The Female Man

"I thought-I thought you might want to go to the play." He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face with it. He put his glasses back on.

"You ought to wear sunglasses," said Jea

We'll fall in!" He righted himself. By degrees. You've got to get to know people. She was frightened, almost, by the access of being that came to her from him, frightened at the richness of the whole scene, at how much she felt without feeling it for him, terrified lest the sun might go behind a cloud and withdraw everything from her again.

"What time shall I pick you up?" he said.

VII

That night Jea

I'll feel better tomorrow. She thought of Bud taking his little girl fishing (that had happened that morning, over Eileen's protests) and tears rose in her eyes. The pain of it. The painful pleasure. She saw, through a haze of distress, the one figure on stage who mattered to her. She willed it so. Roses and raptures in the dark. She was terrified of the moment when the curtain would fall-in love as in pain, in misery, in trouble. If only you could stay half-dead. Eventually the curtain (a gray velvet one, much worn) did close, and opened again on the troupe's curtain calls; Jea

I'm not unhappy.

You have everything (I said). What is there that you want and haven't got?

I want to die.

Do you want to be an airline pilot? Is that it? And they won't let you? Did you have a talent for mathematics, which they squelched? Did they refuse to let you be a truck driver? What is it?

I want to live.

I will leave you and your imaginary distresses (said I) and go converse with somebody who makes more sense; really, one would think you'd been balked of some vital necessity. Money? You've got a job. Love? You've been going out with boys since you were thirteen.

I know.

You can't expect romance to last your life long, Jea

I know.

Well?

(Silence)

Well, what do you want?

(She didn't answer)

I'm trying to talk to you sensibly, Jea

Nothing.

That's not true, dear. Tell me what you want. Come on.

I want love. (She dropped her paper cup of lemonade and covered her face with her hands.)

Go ahead. The world's full of people.

I can't.

Can't? Why not? You've got a date here tonight, haven't you? You've never had trouble attracting men's interest before. So go to it.

Not that way.

"What way?" (said I).

Not the real way.

"What!" (said I).

I want something else, she repeated, something else.

"Well, Jea

She'll return to Bud and Eileen and her job of fascinating the latest X.

Jea

"Stop it, Jea

"Why, it's you, darling," said Eileen, laughing. Jea

"Oh honey," said Eileen, "what should I want? I want just what I've got." X came out of the men's room. Poor fellow. Poor lay figure.

"Jea

"I think that you are all awful," said Jea

"Well now, I don't know," he said.

That's my trouble, too. My knowledge was taken away from me.

(She remembered the actor in the play and her throat constricted. It hurt, it hurt. Nobody saw, though.)

"Do you think," she said very low, to X, "that you could know what you wanted, only after a while-I mean, they don't mean to do it, but life-people-people could confuse things?"

"I know what I want," said Eileen brightly. "I want to go home and take the baby from Mama. Okay, honey?"

"I don't mean-" Jea

"Oh, Jea

Don't you touch me!

"Want a drink?" said X, when Bud and Eileen had gone.

"I want to know," said Jea

"Come on," she said. He smiled nervously.

"Well, I'm going to night school. I'm going to finish my B. A. this winter."

(He's going to night school. He's going to finish his B. A. Wowie zowie. I'm not impressed.)