Free This Is My Life by Meg Wolitzer Page A

Erica’s apricot shampoo and the Nilla Wafers on their breath. It made sense that people wanted to spend their whole lives in bed, because if they did they would never have to face up to the truth:
My wife is a shrew
, a man might think over breakfast.
My husband is a bonehead
, the wife might think. In bed, these perceptions were of no consequence.
    This was the big payoff of adulthood, the thing that no one told you. Just as your cynicism started to rise up, because of novels you were reading in your tenth-grade English elective, “Man’s Search for Identity,” it was quickly extinguished by the sweet goofiness that sex provided. You saw the light, and then
bam
, no more light. Just a calm, spreading glow.
    â€œI’m completely down now,” Jordan said. “It’s totally worn off.”
    â€œMe too,” said Erica, although for her the drug had never really grabbed hold. This was her role in life: to take dictation, to sit and watch as other people had visions, to tend and comfort. Maybe she ought to get a job as a volunteer at Odyssey House. She could talk teenage boys down from bad trips—all those boys, like Jordan, who had missed drugs the first time around. She could just
be
there, her large, welcoming self, telling them it was okay, everything was okay, and exactly how much did they take? But her desire to help wasn’t innate, the way it seemed to be in some people. Erica could see it in the eyes of the Salvation Army bell-ringers at Christmas. Standing in front of Macy’s, bundled up like refugees in the cold, clanging heavy bells until their elbows were stiff from the repetition of movement, those people actually looked happy. They were in their element, their eyes dreamy as they stood over a kettle of money. They didn’t mind the cold, or the fact that everyone around them was laden with wrapped packages and running off to homes and families. That would come later on, after a good day of work. They would go to their own homes, take off their coats, put up their feet, and think:
I have done something worthwhile with my day. I am a decent and noble human being
. And for them, it was enough.
    It should be enough for me, too, Erica thought. I should not want all the things I do. It made her ashamed, how much she required, how much relief she took in the pleasures of her solitary life: sitting alone in her room and breaking the seal on a jar of Planters cashews, lying with her eyes closed in the heat of a bath, listening to the opening chords of almost any Reva and Jamie song. She gave nothing out; she was like a balloon, endlessly filling.
    â€œI’ve got to go home,” Erica said. “My sister.”
    â€œMe too,” said Jordan. “My parents.” He paused. “They want to meet you,” he said. “But I told them no.”
    â€œOh,” said Erica. She could imagine Jordan keeping her from his parents, not wanting them to see her.
    â€œYou understand, right?” he asked.
    â€œOh, yeah,” she said, and in fact she did understand; it didn’t even bother her.
    No more was said about it. They stood shivering in the street again, waiting for a cab, already anticipating their separate evenings at home. For him, there would be a chorus of parental voices as his key turned in the lock. The Drs. Strang would be sitting in the kitchen and chuckling over the latest copy of
Endocrinology Today
. Jordan would go in and say the requisite hellos, then he would palm a Milk Bone for the schnauzer, and make a quick exit into his bedroom for the night.
Sensitive
, his parents would think, shrugging helplessly at each other.
Troubled and bright
. This was acceptable in boys, but in girls it implied that something was really wrong.
    â€œI wish you had more friends,” Dottie often said. “I wish you had someone special in your life. I don’t want you to be lonely; you have so much to offer.” There was always a kind of agony