by Thea Thomas
“Me too. It’d be great to come home from school to a furnished apartment.”
The news about the furniture was fantastic, but I was still more preoccupied with wondering when I’d get to see Mitch again. Did I have to rely on accidental, coincidental meetings in the hall or in the corner grocery? I already knew I could go for days without seeing him, if that were the case. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine gathering the courage to walk down the hall and knock on his door.
But there he was, talking with Homer at the door when I came home from school in the afternoon. He fell into step beside me, and rode up in the elevator with me, just as if we’d planned it.
“How was school?”
“Okay,” I answered. I couldn’t resist asking one of my biggest questions. “Where do you go to school?”
“I don’t. I’ve done home study since my father died. I live with my mother and my Uncle – my dad’s brother. We moved in with him when my father died and he sort of rules us with an iron hand. He told my mother he didn’t want a cookie cutter kid for a nephew, which is how he feels about public school. He never went to school at all. He has the idea that it’s something awful.”
“Wow,” I said, for lack of anything more profound. I had no idea how to respond. “How do you feel about it?”
“Sometimes it’s okay because both my uncle and my mom teach me, and they both know quite a lot. But sometimes I’d like to be with people my own age. My family is Romanian and they have a long heritage of sticking with family, no matter what. I mean, whether they’re right or wrong. It goes back generations, so who am I to even consider breaking the chain? But sometimes chains get old and rusty and they don’t serve anymore.”
We were now in front of my apartment, talking in the hall again, and I hoped Mom wouldn’t pop her head out the door like she did yesterday.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I want to go to college, I want to break family tradition and become a lawyer.”
“What does your uncle want you to become?”
“Oh, ah, well, it’s kind of hard to explain. I’ll... we’ll get into that some other time.”
I sensed that same discomfort from Mitch that I picked up on yesterday when mom asked him if his apartment was hit by the thieves. “Do you want to come in and, I don’t know, talk some more?”
Right then Mom started playing the piano and the round tones of scales muffled their way through the door.
“Your mother is a wonderful pianist.”
“Scales?”
“Anything. She’s got the touch of an artist. I’ll tell you, I’d rather listen to your mother play scales for an hour than have any of the Rionews attempt to play for five minutes. There’s no escaping hearing your piano in our apartment, but with your mother playing, I never want to escape it.”
“I can’t imagine any way more directly to my Mom’s heart than for her to hear that kind of praise. Come on in, I’ll sit you down on the sofa and you can listen to Mom play without the walls between. I’ll even bring you some milk and cookies, not-cookie-cutter boy.”
Well, of course Mom was crazy flattered when Mitch told her how much he enjoyed her playing.
“What would you like to hear?” she asked, fingers poised over the keyboard.
“I love all the classic composers,” Mitch said, getting himself ever deeper into Mom’s heart. Then he made the last parry by saying, “But Beethoven is my favorite.”
Mom’s too.
I was happy to wait on Mitch and share his enjoyment of the piano concert. After half-an-hour, Mom quit and stretched, smiling at the both of us. She pointed at the far wall. “Didn’t you notice, Nikki?”
“Oh! Look, some of the antiques are back. And that painting! That’s wonderful. I guess the police are really on top of things.”
I saw Mitch nervously look at his watch out of the corner of my eye. He leapt up. “Goodness, I didn’t realize it was so late, I’ve got to get home. Thank you for letting me listen to you play, Mrs. Francis, I enjoyed it more than I can express.” And he bolted from the apartment.
Mom and I exchanged a that-was-sort-of-strange look. I felt disappointment creeping over me that I didn’t get to talk with him more. I mean, we just listened to Mom play. Why didn’t he say, “I’ll see you tomorrow after school,” or “do you want to do something this weekend?” Or something. Or anything. But then, if his peer group socialization was curtailed as much as he’d said, how would he know what the girl next door might hope for him to do or say? I suddenly realized that he seemed more at ease talking with Mom than with me.
“Charming young man, really,” Mom mused. “Do you know any more about him than you did before?”
“His family is Romanian, so you were right about the accent. His father died five years ago, and now he and his mother live with his uncle. Oh, and his uncle keeps him out of public school because he doesn’t want Mitch to be a “cookie-cutter boy” like everyone who goes to public school. Mitch wants to be a lawyer, but his uncle doesn’t want him to become that, either. He said his uncle never went to school at all.”
“Hmmm,” Mom said, cautiously. “The uncle sounds sort of like a tyrant.”
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
“By-the-by, Nikki, don’t forget your appointment with Dr. Carcionne tomorrow.”
“What a segue! How could I ‘forget’ something I didn’t even know about? I’m doing great, Mom, why should I see her?”
“It can’t hurt to go a few times. There must be things you could use a sounding board to help you sort out.”
“I’ve got you and Dad, Mom. My over-protective parents.”
