Free Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick Page A

coughed. “Did you want to book an hour session?”
     
    “Is that what people normally do? How much is an hour?”
     
    “One seventy-five.”
     
    I nearly choked on my spit. He didn’t mean a dollar seventy-five, and I maybe had, like, tops, a hundred bucks stashed away in the sock drawer in my dresser. I knew I could’ve asked Jeff for the money but then Jeff would have asked me what I needed it for and I’d have to tell him
I’m trying to talk to Mom
and then what if he got mad like Nils did or worse, what if he cried?
     
    “How much time could I get for a hundred bucks?” I asked.
     
    “A half-hour session is ninety.”
     
    “Can we do a half hour then? This weekend?”
     
    “I could take you on Saturday. At four?” I said four p.m. was fine, that it would work great and then he gave me the address to his house/office, which was pretty close by in the Palisades.
     
    After that I felt absolutely great. I spent all of Calc thinking up questions I might want to ask come Saturday. Questions like,
where are you? what does it look like where you are?
And
please don’t tell me how I’m going to die because I really don’t want to know
(that last one isn’t a question,I guess). Then with five minutes left of class to spare, I drafted a note to Paul that said:
     
Hey you. I made an appointment for this Saturday at 4 pm with that psychic guy. Can you come, still? xoxo. Holly.
     
    It was important to me that I seem warm and not angry after he’d left the night before without spending the night or saying good-bye. He’d promised to come with me to this thing and if he thought for a second I was mad or hurt he might retract his promise and I couldn’t let that happen because I was scared to go alone.
     

Chapter 17
     
    “I’m hungry.”
     
    “Holly, come on. Focus.”
     
    We were in Ballanoff’s office drinking diet Snapple. He’d promised me extra credit in exchange for a thorough reading of
The Crucible
.
     
    “Abigail Williams, right. Is she the witch?”
     
    “Did you even read the play?”
     
    I sunk down onto Ballanoff’s desk so my upper arms and chin were flat against the tabletop. I picked up my copy of the play, then let it drop back down. “Sort of.”
     
    “ Okay, so, themes, then. Go.”
     
    I blinked. “Witches?”
     
    “Holly.”
     
    “What?”
     
    Ballanoff clicked his pen against his top teeth, then rolled his eyes. “Fear.
Paranoia
. Power plays a significant role, here, don’t you think?”
     
    “Power, absolutely.”
     
    “So what does the John Proctor–Abigail Williams affair do for Abigail? How is she able to gain leverage, manipulate her town? What roles do power and sex and sexual repression play in the text?”
     
    My stomach turned over. Words like “affair” and “sex” and “manipulate” now made me squeamish. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t really read the whole thing, okay?” I sat up, abruptly, and shoved my copy of the play back into my bag. “Can we talk about something else instead?”
     
    Ballanoff clucked his tongue, nodding unenthusiastically.
     
    “Okay, good.” I sat back, relaxing slightly. “Let’s talk about …” I drummed my fingertips against his desktop. “How’s about we discuss … you and my mom, again?” I winked.
     
    “Again?”
     
    “Again, yes,” I said, leaning forward. “But this time, more details.”
     
    Ballanoff put one foot up on the edge of his desk and pushed backward in his chair. “Seriously, Holly, there’s nothing to tell. It was
one
kiss.”
     
    “Yeah, but you knew her, right? What was she like back then? I mean, was she popular? Dorky? Did she have boyfriends? School spirit? What? Tell me something I don’t know.”
     
    Ballanoff swallowed. “She was like … you know. She was like …
you
. I mean, she looked like you. Dark hair, pale skin. She was everyone’s friend.”
     
    I snorted. “Oh yeah, just like me. Miss Congeniality.”
     
    “So true.”
     
    “Har har.”