Peg said, “You can always reflect and meditate.”
Tracy said, “Like that’s going to happen.”
Gloria said, “I’ve got pills.”
“The drugstore heiress has pills,” said Tracy. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Doing this survey will knock me flat,” said Peg. “I’ll pass.”
Gloria said, “Tracy? Are you woman enough?”
Tracy said, “Oh, all right. I’ll succumb to peer pressure.”
Gloria went into her room and brought out a bottle of Xanax. She said, “I’d better give you a half. Otherwise, there’ll be no hiking mountains tomorrow.”
“I’ll take a whole,” said Tracy. “I’m never hiking again.” She popped her pill and swallowed it with water. Gloria, a seasoned prescription-drug abuser, took hers dry.
The three women went to their separate rooms. Peg lay on her bed and listened as the sounds of the house quieted. Then she opened the questionnaire. There were over a thousand questions. She was instructed to weigh each statement on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Each question started with the phrase, “Do I see myself as someone who…”
Sees a project through to the end?
Sacrifices her own happiness for others?
Is relaxed, handles stress calmly?
Is emotionally unstable, easily upset?
Is sometimes rude to others?
Six hundred questions and three hours later, Peg rubbed her throbbing forehead. She should have finished an hour ago. She was taking this too seriously, spending five solid minutes trying to determine if she was “easily distracted.” After giving herself a 5 (strongly agree) for being “spontaneous,” she filled in answers for the last four hundred questions with 3, “neither agree nor disagree.” With relief, she threw the booklet and answer sheet on the dresser.
She checked the clock. Five minutes before midnight. Should she just go to sleep—she was so very tired—or keep her rendezvous with Ray?
Do I see myself as someone who pursues sexual gratification, even if it means breaking the rules to get it? she wondered.
“Strongly agree,” said Peg to her floral wallpaper, and crept downstairs.
Chapter 12
Peg’s head still hurt, so she decided to go in search of Tylenol or Advil before meeting up with Ray. Nothing in the bathroom upstairs. Nothing in the common bathroom on the first floor. She’d go foraging in Gloria’s room, but they weren’t that friendly just yet. Peg would try the kitchen. She crept silently, knowing that Linus and Wilma’s bedroom was somewhere nearby. Her ears on high alert, she stole into the kitchen and began opening cabinet doors. She found nothing. But she heard the soft murmur of voices coming from a closed door by the refrigerator.
She wondered, Do I see myself as someone who eavesdrops on other people’s private conversations?
Strongly disagree, she thought. And then she moved closer to the door, as if pulled by a mysterious force. Not so mysterious, really. It was curiousity. What did Linus and Wilma have to say to each other in the dark of night when they should have fallen asleep hours ago, or risk their tender health to REM deprivation?
Ear pressed against their bedroom door, Peg listened as hard as she could.
Wilma’s voice: “She’s going to be a problem. I was wrong to accept her on such short notice.”
Linus’s voice: “She’s fine. A bit defensive, but that’s not surprising.”
Wilma: “You don’t have to deal with her.”
Linus: “We can’t kick her out. She already paid. And we need the money.”
Peg inhaled sharply. So Wilma thought she was an insurgent. How flattering, thought Peg. Smiling wickedly, she leaned closer into the door to spy.
Linus: “She and Ray are already acting out.”
Wilma: “It’s amazing how easily they get into it. Every session, same thing.”
Peg had surmised as much. Inward Bound was a romantic biosphere: The programmees would inevitably fall into their bad patterns with each other. And, in the process, their issues would be splayed naked on the table, prepped for dissection. It was just like standard group therapy. Nina was a huge fan of circle shrinking, and she’d tell Peg stories about accusing the young men in the group of callousness—regardless of their own behavior—thereby making these unsuspecting guys the stand-ins for her shitty boyfriends.
Naturally, Peg didn’t want to think of Ray as the clay she’d use to sculpt the model of her neurosis. She also didn’t like being singled out by Wilma.
