The Silver Linings Playbook(15)

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.