“I’m glad you feel that you can talk with us,” she answered, ignoring the “overprotective” part. “And I have to admit I’m very happy to see you making some positive adjustments to your new environment. But this whole business of being robbed, and the trauma you went through when you thought your ring was missing – I just don’t want you to be scarred.”
“I’m not scarred, Mom. I’ve got my ring, and I’m fine.”
“That’s good. I hope you share all of that with Dr. Carcionne. Dad is going to pick you up after school to take you to your appointment.”
“He’s leaving work early?”
“I had planned to take you, but he said he had some errands to run and he’d just take off an hour early and get both birds with one stone, so that’s all organized.”
“Ah. I’m just a stoned little bird, am I?” I went to my bedroom and changed into jeans and a sweat shirt. Then I realized that I wouldn’t be coming home at my usual time tomorrow, if, by any chance, Mitch was watching for me. Yet another downer.
On the other hand, I decided, I really could use a good talk with someone who didn’t have it all decided in her mind what I think, and what I mean, and what I need, like Mom did. If only Dr. Carcionne would be that person! It still felt like Mom was putting her fears onto me. It was Mom who felt violated and invaded and threatened and afraid since the theft. And, honestly, I couldn’t blame her. She didn’t have the visitation from Grammy that I had that made everything all right.
That’s when a wonderful plan sprung full blown in my mind. I could nab a couple of birdies with a single stone too!
* *
Once inside Dr. Carcionne’s inner sanctum the next afternoon, I tried to remember exactly what I had rehearsed the night before, but the clever way I’d put it together slipped my mind. Then Dr. Carcionne really messed it up by starting off with her own agenda – or rather, Mom’s.
“You mother mentioned that you’ve started up a friendship with a neighbor boy.”
Something came over me. I wasn’t going to tolerate this spying any more. “Look, Dr. Carcionne, it’s like this �
�� my Mom feels obligated to force me to come and see you. I’m interested in seeing that it’s as few times as possible, because you and she have an agenda for me. But it’s not my agenda. If I can’t come in here and and talk about what I want to talk about, and if I can’t feel like what goes on in here is confidential, then I’m going to be honest and tell you I’m going to clam up. It’s that simple. But if we can strike a bargain that this is my time, and my agenda, that it’s strictly confidential, then I might try to get involved in this process. If not, then... not.”
Dr. Carcionne’s eyebrows went up. Btu, slowly, a smile spread over her face. “I agree with you completely. First let me reassure you that what little interaction you and I have had has been confidential. I haven’t told your mother what we’ve talked about. She just tells me what her concerns are about you, and, of course, I listen. But I agree with you that these sessions need to serve your needs, not your mother’s.”
Now it was my turn for my eyebrows to go up. “Wow! That was pretty painless.”
“So – what do you want to talk about?”
“Well, if we’re going to work on what’s important to me, then I have tons of stuff. But at the top of the list is sort of this same subject. Let’s say there’s a mother who, whenever something happens to her, she has her daughter go to therapy because what’s upsetting to the mother she’s sure is causing the daughter to freak out. But it’s not true. The things that are biggest to the daughter, the mother either doesn’t think are important, or she doesn’t know about them at all.
“So let’s say the daughter wishes there was something she could do to help her mother. For instance, when the mother had something stolen, and she’s really, really upset about it, instead of admitting that, she tells the daughter, oh, you must be so upset about this theft. You must be unhappy , you must be scarred. And the daughter answers that it does make her unhappy, but she’s not afraid or angry, and she’s certainly not scarred. She’s not afraid because she feels protected by her parents, she’s not angry because everything that was stolen was insured. Not that she doesn’t feel awful about it, but she’s not quietly freaking out. But she does think the mother is quietly freaking out. What could a daughter in a situation like that do to help the mother?”
Dr. Carcionne nodded. I could tell she was really listening.
“I’d suggest to the daughter that she tell the mother in this same direct way what her observations are.”
“What if the daughter has done that, and the mother gets all mad because the daughter is acting insubordinate. What if the mother really can’t look at her stuff, and, in fact, it gets worse when the daughter tries to say out loud what she feels she’s seeing.”
“Then I’d say the daughter has been put in a untenable position... the daughter is in a double bind.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds right to me.”
“It’s when, no matter what you do, you can’t do the “right” thing because the other person has made all the choices be wrong – so one can’t move in any direction. My next suggestion is that perhaps regarding this one subject the daughter let her therapist address it with the mother, and see if some progress can be made. What do you think of that alternative?”
“Well... if that can be done very carefully, in order not the cause the mother to make the daughter’s life a living hell, like what happened when the therapist told the mother that the daughter accused the mother of projecting.”
“Ahh. In that case, I can’t blame you for being cautious with me. I wouldn’t want to talk with me anymore, either. I have an idea, let’s write out a plan and an agreement for what our focus will be for the next few sessions. I’ll give this issue surrounding the mother’s projection some thought, if you don’t mind just letting things settle for the moment.”
