"Thats one of the troubles. Theyre not the kind of stories you can tell."
"Im going to help you," she said. "I can, too. Think of all the people I know whoknow people. Im going to help you because you look like my brother Fred. Onlysmaller. I havent seen him since I was fourteen, thats when I left home, and hewas already six-feet-two. My otherbrothers were more your size, runts. It was thepeanut butter that made Fred so tall. Everybody thought it was dotty, the way hegorged himself on peanut butter; he didnt care about anything in this world excepthorses and peanut butter. But he wasnt dotty, just sweet and vague and terriblyslow; hed been in the eighth grade three years when I ran away. Poor Fred. Iwonder if the Armys generous with their peanut butter. Which reminds me, Imstarving."
She seemed disappointed. "Yes, you do. Everybody does. I dont mind. Itsuseful."
"Not at all."
She sat down on one of the rickety red-velvet chairs, curved her legs underneathher, and glanced round the room, her eyes puckering more pronouncedly. "How canyou bear it? Its a chamber of horrors."
"In his forties, I should think."
"Thats not bad. Ive never been to bed with a writer. No, wait: do you knowBenny Shacklett?" She frowned when I shook my head. "Thats funny. Hes writtenan awful lot of radio stuff. But quel rat. Tell me, are you a real writer?"
"Not yet."
"I dont. Ill never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well bedead." Her dispraising eyes surveyed the room again. "What do you do here all day?"
"Thats not bad. I cant get excited by a man until hes forty-two. I know this idiotgirl who keeps telling me I ought to go to a head-shrinker; she says I have a fathercomplex. Which is so much merde. I simply trained myself to like older men, and itwas the smartest thing I ever did. How old is W. Somerset Maugham?"
"I thought writers were quite old. Of courseSaroyan isnt old. I met him at aparty, and really he isnt old at all. In fact," she mused, "if hed give himself a closershave ... by the way, is Hemingway old?"
"Well, darling, does anyone buy what you write?"
I pointed to a bowl of apples, at the same time asked her how and why shed lefthome so young. She looked at me blankly, and rubbed her nose, as though it tickled:a gesture, seeing often repeated, I came to recognize as a signal that one wastrespassing. Like many people with a bold fondness for volunteering intimateinformation, anything that suggested a direct question, a pinning-down, put her onguard. She took a bite of apple, and said: "Tell me something youve written. Thestory part."
"It depends on what you mean by real."
"Oh, you get used to anything," I said, annoyed with myself, for actually I wasproud of the place.
"Im not sure. Sixty-something."
I motioned toward a table tall with books and paper. "Write things."
