Notes on a Near-Life Experience (15 page)

“Mike Hickenlooper wants to ask her.”

“Mike Hickenlooper? Really? I thought he was with Kiera Garcia.”

“Nope. She dumped him. Did you see that?” He motions to the game. “His spinal cord came out with his head, that doesn't always happen.”

“Gross. So is he going to ask Haley?”

“Who knows?”

“What if he gets back together with Kiera, then what happens to Haley? She'll end up at the prom with a guy who wants to be with someone else.”

“This conversation is starting to sound too much like a female conspiracy. And I just got fried by a dragon. Let's just forget about prom for a while; I'm sorry I brought it up. It'll all work out somehow.”

I'
M TALKING TO
J
ULIAN ON THE PHONE AND THE OTHER LINE
rings. Haley's number flashes on the caller ID screen.

“Haley's calling,” I tell him.

“Oh, do you need to go, then?”

“Nah, I'll call her later.”

A few minutes later, our conversation is interrupted again, this time by Allen. He has picked up the extension in his room. “Hey, Meezer, how much longer are you gonna be on this thing? I need to call Julio and I can't find my cell phone.”

“Um, well…Julian's on the phone right now. Do you want to talk to him and just let me know when you're done?” “Julio? You there?” “Yeah,” Julian answers. “Oh. Uh… never mind, man. I'll talk to you later.”

Allen's voice sounds strange. All of a sudden I feel really dumb. Like I'm eleven years old again, bugging Julian and Allen to let me play video games with them, just so I can be around Julian.

“Yeah, I'll give you a call in a few,” Julian says.

Allen hangs up. We sit there in silence for a few seconds.

“Hey, listen, Julian, I've got homework to do, so I'd better go.” I don't really have much homework at all, but I feel weird about talking to Julian now.

“Yeah, and I need to talk to Al, so…”

“See ya.”

“Bye.”

I click the phone off.

I don't remember to call Haley back until late that night when I check my cell phone messages and there are three from her.

“Mia, I really need to talk to you. Call me.”

“Mimoo, it's me again. Call me, call me, call me!”

“Meems, I'm going to bed now. I guess we'll talk tomorrow.”

When I see her at school, I ask her what she needed to talk to me about.

“Mike Hickenlooper called me and asked me for our math assignment and he isn't even in my class. He's pretty cute, don't you think?”

“Yeah. But isn't he dating Kiera Garcia?”

“Maybe. I don't keep up on stuff like that…. So you don't think …” Her voice trails off.

“Things have been weird with me and Allen and Julian lately,” I tell her.

Haley listens to my story, but she seems kind of distracted. She's usually much more focused when we talk. The bell rings.

“Argh. Class.” Haley groans.

“I know. Doesn't it feel like just yesterday that we had the exact same classes at the exact same time?” I joke. “I feel like we never hang out anymore. Are you busy today after school?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want to do something? Maybe play a little tennis?” I like playing tennis with Haley. Even though she's a superstar player, she doesn't mind how bad I am. She just plays along. Most people, especially Allen and my dad, don't deal as well with mediocrity. Allen has freaked out on me a few times when I've tried to play soccer, and my dad used to get really annoyed with Allen when he couldn't understand his math homework.

“Sure. Let's just meet at my car after school.”

“You got it. See you there.” I make a graceless tennis-racket-swinging motion as I walk away.

“W
OULD YOU GO TO THE PROM WITH AL IF HE ASKED YOU?” I
ask Haley, looking at the strings on my racket and sort of clawing them with my fingers. I've seen tennis players on TV do this, and I'm trying to look like I don't really care what Haley says, so I continue to feel the strings while I wait for her answer.

“Why are you asking? And what are you doing with your racket?”

Haley and I took tennis lessons together in elementary school. She was great; I was okay. It didn't bother me because she was my best friend, and when she whipped someone's ass, I felt like I'd had some part in it. It's hard to be jealous of Haley. She's too nice. My mother says she's very grounded. Except when it comes to boys. She gets pretty jumpy around
guys she likes, and she's fairly oblivious when someone she isn't interested in likes her.

Once, this nerdy kid, Ricky Friedman, kept asking her to hang out, and she kept saying okay because she felt bad for him. She didn't realize that he thought they were dating, so she totally freaked out when he tried to kiss her one night. They were at the movies when he tried it, and she got up, told him she needed to use the bathroom, left the theater, and called her mom from a Wendy's down the street. We call that night “The Ricky Friedman Debacle,” and whenever anyone Haley isn't into asks her out, she always says no, even if they just want to be friends. “I can't handle another Ricky Friedman Debacle,” she says.

“I'm checking to make sure my strings are okay,” I tell her now. “And I'm asking because Allen has no one to go with and Julian really wants Allen to go with us. He could end up going with someone awful and then the whole night would suck.”

