“I said the hell with it,” the little girl repeated aggressively.
“You said—?”
(Imitation Laura was smiling helplessly and freshly over her shoulder, shivering a little as her breasts were touched. What we like is the look of affection.)
She studied her plate. She drew a design on it with her finger. “Nothing,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
“Show, then,” said Janet. I bet your knees turn in. Janet didn’t think so. There are these fashion magazines scattered through the house, Mrs. Wilding reads them, pornography for the high-minded. Girls in wet knit bathing suits with their hair dripping, silly girls drowned in sweaters, serious girls in backless jersey evening dresses that barely cover the fine-boned lyres of their small chests. They’re all slim and young. Pushing and prodding the little girl as you fit a dress on her. Stand here. Stand there. How, swooning, they fell into each other’s arms. Janet, who (unlike me) never imagines what can’t be done, wiped her mouth, folded her napkin, pushed back her chair, got up, and followed Laur into the living room. Up the stairs. Laur took a notebook from her desk and handed it to Miss Evason. We stood there uncertainly, ready to laugh or cry; Janet looked down at the manuscript, up over the edge at Laura, down again for a few more lines. Peek.
“I can’t read this,” I said.
Laura raised her eyebrows severely.
“I know the language but not the context,” Janet said. “I can’t judge this, child.”
Laura frowned. I thought she might wring her hands but no such luck. She went back to the desk and picked up something else, which she handed to Miss Evason. I knew enough to recognize mathematics, that’s all. She tried to stare Janet down. Janet followed a few lines, smiled thoughtfully, then came to a hitch. Something wrong. “Your teacher—” began Miss Evason.
“I don’t have a teacher,” said perspicacious Laur. “I do it myself, out of the book.”
“Then the book’s wrong,” said Janet; “Look,” and she proceeded to scribble in the margin. What an extraordinary phenomenon mathematical symbols are! I flew to the curtains, curtains Mrs. Wilding had washed and ironed with her own hands. No, she took them to the cleaner’s, popping the clutch of the Wildings’ station wagon. She read Freud in the time she would have used to wash and iron the curtains. They weren’t Laur’s choice. She would have torn them down with her own hands. She wept. She pleaded. She fainted. Et cetera.
They bent over the book together.
“Goddamn,” said Janet, in surprised pleasure.
“You know math!” (that was Laur).
“No, no, I’m just an amateur, just an amateur,” said Miss Evason, swimming like a seal in the sea of numbers.
“The life so short, the craft so long to learn,” quoted Laur and turned scarlet. The rest goes: I mene love.
“What?” said Janet, absorbed.
“I’m in love with someone in school,” said Laur. “A man.”
A really extraordinary expression, what they mean by calling someone’s face a study—she can’t know that I know that she doesn’t know that I know!—crossed Janet’s face and she said, “Oh, sure,” by which you can tell that she didn’t believe a word of it. She didn’t say, “You’re too young.” (Not for him, for her, nitwit).
“Of course,” she added.
XI
I’m a victim of penis envy (said Laura) so I can’t ever be happy or lead a normal life. My mother worked as a librarian when I was little and that’s not feminine. She thinks it’s deformed me. The other day a man came up to me in the bus and called me sweetie and said, “Why don’t you smile? God loves you!” I just stared at him. But he wouldn’t go away until I smiled, so finally I did. Everyone was laughing. I tried once, you know, went to a dance all dressed up, but I felt like such a fool. Everyone kept making encouraging remarks about my looks as if they were afraid I’d cross back over the line again; I was trying , you know, I was proving their way of life was right, and they were terrified I’d stop. When I was five I said, “I’m not a girl, I’m a genius,” but that doesn’t work, possibly because other people don’t honor the resolve. Last year I finally gave up and told my mother I didn’t want to be a girl but she said Oh no, being a girl is wonderful. Why? Because you can wear pretty clothes and you don’t have to do anything; the men will do it for you. She said that instead of conquering Everest, I could conquer the conqueror of Everest and while he had to go climb the mountain, I could stay home in lazy comfort listening to the radio and eating chocolates. She was upset, I suppose, but you can’t imbibe someone’s success by fucking them. Then she said that in addition to that (the pretty clothes and so forth) there is a mystical fulfillment in marriage and children that nobody who hasn’t done it could ever know. “Sure, washing floors,” I said. “I have you,” she said, looking mysterious. As if my father didn’t have me, too. Or my birth was a beautiful experience et patati et patata , which doesn’t quite jibe with the secular version we always get when she’s talking about her ailments with her friends. When I was a little girl I used to think women were always sick. My father said, “What the hell is she fussing about this time?” All those songs, what’s-its-name, I enjoy being a girl, I’m so glad I’m female, I’m all dressed up, Love will make up for everything, tra-la-la. Where are the songs about how glad I am I’m a boy? Finding The Man. Keeping The Man. Not scaring The Man, building up The Man, pleasing The Man, interesting The Man, following The Man, soothing The Man, flattering The Man, deferring to The Man, changing your judgment for The Man, changing your decisions for The Man, polishing floors for The Man, being perpetually conscious of your appearance for The Man, being romantic for The Man, hinting to The Man, losing yourself in The Man. “I never had a thought that wasn’t yours.” Sob, sob. Whenever I act like a human being, they say, “What are you getting upset about?” They say: of course you’ll get married. They say: of course you’re brilliant. They say: of course you’ll get a Ph.D. and then sacrifice it to have babies. They say: if you don’t, you’re the one who’ll have two jobs and you can make a go of it if you’re exceptional, which very few women are, and if you find a very understanding man. As long as you don’t make more money than he does. How do they expect me to live all this junk? I went to a Socialist—not really Socialist, you understand—camp for two summers; my parents say I must have gotten my crazy ideas there. Like hell I did. When I was thirteen my uncle wanted to kiss me and when I tried to ran away, everybody laughed. He pinned my arms and kissed me on the cheek; then he said, “Oho, I got my kiss! I got my kiss!” and everybody thought it was too ducky for words. Of course they blamed me—it’s harmless, they said, you’re only a child, he’s paying you attention; you ought to be grateful. Everything’s all right as long as he doesn’t rape you. Women only have feelings; men have egos . The school psychologist told me I might not realize it, but I was living a very dangerous style of life that might in time lead to Lesbianism (ha! ha!) and I should try to look and act more feminine. I laughed until I cried. Then he said I must understand that femininity was a Good Thing, and although men’s and women’s functions in society were different, they had equal dignity. Separate but equal, right? Men make the decisions and women make the dinners. I expected him to start in about that mystically-wonderful-experience-which-no-man-can-know crap, but he didn’t. Instead he took me to the window and showed me the expensive clothing stores across the way. Then he said, “See, it’s a woman’s world, after all.” The pretty clothes again. I thought some damn horrible thing was going to happen to me right there on his carpet. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move. I felt deathly sick. He really expected me to live like that—he looked at me and that’s what he saw, after eleven months. He expected me to start singing “I’m So Glad I’m A Girl” right there in his Goddamned office. And a little buck-and-wing. And a little nigger shuffle.