In the silence she watched his face by the street light on the corner. "I suppose you think so because when a man and woman find love there's the old cliche, 'now I am a man,' or 'now I am a woman.' When what is really meant is, now I am ME. Before I knew Rondy, Laird, I went through unspeakable terror and agonies, knowing what I was. Now I'm alive and I see things more clearly. It's not only knowing, it's BEING. It's the people OUTSIDE the minority people who intensify the distinction to ridiculous proportions. The distinction is developed with fear and ignorance, and that's why most of us, like me, keep our preferences hidden, Not through shame, Laird, but well, we don't teach children in the beginning by presenting them with a total and then presenting the integers that made it."

"That's bait for argument, Bev," Laird said.

"The truth," she said. First of all we both of us need the truth."

"The truth is I love you!" he said, "Isn't that enough?"

"No," she said, "not quite. I don't love you. Not that way.

"Then this is the end, Bev. If I leave here now with this answer, I'm never coming back."

She didn't turn her head till he had passed the hedge and was out of sight. She re-entered the house, arms folded behind her back. Walt was in the kitchen getting a beer. Her mother was upstairs. Beverly sat heavily into a chair. She squinted through a package of book matches, holding them with thumb and finger; then dropped her hand into her lap and got up quickly from the chair, going directly, resolutely upstairs to her mother's room. She was at the mirror, putting last minute touches to her face: a face fiftyish but feminine.

"I've got something to tell you, mom."

"Not now, Bev, can't you see I'm getting ready? Walt's waiting for me. Come to the show with us. We'll have a bite to eat somewheres and we can talk then."

"Yes, now! Mom."

Walt came into the room. "You heard your mother," he said. “Edith, where're my suspenders?"

"Closet." She pulled a lipstick tube apart with a hollow click. "Mom," Beverly said, "I'm leaving here, for good."

Her mother held her lipstick to the corner of her mouth with an almost imperceptible pause as she looked at Beverly through the mirror over her shoulder.

"Laird has asked me to marry him but I've decided to share the apartment with Rondy instead. You know Ron . . .

"Don't come to your mother for money, if you do," Walt said, his voice muffled in the closet. "Your mother's told you a million times if she's told you once that loving out's no cinch. If you find the money your father sends you don't meet with the prices your mother'll let you come back till you up and marry . . . otherwise you'll just have to do the best you can."

"Please let my mother speak for herself," Beverly said.

"Still got your mind on the stage," her mother said and sighed. "One of these days you're gonna wake up."

"Find out life's not so rosy," Walt said. "Edith," he turned to her mother, "what tie to I wear? This one just don't go. This one just don't go. And don't say we didn't tell you, Bev," he said.

Words panicked across her mind; scrambled in their desire to reach out. "Like Walt says," her mother said, "don't come to me crying for money. And unless you're going to say something, PLEASE close your mouth." "But, mom.

"Sh... sh! Listen," her mother said, her words wrapped in the gauze of of whispering, "someone's coming! See if that's Mrs. Parker. I could swear that's Mrs. Parker by her walk. Keep quiet, Walt. I don't want her to know you're here."

one