A Story Is Not Like A Road

A Story ... Has A Sturdy Sense Of Itself Of Being Built Out Of Its Own Necessity, Not Just To Shelter Or Beguile You.

That's Something I Think Is Growing On Me As I Get Older: Happy Endings.

She Sits In Her Usual Ample Armchair, With Piles Of Books And Unopened Magazines Around Her. She Sips Cautiously From The Mug Of Weak Herb Tea Which Is Now Her Substitute For Coffee. At One Time She Thought That She Could Not Live Without Coffee, But It Turned Out That It Is Really The Warm Large Mug She Wants In Her Hands, That Is The Aid To Thought Or Whatever It Is She Practices Through The Procession Of Hours, Or Of Days.

I Began To Understand That There Were Certain Talkers - Certain Girls - Whom People Liked To Listen To, Not Because Of What They, The Girls, Had To Say, But Because Of The Delight They Took In Saying It. A Delight In Themselves, A Shine On Their Faces, A Conviction That Whatever They Were Telling About Was Remarkable And That They Themselves Could Not Help But Give Pleasure. There Might Be Other People - People Like Me - Who Didn't Concede This, But That Was Their Loss. And People Like Me Would Never Be The Audience These Girls Were After, Anyway.

She Could Not Explain Or Quite Understand That It Wasn't Altogether Jealousy She Felt, It Was Rage. And Not Because She Couldn't Shop Like That Or Dress Like That. It Was Because That Was What Girls Were Supposed To Be Like. That Was What Men - People, Everybody - Thought They Should Be Like. Beautiful, Treasured, Spoiled, Selfish, Pea-brained. That Was What A Girl Should Be, To Be Fallen In Love With. Then She Would Become A Mother And She'd Be All Mushily Devoted To Her Babies. Not Selfish Anymore, But Just As Pea-brained. Forever.