第 6 页

At first I am polite and answer by saying that Tiffany was nice and well dressed and had a pretty good body, but Cliff keeps pushing for the truth like therapists do, because they all have some sort of psychic ability that allows them to see through your lies, and therefore they know you will eventually tire of the talking game and will offer up the truth.

Finally I say, “Well, the thing is—and I don’t like saying this—but Tiffany is kind of slutty.”

“What do you mean?” Cliff asks me.

“I mean she’s sort of a whore.”

Cliff sits forward a little. He looks surprised, and uncomfortable enough to make me feel uncomfortable. “On what do you base your observation? Did she dress provocatively?”

“No. I told you already. She wore a nice dress. But as soon as we finished our dessert, she asked me to walk her home.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. But at the end of the walk she asked me to have sexual intercourse with her, and not in those words.”

Cliff removes his fingers from his chin, sits back, and says, “Oh.”

“I know. It shocked me too, especially because she knows I’m married.”

“So did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Have sexual intercourse with Tiffany?”

At first Cliff’s words don’t register, but when they do, I become angry. “No!”

“Why not?”

I cannot believe Cliff has actually asked me such a question, especially since he is a happily married man himself, but I dignify the inquiry with an answer anyway. “Because I love my wife! That’s why!”

“That’s what I thought,” he says, which makes me feel a little better. He is only testing my morals, which is perfectly understandable, because people outside of mental institutions need to have good morals so that the world will continue to work without any major interruptions—and happy endings will flourish.

Then I say, “I don’t even know why Tiffany would ask me to have sex with her anyway. I mean, I’m not even an attractive guy; she’s pretty and could do a lot better than me for sure. So I’m thinking now that maybe she’s a nymphomaniac. What do you think?”

“I don’t know whether she is a nymphomaniac or not,” he says. “But I do know that sometimes people say and do what they think others want them to. Maybe Tiffany really did not want to have sex with you, but only offered something she thought you would find valuable, so you would value her.”

I think about his explanation for a second and then say, “So you’re saying that Tiffany thought I wanted to have sex with her?”

“Not necessarily.” He grabs his chin again. “Your mother told me you came home with makeup on your shirt. Do you mind if I ask how that happened?”

Reluctantly, because I don’t like to gossip, I tell him about Tiffany’s wearing her wedding ring even after her husband died, and the hugging and the crying we did in front of her parents’ house.

Cliff nods and says, “It seems like Tiffany really needs a friend, and that she thought having sex with you would make you want to be her friend. But tell me again how you handled the situation.”

So I tell him exactly what led us to the hug and how I let her get makeup on my Hank Baskett jersey and—

“Where did you get a Hank Baskett jersey?” he asks me.

“I told you. My brother gave it to me.”

“That’s what you wore to the dinner party?”

“Yeah, just like you told me to.”

He smiles and even chuckles, which surprises me. Then he adds, “What did your friends say?”

“Ronnie said that Hank Baskett is the man.”

“Hank Baskett is the man. I bet he catches at least seven touchdowns this season.”

“Cliff, you’re an Eagles fan?”

He does the Eagles chant—“E!-A!-G!-L!-E!-S! EAGLES!”—which makes me laugh because he is my therapist and I did not know therapists could like NFL football.

“Well, now that I know you too bleed green, we’ll have to talk Birds off the clock,” Cliff says. “So you really let Tiffany cry her makeup onto your brand-new Hank Baskett jersey?”

“Yeah, and it’s one with stitched-on numbers, not the cheap iron-ons.”

“Authentic Hank Baskett jersey!” he says. “That was certainly very kind of you, Pat. It sounds like Tiffany only really needed a hug, which you gave her because you are a nice guy.”

I can’t help smiling, because I really am trying hard to be a nice guy. “Yeah, I know, but now she’s always following me all over town.”

“What do you mean?”

So I tell Cliff that since the dinner party, whenever I put on a trash bag and leave my house for a run, Tiffany is always waiting outside in her little running outfit and pink headband. “Very politely, I told her that I do not like running with other people and asked her to leave me alone, but she ignored my request and simply jogged five feet behind me for my entire run. The next day, she did the same thing, and she keeps on doing it. Somehow she’s figured out my schedule, and she’s always there when I leave my house an hour before sunset—ready to shadow me wherever I jog. I run fast, and she stays with me. I run on dangerous streets, and she follows. She never tires out either—and just keeps running down the street when I finally stop in front of my house. She doesn’t even say hello or goodbye.”

