Free Ordinary People by Judith Guest Page A

defensive.
    “Donald says he doesn’t come to practice on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
    “No. There’s a doctor in Evanston. He sees him twice a week.”
    “You mean he’s still having problems?”
    “Not exactly. It’s somebody to talk to,” he says lamely. He looks down into his glass. This was not the direction he had intended the conversation to take. Sara is laughing loudly and elaborately at the antics of her husband, across the room, having decided not to get into this, after all. A wise decision. He wishes he had done the same.
    “Cal, we’ve got to go,” Beth calls across to him. “It’s late.”
    “Hey, what d’you mean? Party’s just getting off the ground!” Phil protests as they move toward the hall. “Okay, you’ll be sorry! We’ll talk about you!”
    Somehow they are into their coats and out the door, and the night is cool and silent all around them, coolness against his cheeks, and silence as he opens the car door for her, closes it, walks around behind the car, gets in under the wheel.
    “Do you want me to drive?” she asks.
    He glances at her, surprised. “I’m not drunk,” he says. “Do you think I’m drunk?”
    “I don’t know, are you?”
    So she had heard it. “No,” he says. “No, I am not, I promise.” Seeking to lead her away from it, he laughs. “The thing you can’t forgive about Phil Murray is that he’s a goddamn, crashing bore. One more crooked-lawyer joke and I start in on my pesky-insurance-salesman routine—”
    “I want to tell you something,” she says. “You drink too much at parties.”
    “Okay.”
    “She pumped you,” she says. “And you let her do it. You let her drag that stuff out of you, and in front of someone who doesn’t even know us.”
    “My sentiments exactly.” He nods, hoping to head her off, hoping she is not really angry, because he doesn’t feel drunk tonight, just good and high; he would like to keep feeling good a while longer. He reaches over and pats her knee with clumsy affection.
    “Why did you tell her he was seeing a psychiatrist?”
    “Look, some people consider that a status symbol,” he says, “right up there with going to Europe.”
    “I don’t. And I thought your blurting it out like that was in the worst possible taste.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Not to mention a violation of privacy.”
    “Whose privacy?” he asks. “Whose privacy did I violate?”
    She does not answer.
     
     
     
    The light is on in Conrad’s room. He is asleep, lying on his back, his mouth open and relaxed. He sweats heavily in his sleep. His hair is damp, clinging slickly to his forehead, curling against his neck. A book lies face-down and open on the bed. U.S. History: Constitution to Present Day. Cal picks up the book and closes it quietly. He sets it on the night stand. Reaching for the switch on the lamp, he looks at Conrad. His left arm is shoved underneath the pillow. His right is outstretched; the hand with its strong, square fingers curved protectively over the palm is motionless. Still biting his nails. A nervous habit. So what? Lots of people do it; he himself used to do it when he was that age.
    He looks, really looks, this time at the thin, vertical scar that extends up the inside of the arm, above the palm. More than two inches long, ridged, a gray-pink line. “He meant business,” the intern told him in the ambulance. “Horizontal cuts, the blood clots. It takes a lot longer. You were damn lucky to catch him.”
    High achievers, Dr. Crawford told him, set themselves impossible standards. They have this need to perform well, to look good; they suffer excessive guilt over failure. He had groped to understand. “But what has he failed at? He’s never failed at anything!”
    Conrad’s head moves on the pillow, and Cal snaps off the light, not allowing himself to look again at the scar, not wanting to be guilty of any more violations of privacy. Listen, he prays, let the exams be easy. Don’t let him feel he is