furious, suicidal, often stoned, and on the way to being seriously overweight. She was now only occasionally in a rage, no longer suicidal, and her body, though not fashionably emaciated, was in the healthy range. Barnstone took no credit for the girl’s success. Maura needed only a safe place and some supervision. She was one of Barnstone’s favorites and came to her house often, which was why this letter from her parents was so upsetting. If Barnstone had lived an ordinary life, she might have a granddaughter Maura’s age. The thought was appealing but not overwhelmingly so. Those traditional comforts were not worth the expense of having embraced the mundane.
She pulled open the desk’s drawers. Only once in the past few weeks had she seen Maura stoned, and Barnstone’s response had been direct: “You can get kicked out of the sheltered workshop for that. You’ll lose your privileges.” She did not know how pot made its way into the Center, but there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it. She wasn’t so naive as to think the girl would never get high again. Nor was she so naive as to think a little pot was a big deal. Barnstone believed the unlikely route she had taken to her job served her well. Twenty years in rock and roll had taught her that people who give every impression of being mindless may yet surprise you. Many of the great rockers were basically idiots, and yet their music far surpassed her own. And she was not in the least an idiot. Whatever she might have been in the past, she was never an idiot.
She was not conditioned by advanced schooling to think she always knew what she was doing. This, too, seemed an advantage. It meant that she would make mistakes the others would not, but it also meant there were times the others would commit mistakes that she wouldn’t. This made her a valuable member of the counseling team. That was not just her opinion. All of the counselors valued her—or they had until they discovered that two clients, at different times, had lived with her. Letting a client move in was not the type of error any of the other counselors would commit. She understood why they claimed it was a mistake, and she understood why they actually thought it was a mistake, and the two were not the same thing. They claimed it created ethical conflicts, but what they really feared was that they would be forced to scrutinize the ever shifting line between counselor and client—how much of your life to hand over to the clients and how much to hold back. As it turned out, inviting a client to live with her actually was a mistake but for a completely different reason: it had ripped wide a seam in her heart.
Mercy, she said, just audibly. It had become her preferred exclamation since she first heard Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.” Maura had a box of condoms in one of her desk drawers. The box advertised two dozen prophylactics in a variety of colors, ribbed for pleasure. Barnstone counted. None was missing. A hopeful box, she understood, a rainbow of wishes.
Patricia Barnstone’s life had not worked out as she planned, but it nonetheless pleased her. She had two decades of fierce fidelity to her passion, and then, by means of blind luck, she was permitted to make a new life. She had become a stubborn but amicable and able colleague, lumbering now into her late fifties, aware that old age was perched on her stoop and it knocked now and then at her door. She did not have a particular affinity for the mentally ill. If the Fairlane had fallen apart in a prison town, she might have become a reformatory specialist, or a parole officer. If she had been stranded in a university town, she might have become a tutor or an adjunct teacher. Sometimes she wondered what place she would have fled. A canning town? A home to the porn industry?
In the bottom drawer of Maura’s desk, beneath a spiral notebook, she found a single domino stuck to a strip of silver duct tape. Barnstone had no idea what use this could
She pulled open the desk’s drawers. Only once in the past few weeks had she seen Maura stoned, and Barnstone’s response had been direct: “You can get kicked out of the sheltered workshop for that. You’ll lose your privileges.” She did not know how pot made its way into the Center, but there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it. She wasn’t so naive as to think the girl would never get high again. Nor was she so naive as to think a little pot was a big deal. Barnstone believed the unlikely route she had taken to her job served her well. Twenty years in rock and roll had taught her that people who give every impression of being mindless may yet surprise you. Many of the great rockers were basically idiots, and yet their music far surpassed her own. And she was not in the least an idiot. Whatever she might have been in the past, she was never an idiot.
She was not conditioned by advanced schooling to think she always knew what she was doing. This, too, seemed an advantage. It meant that she would make mistakes the others would not, but it also meant there were times the others would commit mistakes that she wouldn’t. This made her a valuable member of the counseling team. That was not just her opinion. All of the counselors valued her—or they had until they discovered that two clients, at different times, had lived with her. Letting a client move in was not the type of error any of the other counselors would commit. She understood why they claimed it was a mistake, and she understood why they actually thought it was a mistake, and the two were not the same thing. They claimed it created ethical conflicts, but what they really feared was that they would be forced to scrutinize the ever shifting line between counselor and client—how much of your life to hand over to the clients and how much to hold back. As it turned out, inviting a client to live with her actually was a mistake but for a completely different reason: it had ripped wide a seam in her heart.
Mercy, she said, just audibly. It had become her preferred exclamation since she first heard Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.” Maura had a box of condoms in one of her desk drawers. The box advertised two dozen prophylactics in a variety of colors, ribbed for pleasure. Barnstone counted. None was missing. A hopeful box, she understood, a rainbow of wishes.
Patricia Barnstone’s life had not worked out as she planned, but it nonetheless pleased her. She had two decades of fierce fidelity to her passion, and then, by means of blind luck, she was permitted to make a new life. She had become a stubborn but amicable and able colleague, lumbering now into her late fifties, aware that old age was perched on her stoop and it knocked now and then at her door. She did not have a particular affinity for the mentally ill. If the Fairlane had fallen apart in a prison town, she might have become a reformatory specialist, or a parole officer. If she had been stranded in a university town, she might have become a tutor or an adjunct teacher. Sometimes she wondered what place she would have fled. A canning town? A home to the porn industry?
In the bottom drawer of Maura’s desk, beneath a spiral notebook, she found a single domino stuck to a strip of silver duct tape. Barnstone had no idea what use this could
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