“Why don’t you want her to follow you?” Cliff asks.

So I ask him how his wife, Sonja, would feel if some hot woman shadowed him every time he went for a run.

He smiles the way guys do when they are alone and talking about women in a sexual way, and then he says, “So you think Tiffany is hot?” This surprises me because I did not know therapists were allowed to talk like guys do when they are buddies, and I wonder if this means that Cliff thinks of me as his buddy now.

“Sure, she’s hot,” I say. “But I’m married.”

He grabs his chin and says, “How long has it been since you’ve seen Nikki?”

I tell him I don’t know. “Maybe a couple of months,” I say.

“Do you really believe that?” he asks, grabbing his chin again.

When I say I do, I hear the yelling in my voice and even allow the f-word to slip out. Immediately I feel bad because Cliff was talking to me like a friend, and sane people should not yell and curse at their buddies.

“I’m sorry,” I say when Cliff starts to look scared.

“It’s okay,” he says, and forces a smile. “I should believe that you really mean what you tell me.” He scratches his head for a second and then says, “My wife loves foreign films. Do you like foreign films?”

“With subtitles?”

“Yes.”

“I hate those types of films.”

“Me too,” Cliff says. “Mostly because—”

“No happy endings.”

“Exactly,” Cliff says, pointing a brown finger at my face. “So depressing most of the time.”

I nod wholeheartedly in agreement, even though I haven’t been to see any movies for a long time, and won’t until Nikki returns, because I am now watching the movie of my life as I live it.

“My wife used to beg me to take her to see these foreign films with subtitles all the time,” Cliff says. “It seemed like every day she would ask me if we might go to see a foreign film, until I broke down and started taking her. Every Wednesday night we’d go to the Ritz movie theater and see some depressing movie. And you know what?”

“What?”

“After a year we simply stopped going.”

“Why?”

“She stopped asking.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But maybe if you take an interest in Tiffany, ask her to run with you and maybe to go out to dinner a few times—maybe after a few weeks, she will grow tired of the chase and leave you alone. Let her get what she wants, and maybe she will not want it anymore. Understand?”

I do understand, but cannot help asking, “Do you think that will really work?”

And Cliff shrugs in a way that makes me believe it will.

I Can Share Raisin Bran

On the drive home from Cliff’s office I ask my mom if she thinks asking Tiffany on a date is the best way to get rid of her once and for all, and Mom says, “You shouldn’t be trying to get rid of anyone. You need friends, Pat. Everyone does.”

I don’t say anything in response. I’m afraid Mom is rooting for me to fall in love with Tiffany, because whenever she calls Tiffany my “friend,” she says the word with a smile on her face and a hopeful look in her eye, which bothers me tremendously because Mom is the only person in my family who does not hate Nikki. Also, I know Mom looks out the window when I go on my runs, because she will tease me, saying “I see your friend showed up again” when I return from a jog.

Mom pulls into the driveway, shuts off the car engine, and says, “I can loan you money should you ever want to take your friend to dinner,” and again, the way she says “friend” makes me feel tingly in a bad way. I say nothing in response, and my mother does the strangest thing—she giggles.

I finish my weight training for the day and put on a trash bag, and as I begin stretching on the front lawn, I see that Tiffany is jogging up and down the length of my parents’ block, waiting for me to begin running. I tell myself to ask her out to dinner so I can end this madness and get back to being alone on my runs, but instead I simply start running, and Tiffany follows.

I go past the high school, down Collings Avenue to the Black Horse Pike, make a left and then another left into Oaklyn, run down Kendall Boulevard to the Oaklyn Public School, up past the Manor Bar to the White Horse Pike, make a right and then a left onto Cuthbert, and I run into Westmont. When I get to the Crystal Lake Diner, I turn and jog in place. Tiffany jogs in place and stares at her feet.

“Hey,” I say to her. “You want to have dinner with me at this diner?”

“Tonight?” she says without looking up at me.

“Yeah.”

“What time?”

“We have to walk here because I’m not allowed to drive.”

“What time?”

“I’ll be in front of your house at seven-thirty.”

Next, the most amazing thing happens: Tiffany simply jogs away from me, and I cannot believe I finally got her to leave me alone. I am so happy I alter my route and run at least fifteen miles instead of ten, and when the sun sets, the clouds in the west are all lined with electricity, which I know is a good omen.

