Self-Defense Read Online Free PDF Page B

was sweaty
again.
    I said, “What’s bothering you right now,
Lucy?”
    “Talking about it... when I talk, I start
to feel—to feel it. As if I’m dropping back into it.”
    “Loss of control.”
    “Yes. The dream’s scary. I don’t want to
be there.”
    “What’s the scary part?”
    “That they’re going to find me. I’m not
supposed to be there.”
    “Where are you supposed to be?”
    “Back inside.”
    “In the log cabin.”
    Nod.
    “Did someone tell you to stay inside?”
    “I don’t know. I just know I’m not
supposed to be there.”
    She rubbed her face, not unlike the way
Milo does when he’s nervous or distracted. It raised blemish like patches on
her skin.
    “So what does it mean ?” she said.
    “I don’t know yet. We need to find out
more about you.”
    She brought her legs out from under her.
Her fingers remained laced, the knuckles ice-white. “I’m probably making much
too big a deal out of this. Why should I whine about a stupid dream? I’ve got
my health, a good job—there are people out there, homeless, getting shot on the
street, dying of AIDS.”
    “Just because others have it worse doesn’t
mean you have to suffer in silence.”
    “Others have it a lot worse. I’ve
had it good, Dr. Delaware, believe me.”
    “Why don’t you tell me about it.”
    “About what?”
    “Your background, your family.”
    “My background,” she said absently. “You
asked me about that the first time I came in, but I avoided it, didn’t I? And
you didn’t push. I thought that was very gentlemanly. Then I thought, Maybe
he’s just backing off as a strategy; he probably has other ways of getting into
my head. Pretty paranoid, huh? But being in therapy was unnerving. I’d never
done it before.”
    I nodded.
    She smiled. “Guess I’m waffling, right
now. Okay. My background: I was born in New York City twenty-five years ago, on
April 14. Lenox Hill Hospital, to be precise. I grew up in New York and
Connecticut, went to fine upstanding girls’ schools, and graduated from Belding
College three years ago—it’s a small women’s college just outside of Boston. I
got my degree in history but couldn’t do much with that, so I took a job as a
bookkeeper at Belding, keeping the accounts straight for the Faculty Club and
the Student Union. Last thing I thought I’d be doing, never had a head for
math. But it turned out I liked it. The orderliness. Then I spotted a job card
from Bowlby and Sheldon on the campus employment bulletin board and went for an
interview. They’re a national firm, had no opening except in L.A. On a whim, I
applied and got it. And came West, young woman. That’s it. Not very
illuminating, is it?”
    “What about your family?” I said.
    “My family is basically Peter, whom you
met. He’s one year older than me and we’re close. His nickname’s Puck—someone
gave it to him when he was a little boy because he was such an imp.”
    “Is he your only sib?”
    “My only full sib. There’s a half brother
who lives up in San Francisco, but I have no contact with him. He had a sister
who died several years ago.” Pause. “All my grandparents and uncles and aunts
are deceased. My mother passed away right after I was born.”
    Young, I thought, to be so surrounded by
death. “What about your dad?”
    She looked down quickly, as if searching
for a lost contact lens. Her legs were flat on the floor, her torso twisting
away from me, so that the fabric of her blouse tightened around her narrow
waist.
    “I was hoping we could avoid this,” she
said softly. “And not because of the dream.”
    Wheeling around. The intense stare Milo’d
seen in the courtroom.
    “If you don’t want to talk about him, you
don’t have to.”
    “It’s not a matter of that. Bringing him
into it always changes things.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because of who he is.”
    She gazed up at the ceiling and smiled.
    “Your line,” she said, extending one hand
theatrically.
    “Who is