Runaway

by Alice Munro

The problem was that she was a girl. If she got married—which might happen, as she was not bad-looking for a scholarship girl, she was not bad-looking at all—she would waste all her hard work and theirs, and if she did not get married she would probably become bleak and isolated, losing out on promotions to men (who needed them more, as they had to support families).

Odd choices were simply easier for men, most of whom would find women glad to marry them. Not so the other way around.

Juliet knew that, to many people, she might seem to be odd and solitary—and so, in a way, she was. But she had also had the experience, for much of her life, of feeling surrounded by people who wanted to drain away her attention and her time and her soul. And usually, she let them.

When she read the letter, Juliet winced, as anybody does on discovering the preserved and disconcerting voice of some past fabricated self.

Because it’s what happens at home that you try to protect, as best you can, for as long as you can.

She hopes as people who know better hope for undeserved blessings, spontaneous remissions, things of that sort.

It was because that was what girls were supposed to be like. That was what men— people, everybody—thought they should be like. Beautiful, treasured, spoiled, selfish, pea-brained. That was what a girl should be, to be fallen in love with. Then she would become a mother and she’d be all mushily devoted to her babies. Not selfish anymore, but just as pea-brained. Forever.

Because women always have got something, haven’t they, to keep them going? That men haven’t got.”

The thing about life, Harry had told Lauren, was to live in the world with interest. To keep your eyes open and see the possibilities—see the humanity—in everybody you met. To be aware. If he had anything at all to teach her it was that. Be aware.

She was just waiting, as if she was a girl of fifteen, and it was only now and then that she was brought up against her true situation.

But it is pretty mean to point out something concerning height to a man who is a bit lacking in that respect so I kept my mouth shut.

he was meant for something unusual, that his life would have some meaning to it. Maybe that was what drew them together. But the difference was that he would go on, he would not settle for less. As she would have to do—as she had already done—being a girl. The thought of choices wider than anything girls ever knew put him suddenly at ease, made him feel compassionate towards her, and playful. There were times when he did not need to ask why he was with her, when teasing her, being teased by her, made the time flow by with sparkling ease.