Freedom полностью

Unfortunately, Jessica’s new boyfriend, William, couldn’t take a hint. William was a good-natured blond Californian soccer player whose own parents weren’t visiting. He followed Patty and Jessica to lunch, to Jessica’s afternoon art-history lecture, and to Jessica’s dorm room, and when Patty then pointedly offered to take Jessica to dinner in the city, Jessica replied that she’d already made a local dinner reservation for three. At the restaurant, Patty listened stoically while Jessica prodded William to describe the charitable organization he’d founded while still in high school—some grotesquely worthy program wherein poor Malawian girls had their educations sponsored by soccer clubs in San Francisco. Patty had little choice but to keep drinking wine. Midway through her fourth glass, she decided that William needed to know that she herself had once excelled at intercollegiate sports. Since Jessica declined to supply the fact that she’d been second-team all-American, she was obliged to supply it herself, and since this sounded like bragging she felt she had to undercut it by telling the story of her groupie, which led to Eliza’s drug habits and lies about leukemia, and to the wrecking of her knee. She was speaking loudly and, she thought, entertainingly, but William, instead of laughing, kept glancing nervously at Jessica, who was sitting with her arms crossed and looking morose.

“And the point is what?” she said finally.

“Nothing,” Patty said. “I’m just telling you what things were like when I was in college. I didn’t realize you weren’t interested.”

“I’m interested,” William was kind enough to say.

“What’s interesting to me,” Jessica said, “is that I’d never heard any of this.”

“I’ve never told you about Eliza?”

“No. That must have been Joey.”

“I’m sure I’ve talked about it.”

“No, Mom. Sorry. You haven’t.”

“Well, anyway, now I’m talking about it, although maybe I’ve said enough.”

“Maybe!”

Patty knew she was behaving badly, but she couldn’t help it. Seeing Jessica and William’s tenderness with each other, she thought of herself at nineteen, thought of her mediocre schooling and her sick relationships with Carter and Eliza, and regretted her life, and pitied herself. She was falling into a depression that deepened precipitously the following day, when she returned to the college and endured a tour of its sumptuous grounds, a luncheon on the lawn of the president’s house, and an afternoon colloquium (“Performing Identity in a Multivalent World”) attended by scores of other parents. Everyone looked radiantly better-adjusted than she was feeling. The students all seemed cheerfully competent at everything, no doubt including sitting comfortably in a bar chair, and all the other parents seemed so proud of them, so thrilled to be their friends, and the college itself seemed immensely proud of its wealth and its altruistic mission. Patty really had been a good parent; she’d succeeded in preparing her daughter for a happier and easier life than her own; but it was clear from the other families’ very body language that she hadn’t been a great mom in the ways that counted most. While the other mothers and daughters walked shoulder to shoulder on the paved pathways, laughing or comparing cell phones, Jessica walked on the grass one or two steps ahead of Patty. The only role she offered Patty that weekend was to be impressed with her fabulous school. Patty did her utmost to play this role, but finally, in an access of depression, she sat down on one of the Adirondack chairs that dotted the main lawn and begged Jessica to come to dinner with her in the city without William, who, mercifully, had had a game that afternoon.

Jessica stood at some distance and regarded her guardedly. “William and I need to study tonight,” she said. “Normally I would have been studying all yesterday and today.”

“I’m sorry I kept you from that,” Patty said with depressive sincerity.

“No, it’s fine,” Jessica said. “I really wanted you to be here. I really wanted you to see where I’m spending four years of my life. It’s just that the workload’s pretty intense.”

“No, of course. It’s great. It’s great that you can handle that. I’m so proud of you. I really am, Jessica. I think the world of you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“It’s just—how about if we go to my hotel room? It’s a really fun room. We can order room service and watch movies and drink from the minibar. I mean, you can drink from the minibar, I’m not going to drink tonight. But just to have a girls’ night, just the two of us, for one night. You can study the whole rest of the fall.”

She kept her eyes on the ground, awaiting Jessica’s judgment. She was painfully aware of proposing something new for them.

“I really think I’d better work,” Jessica said. “I already promised William.”

“Oh, please, though, Jessie. One night’s not going to kill you. It would mean a lot to me.”