This Is Not for You by Jane Rule

reluctant.”
    “Oh.”
    “I don’t want to be a professional virgin.”
    “Well, who’s paying you to be one?”
    “Nobody,” you said meekly “Maybe I just want someone to want something of me… anything.” The phone rang. “Damn! That will be John. I’m supposed to be meeting him for lunch.”
    It was another three days before we had as long a conversation again. During that time I had a silly argument with Doris; the char threatened to quit; and I was out one night later than you were.
    “Wait a minute, Esther,” I began this next conversation.
    “I’m late,” you said.
    “For what?”
    “John, he’s—”
    “Taking you to look for a flat? Or to get your ration book?”
    “Actually, no,” you said. “These friends of his out of London have asked us down for the day, and—”
    “Have you looked for a flat at all?”
    “I’m going to tomorrow. I was going to today, but this came up.”
    “No,” I said. “Call John and tell him you’re not going.”
    “But I have to, Kate.”
    “No, you don’t. You have to get your ration book and you have to look for a place to live. The time’s up.”
    “But I don’t know how… without him.”
    “I’ll take you,” I said.
    “You don’t want to. You told me. You told me I had to be independent.”
    “And this is independence, using my living room like a hotel room, me like a personal maid, and trailing around after John, picking up all the names he drops until he lets you into bed, Daddy’s wristwatch and all?”
    “I’ll call him,” you said.
    I went into my bedroom and shut the door. I could hear your voice uncertainly explaining in the other room. Then you knocked on the door.
    “You’re the only person I really care about in the world,” you said quietly. “I’m not going to do all the apologizing you hate. I’m going to clean up the living room. Then I want you to tell me how to get to the ration board. I want to go by myself. I’ll bring the book back here for you. Then I’ll look for a place. May I stay tonight?”
    “Oh, little dog,” I said. “Let me apologize for once, just for the novelty of the thing.”
    “You have nothing to apologize for. You never do. You only get angry when I can’t hear any other way. Now I’m going to clean up.”
    I am not good, I wanted to shout after you. I am jealous and hurt and frightened. But those aren’t things to shout at a child. They are not even things children shout at each other. I had already shouted what I could. Now I had to bear your being contrite.
    John, for all his offers, was not available for flat hunting, and I was not allowed to go until after you’d made your decision. Even then, you were reluctant to have me see the place.
    “I like it all right, but it’s sort of awful.”
    Off Sloane Square, at a good address, Lady Alice’s house was as worn and unable to keep up with its neighbors as her face, which unpaid bills and alcohol and forgetful friends had weathered into an odd combination of bloat and gauntness. In strained Mayfair she shouted instructions at you as we followed her up four flights of stairs. She rented out the two main floors to a doctor and his wife, kept the third floor for herself, offering you the attic which, aside from a box room and rather primitive bath to be shared with her, was one large room, low-ceilinged with two small dormer windows. Down the center of it, like a path, lay a decaying hall runner. The only other floor covering was an enormous bear rug, more hide than fur, mounted awkwardly by the side of a small bed, a child’s bed probably, painted white. The few other pieces of furniture were enormous, a carved dining-room sideboard and dinner table with two matching chairs, the master chairs, and a wardrobe with two full-length mirrors. On the chimney wall, there was an old gas fire with a cooking ring that crooked out from one side.
    “It’s bigger than any room I’ve ever had,” you said, “and she’s even given me dishes