"Not an intellectual."
She let out a small, soft laugh. "Not exactly. My mom used to tutor her in math."
Judy had never mentioned her daughter's problem. No reason to. Still, I wondered why Judy hadn't referred Stacy to Becky's therapist. Maybe too close to home, keeping everything in neat little boxes.
"Well," I said, "no matter what Becky or anyone says, you know what's best for you."
"Think so?"
"I do."
"You don't even know me."
"Competent till proven otherwise, Stacy."
"Okay." Another weak smile. So much effort to smile. I wrote a mental note: poss. depress, as noted by J. Manitow.
Her hand lifted. The blood on her finger had dried and she rubbed the sore spot. "I don't think I really do. Want to talk about my mother^ that is. I mean, what can I say? When I think about it I get down for days, and I've already had enough of those. And it's not as if it was a shock-her… what happened. I mean it was, when it actually happened, but she'd been sick for so long."
Same thing her father had said. Her own little speech, or his?
"This," she said, smiling again, "is starting to sound like one of those gross movies of the week. Lindsay Wagner as everyone's mom… What I'm saying is that what happened to my mother took so long… It wasn't like another friend of mine, her mother died in a skiing accident. Crashed into a tree and she was gone, just like that." Snap of the inflamed finger. "The whole family watching it happen. That's traumatic. My mother… I knew it was going to happen. I spent a long time wondering when, but…" Her bosom rose and fell. One foot tapped. The right index finger sought the sore spot again, curled to strike, scratched, retracted.
"Maybe we should talk about my so-called future," she said, lifting the green book. "First could I use the bathroom, please?"
She was gone ten minutes. After seven I started to wonder, was ready to get up to check if she'd left the house, but she returned, hair tied back in a bushy ponytail, mouth shiny with freshly applied lip gloss.
"Okay," she said. "College. The process. My lack of direction."
"That sounds like something someone told you."
"Dad, my school counselor, my brother, everyone. I'm almost eighteen, nearly a senior, so I'm supposed to be into it-career aspirations, compiling lists of extracurricular activities, composing brag sheets. Ready to sell myself. It feels so… phony. I go to Pali Prep, freak-city when it comes to college. Everyone in my class is freaking out daily. I'm not, so I'm the space alien." Her free hand flipped the edges of the green book's pages.
"Can't get into it?" I said.
"Don't want to get into it. I honestly don't care, Dr. Delaware. I mean, I know I'm going to end up somewhere. Does it really make a difference where?"
"Does it?"
"Not to me."
"But everyone's telling you you should care."
"Either explicitly or, you know-it's in the air. The atmosphere. At school everything's been split down the middle-sociologically. Either you're a goof and you know you'll end up at a party school, or you're a grind and expected to obsess on Stanford or the Ivy League. I should be a grind, because my grades are okay. I should have my nose glued to the SAT prep book, be filling out practice applications."
"When do you take the SAT?"
"I already took it. In December. We all did, just for practice. But I did okay enough, don't see why I should go through it again."
"What'd you get?"
She blushed again. "Fifteen-twenty."
"That's a fantastic score," I said.
"You'd be surprised. At PP, kids who get fifteen-eighty take it again. One kid had his parents write that he was American Indian so he'd get some kind of minority edge. I don't see the point."
"Neither do I."
"I honestly think that if you offered most of the senior class a deal to murder someone in order to be guaranteed admission to Harvard, Stanford or Yale, they'd take it."
"Pretty brutal," I said, fascinated by her choice of example.
"It's a brutal world out there," she said. "At least that's what my father keeps telling me."
"Does he want you to take the SAT again?"
"He pretends he's not pressuring me, but he lets me know he'll pay for it if I want to."
"Which is a kind of pressure."
"I suppose. You met him… What was that like?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did you get along? He told me you were smart, but there was something in his voice-like he wasn't sure about you." She cracked up. "I've got a big mouth… Dad's super-active, always needs to keep moving, thinking, doing something. Mom's illness drove him crazy. Before she got sick, they were totally active together- jogging, dancing, tennis, traveling. When she stopped living, he was left on his own. It's made him cranky."
That sounded detached, a clinical assessment. The family observer? Sometimes kids assume that role because it's easier than participating.
"Tough adjustment for him," I said.
"Yes, but he finally caught on."
"About what?"
"About having to do things for himself. He always finds a way to adjust."
That sounded accusatory. My raised eyebrow was my next question.
She said, "His main way of handling stress is by staying on the go. Business trips. You know what he does, right?"
"Real-estate development."
She shook her head as if I'd gotten it wrong, but said, "Yes. Distressed properties. He makes money off other people's failures."
"I can see why he'd view the world as brutal."
"Oh yes. The brutal world of distressed properties." She laughed and sighed and her hands loosened. Placing the big green book on an end table, she pushed it away.
Her hands returned to her lap. Loose. Defenseless. Suddenly she was slumping like a teenager. Suddenly she seemed truly happy to be here.
"He calls himself a heartless capitalist," she said. "Probably because he knows that's what everyone else says. Actually, he's quite proud of himself."
Undertone of contempt, low and steady as a monk's drone. Deriding her father to a virtual stranger but doing it charmingly. That kind of easy seepage often means the lid's rising on a long-boiling pot.
I sat there, waiting for more. She crossed her legs, slumped lower, fluffed her hair, as if aiming for nonchalance.
Her shrug said, Your turn.
I said, "I get the feeling real estate isn't a strong interest of yours."
"Who knows? I'm thinking of becoming an architect, so I can't hate it that much. Actually, I don't hate business at all, not like some other kids do. It's just that I'd rather build something than be a… I'd rather be productive."
"Rather than be a what?"
"I was going to say scavenger. But that's not fair to my father. He doesn't cause anyone else to fail. He's just there to seek opportunities. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not what I'd like to do-actually, I have no idea what I'd like to do." She rang an imaginary bell. "Dah-dah, big insight. I have no goals."
"What about architecture?"
"I probably just say that to tell people something when they ask me. For all I know, I might end up despising architecture."
"Do any subjects in school interest you?" I said.
"I used to like science. For a while, I thought medicine might be a good choice. I took all the A.P. science courses, got fives on the exams. Now I don't know."
"What changed your mind?" The death of your scientist mother?
"It just seems… well, for one, medicine's not what it used to be, is it? Becky told me her father can't stand his job anymore. All the HMOs telling him what he can and can't do. Dr. Manitow calls it mismanaged care. After all that school, it would be nice to have some occupational freedom. Do you like your job?"
"Very much."
"Psychology," she said, as if the word were new. "I was more interested in real science-oh, sorry, that was rude! What I meant was hard science…"
"No offense taken." I smiled.
"I mean, I do respect psychology. I was just thinking more in terms of chemistry and biology. For myself. I'm good with organic things."