"not at all."
she seemed disappointed. "yes, you do. everybody does. i dont mind. itsuseful."
she sat down on one of the rickety red-velvet chairs, curved her legs underhher, and glanced round the room, her eyes puckering more pronouncedly. "how you bear it? its a chamber of horrors."
"oh, you get used to anything," i said, annoyed with myself, for actually i roud of the place.
"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?"
i motiooward a table tall with books and paper. "write things."
"i thought writers were quite old. of course saroyan 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?"
"in his forties, i should think."
"thats not bad. i t 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 fatherplex. 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?"
"im not sure. sixty-something."
"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?"
"it depends on what you mean by real."
"well, darling, does anyone buy what you write?"
"not yet."
"im going to help you," she said. "i , 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 other brothers were more your size, runts. it was thepeanut butter that made fred so tall. everybody thought it was dotty, the way heged himself o butter; he didnt care about anything in this world excepthorses a butter. but he wasnt dotty, just sweet and vague and terriblyslow; hed been in the eighth grade three years when i ran aoor fred. iwonder if the armys generous with their peanut butter. which reminds me, imstarving."
i poio 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 ofteed, i came tnize
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