From Irwin Shaw’s 'The Girls in Their Summer Dresses'

 "Untitled (Legs of Woman Walking Across Manhole Cover, New York City, 1939)"
Photo by Rudy Burckhardt

From Irwin Shaw’s The Girls in Their Summer Dresses:

“I like the girls in the offices. Neat, with their eyeglasses, smart, chipper, knowing what everything is about, taking care of themselves all the time.”

He kept his eye on the people going slowly past outside the window. “I like the girls on Forty-fourth Street at lunchtime, the actresses, all dressed up on nothing a week, talking to the good-looking boys, wearing themselves out being young and vivacious outside Sardi’s, waiting for producers to look at them. I like the salesgirls in Macy’s, paying attention to you first because you’re a man, leaving lady customers waiting, flirting with you over socks and books and phonograph needles. I got all this stuff accumulated in me because I’ve been thinking about it for ten years and now you’ve asked for it and here it is.”

“Go ahead,” Frances said.

“When I think of New York City, I think of all the girls, the Jewish girls, the Italian girls, the Irish, Polack, Chinese, German, Negro, Spanish, Russian girls, all on parade in the city. I don’t know whether it’s something special with me or whether every man in the city walks around with the same feeling inside him, but I feel as though I’m at a picnic in this city. I like to sit near the women in the theaters, the famous beauties who’ve taken six hours to get ready and look it. And the young girls at the football games, with the red cheeks, and when the warm weather comes, the girls in their summer dresses . . . ” He finished his drink. “That’s the story. You asked for it, remember. I can’t help but look at them. I can’t help but want them.”

“You want them, ” Frances repeated without expression. “You said that.”

“Right,” Michael said, being cruel now and not caring, because she had made him expose himself. “You brought this subject up for discussion, we will discuss it fully.”

Frances finished her drink and swallowed two or three times extra. "You say you love me?”

“I love you, but I also want them. Okay.”

“I’m pretty, too,” Frances said. “As pretty as any of them.”

“You’re beautiful,” Michael said, meaning it.

“I’m good for you,” Frances said, pleading. “I’ve made a good wife, a good housekeeper, a good friend. I’d do any damn thing for you.”

“I know,” Michael said. He put his hand out and grasped hers.

“You’d like to be free to ... ” Frances said.

“Sssh.”