“Maybe you don’t see where you ought to go,” he replied.
“I cert’nly don’t,” she responded. “’Less a girl knows how to do something big, she hasn’t got a chance. Gee, I wish I was clever and could put it over, like some girls do.”
“Why don’t you try to write, or go to school and study something?” he asked. “You’ve got it in you, Blanche, I know you have, but you just don’t believe in yourself.”
“Me—write?” she queried, with a laugh. “Don’t be foolish, Lou. I can’t even spell most words straight!”
“You could, ’f you put yourself to it,” he answered. “Piles of times you say something with a lot of meaning to it, piles of times, but you don’t know what’s in you, Blanche. You need to be pushed along and to get some confidence in yourself.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t like to believe you, huh?” she asked, wistfully. “I feel like I could do things when you talk to me, Lou, and then afterwards it all goes away.”
They were silent for a while, and then she said: “Oh, let’s forget about it. We’re sitting here like a couple of dopes and letting off a lot of easy talking. Talking, that’s about all I’m good for, I guess. Let’s take a bus ride and see the Avenue.”
They boarded one of the green, lumbering busses and sat on the uncovered top. He curved an arm around her waist, and she made no objections. He had a peaceful, heartening influence on her, and she wondered whether it might not be best to marry him, in spite of the fact that he was physically negative to her. He might help her to make something out of herself. But no, it never worked out. You had to be thrilled and light-headed and upside-down when a man touched you, and if you weren’t, you’d soon get tired of having him near you, no matter how much you liked to hear him talk, and how encouraging he was.
When they lingered in the hallway of her building, she let his embraces become more determined, for the first time in many months, moved by her troubled compassion for him. Then she stopped him, and gave him a sorrowful look.
“I’d like to love you, Lou—I’m not kidding,” she said.