Bittersweet Dreams (26 page)

Julie wasn't home when I returned. She had taken Allison to try on outfits for another party, so she couldn't give my father a preliminary report concerning how I looked or acted after my therapy session. I had planned on giving her a little of her own medicine, phony smiles and sweetness.

I lowered my book. “I like him,” I said. “He has a good sense of humor, and he's not heavy.”

“Heavy?”

“I don't mean his weight, Daddy. You know, too demanding, pushing, getting too quickly into your head.”

“Oh, right. Well, what about progress? You think you can make some with him?”

I nodded. “He helped me see some things. I won't deny that it's good to have someone who wants to listen to you, even if he gets paid to do it.”

“Well, as I said, someone who is trained to help is important,” my father said. “As you always tell me, a little learning is a dangerous thing. Go whole hog.”

He really couldn't see how unhappy I was about all this, I thought. It wasn't that long ago when he could sense something was bothering me with just a look or a few words. I wasn't inscrutable when it came to him. I wouldn't even try to fool him back then. Maybe Julie was influencing me more than I would willingly credit her for. After all, I had a master of disguise right under my feet. Learn from your enemies, and distrust your friends enough not to be disappointed. That had become one of my new rules of life.

“I couldn't agree more. Amateur psychologists don't do anyone any good.”

He smiled with relief. “I'm not an amateur psychologist. I just don't like to see you unhappy, Mayfair.”

“I don't like to be unhappy, Daddy,” I replied, and he laughed.

“Maybe we'll all go out to dinner Friday night, huh?”

“Allison has another one of her socially important parties. Julie will want you to take her and pick her up.”

“Oh, right. Well, we'll figure it out,” he said.

“I'm sure we will,” I replied.
As long as it fits what Julie wants
, I thought.

He nodded, smiled, and left. I looked at the empty doorway and wondered for a moment if I was doing the right thing with Dr. Burns. I could lose my father completely. We were alienated enough from each other as it was without me adding to it, but it was too late. I had gone too far. I was confident of what would happen next, and sure enough, it did.

Julie did not ask me anything about my therapy that night at dinner or the following morning on the way to school. It wasn't that she was afraid to ask or didn't want to know. I had a different sense of it. Something told me she was confident that she would know everything whenever she wanted.

When I arrived at school, I continued to feel this new sense of energy that had been born out of my anger. I returned to the vigorous pursuit of my academics. I aced a math test, answered questions in social studies, and got into such a deep discussion with Mr. Feldman about
Huckleberry Finn
that it seemed as if there was no one else in the classroom but us. He was very happy, even exhilarated. He told me he felt like he was back in college, discussing great literature with his professor. Half of the class hadn't even read the portions he had assigned.

He said a nice thing to me. “For one bright moment, I remembered why I had gotten into teaching in the first place.”

The result was electric. Before the day had ended, my teachers had reported my academic resurrection to Mr. Martin, and he was eager to show how effective he had been, even with someone like me. I knew he especially wanted to please my father. Before the day ended, he had obviously called Julie and reported to her. She commented about it when she came to pick up Allison and me.

“I was pleased to hear you've returned to doing well in school again, Mayfair. I'm glad I recommended Dr. Burns to your father. Therapy can be helpful,” she said.

“Yes, it can be. You should try it yourself,” I told her, and her look of self-satisfaction evaporated.

The real result, however, my intended result, occurred after I had two more sessions with Dr. Burns, elaborating even more on what I had told him the first time, providing practically pornographic details.

It was one of Julie's girls' nights out, and she had gone to dinner, which was supposed to be followed with a movie, but instead, she had come right home. She made quite a dramatic entrance.

Allison rushed in to tell me. “My mother's back early,” she said, gasping.

“So?”

“I was downstairs watching television, and she came home very upset, slamming the door and crying.”

“Really? Think she had a fight with one of her vapid friends?”

“What's vapid?”

