Freedom. Jonathan Franzen

things he wants to say about ‘young ladies today,’ you know, and our ‘scrawny thighs,’ and all, and he knows he’s making us uncomfortable, and he knows he has this beard and he’s middle-aged and we’re all, you know, younger. But he can’t help saying things anyway. I think that would be so hard. Not being able to help humiliating yourself.”

      “But it’s so offensive!”

      “And also,” Patty said, “I think he’s actually really into thunder thighs. I think that’s what it’s really about: he’s into the Stone Aged thing. You know: fat. Which is sweet and kind of heartbreaking, that he’s so into ancient art.”

      “But aren’t you offended, as a feminist?”

      “I don’t really think of myself as a feminist.”

      “That’s unbelievable!” Walter said, reddening. “You don’t support the ERA?”

      “Well, I’m not very political.”

      “But the whole reason you’re here in Minnesota is you got an athletic scholarship, which couldn’t even have happened five years ago. You’re here because of feminist federal legislation. You’re here because of Title Nine.”

      “But Title Nine’s just basic fairness,” Patty said. “If half your students are female, they should be getting half the athletic money.”

      “That’s feminism!”

      “No, it’s basic fairness. Because, like, Ann Meyers? Have you heard of her? She was a big star at UCLA and she just signed a contract with the NBA, which is ridiculous. She’s like five-six and a girl. She’s never going to play. Men are just better athletes than women and always will be. That’s why a hundred times more people go to see men’s basketball than women’s basketball—there’s so much more that men can do athletically. It’s just dumb to deny it.”

      “But what if you want to be a doctor, and they don’t let you into medical school because they’d rather have male students?”

      “That would be unfair, too, although I don’t want to be a doctor.”

      “So what do you want?”

      Sort of by default, because her mother was so relentless in promoting impressive careers for her daughters, and also because her mother had been, in Patty’s opinion, a substandard parent, Patty was inclined to want to be a homemaker and an outstanding mother. “I want to live in a beautiful old house and have two children,” she told Walter. “I want to be a really, really great mom.”

      “Do you want a career, too?”

      “Raising children would be my career.”

      He frowned and nodded.

      “You see,” she said, “I’m not very interesting. I’m not nearly as interesting as your other friends.”

      “That’s so untrue,” he said. “You’re incredibly interesting.”

      “Well, that’s very nice of you to say, but I don’t think it makes much sense.”

      “I think there’s so much more inside you than you give yourself credit for.”

      “I’m afraid you’re not very realistic about me,” Patty said. “I bet you can’t actually name one interesting thing about me.”

      “Well, your athletic ability, for starters,” Walter said.

      “Dribble dribble. That’s real interesting.”

      “And the way you think,” he said. “The fact that you think that that hideous prof is sweet and heartbreaking.”

      “But you disagree with me about that!”

      “And the way you talk about your family. The way you tell stories about them. The fact that you’re so far away from them and having your own life here. That’s all incredibly interesting.”

      Patty had never been around a man so obviously in love with her. What he and she were secretly talking about, of course, was Walter’s desire to put his hands on her. And yet the more time she spent with him, the more she was coming to feel that even though she wasn’t nice—or maybe because she wasn’t nice; because she was morbidly competitive and attracted to unhealthy things—she was, in fact, a fairly interesting person. And Walter, by insisting so fervently on her interestingness, was definitely making progress toward making himself interesting to her in turn.

      “If you’re so feminist,” she said, “why are you best friends with Richard? Isn’t he kind of disrespectful?”

      Walter’s face clouded. “Definitely, if I had a sister, I’d make sure she never met him.”

      “Why?” Patty said. “Because he’d treat her badly? Is he bad to women?”

      “He doesn’t mean to be. He likes women. He just goes through them pretty quickly.”

      “Because we’re interchangeable? Because we’re just objects?”

      “It’s not political,” Walter said. “He’s in favor of equal rights. It’s more like this is his addiction, or one of them. You know, his dad was such a drunk, and Richard doesn’t drink. But it’s the same thing as emptying your whole liquor cabinet down the drain, after a binge. That’s the way he is with a girl he’s done with.”

      “That sounds horrible.”

      “Yeah, I don’t particularly like it in him.”

      “But you’re still friends with him, even though you’re a feminist.”

      “You don’t stop being loyal to a friend just because they’re not perfect.”

      “No, but you try to help them be a better person. You explain why what they’re doing is wrong.”

      “Is that what you did with Eliza?”

      “OK, you have a point there.”

      The next time she spoke to Walter, he finally asked her out on an actual movie-and-a-dinner date. The movie (this was very Walter) turned out to be a free one, a black-and-white Greek-language thing called The Fiend of Athens. While they sat in the Art Department cinema, surrounded by empty seats, waiting for the movie to start, Patty described her plan for the summer, which was to stay with Cathy Schmidt at her parents’ house in the suburbs, continue physical therapy, and prepare for a comeback next season. Out of the blue, in the empty cinema, Walter asked her if she might instead want to live in the room being vacated by Richard, who was moving to New York City.

      “Richard’s leaving?”

      “Yeah,” Walter said, “New York is where all the interesting music is happening. He and Herrera want to reconstitute the band and try to make it there. And I’ve still got three months on the lease.”

      “Wow.” Patty composed her face carefully. “And I would live in his room.”

      “Well, it wouldn’t be his room anymore,” Walter said. “It would be yours. It’s an easy walk to the gym. I’m thinking it would be a lot easier than commuting all the way from Edina.”

      “And so you’re asking me to live with you.”

      Walter blushed and avoided her eyes. “You’d have your own room, obviously. But, yes, if you ever wanted to have dinner and hang out, that would be great, too. I think I’m somebody you can trust to be respectful of your space but also be there if you wanted company.”

      Patty peered into his face, struggling to understand. She felt a combination of (a) offended, and (b) very sorry to hear that Richard was leaving. She almost suggested to Walter that he had better kiss her first, if he was going to be asking her to live with him, but she was so offended that she didn’t feel like being kissed at that moment. And then the cinema lights went down.

      As the autobiographer remembers it,