Winter Dreams Section 4 Summary

  • Dexter falls for Judy, hard.
  • He knows that he's not her main squeeze, but he's game to put up with the other guys in her life.
  • Dexter feels ecstasy in Judy's presence, but he also feels restless and unhappy knowing that he can't satisfy her.
  • At the end of the summer, rumor has it that Judy has gotten engaged to a visiting New Yorker.
  • Dexter is heart-broken, but after a month, Judy gets bored with her New York man and she returns to Dexter.
  • Our main man turns twenty-four (gettin' old) and starts thinking about moving east to New York.
  • He wants to take Judy with him.
  • Spoiler alert: it doesn't happen. Eighteen months after first meeting Judy, Dexter gets engaged to a woman named Irene Scheerer.
  • (It has taken Dexter six seasons [not like TV seasons, actual seasons] to realize that, at heart, Judy couldn't care less about him.)
  • When he sees Judy at a dance, he doesn't pay any attention to her. Naturally, she doesn't notice; she's busy with a new man.
  • Dexter sits with Irene Scheerer instead, and three months later, Dexter and Irene get engaged. (Things happened quickly back then.)
  • After a long winter of making it clear to people that he is with Irene now, May finally arrives. Dexter is twenty-five.
  • One night, he arrives at Irene's house one day to pick her up for an evening out.
  • Her mother, Mrs. Scheerer, tells him that Irene is in bed with a headache, so he goes back to the University Club, where he's been living.
  • He hears a familiar voice: it is Judy Jones. She wants to talk to Dexter.
  • They go for a drive. This can't be good…
  • Judy seems melancholy. Uh-oh…
  • She asks Dexter to marry her. Oh geez.
  • She knows he's met Irene, but she can't believe that Dexter would leave Judy for another woman.
  • Judy begins to cry. She really knows how to work people!
  • The two of them arrive at the Jones family mansion, and Judy wants to know how she can be so unhappy when she is "more beautiful than anybody else" (4.61). Ego much?
  • Dexter suddenly feels filled with tenderness and emotion, and when Judy asks him to come inside, he says yes. Surprise surprise.