Unlike Others Read Online Free Page A

the drugstore and the Sunday dinners with the family. Whatever she was, she had to come to terms with herself; and that was a thing that could be done only among people who didn't care.
    Not that I'm doing such a wonderful job, she reminded herself. I found out what I was, all right, but what good's it doing me?
    She looked at the crying girl. A slender blonde about her own age, maybe a little younger. Little heart-shaped face all pink with whatever emotion was shaking her. Even if it was nothing but fatigue at the end of a wearing day, her sorrow gave her a vulnerable, childish look. She smoothed back the fight hair from her rounded forehead, a woman's gesture of distraction. Jo's hand reached into her pocket without any instructions from her and brought up the wad of Kleenex. With no intention of doing so, she shoved it into the girl's hand.
    "Thanks."
    "That's all right."
    "I feel so stupid," Karen said, blowing her nose heartily. She blinked at Jo. Tears hung on her lashes. "I just had a fight with my analyst and I'm so tired, and everything's a mess."
    Well, naturally. All these neurotics transferring the guilts and conflicts and their love, too, to some stranger who didn't really give a damn. Some guy who sat behind a desk and listened, for twenty bucks an hour. Trying to find in professional impersonality something of the deep and meaningful closeness people have lost in the modern world. If you have enough love, you don't need psychiatry. That was Rich's theory. Jo went along with it.
    That was the place to end the whole thing, before it started. Just get up and walk out.
    Back in Cottonwood Falls, baby-sitting for spending money, she had loved the sick children best of all. Tiny babies, too, because they were so helpless. Their bodies sagged against you, their heads wobbled, they were dependent. Later, working in the drugstore, she always made the best and biggest shakes for Jimmy Pearsall because he'd had polio and old Mr. Acosta because he was an alcoholic.
    As long as she lived, she supposed, it would be easier to love people who were hurt or helpless. According to religion and her mother's moral axioms—the ones she talked about, not the ones she lived by—that was commendable. Actually she thought it was a stupid way to be, it created a lot of messy situations, but people are what they are. By the time you discover that your supposed virtues are really faults, it's too late.
    So she followed the Kleenex with a question, and some time later Karen walked out of the bar beside her, still pale and shaky but without tears. Not knowing the score, of course—and Jo had no intention of starting anything.
    The kid was too depressed to go back to her furnished room, so she could spend the night and Jo would curl up on the davenport. That was all.
    I might have known how it would turn out, Jo thought, turning over and pulling up her knees. Karen never really said she was gay. She never told me till after that crazy mixed-up night that she'd been worrying about it since she was in high school. Or maybe I knew. Maybe there's a sixth sense that tells people. Otherwise how would Richard know about men who look just like any other men to me?
    If she'd known, she might have let Karen alone. Might have sent her back to bed when she got up at three in the morning, crying again, and threw herself into Jo's comforting arms and refused to let go. She might not have made it, hungry for love as she was, but she'd have tried. The strong are supposed not to hurt the weak. The strong have an obligation to the weak.
    At three in the morning, however, the obligation seemed to consist of taking the girl back to bed and comforting her. And one thing led to another.
    The hell of it is, Jo mused, the weak always win. They have a terrible strength, weak people do, and they get the best of the deal every time. If I ever find another girl, a real girl I can love and not just somebody who wants to play around, it'll be one who can carry her share