloria also began to collect all the letters Anthony had sent in, including all the letters that told her note to come to the South and noticed a pattern of repeating the same reasons, as if he didn't tell her once before. Gloria began to propse actual reasons as to why he doesn't want her to come (Judge Judy up in here) but eventually rejected those ideas and decided to shut herself from it all. 

Anthony's letter had multiplied and then eventually ceased, and Gloria received a telegram that Anthony would be coming home in ten days.

When Anthony was dispatched, he had a feeling Dot would try to meet him at the train station, but she never came. It was as if she was gone. Anthony didn't care about this though, because he just wanted to see Gloria.

After Anthony came back to New York Gloria sent him out to see Mr. Haight to discuss about the lawsuit, but Anthony decided it was a better idea to just go to the bar and get completely wasted. Gloria was furious.

• They get into another heated argument about their financial situation, and how it doesn't help that all they do is party every single day.

One morning Anthony was skimming through the mail and found a flyer about being a salesman and getting paid as you learn. Anthony automatically thought it was a scam, but Gloria told him he should check it out.

• He ended up taking the job trying to sell a series of pamplets called "Heart Talks", but Anthony's salesman career wasn't very promising.

  • He was having trouble selling those pamphlets, so he tried selling them to bartenders. But because no one was selling, Anthony (drunk out his mind) (and I mean, super drunk) decided he would try to sell his bonds instead to customers at some corner store. This was just an absolute hot mess, and at one point the owners of the store threatened to call the police. Anthony decided to take a cab home. 

Anthony and Maury get into a heated argument over Anthony's drinking tendencies.

Gloria looks back at an old diary entry she wrote when she was twenty-one.

• "Beauty is only to be admired, only to be loved - to be harvested carefully and then flung a chosen lover like a gift of roses. It seems to me, so far as I can judge clearly at all, that my beauty should be used like that..." (316). And man, Gloria was wrong.

Gloria then started getting obsessed with the idea of turning twenty-nine soon, and how her age wouldn't be suitable for movies because she was nearing an age where people lose their beauty. So she made it her mission to get in touch with Bloeckman soon.

• But, this would be put on hold once again, because Gloria had gotten incredibly sick with pneumonia for a little while. 

Finally, though, Gloria got in touch with Bloeckman's film company, but found out Bloeckman had changed his name last name to Black. (Stage name? Possibly.)

• Black (or...er..Joseph Bloeckman, as we're so used to calling him) had scheduled a test run for Gloria for a possible flapper role in some movie. 

• Gloria refused to tell Anthony about this opportunity.

Gloria's test run did not go so great.

• In fact, when she had gotten the letter back on whether or not she got the role, it mentioned that the director was looking for someone younger, but Gloria could possibly get the role of the much older widower.

• Gloria got extremely upset, because she didn't want to lose all the beauty in her youth.