“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Infuriatingly, Tina said nothing. She kept stabbing away at her salad. I couldn’t take it one more second. I snatched the plate away from her. She froze with her fork raised mid-blow.
“What have I done that could possibly invite criticism from anyone?” I demanded. “I do everything by the rule book.”
“By whose rule book? That sexist cult they let you think you run?”
I sent the plate spinning back in her direction. “That’s sexism, actually.”
Tina picked spinach off her blouse; flicked it onto the table. Coolly, she asked, “Does the council tell you to say that?”
“No one tells me to say anything,” I fumed. “I’ve been a member of this organization going on four years, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The chapter exists to support like-minded women in their goals and values.”
“Is going to Shoreline College of Law your one goal and value in life?”
How dare she. “It’s Shorebird, and you’re a terrible snob.”
Tina laid down her fork with a surrendering sigh. Almost sadly, she said, “I know you got into Columbia.”
Even though I was furious with her, my chest expanded, full and proud, at the mention of Columbia. Of course I was dying to know how she knew about Columbia, but I had too much pride to ask.
“Despite what you may think,” Tina obliged me without my having to ask, “not every member of law enforcement considers me a nuisance. Some of them actually think I’m onto something. Some of them talked to me about the items retrieved from the scene, and one of them told me they found your acceptance letter in Denise’s nightstand. She kept that for you. In case she succeeded in getting you to change your mind.” Tina folded her hands on the table contritely. Her dark eyebrows relaxed, her whole face smoothing out in a display of genuine remorse. “So now I would like to apologize, because it sounds like Denise was your most avid supporter. And I really have no room to talk.” She laughed tiredly. “Psychiatry is one of the patriarchy’s favored tools to control women. They’re still committing people like me for doing what I do in my personal life.”
I was breathing like a bull, tears spilling down my cheeks, thinking about Denise holding on to my acceptance letter. I was remembering the remarks Detective Pickell had made during my police interview. About being impressed I’d gotten into Columbia. At the time I assumed I’d told him about it in the immediate aftermath of the attack, that I’d been so out of it I’d forgotten. But that wasn’t where he’d heard it. He’d heard it from Denise. He’d heard it from beyond the grave.
“Wild guess here,” Tina continued plaintively. “Your fiancé wasn’t Ivy material. So you’re going to the school you both got into, the one with a goofy name that is criminally beneath you.”
I could not bear to meet her eye. Nothing she’d said was so wild at all. “Shorebird has good placement in the job market,” I said pathetically to the stone wall. “Better than you would think.”
“If he had gotten into Columbia and you hadn’t, would he be going to Columbia?”
“Yes, but it isn’t the same thing,” I rushed to say. “I’m from up there. I’d have friends. Family. Other options.”
Tina just looked sorry for me.
“He’s not like that,” I insisted. “Whatever you’re thinking, he’s not. Between school and running the chapter and my volunteer hours and my externship, I’m constantly, you know, go, go, go, and he never gives me a hard time. He lets me do whatever I want. Most guys don’t do that. And I despise dating. I’d rather stick hot pins in my eyes. Brian is… one less thing I have to do.” I could hear that I’d lost control of the conversation, that I was losing at this, whatever this was.
“He lets you,” Tina repeated damningly.
“No!” I cried. “No. I don’t mean it like that. You’re twisting it. Anything I say, you’ll find a way to twist it, because it’s not what you think I should be doing. I did struggle with the choice. I did. But in the end. This is…” I stopped, picturing my well-bred boyfriend, his needlepoint belts and stringy hair, remembering what it felt like when he threw his arm around me at Denise’s funeral, carrying me along at his own sovereign pace. Brian’s gait was one that was both sure and easy, as though he had places to be but there was no rush to get there. For him, people would wait. Marrying Brian was something I should want, and it made me feel diseased, how little I seemed to want the things that other women my age did without complication.
“This is a good option for me,” I concluded.
Tina nodded with profuse empathy. Like everything I said made perfect sense. For a moment, I felt light and unburdened. All I’d had to do was explain it, get that off my chest, and now even Tina had to admit that just because a relationship was complicated, it didn’t have to be disposable.
“The hardest part of my job,” Tina began in a heartsick voice, “is allowing patients to make their own choices. I cannot tell them what to do or what not to do, even when the right choice is clear as day to me. My role as a shrink is to provide people with a framework to understand what drives them and informs their behavior. A person’s childhood shapes everything about that framework. I don’t know you well enough to know what happened to you young, why you must always be going, going, going, why your life is so tightly scheduled and controlled”—she was making a fist and speaking through a clenched jaw, animating what I supposed she thought was my ironclad attitude toward life—“why you are so distressed by the thought of dating that you’d rather just marry Freddy Frat Boy than face the discomfort and explore what it is all really about. Anyway”—Tina placed her palms on the table and pressed her weight on them, leaning forward like she wanted her words to physically reach me—“you’re not my patient, and I’m not your therapist. Which means I can tell you exactly what I think you should do.”
The last of the diners were making their way out the door, yelping in the frigid night, on their way to kick up their heels, and I felt myself edging into the corner of my booth, unreasonably frightened about whatever it was Tina was gearing up to say.