Higher Education (9 page)

“—and that's just the way I feel about it, Miranda.”

“Mmm.”

He sighs again. “Miranda, Miranda.”

“Yes, that's my name,” I say encouragingly, although I wish he'd stop pronouncing it with a soft
a
.

“Eddie Hacker wants me to help him start a new humor magazine.”

I am silent for a moment. “Isn't the
Lampoon
more than enough already?”

“He says the Lampoon snobbishness makes him sick.”

“Maybe he's disappointed he didn't get in.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. “He wants me to be managing editor.”

“My. You accepted, of course.”

He hesitates. “I told him I wanted to talk to Jennifer first.”

“Does she sign your checks too?”

“Sorry?”

“Go on.”

“Well, you know she's sort of my unofficial Advocate adviser.” Although only a junior, Dean's long been considered a rising star on the Advocate staff. There's talk he may be elected to an officer's position before the semester is out. “She understands politics better than I do.”

“I'm sure. And what did she tell you to do?”

“She never really said. We ended up arguing.”

I try to keep my eyes from lighting up. “Oh?”

“Yeah, we were just sitting there talking about it calmly, and then Kevin comes in and wants to know if I got the message from you he'd tucked under my pillow.”

“Well, that was nice of him.”

“Then all of a sudden she starts going on and on about how working on Eddie's magazine would probably make the board veto my series on F. Scott Fitzgerald, and fuck up my chances for making fiction editor next year.”

“Why?” By the time Dean is or isn't fiction editor, I muse, I'll have been out of college for a whole year.

“She thinks it would be seen as a conflict of interest.”

“You mean like spreading yourself too thin?” I smirk at him but he's busy inhaling on his cigarette.

“Exactly. But I think it'd look good on my résumé.”

“Résumé?”

“She knows that Eddie and I prepped together. You'd think she'd understand that it's hard for me to turn him down.”

“Stuffy of her, isn't it?”

“And he wants me to start right away. He's already lined up the backers.”

“Really?”

“Well, his father, mostly.”

“I see.”

He's smoking rapidly. “So I think it'd be a good thing to do.”

“And Jenny doesn't.”

“No.” His gaze flickers. “We fought about other things too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” He looks away and then down at the table, his eyelashes drooping in a mannerism that Jessica once uncharitably described as an obvious emulation of the ailing Keats.

“What about?”

“Well, if you must know, we fought about you.”

“Me?”

He leans back in his chair and exhales a stream of smoke just over my head. “She's jealous of you, Miranda.”

“Why? We haven't done anything for her to be jealous of. You've been nothing but respectability itself.”

“Have I?” He looks pained.

“You bet.”

“But still—”

“So we took a lit class together last semester. So what?”

“Yes, but—”

“So we hang out in cozy little bars till the wee hours. What's the big deal?”

“Well, I guess she's worried about—”

“
What
a little worrywart she is. Maybe she should try to relax more.”

“She wants me to stop seeing you.”

“Try closing your eyes.”

“What?”

“Surprise, surprise, Mira—I mean, surprise, surprise.” It's our cocktail waitress again, placing a glass in front of me.

“What's this?”

“From an admirer. A double greyhound. He said he thought you could use it.”

“An admirer?” I gape past her beyond the bar, where I see Pablo grinning our way and lifting his glass in salute.

“Oh,” Dean says. “It's our friend the pianist.”

Frowning, I look away. “Big of him.”

“You'd think he could order a drink for me too.”

“I guess he's not that big.” I take a sip of my first greyhound and it catches in my throat. Coughing, I press a hand to my chest.

Our cocktail waitress leans down. “Are you okay, Mira—I mean, are you all right?”

Sputtering a little, I nod up at her. “I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

I notice Dean eyeing us and I nod more vehemently. “I'm fine. Really. I think somebody over at the next table needs you.”

“Okay. I'll be back.” She pats my arm and careens off.

There is a short silence, and then Dean gives a wheezy chuckle. “That Pablo. What a slimy bastard.”

“Yes,” I say, my voice still a bit ragged, “I can see why Jenny would be attracted to him.”

His smile fading, Dean picks up a swizzle stick and pokes at the misshapen little ice cubes in his glass. “Oh yeah?”

“Birds of a feather and all that.” I take my hand off my chest. “And while we're on the subject, where did she pick up that phony British accent, anyway?”

“Jesus, you're a bitch, Miranda.”

“You think so?” I gaze back at him, my body very still. “So why do you go out with me?”

“I don't
go out
with you.”

“Oh? Then what's this? Gathering material for your little humor magazine?”

“We get together for a drink now and then.” He drops his voice to a fierce whisper.

“Oh, really? Then why do you go sneaking around behind your girlfriend's back?”

“I don't go sneaking around behind my girlfriend's—”

“Would you mind speaking up? You're cringing into your drink.”

“Jackson was right.” Dean grips his cigarette lighter. “You're a manipulative, neurotic bitch.”

I swallow, once. “Jackson said that?”

He hesitates. “Only the manipulative part.”

“Ah.”

“The neurotic-bitch part is mine.” He drops his eyes to the tabletop, lashes fluttering.

“I see.” I feel a pinching tightness in my chest. “Well, you can't both be right, can you?”

In the silence that ensues I rattle the pretzel basket back and forth, trying to see if there's a single unbroken one in the lot.

“God, you're pretty,” Dean says.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You're so pretty, Miranda.”

“Well, thanks.” Now I'm staring at him over a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth littered with glasses, cigarette butts, soggy cocktail napkins, and a basketful of pretzels that aren't perhaps as fresh as they should be.

“I mean it.”

“So do I.” Sighing, I push the basket away, all at once dampened by the
déjà vu
.

