“I guess I said I was twenty-nine. I’m actually thirty-two.”
“So you lied?”
He made a chagrined face.
“I was afraid of scaring you off. When Amina guessed twenty-nine, I just happened to say she was right.”
A little white lie. Well, I’d been known to add a few years to my age now and then.
“Age is only a number, after all,” I said.
Chris smiled.
“I had no idea you’d feel the same. But, I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier.”
“It’s okay.”
I stood on tiptoe and kissed him. The tip of his tongue slipped gently into my mouth; I closed my eyes and everything spun.
My heart swelled. At last, something was happening.
Soon I was on my back on the sofa and Chris was stroking me slowly, gently—sometimes with his eyes, sometimes with his fingertips. It was heaven.
61
I’m back with Shirine. She looks cool and amiable, as always, and her Bambi eyes are Bambier than ever. Like in the movie, when the mom has just been shot.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
I can hardly manage a shrug.
“I brought this for you.”
She hands me a brochure entitled A Career in Psychology. I take it and page through it without much enthusiasm.
“Thanks,” I say. “But I don’t think I can become a psychologist.”
Shirine shoots me a look of exaggerated surprise.
“You can’t or you don’t want to? I think you would make an excellent psychologist.”
“Right?”
I put the brochure aside and stare down at the table.
“What’s this about?”
“What?”
“This resignation. As if you don’t believe in yourself at all.”
“Are you joking? I’m in here for murder. Even if I’m not convicted in court, I’m screwed. Guilty in everyone’s eyes. Do you seriously think I could become a psychologist? Come on.”
Shirine leans forward.
“You’re not screwed, Stella. You’re intelligent, funny, quick, and … attractive.”
She’s embarrassing me.
“Are you hitting on me?” I say.
Shirine laughs, breaking the tension.
“What do you want to talk about today?” she asks.
“Anything but myself.”
“We can talk about someone else. It’s up to you.”
I think about Dad. I’ve been thinking about him a lot in the past few days.
“Anyone?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“Control freaks. What do you know about them?”
“Control freaks?”
“Is it the same as having OCD?”
“No, not really,” Shirine says, pushing the plastic pitcher of water toward me. “Being a control freak, or using coercive control, can be a compulsion, but it doesn’t have to be. Many people associate the need for control with a pedantic sense of order, but I’d say it often has to do with the need to be able to predict the future.”
I pour water into my glass.
“To avoid surprises?”
“Many people are frightened of the fact that reality is changeable. People seek security in their lives. So a person might feel that they’re in control when they have the chance to predict what will happen, and when they can make good decisions based on solid knowledge.”
I don’t manage to swallow all the water down, and some trickles from the corner of my mouth.
“Good decisions? Is there such a thing?”
Shirine hands me a napkin.
“Well, the decision you think is best, the one you think will benefit you and your family.”
That sounds reasonable. Of course there’s a difference between making an objectively good decision and one you yourself believe is right.
“In today’s society, when people become brands and everything has to be documented on social media, lots of people also feel a great need to look a certain way in the eyes of others. Of course, this can lead to an unhealthy need for control as well.”
Dad’s words echo inside me. Keep it in the family. He hates social media. Some things are private.
“The paradox is, you know, the more you try to keep control, the less control you feel like you have. It turns into a vicious cycle. You lose control, so you feel stressed, and you try to balance it out by being even more controlling.”
Shirine scratches her ear and looks at me for a long time. She’s good at looking truly concerned, as if she honestly cares, as if this isn’t just a job.