The Female Man

Why does she keep having these dreams about Whileaway?

While-away. While. A. Way. To While away the time. That means it's just a pastime. If she tells Cal about it, he'll say she's nattering again; worse still, it would sound pretty silly; you can't expect a man to listen to everything (as everybody's Mother said). Jea

She sits down again, discouraged. Little things make Jea

The ailanthus tree nods to her from outside the window. (And why won't Cal protect her against anything? She deserves protection.) Maybe she'll meet somebody. Nobody knows-O nobody knows really-what's in Jea

Women's magic, women's intuition rule here, the subtle deftness forbidden to the clumsier sex. Jea

"Somebody's coming for you." She arranges her jacket, her valise, and her pocketbook, and turns off the light, shutting the door behind her (it latches itself). If only (she thinks) he'll come and show me to myself.

I've been waiting for you so long. How much longer must I wait?

Nights and nights alone. ("You can't," says the stairwell. "You can't," says the street.) A fragment of old song drifts through her mind and lingers behind her in the stairwell, her thoughts lingering there, too, wishing that she could be a mermaid and float instead of walk, that she were someone else and so could watch herself coming down the stairs, the beautiful girl who composes everything around her to harmony: Somebody lovely has just passed by.

II

I live between worlds. Half the time I like doing housework, I care a lot about how I look, I warm up to men and flirt beautifully (I mean I really admire them, though I'd die before I took the initiative; that's men's business), I don't press my point in conversations, and I enjoy cooking. I like to do things for other people, especially male people. I sleep well, wake up on the dot, and don't dream. There's only one thing wrong with me: I'm frigid.

In my other incarnation I live out such a plethora of conflict that you wouldn't think I'd survive, would you, but I do; I wake up enraged, go to sleep in numbed despair, face what I know perfectly well is condescension and abstract contempt, get into quarrels, shout, fret about people I don't even know, live as if I were the only woman in the world trying to buck it all, work like a pig, strew my whole apartment with notes, articles, manuscripts, books, get frowsty, don't care, become stridently contentious, sometimes laugh and weep within five minutes together out of pure frustration. It takes me two hours to get to sleep and an hour to wake up. I dream at my desk. I dream all over the place. I'm very badly dressed.

But O how I relish my victuals! And O how I fuck!

III

Jea

"Everyone's asking about you," says Mrs. Dadier, giving her daughter a peck on the cheek.

"Mm," says Jea

"We thought you might bring that nice young man with you again," says Mrs.

Dadier, setting cereal and milk in front of her daughter. Jea

"We've separated," says Jea

"Why?" says Mrs. Dadier, her blue eyes opening wide. "What was the matter with him?"

He was impotent, mother. Now how could I say that to such a nice lady? I didn't.

"Nothing," says Jea

"Fishing," says Mrs. Dadier. Brother often goes out in the early morning and meditates over a fishing line. The ladies don't. Mrs. Dadier is afraid of his slipping, falling on a rock, and splitting open his head. Jea

"We're going to have a nice day," says Mrs. Dadier. "There's a play tonight and a block dance. There are lots of young people, Jea

"Don't, mother," says Jea

"I don't mind," says Mrs. Dadier. "Bless you, I've done it often enough."

Listless Jea