Free Very Far Away from Anywhere Else by Ursula K. Le Guin Page B

along with the plan gracefully. But she had to go along ungracefully, because despite the fact that she runs our household, she has always played this game that the man is the one who makes the decisions, and so she has cut herself out from decision-making, unless the decisions are not made but just happen, which is how she prefers it to be. She left herself no option but resentment. That would have been awfully hard to take, if I hadn't had my father backing me up. As it was, it was painful, but endurable. My mother is actually too good-natured to keep on resenting week after week. She began forgetting to resent by about the middle of May. A couple of weeks after that she bought me some ties, very tasteful dark stripes, because she has this conviction that Eastern College Men wear ties to class.

    I got back to work at school and finished up with all
A's
for the first time. If you are going to be an egghead, you might as well be a hardboiled one. I have a job this summer as a starting lab technician at Bico Industries.
    Natalie and I saw each other several times a week in May and June. It was difficult sometimes, because we did not always manage to stick to the six-second maximum. As she said, neither of us are good at taking things lightly. We had several sort of quarrels, because we would both be somewhat frustrated and take it out on the other. But they lasted only about five minutes, because we both were basically certain that we couldn't make any commitment yet, and that sex was no good to us without a commitment, but that we were no good without love. So the best we could do was just go on as we were, together. It was a very good best.

    She left for Tanglewood the last week in June. She went on Amtrak. I saw her off, which was embarrassing since her parents were seeing her off, too. But I felt I had the right, despite the fact that Mr. Field still made me feel about as welcome as a tarantula. I just sort of stood around, there on the railway platform. Now and then Mrs. Field stood back slightly, so that I was partially included and could see Natalie. She had her viola case in one hand and her violin case in the other and a backpack, so she wasn't very mobile. At the steps up to her train car, she kissed her mother and father. She didn't kiss me. She looked at me. She said, "See you in the East, a year from September, Owen."
    "Or in Thorn, permanently," I said.

    She waved through the dirty window from her seat as the train started up. I did not do the ape act. I stood there and did the human act as well as possible.

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    URSULA K. LE GUIN is the author of several dozen books, including most recently another young adult novel,
Gifts
, and a collection of short stories for adults,
Changing Planes
. She was awarded a Newbery Honor for the second volume of the Earthsea Cycle,
The Tombs of Atuan
, and among her many other distinctions are the Margaret A. Edwards Award, a National Book Award, and five Nebula Awards. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

    To find out more about her and her work, visit www.ursulakleguin .

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