A. Homes: In A Country Of Mothers

Jody nodded.

“Are you sure?”

Jody nodded again. There was something about Claire that made Jody think that even if she couldn’t afford it, she wouldn’t say no. She’d find a way.

Claire picked up her appointment book. “Could you come the day after tomorrow at one?”

“Do you have anything later?”

“Three?”

Jody nodded.

“I’ll see you then,” Claire said, standing.

Jody couldn’t believe the session was over. Okay, so she’d been a few minutes late, but this had to be the fastest fifty minutes in history.

“Have you got the time?” Jody asked, getting up, noticing that Claire was quite tall, at least five nine or ten — model material.

“It’s one-thirty-five, we ran a few minutes over.”

“Wow.”

“See you Thursday,” Claire said, closing the door behind her.

Instead of waiting for the elevator, Jody ran down the stairs, hailed a cab, and raced back uptown.

Some strange and primal magic had been exchanged. Jody went back to work with more energy than she could ever remember having, so much energy that it was a little frightening.

“Ahh,” Harry said, turning from a quick conference with one of the lighting guys. “I missed you at lunch.”

Jody was at the food table, slapping cream cheese onto a bagel. She blushed, took a bite, and looked up.

Harry reached out, wiped a blob of cream cheese off her face, and popped his finger into his mouth. “We should have dinner sometime,” he said.

Jody didn’t answer. She chewed. One of the other lighting guys called Harry over to check something, and Jody ducked around the corner into a phone booth.

“What’s the word?” Michael said.

“Not much. They’re on the bookstore scene,” Jody said, staring at the Shakespeare & Co. marquee.

“Is everything going right?”

“Well, they’re splattering fake blood all over stacks of books and then trying to clean them off and do it again.”

“I hope they’re not real books,” Michael muttered. “Check and make sure we’re not buying the whole inventory — and if we are, at least get them to use paperbacks.”

Jody took another bite of her bagel. “Am I getting overtime? I should definitely be getting more money.”

“Are you eating something?”

“No,” she said, spitting the bread into her hand and dropping it, as nonchalantly as possible, into the gutter.

“It’s disgusting. You’re eating while I’m talking.”

“I’m not eating. Look, Michael, I’m not exactly clear about what you expect me to do here.”

“Kiss Harry’s ass and then tell me how hairy it is. That’s your job.”

“I never knew you were such a romantic,” Jody said. Michael hung up and Jody felt cheated out of one of her favorite moments, slamming the phone down. She dialed Ellen’s number at work.

“Third National,” Ellen said in a smooth voice.

“Hi,” Jody said.

“Are you eating something?” Ellen asked.

“A bagel,” Jody said with her mouth full.

“Can I have a bite?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jody said, swallowing. “So listen, I went to this shrink, you know, and it was kind of weird.”

“Is she good?”

“She’s either very good or very dangerous. I go back in two days.”

“Can we not talk about your problems?” Ellen said. “Can we just talk about me? I’m so depressed.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, you don’t really have any problems. You got into UCLA, you like your shrink. On the other hand, what am I doing with my life? I can’t keep going out with Robert. He’s an insurance salesman. I don’t care about insurance. I don’t even have any. He wants me to marry him. Meanwhile, in this restaurant this afternoon, I met this actor-waiter type and went in the back and kind of … I really like him.”

“Kind of what? Isn’t this the fourth person in three weeks that you kind-of ed? Are you being careful?”

“The other ones don’t count. They’re from before. And this was really fun. We went out of the restaurant, opened those metal cellar doors you see on the sidewalk, went down there, and did it with the door open. If someone was walking by and had looked in, they would have seen us. It was—”

“You’re nuts,” Jody said. “And when you’re dying of AIDS, you’ll expect me to visit you and bring you popcorn, play with your respirator and everything.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“Don’t be stupid‚” Jody said. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“It’s just because I’m bored.”

“Go bowling,” Jody said. The pay phone beeped and a nasty woman’s recorded voice cut in, demanding money for more time. “I’m out of change,” Jody said, as she patted a huge lump of coins in her front pocket. “Gotta go, talk to you later.”

“How come you didn’t call me back last night?” Jody’s mother asked when she called at eleven, when Jody was three-quarters asleep. “I called twice. Didn’t you get the message?”

“I was busy,” Jody said.

“Well, you could have called back and told me that you were too busy to talk. I would’ve understood.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Anyway,” her mother said, “I got tickets for us to fly out to UCLA and look around. Week after next. You’ll have to come home the day before.”

“I’m not sure I can take the time off work. We’re in the middle of shooting.”

“Of course you can. If I can take the time, you can take the time. Besides, you’re quitting soon anyway.”

“Mom, don’t push me.”

“Push you? You’re the one who applied to school in California. The tickets are in my hand. They aren’t returnable.”

Jody felt confused. Everyone she knew said her mother was amazing. Supportive. That was the word, for all the people who were, or had ever been, in therapy. Supportive.

“I know these things are hard for you,” her mother said. “I just want to help.”

“I started therapy today,” Jody said, as if it were something you signed up for, like a dance class.

“I thought you were through with that.”

“It’s kind of a refresher course. Look, I’m really tired, can we talk about this later? Like when I’m thirty or something?”

“Fine,” her mother said. “You’re tired. Go to sleep. I’ll call back tomorrow.”

As soon as Jody hung up, she was wide awake. She lay in bed for half an hour, thinking about how everyone thought her relationship with her mother was great. “You talk,” Ellen said. “Do you know how many daughters don’t speak to their mothers? It’s special. Don’t knock it.” Special, yes, Jody thought, but not entirely marvelous.

At midnight, she got up, took out the ingredients for brownies, and started baking. At one-thirty, when the brownies were cool, she sprinkled them with powdered sugar, poured herself a huge glass of milk, and sat eating while she flipped through the phone book. There was only one listing for Claire Roth, the same number Jody had called before. The real question was, Where did she live? Knowing things about her shrinks that were supposed to be secrets made Jody feel more comfortable. It gave her something to think about — which, she realized, was theoretically the reason she wasn’t supposed to know anything.

There was a listing for Samuel B. Roth at 2 Fifth Avenue. Too close, Jody thought. After all, who’d want to live up the street and around the corner from her office — especially a shrink? Plus, “Samuel” was an old man’s name. Jody decided that Claire worked downtown but lived on the Upper West Side, and probably didn’t even know that old Samuel B. was practically a neighbor.

Jody stayed on the floor eating brownies, getting smashed on the chocolate and sugar, questioning why she’d bothered calling a shrink in the first place. She was definitely going to graduate school. How could she even think about not going? Sure, California was hovering on the edge of the ocean, about to fall in. Sure, it was farther from home than she’d ever been for more than two weeks. But the fact that California was on the other side of everything didn’t mean she had to go into therapy. The problem was geographical, not psychological.