"Jeannie," he says. "It's nice to see you.
"When did you get in?
"When are you going to get married?"
IV
I found Jeannine on the clubhouse porch that evening, looking at the moon. She had run away from her family.
"They only want what's good for you," I said.
She made a face.
"They love you," I said.
A low, strangled sound. She was prodding the porch-rail with her hand.
"I think you ought to go and rejoin them, Jeannine," I said. "Your mother's a wonderful woman who has never raised her voice in anger all the time you've known her. And she brought all of you up and got you all through high school, even though she had to work. Your brother's a firm, steady man who makes a good living for his wife and children, and Eileen wants nothing more in the world than her husband and her little boy and girl. You ought to appreciate them more, Jeannine."
"I know," said Jeannine softly and precisely. Or perhaps she said Oh no.
"Jeannine, you'll never get a good job," I said. "There aren't any now. And if there were, they'd never give them to a woman, let alone a grown-up baby like you. Do you think you could hold down a really good job, even if you could get one? They're all boring anyway, hard and boring. You don't want to be a dried-up old spinster at forty but that's what you will be if you go on like this. You're twenty-nine. You're getting old. You ought to marry someone who can take care of you, Jeannine."
"Don't care," said she. Or was it Not fair?
"Marry someone who can take care of you," I went on, for her own good. "It's all right to do that; you're a girl. Find somebody like Bud who has a good job, somebody you can respect; marry him. There's no other life for a woman, Jeannine; do you want never to have children? Never to have a husband? Never to have a house of your own?" (Brief flash of waxed floor, wife in organdie apron, smiling possessively, husband with roses. That's hers, not mine.)
" Not Cal." Ah, hell.
"Now, really, what are you waiting for?" (I was getting impatient.) "Here's Eileen married, and here's your mother with two children, and all your old school friends, and enough couples here around the lake to fill it up if they all jumped into it at once; do you think you're any different? Fancy Jeannine!
Refined Jeannine! What do you think you're waiting for?"
"For a man," said Jeannine. For a plan. My impression that somebody else had been echoing her was confirmed by a brief cough behind me after these words. But it turned out to be Mr. Dadier, come out to fetch his sister. He took her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. "Come on, Jeannie. We're going to introduce you to someone."
Only the woman revealed under the light was not Jeannine. A passerby inside saw the substitution through the doorway and gaped. Nobody else seemed to notice.
Jeannine is still meditating by the raiclass="underline" doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, poor man, rich man; maybe he'll be tall; maybe he'll make twenty thou a year; maybe he'll speak three languages' and be really sophisticated, maybe. Mister Destiny.
Janet, who has none of our notion that a good, dignified, ladylike look will recall the worst of scoundrels to a shrinking consciousness of his having insulted A Lady (that's the general idea, anyway), has gotten out of Bud Dadier's hold by twisting his thumb. She is the victim of a natural, but ignorant and unjustified alarm; she thinks that being grabbed is not just a gesture but is altogether out of line. Janet's prepared for blue murder.
"Huh," says Bro. He's about to expostulate. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"
Touch me again and I'll knock your teeth out!
You can see the blood rush to his face, even in this bad light. That's what comes of being misunderstood. "Keep a civil tongue in your mouth, young lady!"
Janet jeers.
"You just-" Bud Dadier begins, but Janet anticipates him by vanishing like a soap bubble. What do you think Bud stands for-Buddington? Budworthy? Or "Bud" as in "friend"? He passes his hands over his face-the only thing left of Janet is a raucous screech of triumph which nobody else (except the two of us) can hear.
The woman in front of the door is Jeannine. Bro, scared out of his wits, as who wouldn't be, grabs her.
"Oh, Bro!" says Jeannine reproachfully, rubbing her arm.
"You oughtn't to be out here alone," says he. "It looks as if you're not enjoying yourself. Mother went to great trouble to get that extra ticket, you know."
'I'm sorry," says Jeannine penitently. "I just wanted to see the moon."
"Well, you've seen it," says her brother. "You've been out here for fifteen minutes. I ought to tell you, Jeannie, Eileen and Mother and I have been talking about you and we all think that you've got to do something with your life. You can't just go on drifting like this. You're not twenty any more, you know."
"Oh, Bro-" says Jeannine unhappily. Why are women so unreasonable? "Of course I want to have a good time," she says.
"Then come inside and have one." (He straightens his shirt collar.) "You might meet someone, if that's what you want to do, and you say that's what you want."
"I do," says Jeannine. You too?
"Then act like it, for Heaven's sake. If you don't do it soon, you may not have another chance. Now come on." There are girls with nice brothers and girls with nasty brothers; there was a girl friend of mine who had a strikingly handsome older brother who could lift armchairs by one leg only. I was on a double date once with the two of them and another boy, and my girl friend's brother indicated the camp counselors' cottages. "Do you know what those are?
"Menopause Alley!"
We all laughed. I didn't like it, but not because it was in bad taste. As you have probably concluded by this point (correctly) I don't have any taste; that is, I don't know what bad and good taste are. I laughed because I knew I would have an awful fight on my hands if I didn't. If you don't like things like that, you're a prude. Drooping like a slave-girl, Jeannine followed Bro into the clubhouse. If only older brothers could be regularized somehow, so that one knew what to expect! If only all older brothers were younger brothers. "Well, who shall I marry?" said Jeannine, trying to make it into a joke as they entered the building. He said, with complete seriousness: "Anybody."
V
The Great Happiness Contest
(this happens a lot)
FIRST WOMAN: I'm perfectly happy. I love my husband and we have two darling children. I certainly don't need any change in my lot.
SECOND WOMAN: I'm even happier than you are. My husband does the dishes every Wednesday and we have three darling children, each nicer than the last. I'm tremendously happy.
THIRD WOMAN: Neither of you is as happy as I am. I'm fantastically happy. My husband hasn't looked at another woman in the fifteen years we've been married, he helps around the house whenever I ask it, and he wouldn't mind in the least if I were to go out and get a job. But I'm happiest in fulfilling my responsibilities to him and the children. We have four children.
FOURTH WOMAN: We have six children. (This is too many. A long silence.) I have a part-time job as a clerk in Bloomingdale's to pay for the children's skiing lessons, but I really feel I'm expressing myself best when I make a custard or a meringue or decorate the basement.
ME: You miserable nits, I have a Nobel Peace Prize, fourteen published novels, six lovers, a town house, a box at the Metropolitan Opera, I fly a plane, I fix my own car, and I can do eighteen push-ups before breakfast, that is, if you're interested in numbers.