“Oh,” Lizzie said, stricken with guilt. “I didn’t get Todd anything.”
“I did,” George assured her. “A Dallas Cowboys warm-up jacket. That should confound the Aussies when he wears it.”
Elaine and Allan were beaming. It finally occurred to Lizzie to wonder if George had ever brought another girl home for Christmas with his family, and, if so, what happened to her. Could it have been the girl he was with the night they met? What was her name? Lizzie thought she might ask George about it on the plane ride home.
George surveyed the stacks of gifts he and Lizzie had gotten. “We’ll need another suitcase to carry all this back to Ann Arbor, Mom.”
“Easily solved. You can take one of ours and just bring it back next time.”
Allan looked at his watch. “We’d better get over to the shelter. They’ll be serving lunch soon. Who’s going with me? George? Elaine? Lizzie?”
Elaine spoke first. “I’ve got lots and lots of cookies and a couple of casseroles for you to take, but perhaps Lizzie and I will stay home. Is that okay with you, Lizzie, or do you especially want to go?”
“No, staying here is fine. We can eat cookies and try some of the teas from Mr. and Mrs. Goldrosen in my new teacups.”
“Lovely,” Elaine said, “and listen, I’m sure they’d be happy to have you call them Gertie and Sam.”
“Of course they would,” Allan added.
Sam, maybe, Lizzie thought. Not Gertie.
“I’m devoted to mismatched china,” Elaine said as they were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking their tea—Elaine, Earl Grey, and Lizzie, Assam. “It just seems more festive to me. I don’t mean to inflict my taste on you, though. It’s too late to return these, now that we’ve drunk from them, but if you’d rather have two sets that match, I’ll keep these and send you some others.”
“No, no,” Lizzie assured her. “I just never thought about it before. They’re lovely.”
They sat in companionable silence while they sipped their tea.
“So, Lizzie,” Elaine began. “George told us your parents are important psychology professors at U of M?”
“Um, yeah, I guess so. A lot of people think they’re important, anyway.”
“I was a French major as an undergraduate, but I once considered going into psychology. I always thought I might be a good social worker or school counselor.”
“I bet you’d be wonderful at that. Do you ever think about going back to school to get a degree?”
“Oh, I’m not sure I even want to at this point. I think I’d rather be lazy and eat cookies and drink tea. What area of psychology are your parents in?”
“They’re behaviorists, so they don’t do counseling or therapy.”
“What are they like? Are you close to them? Were they okay with you spending the holidays here?”
Lizzie paused. How to explain? How much should she tell Elaine? (“You’re probably one of the most self-centered people I’ve ever met,” George had said.)
“I’m so sorry,” Elaine said instantly. “Is that too personal? You don’t need to answer. I’m just always curious about people’s lives.”
“No, it’s okay. I just need to figure out how to explain them to you. It’s like”—she fumbled with her words—“they’re just not the sort of people anyone could be close to.”
“That must be sad for you. And difficult.”
“Not really. Not anymore. It was harder when I was a kid. See, not only would they never do counseling, but they think psychologists who do do that are a joke. Or they would think it’s a joke if either one of them had a sense of humor. Psychologists like them, behaviorists, don’t believe in an ‘inner self.’ There’s actually a famous joke, or at least famous in behaviorist circles and of course those who dislike behaviorists, that goes like this: Two behaviorists meet on the street and each one asks the other, ‘How am I?’”
Elaine smiled. Lizzie wondered if she should go on. “Is this more than you want to know?”
“No, no, don’t stop. I’m fascinated. Do they really not believe in an inner self?”
“Well, at least they don’t believe that the notion of an inner self—or inner life—is useful for what they call the science of psychology.” Lizzie emphasized the last three words and added air quotes around them. “And it’s really important for my parents to think of themselves as real scientists.” More air quotes. “Just like physicists, or biologists.”
“How curious,” Elaine said as she stood up. “Let’s make another pot of tea—I want to hear more.”
While the water was boiling Lizzie said, “I think George is terrifically lucky to have you and Allan as parents. It’s just so nice here.”
Being in Tulsa at his parents’ house with George made Lizzie anxious (how did she feel about him, anyway?), but spending time alone with Elaine was calming and comforting and gave her some idea of what her life might have been like if someone besides Lydia had been her mother.
Elaine gave her a quick hug and then said, “You’re sweet. I see why George likes you so much. Okay, finish what you were saying before. I feel as though I should be taking notes. Are you going to give me an exam at the end?”
“Of course,” Lizzie said. “And I should warn you that I’m a very hard grader. Anyway,” she went on, “all those early behaviorists saw that real scientists, like biologists, only studied things that they could see, and you couldn’t ever see the mind. Except perhaps your own. And that might be enough to write poetry, but it wouldn’t pass muster as a scientific study. They believed that all that you could see was behavior. So they gave up any examination of the mind or the inner self, and just studied how people behaved. And if people insisted on talking about their ‘inner experience,’ well, that was just considered verbal behavior. Kind of embarrassingly bad behavior, in fact. Problem solved.
“I think it’s all bullshit,” Lizzie went on, “what my parents and their friends believe, and not just because they’re my parents and I’m rebelling against them. Everyone knows they have a mind. And I’d hate a life without poetry in it.”
Elaine nodded, a clear encouragement to continue.
“My parents think that people are like animals, and they’ll do what they’re rewarded for and won’t do what they’re punished for doing. And they think that’s a great insight.”
“Maybe some behaviorists should become animal trainers,” Elaine joked.
“Actually, a lot of them did go on to become pretty good animal trainers. And people trainers too. My father spends his days running lab rats to try to shape their behavior in particular ways. And because of that, he’s discovered some pretty effective ways of controlling people’s behavior too.”