The New Me by Mary Marcus

Author:Mary Marcus [Marcus, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781943486090
Publisher: Fiction Studio Books
Published: 2013-06-02T05:00:00+00:00

Nine

Dan didn’t exactly stand me up for dinner the night I arrived in Chicago. But it felt that way. I called him as soon as I got to the hotel and he said he didn’t know what time he’d be done.

“Fine,” I said, trying to sound like I didn’t care. But when I hung up the phone, I cried a little. Then I washed my face, went out on the street, and found a fabulous sushi restaurant and ate sixty-five dollars worth of it with some really good sake that cost almost as much.

No strange, handsome men tried to pick me up in the sushi bar. I went back to my hotel and took a sleeping pill.

Dan refused to attend any events for parents’ weekend. But Sam, who was far more conventional, had pulled the same thing. I didn’t care. In a way, I was secretly relieved not to be sitting husbandless and fatherless with all the normal couples, the way it had always been at school events because Jules never showed up.

I was here to visit with Dan, I told myself, and to get just a peek at his life if he’d let me. He finally arrived at my hotel to pick me up late the next afternoon. By then I’d been to the Art Institute and for another fancy meal, though it didn’t cheer me up like dinner had the night before. And again, no one paid me any attention anywhere.

He had a borrowed car and we drove to the South Side of Chicago where the campus was. He took me back to his room, a private one he had negotiated all on his own that was so small two people standing up in it felt a little like the subway car at rush hour. Dan always negotiated everything all on his own: college entrance forms, essays, he only took me to the tours because you can’t rent a car at seventeen. His room was neat, but I’d been expecting that.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” he said almost right away.

I nodded, sat down on his narrow bed, and imagined a scene from a war movie. Probably a very outdated war movie. I try and avoid war movies whenever possible. I was seeing men in camouflage, bombs going off, shrieks of agony. The American flag falling down and some bloodied arm hoisting it up.

“You don’t have to look so scared. It’s a good thing, Harriet.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! I’m in therapy here. I’m not going to any lousy school shrink; I called up Gloria and she’s funneling some of my trust money. She was very understanding. I don’t know why you don’t like her. She likes you.”

“You could have fooled me,” I replied. “But go on, tell me about the therapy.”

“I interviewed a bunch of shrinks. The one I picked isn’t on Jules’ health plan. Your insurance doesn’t cover shrinks. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“You should go,” he said, “hit up the old man for the money. That’s why I hit up Gloria.

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