“Maybe for some people,” she said. “But explain me this: When you’re young everyone’s always knocking into your head never talk to strangers, beware of strangers, watch out for strangers. So now they’re paying for me to tell my secrets to a stranger?”
She ran a fingernail under the seal of the pack, slit it open, played with the foil flap. “What bullshit.”
“Maybe they’re hoping eventually you won’t consider me a stranger.”
“They can hope all they want.” Low, tight laugh. “Hey, I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just coming out that way— Sorry, you seem like a nice guy. It’s just that I shouldn’t have to be here, okay} Face it: They’re just using you to punish me—like grounding me or threatening not to let me get my license next year. None of that worked, and this won’t either. You have to care to be controlled, and I don’t do caring.”
“What are they punishing you for, Lauren?”
“They say it’s my attitude,” she said, “but you know what I think? I think they’re jealous.”
“Of what?”
“My happiness.”
“You’re happy and they’re not.”
“They’re making themselves out to be all … in control. Especially him” She lowered her voice to a hostile baritone parody: “‘Lauren, you’re screwing up your life. This therapy crap is goddamn expensive. I want you to go in there and spill your guts.”
Last week she’d talked about spitting out secrets. The emetic approach to insight.”So,” I said, “your parents aren’t happy, they’re taking it out on you, and I’m the weapon.”
“They’re stuck where they are and I’m cool, free, enjoying my life, and that bugs them. Soon as I get my own money, I’m out of there, bye-bye, Lyle and Jane.”
“Do you have a plan to get money?”
She shrugged. “I’ll figure something out—I’m not talking right now. I’m not impractical, I know even McDonald’s won’t hire me without their permission. But someday.”
“Did you try to work at McDonald’s?”
Nod. “I wanted my own money. But they said no. ‘No outside work until your grades come up.’ Which they won’t, so forget that.”
“Why won’t your grades come up?” I said.
“‘Cause I don’t want them to.”
“So it’s a few more years of this.”
Her eyes shifted. “I’ll figure something out— Listen, forget sex. I don’t want to talk to you about it. Or anything else. No offense, but I just don’t want to spill my guts.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, great.” She shot to her feet. “See you next week.”
Ten minutes to go. I said, “No way you can stick it out?”
“Are you going to tell them I split early?”
“No, but—”
“Thanks,” she said. “No, I really can’t stick it out, this is hurting my head— Tell you what, next week I’ll come on time and stay the whole time, okay? Promise.”
“It’s only ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes too long.”
“Give it a chance, Lauren. We don’t have to talk about your problems.”
“What, then?”
“Tell me about your interests.”
“I’m interested in the beach,” she said. “Okay? I’m interested in freedom—which is exactly what I need right now. Next week I’ll be good—I mean it.”
Next week. Conning me or did she really intend to return?
“I’ve gotta get out of here.”
“Sure,” I said. “Take care.”
Big smile. Hair flip. “You’re a doll.” Swinging the purse like a slingshot, she hurried out. I caught up with her in the waiting room, just as she whipped out her lighter.
Jamming the cigarette in her mouth, she shoved at the door. I watched her trot down the hall, a girl in a hurry, haloed by a cloud of smoke.
I thought about her a few times—the image of self-destructive escape. Then that faded too.
Six years later I was invited to a bachelor party the weekend before Halloween.
A forty-five-year-old radiation oncologist at Western Pediatrics was getting married to an O.K. nurse, and a consortium of hospital physicians and administrators had rented the presidential suite of the Beverly Monarch Hotel for the send-off.
Steaks, ribs, buffalo wings, assorted fried and grilled stuff on the buffet. Iced tubs of beer, serve-yourself bar, Cuban cigars, gooey desserts. My contact with the honoree—a mumbling loner lacking in social skills— had been a few stiff, unproductive discussions about patient care, and I wondered why I’d been included in the festivities. Perhaps every face helped.