Free My Dearest Friend by Nancy Thayer

“Even if you become a worm farmer.”
    “A worm farmer?” Cynthia asked, her curiosity caught. So then it was all right. They were on the other side of the argument. Cynthia calmed down, Daphne soothed her, and they became friends again.
    But not constantly. After that night, which seemed to have been some kind of watershed in their lives, so that everything could be measured as “before” and “after,” Daphne knew that Cynthia had moved beyond the bounds of her control. And what had happened was what always had to happen in life: Cynthia moved into the wider world where her mother could not arrange complete happiness. So of course she took her unhappinesses out on Daphne—whom else
could
she take them out on? Daphne watched as her child became more and more successful in her life: she was very popular, invited to all the right parties, she had several close girlfriends, and eventually a few handsomeand awkwardly polite and endearing boyfriends. She was always lovely to look at, she was on the honor roll (but not high honors, because of her spelling). She was forever being asked to baby-sit, because children and parents alike adored her—and then, at fourteen, she started acting, in school productions and in the local theater productions, and it was obvious that so early in her life she had found her talent. To the outside world she looked like a golden girl, enviable, with everything, and she walked through that outside world radiating confidence. But when she was inside, in her own home, she was overcome with doubts and self-hatred and self-criticism, and because she was so young still, she couldn’t seem to understand how hard she was being on herself.
    Perhaps the problem had been that Cynthia had never had her father around to dote on her. Perhaps it had been a deep and tangled Freudian thing. Now Daphne shifted on her bed in her dim bedroom, where the sound of rain was lessening, coming in gentle patters as if little frogs were hopping against the house and windows. Cynthia had left in late June, as soon as school was out. Daphne still expected her to appear any moment, asking something like, “What’s that word that means it doesn’t last, passing away quickly, oh,
you
know. I need it for my homework.” “Transience?” Daphne would offer. “Oh, yeah, right,” Cynthia would respond, wandering back to her room.
    But Cynthia had no room in this house. Cynthia was in California with her father, and Daphne didn’t know when she would ever see her daughter again.
    Jack had had a rotten day. Hudson Jennings, the head of the English department, Jack’s former professor, now his boss, had dropped by Jack’s office to see how he was settling in.
    “What is
that
?” Hudson had said.
    Jack knew what Hudson was asking about—an almost life-size cardboard stand-up of Prince and his purple motorcycle. Jack had a friend who ran a record store and got stuff like this as publicity gimmicks; the friend knew how Jack felt about Prince and had given him the stand-up. It wasn’t obscene or even provocative (well, maybe provocative); Prince had all his clothes on for once, in fact he had on elaborate clothes, a purple satin suit, thigh-high black boots, an Edwardian white shirt, and white lace gloves. Very fine. He looked dangerous and ready to break all the rules, and his motorcycle was three timesas big as he was, and that was the wonderful thing about Prince, who was, after all, a little man, even a tiny man. He swaggered and flaunted and wouldn’t let
anything
make him look small.
    “It’s a stand-up of Prince. The musician,” Jack said.
    “Oh, yes. I know who he is,” Hudson said. “But what is it doing in your office?”
    “My wife won’t let me keep it at home.” Jack caught his boss’s expression. “Just kidding.”
    “I must say it occurs to me to wonder whether the office of a professor of English literature is the place for it.”
    Jack swallowed. He couldn’t believe this. Was this Russia?