"Thelma"

A hotel maid tries to replicate her first romantic encounter in dozens of casual alliances.

In her fifties, on learning of the death of the first lover, she loses the will to live, remembered fondly by a host of commercial travelers.

In Housewife (January 1956), Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and Other Stories/The Enchantress and Other Stories (1961), Seven by Five/The Best of H.E. Bates (1963), The Girl on the Bus and Other Love Stories (1966), Elephant's Nest in a Rhubarb Tree & Other Stories (1989).