“Ask your mother.”

She looked at me strangely and then returned to her excited report. “I don't know if she had a fight with anyone. She wouldn't let me stay there with her and Daddy,” she said. “She told me to go up to my room, and Daddy agreed.”

Julie had insisted that Allison call my father Daddy, both as a way of killing any relationship she might still have with her real father and as a lesson to me, for I still refused to call her anything but Julie. Nevertheless, Allison was always a bit hesitant to do so when she was alone with me. She thought I might resent it, when, in fact, I was more unhappy for her father than for myself.

“I never saw her so angry and upset, even when she had bad fights with my father,” she told me.

“Well, I'm sure it's nothing terribly serious. Women get hysterical over small things sometimes. It's part of being a woman,” I said.

“It is?”

“According to most men,” I added. Allison was lost. I smiled to myself and returned to my computer.

I was intrigued with some experiments being carried out at Oxford University involving the transplanting of human brain cells into monkeys to improve their intelligence. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I saw that Allison was quite shaken and didn't want to leave my room. Julie must have gone quite over the top, I thought, frightening her own daughter with her antics.

“You can stay here and watch television, if you want,” I told Allison. “Just keep the volume low.”

“Okay.”

She turned on my television and sat watching it. Fifteen minutes later, my father arrived. He asked her to leave us alone. She glanced at me and then turned off the television and hurried out.

“You frightened her, Daddy,” I said. “She's frightened enough as it is over how her mother apparently behaved. The child has enough damage from Julie's bitter marriage and divorce. She should be the one seeing Dr. Burns. As a matter of fact, if—”

“Forget Allison for the moment, Mayfair,” he replied sharply, and closed the door. He just stood there looking at me and shaking his head.

“All right. What is it now?” I asked, and turned completely around in my computer desk chair.

“Why did you make up all those lies about Julie?”

“Excuse me?”

“The things you told Dr. Burns,” he said. “Absolutely crazy lies.”

“How do you or anyone else know what went on between me and Dr. Burns? Are you telling me that Dr. Burns violated the confidentiality between himself and his client?”

“I'm not interested in that, Mayfair.”

“Well, I am. Do you think I would have been so forthcoming if I thought he would gossip about me? What did he do? Call you? Call Julie?”

“How she found out isn't important.”

“Stop saying that. If anything, you should be on the phone with your attorney and not up here talking with me. He told one of her friends, didn't he? What, is he having an affair with her?”

He just stared at me.

I smiled and nodded. “That's it,” I said. “It makes sense. That's why Julie was able to get me the instant appointment. Her friend's having an affair with him. I can see it now. He revealed things about my therapy session while he was sleeping with her, and she couldn't wait to tell Julie, right?”

He sat, looking overwhelmed. “You've misinterpreted everything. Julie's concern for your looks and your social happiness isn't out of some mean motive. She's beside herself. She was only trying to help you so you'd be happier and we'd all be happier. You know she's gone through this terrible marriage and horrible divorce. Her former husband belittled her, had affairs, and even brought a woman into their home, into their very bed, while she was away. She's trying so hard to have a happy marriage now, a happy family. I'm so disappointed in you, Mayfair.” He looked down and shook his head. “I really don't know what else to do. A vibrator! To tell Dr. Burns she bought you a vibrator?”

He sighed deeply and rose.

“Needless to say, your therapy is over. Nothing will change until you want it to. That's clear. I've forbidden Julie to make any more efforts.”

He stood for a moment looking at me.

“I don't know you anymore,” he said, and walked out slowly.

I had never seen such a look of disgust in my father's face. She had played him well, I thought. She had him in her complete control now. Why wasn't he angry about how she had manipulated me into this therapy session, where she knew she would find out everything about me and use it against me? It wasn't right. I was being abused. Why wasn't he defending me, outraged about what had happened to me? Why couldn't he see that I had simply turned the tables on her?

