Frankly Feminist by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781684581276
Publisher: Brandeis University Press

Boundaries

ILENE RAYMOND RUSH

Rennie Josephs entered Lily Manheim’s office for therapy via a personal referral. He knew one of Lily’s former patients, although he didn’t want to tell her which one. That was fine with Lily, but it did make her wonder what else he might be hiding.

Tall, with broad shoulders, long legs, and flyaway grey-blond hair, Rennie talked of himself with a disparaging humor: he said he was a terrible-yet-aspiring songwriter, a not-so-successful businessman, and a failed husband. Lily chalked this up to insecurity and his still-evolving divorce; it was clear to her that he was a talented storyteller and a bit of a comic. She figured it would take a while to get underneath why he felt he had to apologize for his very existence, but all in all, he seemed like someone who might be helped by therapy.

Rennie’s appointment started at 1:00; they finished at 1:50 and agreed to meet the same time the following week. Lily worked her way through the rest of her afternoon—a divorcée who was having trouble believing what was her life was now her life; a teenager subject to depressive episodes and cutting; a grandmother frantic about one of her grandchildren who was “running wild.” Lily listened, offered an occasional question and bits of carefully worded advice, wrote out billing sheets, and left the office shortly after five. On her way out, she told the office secretary that she’d see her Monday, wished the guard at the parking lot a good evening, then reached her Prius where she found a note tucked under the right windshield wiper.

“I know this is awkward,” it read. “But would you like to go for a drink, sometime?” It was signed, “Rennie.”

“Oh no,” Lily said out loud.

Not only was it awkward; it was extremely inappropriate. It meant rather than getting down to business during Rennie’s next appointment, they would have to discuss this note. Lily had learned this the hard way: once she had offered a patient who had issues with enmeshment the green angora sweater that Lily kept on the back of her chair when she said she was cold. The patient, Nora, a narrow professor of Victorian literature with a long pale braid and childlike hands, had visibly shrunk into her seat, as though Lily had threatened to detach a limb. Later, when Lily asked her about it, Nora had been clear—what if wearing the sweater diminished the separateness that she had been working on all these years? What if Lily’s sweater swallowed her alive? The implications turned out to be enormous. They had managed to make a joke of it, but it was a lesson Lily never quite forgot—one woman’s sweater was another woman’s worst nightmare.

In the parking garage, Lily stared at Rennie’s note. How had he known this was her car? Had he followed her to work? Asked the secretary or the garage attendant? For a second Lily flashed on Rennie, tongue caught between his teeth, bent over the scrap of legal paper, forming each letter, one at a time.

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