Do I see myself as someone who is intentionally disruptive? she wondered. Disagree somewhat.
“Ready for bed?” That was Linus.
“I’m going to get a glass of water,” said Wilma.
Peg’s heart went thud. Was Wilma coming into the kitchen?
Linus saved her. “I have water right here,” he said. “Take off your clothes and get in bed.”
Wilma said, “I have to shower.”
“You showered before dinner.”
“I’m too tired to fuck you for hours tonight.”
“We can fuck for just one hour,” said Linus.
“Why do you need so much sex?! It’s been over a year already. I can’t do it every night. The hour-long makeout session, the protracted back rub, your insistence on performing oral sex on me, all the hugging, and whispering and excruciating eye contact during intercourse. And your penis is too big. It’s not normal.”
“I do put a lot of pressure on you,” said Linus.
“You do.”
“After tonight, I won’t do it again.”
“Will you…stop it. Stop touching me!”
A creak sound, someone getting out of bed. Peg flung herself into the cranny between the fridge and the wall. The bedroom door slammed open, hiding Peg even better. Wilma, in a dowdy cotton nightshirt, burst out of the room, kicking the door closed behind her before dashing across the kitchen and into another room, closing that door and locking it. She hadn’t noticed Peg. Seeing an opportunity to escape, Peg peeled herself out of her cranny, and crept toward the living room.
Peg made three steps before Linus opened his bedroom door. The light from his room shining a spotlight of yellow on the kitchen floor. Peg stood, on tiptoes, right in its center. She smiled nervously and said, “I didn’t hear a thing.”
Linus was naked except for blue flannel boxer shorts. The light was behind him, so Peg couldn’t see his face. She’d hazard to guess that his expression wasn’t the same sagacious calm he’d shown at dinner.
Linus said, “Those who can’t do teach.”
“I didn’t hear a thing,” repeated Peg. “But if I had, I’d say that you’re doing just fine.” An hour of making out, a back rub, oral sex, a slow screw with a big cock, eye-locking and dirty talk? Wilma was turning that down? Just the thought of it gave Peg a crotch-twitching reminder of what was waiting for her on the porch.
Peg said, “I’ll be going now.”
“Early run tomorrow,” said Linus.
“I’m not a big conversationalist when I jog,” warned Peg.
“Me either,” said Linus. “Good night.”
“Good night,” she said, and walked back into the living room. The porch door was the first on the left. She opened it, and stepped outside.
At the threshold, she caught a big waft of smoke. Sweet, distinct and earthy. She turned toward the source. Dear Ray, handsome Ray of the crunched abs, sat in a rocking chair, smoking a joint. Peg beamed and sat in the rocker next to him. Wordlessly, he passed her the pot, and she inhaled deeply, deep enough to forget Linus and Wilma, the program, everything except the moon on the water, crickets chirping, the smell of pot smoke and the dewy New England summer night air.
Ray said, “You’re late.”
“I hope you were planning to save some of this for me.”
“Plenty more where that came from.”
A tiny bell rang in Peg’s head, a ding of warning. But only for a second. She said, “We climbe
d a mountain today.”
“We played touch football.”
“How did Ben do?”
Ray said, “Surprisingly fast on his feet. He made some grabs.”
“What’s the relationship lesson of touch football?” asked Peg. “We got six miles’ worth of metaphor. Love is an uphill climb, but once you know yourself and like yourself just as you are, it’s all downhill from there.”
“Wilma said that?” asked Ray.
“I extrapolate,” said Peg.
“Linus wasn’t explicit. I think—and I admit that my thinking may be temporarily impaired—the touch football game was to show us our competitive natures. That pursuing women is like a game to play and win.”
“That’s not your problem, though,” said Peg. “Luke maybe.”
“Who knows with that guy,” said Ray. “He’s too aggressive. He actually knocked me down. Tackled me like a fucking Marine.” He smoked some. “Tell me about Gloria and Tracy,” he asked.
“I like them both,” said Peg. “Tracy more than Gloria, but it’s early yet. I reserve judgment.”
