Blood Sisters_ Vampire Stories by Women - Paula Guran Page 0,100

mutual aid was the only true therapy—the rest was fraud. What a perfectionist, old Rigby, and what a bunch of young idealists he’d turned out, all eager to save the world.

Eager, but not necessarily able. Jane Fennerman had once lived in the world, and Floria had been incompetent to save her. Jane, an absent member of tonight’s group, was back in the safety of a locked ward, hazily gliding on whatever tranquilizers they used there.

Why still mull over Jane? she asked herself severely, bracing against the bus’s lurching halt. Any client was entitled to drop out of therapy and commit herself. Nor was this the first time that sort of thing had happened in the course of Floria’s career. Only this time she couldn’t seem to shake free of the resulting depression and guilt.

But how could she have helped Jane more? How could you offer reassurance that life was not as dreadful as Jane felt it to be, that her fears were insubstantial, that each day was not a pit of pain and danger?

She was taking time during a client’s canceled hour to work on notes for the new book. The writing, an analysis of the vicissitudes of salaried versus private practice, balked her at every turn. She longed for an interruption to distract her circling mind.

Hilda put through a call from Cayslin College. It was Doug Sharpe, who had sent Dr. Weyland to her.

“Now that he’s in your capable hands, I can tell people plainly that he’s on what we call ‘compassionate leave’ and make them swallow it.” Doug’s voice seemed thinned by the long-distance connection. “Can you give me a preliminary opinion?”

“I need time to get a feel for the situation.”

He said, “Try not to take too long. At the moment I’m holding off pressure to appoint someone in his place. His enemies up here—and a sharp-tongued bastard like him acquires plenty of those—are trying to get a search committee authorized to find someone else for the directorship of the Cayslin Center for the Study of Man.”

“Of People,” she corrected automatically, as she always did. “What do you mean, ‘bastard’? I thought you liked him, Doug. ‘Do you want me to have to throw a smart, courtly, old-school gent to Finney or MacGill?’ Those were your very words.” Finney was a Freudian with a mouth like a pursed-up little asshole and a mind to match, and MacGill was a primal yowler in a padded gym of an office.

She heard Doug tapping at his teeth with a pen or pencil. “Well,” he said, “I have a lot of respect for him, and sometimes I could cheer him for mowing down some pompous moron up here. I can’t deny, though, that he’s earned a reputation for being an accomplished son-of-a-bitch and tough to work with. Too damn cold and self-sufficient, you know?”

“Mmm,” she said. “I haven’t seen that yet.”

He said, “You will. How about yourself? How’s the rest of your life?”

“Well, offhand, what would you say if I told you I was thinking of going back to art school?”

“What would I say? I’d say bullshit, that’s what I’d say. You’ve had fifteen years of doing something you’re good at, and now you want to throw all that out and start over in an area you haven’t touched since Studio 101 in college? If God had meant you to be a painter, She’d have sent you to art school in the first place.”

“I did think about art school at the time.”

“The point is that you’re good at what you do. I’ve been at the receiving end of your work and I know what I’m talking about. By the way, did you see that piece in the paper about Annie Barnes, from the group I was in? That’s an important appointment. I always knew she’d wind up in Washington. What I’m trying to make clear to you is that your ‘graduates’ do too well for you to be talking about quitting. What’s Morton say about that idea, by the way?”

Mort, a pathologist, was Floria’s lover. She hadn’t discussed this with him, and she told Doug so.

“You’re not on the outs with Morton, are you?”

“Come on, Douglas, cut it out. There’s nothing wrong with my sex life, believe me. It’s everyplace else that’s giving me trouble.”

“Just sticking my nose into your business,” he replied. “What are friends for?”

They turned to lighter matters, but when she hung up Floria felt glum. If her friends were moved to this sort of probing and kindly advice-giving,