3

FRIDAY

Elbows digging into the arms of her chair, Mary props her fingertips together, making a little temple of her hands. “Well, you know, Miranda, sometimes our inner wounds can fester, just like actual wounds.”

“I'm not sure I follow you.”

We sit facing each other in brightly colored UHS chairs, Mary as usual eschewing her desk in the interest of fostering interpersonal rapport. Between us is a shimmeringly polished coffee table decorated with recent issues of
New Woman
and
Art in America
and a yellowing asparagus fern.

“Well, if not treated properly and allowed to heal, a wound can become raw and inflamed. That's why we have these weekly meetings, Miranda. I'm here to help you with your troubles, your inner wounds.”

“So you're sort of like a mental-health disinfectant.”

“That's an interesting interpretation.”

“Pine Sol, for example.”

She takes up the little notebook that's been resting in her lap, and I eye her warily. Once, after I commented upon her stenographer's pad, she flipped it open with a steely little smile and began asking me questions about the time Jackson slept with his roommate's younger sister who was visiting Cambridge for the spring crew races on the Charles. “He'd just finished a paper on
Lolita
,” I'd riposted, and then diverted her by inventing a dream, liberally peppered with Freudian imagery and obscure references to the collective unconscious.

“Now Miranda.” Mary crosses one leg over the other, nylons hissing. Her calf bulges hideously. “A few sessions ago you mentioned feeling alienated from your parents.”

“Did I?”

“Why don't we talk about that.”

I arch my foot and gaze at my sneaker. Soon, my shoelace will need to be tied again. “I got a letter from my mother the other day.”

“Yes?” Mary looks expectant. “And what did she have to say?”

“I can't really summarize it. I didn't get past the first paragraph.”

“Oh? And why is that?” she asks happily. I look over at the small plastic sign on the wall next to her diplomas, which I can only assume is a clue to her therapeutic philosophy:
NO PAIN NO GAIN
.

“It was boring.” I shrug. “I really don't have the time to waste reading such shit. I've got a lot of work to do.”

“I see.” Wrinkling her brow, Mary taps her chin with the eraser of her pencil. “Well, let's try approaching this from another angle, shall we?”

“Should I turn my chair in a different direction?”

“I don't think that will be necessary. You're fine just as you are.”

“Well, thanks. Then why am I here?”

“Miranda.” Now she's grinding the eraser into her chin. “When was the last time you wrote a letter to them?”

“My parents?”

“Yes.” Maybe she's trying to give herself a dimple.

“Thanksgiving. I sent them a Hallmark card with a picture of a turkey on it.”

“That's the most recent word your parents have had from you?”

I slouch a little lower in my chair. “Well, Phi Beta Kappa sent them a letter of congratulations. Does that count?”

“Since Thanksgiving.” She's scribbling rapturously in her notebook. “It's April now, so that means it's been, let's see—”

“That's two P's in Kappa.”

“Now, what about phone calls?” she persists.

“No, I don't think Phi Beta Kappa telephoned them.”

“I mean phone calls between you and your parents.”

“A few. I make Jessica answer the phone whenever the rates are low in California. She tells them I'm out playing video games.”

“Every time they call?”

“That's right.”

“Even if they call on—oh, Sunday morning, for example?”

“Especially on Sunday morning.”

“Mmm.”

“Sometimes I have Jessica answer the phone even when the rates aren't low in California,” I volunteer. “I have her tell whoever it is I'm out playing video games.”

“Mmm.”

“Even if it's somebody I might actually want to talk to.”

“Mmm.”

“Unlikely as that might be.”

“Miranda, let's talk about this feeling of alienation.” She speaks casually, too casually, and it is with a mixture of resignation and suspense that I watch her reach over for a file folder on her desk. She pulls out a sheet of paper and hands it to me. “I've had some time this week to take a look at your poem.”

Oh shit
, I think, cursing myself for finally relenting and giving her one of my poetry assignments, after weeks of pleasurably idle promises. I look at the lines I typed on Jessica's typewriter. With a pink highlighter Mary has marked a stanza near the bottom of the page.

playing to no stage, I hear the applause
,

the viscous fingered hiss of

grinning phantoms

their teeth glitter untouched white perfect rows

smiling on me damp and sure

“It's not one of my better efforts.” I hand it back to her.

“Miranda, your work isn't being graded in here.” She returns my poem to the file folder. “I'm interested in your writing from a psychological viewpoint, for what it tells me about how you feel about yourself. There's a morbid theatricality here which is pretty striking.”

“Well, I had to turn something in for poetry class, didn't I?”

“I think your choice of words here is quite significant.”

“Really? Professor Tidwell found my language obfuscatory and confusing.”

“Do you often have the feeling of being on stage?”

“I'm not sure we can really discuss a stanza out of context.”

“You once mentioned that you felt as if you were masquerading somehow. I believe that was the word you used.”

“Did I?”
Goddam that little notebook
. “But don't all Harvard students secretly believe they're the admission office's one mistake?”

“You've also told me that you felt as if you were fooling people.”

“Mmm.”

“This constant sensation of performing, Miranda.”

“D'you think I should've taken more drama classes?”

“Of fooling the world. This is the kind of thing I mean by inner wound.”

“Mmm.” I'm staring at the asparagus fern, wondering yet again why anybody in their right mind would choose to work at UHS when they could go into lucrative private practice and have real patients instead of whining college students complaining about homesickness and academic pressure. Once I asked her this very question. She countered by asking me why I had chosen to come to UHS, and all I could think to tell her was that it's free.

“Miranda?”

“Inner wounds,” I say hastily.

“Miranda, something tells me that you might want to evaluate your reasons for being in therapy.”

I look at her. “Would you care to expand upon that?”