“Sit on my lap,” said Ray.
Paul, her most recent ex, had said the same thing to her the night they met at a Village dive. She’d been sitting at the bar, Nina on her left, sipping a Bailey’s. He’d been on her right, and they started talking. Three or four Bailey’s later, Peg was in a back booth, sitting on his lap, exploring his dental work with her tongue. In the months that followed, they spent scores of nights making out in public places. That had been his particular predilection, and it had been exciting for Peg, too. She smiled at Ray as he patted his thigh.
“Your lap doesn’t look very comfortable,” she said. “There’s a big bump in the middle.”
“Pay no mind,” he said. “Come here.”
He took her by the wrist, and pulled her over. She sat down on his legs, hers dangling over the side of the rocker, and leaned against his chest.
“All my relationships start this way,” she said.
“Isn’t that how it should be?” he asked, stroking the side of her breast.
“They move quickly,” she added.
“First-date fast?”
“Second.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Is that how it’s going to be with us?”
Peg nodded. “So we both have a tendency to rush into things.”
Ray kissed her ear. “Yet another thing we have in common.”
“And then we try to mold what we’ve got into something we want,” she said.
He stopped kissing her to think for a second. “I see what you mean. By kissing you, and touching you like this, or like this, we’re just repeating what we’ve done wrong in the past.”
“Right,” she said, her breath shortening. “We’re letting history repeat itself. Letting attraction take over.”
“Attraction is hard to resist,” he said, placing her hand on the bump of his jeans. “Harder by the second.”
Peg was panting now. “It might be useful to draw upon new experiences, for learning purposes. Since I haven’t had any experience in months. Many months.”
Ray licked her neck and said, “My old mistakes seem like a million years ago. In fact, I can’t remember any of them. I’m having trouble remembering my own name.”
Peg turned toward him for a smashing kiss, arms around his neck, squirming on his lap, getting the excitement, the rush, remembering why she was always chasing after men.
He pulled back suddenly, and asked, “Why did you come here? To Inward Bound.”
“My house has mice. I had nowhere else to go,” she said.
“You came for me,” he said. “Admit it.”
She nodded, too drugged by pot and kissing to deny the truth. “I came for you,” she said.
Chapter 13
Dreamily, Peg’s eyes opened in the morning. She felt refreshed and rested. Turning toward the night table and her travel clock, she saw that it was 10:04 A.M.
“Shit and double shit,” she said. She’d slept through her planned run with Linus, breakfast and half the morning activity, whatever that was. Peg knew Wilma would demand an explanation for Peg’s sleeping four hours late, that this would only reinforce her reputation as a delinquent. Throwing her clothes on, Peg tried to get a story going. “I was up until three in the morning,” she’d say. True. “Doing the questionnaire.” False.
Did she see herself as someone who’d lie to get out of trouble? Peg wondered.
What kind of idiot wouldn’t?
She did feel bad about missing the morning run. Linus’s feelings might be hurt that she’d blown him off. She wondered if Ray had made it downstairs for breakfast at six. But that would be impossible on three hours of stoned sleep.
But, apparently, he had. When Peg finally located the women, meditating in lotus positions on the river’s edge, Wilma looked at her and said, “There’s one in every group.”
“Just one?” Peg asked for confirmation.
“The kitchen is closed until lunch,” said Wilma.
Peg slapped her own wrist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep late. I don’t see myself as someone who is irresponsible,” she defended. She remembered Linus had described her as defensive. “Not that I’m defending myself. I’m admitting guilt freely.”
“Sit down and shut up,” said Tracy, opening one eye. “Can’t you see we’re in a state of deep relaxation? And, just for the record, you didn’t miss much at breakfast. Bran muffins the consistency of sand, and weak coffee.”
“I made the coffee,” said Wilma.
“Try grinding the beans first next time,” said Tracy.
All of the women were in yoga shorts, tank tops, barefoot and hair back in ponies. Peg had on tight jean cutoffs and sneakers. “I didn’t get the wardrobe memo,” she said.
