The Female Man

"Really?" said Jea

"Really," he said. Score one. That radiant look of gratitude. Maybe she'll react the same way when he tells her he can ski. In this loveliest and neatest of social interactions, she admires him, he's pleased with her admiration, this pleasure lends him warmth and style, he relaxes, he genuinely likes Jea

Can he Change Her Life? (Do you know what you want? No. Then don't complain.)

Fleeing from the unspeakableness of her own wishes-for what happens when you find out you want something that doesn't exist?-Jea

I shouted at her and beat her on the back and on the head; oh I was an enraged and evil spirit there in the theatre lobby, but she continued holding poor X by the hands-little did he know what hopes hung on him as she continued (I say) to hold on to his hands and look into his flattered eyes. Little did she know that he was a water-dweller and would drown her. Little did she know that there was, attached to his back, a drowning machine issued him in his teens along with his pipe and his tweeds and his ambition and his profession and his father's ma

Filled full. My Prince. Come. Come away, Death. She stumbles into her Mommy's shoes, little girl playing house. I could kick her. And X thinks, poor, deceived bastard, that it's a tribute to him, of all people-as if he had anything to do with it! (I still don't know whom she saw or thought she saw in the mirror. Was it Janet? Me?) I want to get married.

VIII

Men succeed. Women get married.

Men fail. Women get married.

Men enter monasteries. Women get married.

Men start wars. Women get married.

Men stop them. Women get married.

Dull, dull. (see below)

IX

Jea

Dadier and Jea

It's the kind of straw that has a pleated section in the middle like the bellows of a concertina.

"I always liked these when I was a little girl," Jea

"Oh my yes, didn't you," says Mrs. Dadier, who is sitting with her second cup of coffee before attacking the dishes.

Jea

"Do you remember-?" she cries. "And do you remember-!"

"Heavens, yes," says Mrs. Dadier. "Don't I, though."

They sit, saying nothing.

"Did Frank call?" This is Mrs. Dadier, carefully keeping her voice neutral because she knows how Jea

I know this is your vacation, Jea

"I did get up at eight," says Jea

"Well, I keep forgetting," says Mrs. Dadier. "Your silly old mother! Bud says I wouldn't remember my head if it wasn't screwed on." It doesn't work. Jea

"Oh, no," says Mrs. Dadier deprecatingly; "My goodness, don't. I don't mind."

Jea

Jea

It's only a question of time before X decides; surely she can keep him at arm's length until then, keep him fascinated; there's so much time you can take up with will-she-won't-she, so that hardly anything else has to be settled at all.

She feels something for him, she really does. She wonders when the reality of it begins to hit you. Off in telephone never-never-land someone picks up the receiver, interrupting the last ring, footsteps approach and recede, someone is clearing their throat into the mouthpiece.

"Hello?" (It's his mother.) Jea

"Hello?" says X.

"Oh my, it's you; I didn't know you were there," says Jea

"Hey!" says X, pleased. This is even more than she has a right to expect, according to the rules.

"Oh, I just called to tell your mother something," says Jea

"I thought you'd already gone," says Jea