“I don’t mind. As long as I feel someone finally understands my dilemma, I can be very patient about how to solve it.”
Chapter IX
I couldn’t have been more surprised when I walked through the door at home after my appointment with Dr. Carcionne, to hear Mitch in the kitchen talking with Mom.
“Who’s that?” Dad asked.
“Mitch,” I answered.
“Hi, guys,” Mom called. “Come and join us. Mitch helped me carry in the groceries, and I asked him to stay for dinner. Mitch, this is Nikki’s father, Dan.”
The two of them shook hands and exchanged greetings. I was delighted to see Mitch, but I felt strangely shy and at a loss for words. I didn’t really know Mitch that well, and now here he was, with all of my parents. Like, what could a person say, anyway?
“How was your session?” Mom asked.
Well, that was absolutely not what I wanted to have brought up. “Fine Mom.”
“Really?”
“Actually, yeah, really. But, you know, I don’t want to talk about it now.”
“That’s okay. I already told Mitch where you were when he said he hoped he’d see you after school, but it seemed you didn’t come home.”
What was okay about telling a boy you liked that you were at a shrink session? I wondered, verging on furious. “First you tell him you think I’m talking to myself in the hall, then you tell him I’m in therapy. You’re going to have him scared to even tip-toe past the door for fear of the crazy girl.”
Mom laughed. “Nonsense. You’re being too sensitive.”
“Well,” Mitch finally jumped in, “I’m, not afraid of you, and I know you’re not crazy. I think the science of the mind is very important,” he continued. “And to understand one’s mind with the assistance of someone trained in the field is the better part of wisdom.”
“See?” Mom said. “He’s almost got me convinced to make an appointment for myself. After all, you don’t have to be dysfunctional to go to therapy. You can want to go and work on gaining insight.”
“That’s nice that I don’t have to be dysfunctional, Mom.”
“Oh dear,” Mom said, actually sensitive enough to become a bit flustered. “That didn’t come out like I meant it. Get washed up for dinner, it’ll be ready soon. Mitch is so helpful. He set the table and everything.”
“Thanks,” I said to him as I left the kitchen. Well, what else do you say to a boy you like who has just done your chores?
In my room I decided that the whole thing was a little too weird. Just entirely toooo much parent-presence. But I had to make the best of it. I pulled on a pair of jeans, then tried on half-a-dozen tops. Too casual, too ragged-old, ugly color, too dressy. There was no hope for it. I went back to “too casual,” the pale blue tee-shirt that sort of matched my eyes. Well, this was me most of the time. Mitch might as well know the real me, casual tee-shirts, shrink sessions, and all.
Dinner was not quite the disaster I’d braced myself for. Mitch, with his adult manner, carried on intelligent, interesting conversation with my parents, but he didn’t miss an opportunity to give me the occasional side-long glance. We both seemed to understand that conversation between just the two of us was a lost cause, and besides, what I was learning about him through my parents’ curiosity was more than I’d ever ask him on my own. I couldn’t imagine asking him all these questions about his experiences, his family and his ambitions for the future.
By the time Mom had brought out the cheesecake – which reminded me that I still wanted to talk with Mr. Zingas about why he didn’t like Mitch – Dad had offered to see what he could do to help Mitch get into college when the time came, or what he needed to do to test out, as he hadn’t had an institutional education.
“If you think you could pass college prep exams, I’m willing to go to bat for you,” Dad said.
“I’ve been preparing for them on my own. I have more than one reference book and a bunch of sample tests. I believe I’ll do all right.”
“Well, he’s not.” There was passion in Mitch’s voice. I looked at him quickly, it was the first thing like anger I’d seen cross his features. I could tell that Mom and Dad picked up on it too, but Dad just continued.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do. Your ambitions are admirable, and you’re obviously very bright, as well as mature. It doesn’t seem right that you be held back when in some ways you have it all over most college freshmen.”
Mitch got shy. “Well, thanks. It’d mean more to me than I can express. It could make the difference for the whole path of my life.”
After the dishes were cleared away and Mitch went down the hall to his home, I felt Dad looking at me.
“What?” I finally said.
“I can see why you find that young man attractive,” Dad answered.
“Oh, Da-a-a-d!”
“Your mom is right about him. The little boys you’ve been interested in up until this point have been, well, boys. But Mitch is an attractive, intelligent, poised young man.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want me to go out with him?”
“No, I’m not telling you that. I might as well chain you to your bedpost and never let you out of my sight ever again, as to say that. What I’m saying is... I’m saying that tonight I’ve had to take another look at my baby girl, and here I see she’s become a young woman. I don’t know why you have to grow up so fast Bunny Love, but my job is to be aware, and to remind you that I’m here if you need me.”
Dad reached out and took Mom’s hand, “that we’re here, and you can ask us anything. Okay?”
My telephone, laying on the entry table rang, which almost never happens, and with gratitude for the interruption, I leapt up to answer it.
