An Anonymous Girl(8)
Despite your casual appearance, there’s a professionalism about your manner. You did not carry a to-go coffee cup and yawn and rub your eyes, like some of the other early morning subjects. You sat up straight, and you did not sneak glances at your phone between questions.
What you revealed during your initial session, and what you didn’t intentionally reveal, were equally valuable.
A subtle theme began to emerge from your very first answer that set you apart from the fifty-one other young women evaluated thus far.
First you described how you could tell a lie to appease a client and secure a better tip.
Then you wrote about canceling a night out with a friend, not for last-minute concert tickets or a promising date, as most of the others did. Your mind returned to the prospect of work instead.
Money is vitally important to you. It appears to be an underpinning of your ethical code.
When money and morality intersect, the results can illuminate intriguing truths about human character.
People are motivated to break their moral compasses for a variety of primal reasons: survival, hate, love, envy, passion. And money.
More observations: You put your loved ones first, as evidenced by the information you withhold from your parents to protect them. Yet you describe yourself as an accessory in an act that could destroy another relationship.
It was the question you didn’t answer, though, the one you struggled with as you scraped at your nails, that holds the most intrigue.
This test can free you, Subject 52.
Surrender to it.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Saturday, November 17
My power nap pushes away thoughts about Dr. Shields and his strange test. A cup of strong coffee helps me turn my focus onto my clients, and by the time I arrive back at my apartment after work, I almost feel like myself again. The idea of another session tomorrow doesn’t seem daunting anymore.
I even have the energy to tidy up, which mostly consists of gathering the clothes that are heaped on the back of a chair and hanging them in my closet. My studio is so small there isn’t a single wall that’s not blocked by a piece of furniture. I could afford a bigger place if I moved in with a roommate, but years ago I made the decision to live alone. My privacy is worth the trade-of.
A sliver of fading late-afternoon light peeks through the single window as I sit down on the edge of my futon. I reach for my checkbook, thinking that I won’t dread paying my bills as much as usual with an extra five hundred dollars coming in this month.
As I begin writing a check to Antonia Sullivan, it’s as if Dr. Shields is in my head again:
Have you ever kept a secret from someone you loved to avoid upsetting them?
My pen freezes.
Antonia is a private speech and occupational therapist, one of the best in Philly.
The state-funded specialist who works with Becky on Tuesdays and Thursdays makes a little progress. But on the days Antonia comes, small miracles occur: An attempt to braid hair or write a sentence. A question about the book Antonia has read to her. The resurfacing of a lost memory.
Antonia charges $125 an hour, but my parents think she bills them on a sliding scale and they pay a fraction of that. I cover the rest.
Today I acknowledge the truth: If my parents knew I paid most of the bill, my father would be embarrassed, and my mother would worry. They might refuse my help.
It’s better that they don’t have a choice.
I’ve been paying Antonia for the past eighteen months. My mother always calls to fill me in after her visits.
I didn’t realize how hard it was to engage in that charade until I wrote about it in this morning’s session. When Dr. Shields responded that it must be difficult, it’s like he gave me permission to finally admit my true feelings.
I finish writing the check and stick it inside an envelope, then I jump up and head to my refrigerator and grab a beer.
I don’t want to analyze the choices I make any more tonight; I’m going to have to be back in that world soon enough.
I reach for my phone and text Lizzie: Can we meet a little earlier?
I walk into the Lounge and scan the room, but Lizzie isn’t there yet. I’m not surprised; I’m ten minutes early. I see a pair of empty barstools and snag them.
Sanjay, the bartender, nods at me. “Hey, Jess.” I come here often; it’s three blocks away from my apartment, and happy-hour beers cost only three dollars.
“Sam Adams?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Vodka-cran-soda, please.” Happy-hour prices ended nearly an hour ago.
I’m halfway through my drink when Lizzie arrives, peeling of her scarf and jacket as she approaches. I pull my bag of the stool next to me.
“I had the weirdest thing happen today,” Lizzie says as she plops down and gives me a quick, hard hug. She looks like a Midwestern farm girl, all pink cheeks and tumbling blond hair, which is exactly what she was before she came to New York to try to break into theatrical costume design.
“To you? No way,” I say. The last time I talked to Lizzie, she told me she’d tried to buy a homeless guy a turkey sandwich and he’d expressed annoyance that she didn’t know he was a vegan. A few weeks earlier, she’d asked someone to help her find the aisle with bath towels at Target. It turned out to be Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams, not an employee. “She knew where they were, though,” Lizzie said when she’d recounted the story.