Maybe it was hopeless. If anything, I hated her more than ever. She was down there sobbing, and he had probably returned to her side, holding her and comforting her, when he should be up here comforting me. Maybe if he had done that, I would have told him more, told him about Alan Taylor, and the loving ties that were splintering between us would have grown stronger again.

He'd be my father.

I'd be his daughter.

There was a tiny knock on my open door. Allison had returned, still looking very frightened. “What happened?” she asked. “Why was Daddy so angry? Are you in trouble? Is my mother still very upset?”

“It was just what I told you. One of your mother's friends said something unpleasant to her that upset her. She'll be all right. Don't worry about your mother. She'll always be all right.”

“I wish everyone thought I was grown-up enough to know about everything,” she said, sitting on my bed. “I know about a lot of stuff my mother doesn't know I know about.”

“I'm sure you do.”

“When you're not home yet and she can't see me, I read some more in the book you gave me.”

“Oh? Well, that's good.”

“If you're going to fall in love, you've got to know about that stuff.”

“That's very adult of you, Allison. I thought you were old enough to appreciate it. That's why I gave it to you and was disappointed when your mother took it away from you.”

She beamed. I never realized how much my compliments meant to her. “Do you think someone my age could be in love?”

“I don't know if age has much to do with it. Why? Do you think you're in love?”

“I don't know. Maybe. Jamie Baron says that when you are in love, you can't think of much else, and sometimes you look dopey.”

“Jamie Baron sounds dopey.”

“You never fell in love, right?”

“No.”

She looked disappointed.

“Why is that important, Allison? You're who you are, and I'm who I am. We don't have to have the same feelings and thoughts about everything. In fact, you don't have to have the same feelings and thoughts as your friends do, either. You'll end up being a clone if you're not careful.”

“What's a clone?”

“An exact replica with no independent thought. In short, a nobody.” I wanted to add “like your mother and her friends,” but I thought I had gone far enough.

She shrugged. “I just thought that if you fell in love, you'd know more so you could tell me for sure. I trust you. I mean, you know so much that I would believe what you said.”

“Well, I don't have to be in love to tell you that it has to be something that lasts longer than a week.”

She nodded. “This has lasted all year, practically,” she said as if she was in a confessional booth.

“You mean for you?”

“Yes.”

“It also helps if the person you fall in love with falls in love with you.”

“And wants to be with you a lot?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And likes to touch you?”

“Exactly.”

“And smiles and looks bright every time he sees you . . .”

“Now you sound as if you could write an advice to the lovelorn column,” I said. “You going to see this boy at the party Friday?”

“Oh, no.”

“No? Why not?” I grimaced. “I get it. He's not what your mother calls popular or acceptable. Is that it? He wasn't invited.”

She pressed her lips together.

“Well?” I pursued. “Which is it?”

“None of that. He wouldn't come to a kids' party.”

I sat back. “Wouldn't come to a kids' party? Who is this mysterious lover of yours?”

She pressed her lips together again. She certainly could look just like her mother at times. “I can't tell you,” she said, and slipped off the bed. “It's a very big secret, the biggest secret of my life.”

“That's more reason to tell me. Something that big could mean big mistakes, too. Who is it?”

“Allison?” we heard.

“My mother's calling. I'll see you later,” she said, and hurried out.

Why was I wasting time listening to an adolescent's fantasy? I asked myself and returned to my research on the internet.

The following day, I could see that Julie's new approach toward me was going to be simply to ignore me. She didn't mention a thing about my conversation with Dr. Burns, nor would she talk to me or look at me unless it was absolutely necessary. Maybe she thought that if she acted like this, I'd break down and apologize to her. I knew she was hoping for some reaction, because after a while, the silent treatment was ricocheting back on her. It was too uncomfortable in the car and at the dinner table. However, she was too proud to play the victim. She was more comfortable on the attack, and she was at least smart enough to know where I was most vulnerable.