worked on the project were friendly to her and did not treat her as a robot. Tom Ryan, a fourth-year graduate student, had lived in her building briefly in between separating from his wife and moving into an apartment in Cambridge. He was unusually small for a man, barely taller than Beth and slight: but he was twenty-five and close to his doctorate. The other person who spoke to her in a personal way was a big flamboyant woman who was a graduate student in computer sciences.
She could not remember exactly when Miriam Berg had first singled her out to notice. But one day while Beth was eating a fig surreptitiously, Miriam tapped her shoulder. “If you give me one, I won’t report you to the campus cops. Why, you can’t do anything as human as eat on this project.”
So Beth gave Miriam a Calmyrna fig and Miriam ate it. She said figs looked funny when you really took a look at them, they looked like candied balls, didn’t they?
Beth looked at the white fig she had bitten and smiled. “I never looked at balls that carefully. If I ever get a chance, I’ll try to notice.”
Miriam, who had perhaps been seeing if she could be shocked, because that would be like her, smiled more broadly and after that always stopped to chat with her. Sometimes Miriam brought her little gifts of a pear or an apple. Miriam was the only person in the world who knew she was a vegetarian, because no one but Miriam had enough curiosity about her to find out. Miriam reminded her of Dolores—and perhaps that was why she had not been shy with her—with her long black hair and her extravagant full body and Dolores’ way that if you had it you might as well flaunt it. Miriam dressed vividly and moved like a dancer. She was taller than Dolores and her clothes were more exotic. She was halfway to a doctorate and always referred to as brilliant, although with that word often went something disapproving like “bitch”even from some of the men on their project. She exuded a sexual aura she seemed well aware of, and one she enjoyed as much as any passer-by. She annoyed people. Sometimes the other secretaries on the corridor gossiped about her, but although Beth listened with interest, she learned little except that Miriam was supposed to have too many boy friends at the same time.
In Beth’s classes, when students found out she was not really a student, they seemed to lose interest. From jokes she overheard she knew that the men who worked on the projects in her building thought the women worked there looking for husbands. They looked her over without interest in the corridors, at the coffee machines, but never started a conversation. She began to feel she was going to spend her life traveling the subway between M.I.T. and her room without ever making a friend, that if she disappeared or were run over, no one would even know. Her head bubbled with ideas and the solitary pleasures of her new fresh life, but she had no one to talk them over with. She felt as if her voice were rusting.
Then the first Tuesday in April Tom Ryan asked her out. He had sent her upstairs to pick up his print-out. He was pleased with the results and held out the sheets to her, an accordion-folded pile of perforated paper with writing on it all in numbers and capital letters. “By God, it’s true you can make anything look good with numbers if you keep at it long enough, Beth my girl. If you’re just a bit clever … Aw, the wonders of science.… How would you like to take in a flick tonight?”
She felt scared for a minute. Dating. Back to the fence-walking of high school. She did not find Tom Ryan particularly attractive, a thin small man with reddish hair and a pointed face like a fox. But she was curious what a man who was twenty-five and so educated would be like, and she was grateful too because he often spoke to her. She hesitated, not saying yes or no.
“Now, I’m not into that dating crap. There’s a good Czech film at the Orson Welles. Wait a minute,
She could not remember exactly when Miriam Berg had first singled her out to notice. But one day while Beth was eating a fig surreptitiously, Miriam tapped her shoulder. “If you give me one, I won’t report you to the campus cops. Why, you can’t do anything as human as eat on this project.”
So Beth gave Miriam a Calmyrna fig and Miriam ate it. She said figs looked funny when you really took a look at them, they looked like candied balls, didn’t they?
Beth looked at the white fig she had bitten and smiled. “I never looked at balls that carefully. If I ever get a chance, I’ll try to notice.”
Miriam, who had perhaps been seeing if she could be shocked, because that would be like her, smiled more broadly and after that always stopped to chat with her. Sometimes Miriam brought her little gifts of a pear or an apple. Miriam was the only person in the world who knew she was a vegetarian, because no one but Miriam had enough curiosity about her to find out. Miriam reminded her of Dolores—and perhaps that was why she had not been shy with her—with her long black hair and her extravagant full body and Dolores’ way that if you had it you might as well flaunt it. Miriam dressed vividly and moved like a dancer. She was taller than Dolores and her clothes were more exotic. She was halfway to a doctorate and always referred to as brilliant, although with that word often went something disapproving like “bitch”even from some of the men on their project. She exuded a sexual aura she seemed well aware of, and one she enjoyed as much as any passer-by. She annoyed people. Sometimes the other secretaries on the corridor gossiped about her, but although Beth listened with interest, she learned little except that Miriam was supposed to have too many boy friends at the same time.
In Beth’s classes, when students found out she was not really a student, they seemed to lose interest. From jokes she overheard she knew that the men who worked on the projects in her building thought the women worked there looking for husbands. They looked her over without interest in the corridors, at the coffee machines, but never started a conversation. She began to feel she was going to spend her life traveling the subway between M.I.T. and her room without ever making a friend, that if she disappeared or were run over, no one would even know. Her head bubbled with ideas and the solitary pleasures of her new fresh life, but she had no one to talk them over with. She felt as if her voice were rusting.
Then the first Tuesday in April Tom Ryan asked her out. He had sent her upstairs to pick up his print-out. He was pleased with the results and held out the sheets to her, an accordion-folded pile of perforated paper with writing on it all in numbers and capital letters. “By God, it’s true you can make anything look good with numbers if you keep at it long enough, Beth my girl. If you’re just a bit clever … Aw, the wonders of science.… How would you like to take in a flick tonight?”
She felt scared for a minute. Dating. Back to the fence-walking of high school. She did not find Tom Ryan particularly attractive, a thin small man with reddish hair and a pointed face like a fox. But she was curious what a man who was twenty-five and so educated would be like, and she was grateful too because he often spoke to her. She hesitated, not saying yes or no.
“Now, I’m not into that dating crap. There’s a good Czech film at the Orson Welles. Wait a minute,
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