“I don't know, Meems. I can't—”

“He's no Ricky Friedman, Haley. C'mon. I mean, maybe he already has someone in mind to ask, but if he doesn't, would you go with him? Are you really into Mike Hickenlooper?”

“What? I thought you said he was with Kiera Garcia.”

“So you aren't into him?” I feel a little guilty about not telling Haley what Julian told me about Mike's having a crush on her, but if she doesn't even like him, it's not a big deal, right? Plus Haley will have more fun with us than with someone she barely knows.

“I guess not. Why?”

“No reason. Would you go with Al if he asked you?”

“Sure. I guess. Can we play now?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

I know it sounds crazy, but it feels so nice to feel like you are in control of something, however small it is. The rest of my life has gone haywire, but I will have a perfect prom night. “Great. Let me call Julian and tell him.” I put down the

racket, race over to my backpack, and get out my phone. “What? Why are you calling Julian?” I signal for her to be quiet—the phone is ringing. Julian

doesn't answer, so I leave a message.

When I hang up, Haley is staring at me. She looks a little sad, a little pissed off. “You know what, Meems? I'm tired. Let's just go home.”

“Are you sure? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything's fine. Let's just go.”

I wonder what's going on with Haley. She's been acting

weird lately.

At home that night, I still can't shake the way I feel about not telling her about Mike Hickenlooper. It's one thing not telling her about what's going on with me, but it's different to not tell her things about her. I think of calling her and telling her, but I decide against it. She'll understand, right? She always does.

I
NOTICE DURING THIS VISIT TO
L
ISZ'S OFFICE THAT HER COUCH
is purple, not black. I had assumed, because the color was so dark, that it was black. Wrongo Pongo, it's purple. A very deep plum. I realize this because I have been staring at the couch for three solid minutes without actually speaking.

I grab the jar, take out a piece of paper:
your greatest fear
.

“It says ‘your greatest fear.’ ”

I think about the potter's wheel, unused, in our garage, the diploma hanging on the wall of my father's office, the white line around the ring finger of my mother's left hand.

“My greatest fear is being caught in a fire, or maybe heights.”

“What about those two things, specifically, makes you
afraid?” Lisz asks as she leans forward, putting her elbows on

her knees, propping her head up with her hands.

I stare at her nails, a muted tangerine color.

“I guess I hate pain—and being burned would be really painful. I saw this episode of
ER
where this kid was burned and they had to, like, peel his burned skin off.”

I expect her to look grossed out, but she acts as if she hears this every day.

“And I hate heights because I hate the idea of falling. And splatting on the ground.”

“I see,” she says. “So you've expressed a great fear of physical pain….”

She asks me questions about pain: whether I had any experiences as a child where I suffered severe physical pain, whether I've been threatened with physical pain as some sort of punishment for disobedience, things like that. I consider lying, making up a story about my dad beating me with a belt for not cleaning my room, but I decide against it. I don't want to get my parents turned in to the police or anything.

“Mia, you concentrate a lot on the exterior, on the physical, in our visits. What about the interior, the mental or emotional? Do you fear that kind of pain as well?”

What kind of a question is that? Are there people out there who relish the idea of emotional anguish?

Lisz looks at me expectantly.

“I guess.”

She acts as if I have just revealed a secret that has the potential to alter the study of psychiatry as we know it.

“Okay, Mia.” She speaks cautiously, like she's the Crocodile Hunter and I am the wild animal she's trying to trap. “Tell me a little more about that.”

I don't respond. She's given herself away; I know that she's trying to trick me into saying something I don't want to say.

“Why don't you name things you think people are afraid of, and I'll tell you if those things scare me or not,” I suggest.

“I don't think that's the most effective way to go about this. Do you think there might be a better way of discussing this issue?”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Well, if I try to guess what's going on inside you— what it is that you fear—we could sit here for hours and never get anywhere. I do have some ideas about how certain things have affected you and how you've chosen to react to them, but it's important that you recognize these things for yourself.”

“Oh. But if you're a professional, don't you think you'd be better at knowing what bugs me or what makes me crazy than I would?”

“Mia. First of all, you aren't crazy. You aren't here because you are crazy or because anyone thinks you are going crazy. Second, you are here to learn about yourself by thinking and talking about your experiences, how you've responded to them and why you've responded to them the way you have, not for me to tell you who you are and why. I'm not a psychic; I'm a psychiatrist.”

“Right. Well, can I pick a different paper, then?”

After vetoing several topics, I settle on
your best friend
. I talk about Haley and the time I tried to perm her hair when we were in fourth grade, how I ended up frying it so badly that she had to cut all her hair off, and how she looked a lot like a young Matt Damon with her hair so short.

Lisz asks me if our relationship has changed since my parents began having problems.