“We sent out a clothing list with the literature prior to arrival. I’ll get one for you,” said Wilma. “Did you do the questionnaire?”
“Up all night working on it. It’s on my dresser.”
“I’ll pick it up before lunch,” said Wilma. “I’ll have the results for all of you by the end of the week.”
“I can hardly wait,” said Tracy.
“It’ll be worth it!” bubbled Wilma in earnest excitement.
Tracy and Peg blinked at each other. Gloria, meanwhile, remained in her yoga posture, eyes closed, breathing rhythmically, either ignoring the conversation or swimming in the recesses of her mind. Wilma gestured for Peg to find a spot, and bend her legs into a lotus.
Once Peg had twisted herself adequately, Wilma said, “We’re doing a relaxation technique. Imagine you’re breathing in a glittering blue light of health and fulfillment. Exhale the dark red of rage and confusion.”
Peg swallowed a groan. Having watched Soho transform into yoga central in the last few years with women trading in their art portfolios for rolled-up mats, Peg reflexively distrusted Eastern “exercises.” And did she have to visualize, too? On an empty stomach? Guilty for her lateness, she didn’t protest. She closed her eyes, and tried. She really did. But her thoughts drifted away from the glittering blue light and toward the wispy mental snapshot of Ray’s hand, pushing the fabric of her dress higher and higher up her legs, until his fingers disappeared between them.
“Your mind may wander,” said Wilma. “Gently bring it back to focus.”
After what seemed like ten hours (only thirty minutes), Wilma asked the women to stretch in a Salutation to the Sun, and then they got to lay flat on their backs and Contemplate Their Navels. Peg contemplated with her eyes open, watching the streams of clouds float in the sky with impressive speed.
Tracy was cloud gazing, too. She said, pointing upward, “That cloud actually looks like a navel.”
Gloria said, “ZZzzzzz.”
Wilma said, “While Gloria takes her nap, you two can quietly reflect on this question: What do you want out of a relationship? We can discuss your thoughts in the canoes. We launch after lunch.”
“
Tell me they have an outboard motor,” said Tracy.
Peg wondered if Wilma ever prescribed self-reflection and contemplation about her own relationship, which, from what Peg had heard last night, was bathed in the dark red light of rage and confusion. “It might help, Wilma, as our fearless spiritual guide, if you could tell us what you want out of a relationship,” said Peg.
Tracy said, “Excellent idea.”
Wilma paused. “This isn’t about me,” she said.
“But you must think about it,” said Peg, rolling onto her stomach (rumbling now), to look directly at Wilma. She wasn’t sure why she was pressing the matter. Wilma’s love life was none of her business. Nor did Peg believe that a guide or mentor had to serve as a role model. In fact, famous experts in history were their own worst example. Dr. Spock was a neglectful father; Dr. Atkins died obese; Dr. Freud had the sex drive of a smurf. Those who can’t do may be resigned to teach (as Linus said last night), or they were attuned to other’s shortcomings because they clearly saw their own.
Wilma said, “I want my relationship to be a caring partnership.”
Gloria said, “ZZzzzzzzz.”
Tracy said, “I want to be taken care of.”
“I want to take care of someone,” said Peg.
Wilma said, “In several French studies, researchers concluded that women who want to be taken care of are looking for a father substitute; women who want to take care of men are playing mother.”
“That may be true,” said Tracy. “In France.”
“So what do you want in a relationship, Gloria?” asked Wilma, nudging the young blonde awake. “We were talking about how relationships sometimes mirror the parent-child—”
“I heard you,” said Gloria, eyes still closed. “I don’t want a father. The father I’ve got is enough for ten lifetimes. And I don’t want to be the mother. I guess I’d want a sibling. I’m an only child. My parents try to control me. I always wished I had someone to share the burden, or just divert their attention.”
“Can I ask, and I don’t mean to be intrusive,” said Tracy, “what is the deal with your father’s hair? Is that a wig, or creative combing?”
The Girlfriend Curse Page 9