Some of the teenagers I counseled were already so hardened, I feared there was little I could do. Others were nice kids put in bad situations. I had hope for them. The saddest cases for me, the ones most difficult to put down at night when I was trying to fall asleep while Mr. Cat meowed at the faucet, were the kids who had made one or two mistakes and felt they had already ruined their lives, so they thought, why even try? These were the kids who for me proved the hypothesis of my senior thesis. That guilt begets more bad deeds. These kids weren’t evil. They were defeated.
Since I used cookies in my thesis analogy, I stayed on that track and used ice cream as an example with them. And brought in ice cream bars to make the lesson more fun. These good kids who had made one or two mistakes felt exactly like a person on a diet might feel when they cheat and eat a little ice cream. They’ve fucked it all up so irrevocably that they might as well eat the whole carton. It was these kids who I tried to connect with the most. I tried to break through to them, wanting them to know that life was long, hopefully. And doing one bad thing didn’t mean they had to continue to do many bad things. And it certainly didn’t mean they should hate themselves. I would urge them and coach them to “forgive yourself, believe in yourself, and move forward.” I felt extremely qualified to give this advice, and my earnestness and lack of condescension seemed to seep through and reach a few of the kids. I was more convinced than ever that feeling guilty solved nothing. And self-hatred was never the answer.
I was loving my new internship—it was rewarding, and I was truly helping others—and so it was fitting that while there I got the good news. Dr. Don called me. After her final mandated session, the Witch had obnoxiously marched out of Dr. Don’s office, crossed the street to the parking garage, and, as usual, wasn’t paying attention to the road. She was hit by a truck and killed on impact.
In our next session, Alisha, having heard all about Evelyn W.’s demise, asked me if I felt guilty at all, because I had harbored bad feelings toward her, and now she was actually dead. I thought about the hypocrisy of the posthumous Duncan Reese chatter. And I said no. I had nothing to feel guilty about. Alisha was happy to hear it, and agreed. We talked about Evelyn W. for a while that day, and I expressed my feelings. She was a cruel person who blamed others for her unhappiness. She had no interest in taking any responsibility for her behavior, and she sucked the joy from people, rather than adding anything positive to society. She would not be missed, and her death might just make the world a slightly better place. Alisha listened and mused that sometimes karma had a way of working things out. “Yes,” I said. “Karma.”
CHAPTER 20
JASON
Jason was twenty-eight, from a small town right outside of Atlanta, had divorced parents, was an only child, a Falcons fan (couldn’t get behind the Braves because of their offensive use of Native American culture), and a cameraman for ABC’s local news affiliate. He had started in the field driving around in the van with the reporters, shooting exterior shots and on-the-fly interviews, but was now in the studio, which he much preferred. I learned none of this on our first date.
We met in the Delano hotel lobby. Jason asked if we could have dinner instead of just drinks. He got off work later than expected and had to eat. A healthy blood sugar depended on it. I made a little joke that he was upping the ante. Turning our first date from a casual drinks situation to a whole formal dinner. He said if dinner went horribly wrong, we could each make an excuse to not go for drinks. I liked it. Our date was already becoming self-referential. Meta, as the receptionist at the vet’s office might say.
I told him my excuse for canceling drinks and cutting our date short was going to be not feeling well, food poisoning of some sort. He said since he had real medical issues he didn’t like to lie about that kind of stuff and test the fates, so he decided his excuse would be a friend calling with some sort of locked-out-of-the-house emergency so he would have to leave to save the day. We shook on it. He had a nice firm grip, but I could tell he was being gentlemanly about it, not giving me the full extent of his squeeze potential. We headed out to the poolside restaurant.
I wasn’t worried about not having a reservation since I knew everyone in town, Miami Beach was small, and locals always took care of one another. I was sure I could finagle a last-minute table. But at the hostess stand it was clear that my date had called ahead and had a table for two reserved under the name Jason Hollander. So now I knew his last name. I liked it. It sounded handsome without being too soap-opera-y. And I also now knew he took the step of making a dinner reservation before asking me if dinner was even okay. I liked that too. He was both confident and prepared. But not pushy.
Jason and I fell into an easy rhythm of people watching and talking about what was happening around us.
“Is that her father or her date?” I asked about the slinky blonde at the corner table sitting next to a liver-spotted man.
“Oh, wow. He’s way too old to be her father. So he must be her date.”
We laughed and moved on to another table. A group of sunburnt men in their thirties smoking cigars. Jason asked me, “Corporate retreat?” I looked the men over, sensing a frantic time-is-ticking vibe.
“Bachelor party. For sure. On Monday they all have to go back to their lives, which they’re dreading.” Jason wasn’t convinced, so I called over to the table, “Hey, which one of you guys is getting married?” The most sunburnt of them all raised his hand, like a good pupil. The others punched his arms in camaraderie. “Congrats!” I said.
Jason was impressed that I had guessed correctly. I wanted to tell him it was my job to study people and assess their situations, but I didn’t. Because he didn’t ask me any of the usual first-date questions, like “What do you do?” “Where are you from originally?” “Do you have any siblings?” “Where did you go to college?” And, of course, “What year did you graduate?” which was the polite way of asking, “How old are you?”
And since he didn’t ask me any of those questions, I didn’t ask him. It was like a game of chicken. So by the end of the date I felt I knew him as a person, without any of the details and facts that usually make up a person. I knew he was patient with the waitress, but not overly chatty. He was curious about others, but not judgmental. We told little stories and anecdotes, but didn’t delve into our stats. If someone had listened in to our entire date, they would have thought we had been together for months. I say months and not years because our physical attraction to each other simmered and popped like hot oil, in a way that years tend to cool.
It was one of the oddest first dates I had ever been on, since the predictable first-date script was never recited. I wanted him to know how old I was. That I had an older sister. That my parents lived just down the road. That I had gone to Yale for undergrad and was finishing up my doctorate in psychology at UM. But why? Why did I want him to know these things? Maybe it was because I didn’t know who I was without them.
We each had two drinks at dinner, and once the check came (Jason paid, although I of course reached for my purse to offer to split it), neither of us gave our predetermined excuse as to why we couldn’t possibly now have drinks. So we walked over to the lobby bar and settled in. He had another martini with three olives, and I had a glass of Champagne. He asked why Champagne, and I explained the bubbles made it impossible to drink too fast, it was light and not too sweet and left me feeling buzzed and happy but never hammered, it didn’t give me a hangover, and it made me feel fancy.