"Miss Temptation" is a short story first published in The Saturday Evening Post on April 21, 1956[1] and reprinted in Welcome to the Monkey House in 1968 and Complete Stories in 2017. It was adapted into a one-act play by David Cooperman, published in 1993.[2]
Plot Summary[]
Susanna, a nineteen year old bit-part actress performing summer theater in a New England village, has developed a daily ritual observed by the residents. At noon she exits her rented room over the firehouse, stretches, pours a bowl of milk and kisses her black cat, locks the door, and places the key in her bosom. She then begins her barefoot walk to the drugstore to get the New York newspapers from the elderly Bearse Hinkley, whom she calls "an angel" while flipping through the news. One day this ritual is interrupted by Corporal Norman Fuller, recently returned home from eighteen months in Korea. Simply meaning to turn and glare at Susanna, his stool at the drugstore counter screeches loudly as he spins to look at her. Now the center of attention, he is suddenly inspired to chastise her as yet another American woman who teases men with her seductions when in reality she wouldn't bother to talk with an ordinary man. He storms out, followed shortly after by a confused and distraught Susanna.
Home for dinner with his mother that evening, Fuller is short with her while he bemoans his lack of friends in his hometown. Most have moved away or married with no time for socializing. When he leaves, his mother hopefully asks if he's going out to meet a girl, but Fuller angrily replies that he's getting a cigar and that he doesn't plan to marry until after he finishes divinity school. Shocked, his mother asks how long he has planned this and Fuller tells her that he had a religious experience this afternoon, speaking out against temptation. Wandering the streets, Fuller meets Hickley who gently rebukes him for his treatment of Susanna, who did not arrive to perform in the show that night. The next day the town waits to see if the ritual will continue. An ambivalent Fuller takes the same stool at the drugstore counter, no one speaking to him. At noon a moving truck arrives to take Susanna's possessions. Fuller tries to defend himself from Hinkley, as well as the gazes of the others, who says that she must have really scared him. Fuller looks at the rows of magazines with desirable women and says he's only thinking about juvenile delinquency. Hinkley says if Fuller's not afraid then he can take Susanna her newspaper, since it's already paid for.
Hinckley enters Susanna's room expecting an exotic and mysterious domain, only to find a banal, decaying New England summer rental. He finds Susanna packing and she greets him coldly. When Fuller says he never asked her to leave, she exclaims that he publicly shamed her and that he never even thought of her as a human being, which he realizes is true. Finding himself terrified and wishing she were only a magazine picture, he tries to leave, but Susanna presses on, saying that all her life she's had to deal with idiotic men who feel entitled to judge her. Fuller admits that it's resentment because he never had a chance with someone like her without "a late-model convertible, a new suit, and twenty bucks." He tries to go, but Susanna says he can't leave her feeling awful for yelling at him. Instead, she says he should take her for a walk down the main street, unashamed and seeing her as a person. The town watches while Fuller waits on the porch for Susanna to change into her daily attire. She comes out, leads him down the stairs, and begins her walk to the drugstore, telling him to look proud of her. When Fuller asks if he can smoke his cigar, she says it was considerate of him to ask and that he may.[3]
Quotes[]
"I thought that was one of the few good things about sending a boy off to the Army. I thought that was where he could find out for sure he wasn't the only tender blossom on earth." Bearse Hinkley
"I'm not Yellowstone Park! I'm not supported by taxes! I don't belong to everybody! You don't have any right to say anything about the way I look!" Susanna
- ↑ "Miss Temptation", The Saturday Evening Post, April 21, 1956.
- ↑ Miss Temptation, Dramatic Publishing.
- ↑ "Miss Temptation", Complete Stories, pp. 173-182.