you?â
âEleven,â Ian replied.
âHeâs a really good kid,â I said, realizing that I couldnât make the same boastful claim about Molly, and counting my blessings that fifty percent of my children had turned out terrific.
âIâve never gone for younger men, but I think in your case I might make an exception. Do you mind waiting until youâve graduated from college so we can get married?â
Ian blushed and coyly turned his head away. âMom, I have to go to school now.â
I checked my watch. His first class started in twenty-one minutes. âOkay. Iâll walk you over there.â
âYouâre so protective. I can do it myself. Itâs only two blocks.â
âI like to think of it as cautious. Itâs only two blocks but itâs still Manhattan and youâre only in sixth grade. Besides, there was an almost kidnapping on Sixty-fourth Street last week.â
âAn almost kidnapping, Mom. You worry too much.â
âIâm a mother; itâs part of the job description. If I didnâtworry, youâd be taken away by Social Services. And Iâd prefer that you got to school this morning safely, rather than almost got there. So suck it up: youâre getting a chaperone.â
I turned to Alice, who was watching the row of machines launder her grandmotherâs garments for the final time. Her face was a mask of sorrow. âHey,â I murmured, placing my hands gently on her shoulders, âif you want to make an appointment to talk to me, to set up some counseling sessions, Iâm here. You shouldnât have to go through the grieving process alone.â
âThanks,â Alice said, blinking back tears. âMy parents are in Florida, I donât even have a boyfriendâalthough a while back I did meet a really cute guy who paid a house call to repair a piece of old furnitureâand itâs not right to dump on my two best friends all the time. They have enough of their own problems. But Iâm not making a lot of money Off-Broadway, you know. âHeigh-ho the glamorous lifeâ and all that, but my paycheck doesnât leave me with much in the way of disposable income.â
âI donât charge anything for my laundry room sessions. And theyâre very unintimidating; just think of them as a weekly fifty-minute gabfest with a girlfriend who happens to have a psych Ph.D. I hold private counseling sessions down here every morning except Sunday from seven to eight A.M ., and Iâve got one day open, so if you feel that you need some help getting through this bump in your road, Iâm here to listen.â
âWow.â Alice blinked back a grateful tear and surveyed the row of aging washing machines. âWho knew I could come down here and shrink my clothes and my head at the same time!â
AMY
I canât remember when Iâve ever seen a young woman so angry. Amy walked in with such a chip on her shoulder that I admit I found it hard to like herâsomething Iâve never experienced with a laundry room client. In situations like that, I have to focus even harder so as not to betray my bias through my body language or nonverbal responses.
Amy was pissed off that she hadnât lost her baby weight six months after giving birth, particularly since her two older sisters had done so after only forty-five days postpartum; she was frustrated that her newly altered lifestyle often lacked the rosy optimistic glow of an infomercial for motherhood; she was perennially livid with her lawyer husband for never being around to help her with their new son, apart from holding him aloft right after his bris for the entire congregation of Temple Beth Israel to sigh approvingly over, and for retreating into their guest room for lengthy phone calls with colleagues and clients every time she asked for his assistance, even if it was only to hold a fretting Isaac while she took a