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Show 9H diere had been somediing in her for him other than passion all along; she wanted him near passion or not, passion be damned. But suddenly she was so terrified lest he be indifferent to her that while diey talked she haughtily withheld herself. But he was carefully noncommittal too, so concealed from her behind his cool ironic manner that she lost all hope. "Milt, oh god, I've missed you," she said looking at his tie, hoarse widi despair. "Have you," his voice came, cool, unasking. "Yes," she said, forcing herself to look up, feeling that she had stripped herself of all defense and stood naked before him, terribly exposed. But his hand took hers, his touch as if he enfolded her, clothed her, and she gripped his hand as if she held his very self. She did not let go. They left the party, stayed that night in each other's arms, and the next day she moved her clothes and books from the co-op into his apartment, where they loved and talked and loved and ignored the winter until sure enough, soon enough, spring began to show its leaves in Chicago. She was keeping her job through April while they saved, and that summer with her degree she would find a new and hopefully interesting job while he concentrated on his doctorate. In June, laughing about the time but not able to squeeze it in sooner, they would get married. He was doing field work for his research, and diere in the black ghettos of the South Side he had become obsessed with the plight of the urban Negro; he talked on and on about it, his brown eyes melancholy, his mouth seldom smiling. Absorbed in listening, she now and then added her own bit about the plight of the southern rural Negro and they joked over writing a book about it, co-authoring a study, so serious they had to joke. It was their future. And yet one day in shame Jess had to admit that she had never read Myrdal's An American Dilemma. Knowing she had to and would, she had so hated the idea of reading it as expiation for being born pinko-grey that she had managed never to find the time. But to Milt it was simply information she must have and he pulled out his copy, blew the dust off, and handed it to her. She had important exams, she worked forty hours a week, but she began. She read it between classes, on the streetcar, during meals-the warm days of spring appearing to her mostly as something she was missing, the joy of 168 |