At home, I tell my mother I need some money so I can take Tiffany out to dinner. My mother tries to hide her smile as she retrieves her purse from the kitchen table. “Where are you taking her?”

“The Crystal Lake Diner.”

“You shouldn’t need more than forty dollars then, right?”

“I guess.”

“It’ll be on the counter when you come down.”

I shower, apply underarm deodorant, use my father’s cologne, and put on my khakis and the dark green button-down shirt Mom bought me at the Gap just yesterday. For some reason, my mother is systematically buying an entire wardrobe for me—and every piece is from the Gap. When I go downstairs, my mom tells me I need to tuck in my shirt and wear a belt.

“Why?” I ask, because I do not really care if I look respectable or not. I only want to get rid of Tiffany once and for all.

But when Mom says, “Please,” I remember that I am trying to be kind instead of right—and I also owe Mom because she rescued me from the bad place—so I go upstairs and put on the brown leather belt she purchased for me earlier in the week.

Mom comes into my room with a shoe box and says, “Put on some dress socks and try these on.” I open the box, and these swanky-looking brown leather loafers are inside. “Jake said these are what men your age wear casually,” Mom says. When I slip the loafers on and look in the mirror, I see how thin my waistline appears, and I think I look almost as swanky as my little brother.

With forty bucks in my pocket, I walk across Knight’s Park to Tiffany’s parents’ house. She is outside, waiting for me on the sidewalk, but I see her mother peeking out the window. Mrs. Webster ducks behind the blinds when we make eye contact. Tiffany does not say hello, but begins walking before I can stop. She is wearing a pink knee-length skirt and a black summer sweater. Her platform sandals make her look taller, and her hair is sort of puffed out around the ears, hanging down to her shoulders. Her eyeliner is a little heavy, and her lips are so pink, but I have to admit she looks great, which I tell her, saying, “Wow, you look really nice tonight.”

“I like your shoes,” she says in response, and then we walk for thirty minutes without saying another word.

We get a booth at the diner, and the server gives us glasses of water. Tiffany orders tea, and I say that water is fine for me. As I read the menu, I worry that I won’t have enough money, which is silly, I know, because I have two twenties on me and most of the entrées are under ten bucks, but I do not know what Tiffany will order, and maybe she will want dessert, and then there’s the tip.

Nikki taught me to overtip; she says waitresses work too hard for such a little bit of money. Nikki knows this because she was a waitress all through college—when we were at La Salle—so I always overtip when I go out to eat now, just to make up for the times in the past when I fought with Nikki over a few dollars, saying fifteen percent was more than enough, because no one tipped me regardless of whether I did my job well or not. Now I am a believer in overtipping, because I am practicing being kind rather than right—and as I am reading the diner menu, I think, What if I do not have enough money left over for a generous tip?

I am worrying about all of this so much that I must have missed Tiffany’s order, because suddenly the waitress is saying, “Sir?”

When I put my menu down, both Tiffany and the waitress are staring at me, as if they are concerned. So I say, “Raisin bran,” because I remember reading that cereal is only $2.25.

“Milk?”

“How much is milk?”

“Seventy-five cents.”

I figure I can afford it, so I say, “Please,” and then hand my menu back to the waitress.

“That’s it?”

I nod, and the waitress sighs audibly before leaving us alone.

“What did you order? I didn’t catch it,” I say to Tiffany, trying to sound polite but secretly worrying that I will not have enough money left over for a good tip.

“Just tea,” she says, and then we both look out the window at the cars in the parking lot.

When the raisin bran comes, I open the little single-serving box and pour the cereal into the bowl the diner provides free of charge. The milk comes in a miniature pitcher; I pour it over the brown flakes and sugared raisins. I push the bowl to the middle of the table and ask Tiffany if she would like to help me eat the cereal. “Are you sure?” she says, and when I nod, she picks up her spoon and we eat.

When we get the bill, it is for $4.59. I hand our waitress the two twenties, and the woman laughs, shakes her head, and says, “Change?” When I say, “No, thank you”—thinking Nikki would want me to overtip—the waitress says to Tiffany, “Honey, I had him all wrong. You two come back real soon. Okay?” And I can tell the woman is satisfied with her tip because she sort of skips her way to the register.

Tiffany doesn’t say anything on the walk home, so I don’t either. When we get to her house, I tell her I had a great time. “Thanks,” I say, and then offer a handshake, just so Tiffany will not get the wrong idea.