Chapter 19

It was with definitely mixed feelings that Julia welcomed Julie for her first session as a true patient. Julia had come to regard Betty as a very good friend. They had been meeting together for lunch or breakfast almost weekly, and Julia had been invited to dinner a few times when Frank was away. It return, Betty and Alan had been to the Waxman house for dinner once and had been treated to dinner and a play once.

Now that Julie was a patient, getting together with Betty posed an ethical problem for Julia. There was certainly no policy or by-law that prevented it, but her own standards weighed against it. Betty was only the patient's mother-in-law, but they were living in the same house. At breakfast the day before Julie's first appointment, Julia had explained her dilemma.

"I would sure miss our get-togethers," Betty said, "but if it means better treatment for Julie, that's the way it has to be. I'm really concerned about her, and not just for Glen's sake, either."

As she had several times before, Betty almost brought Julia to tears. A big part of the reason she treasured Betty as a friend was that she was the most straight-forward, guileless person she had ever met. She knew Betty's declaration was not a put-on in any way. "Tell you what," Betty went on, "can we try at least once more, after you've met with Julie. I will not bring up anything about her: we can talk about our love lives and good stuff like that. I'll try to be just a girlfriend and not a patient's mother-in-law. 'Course, if you need to ask me something to help with Julie, then I'll be her mother-in-law again. Think that will work?" Julia just reached across and squeezed her hand.

Contrasts were nothing new in her profession, but Julia had long ago placed Betty and Vince as primary examples of the extremes, even though she had never met Vince face to face. Her perception of Vince was as the most self-absorbed person on earth. Betty, on the other hand, lived her life as much for her loved ones as anyone she had ever met. As far as she could tell, Julia had never met a person more content with her life than Betty. Vince, on the other hand, must by now have been a pretty miserable man.

"Julie, I have to commend you for not taking out your feelings on your mother," Julia said after Julie had described what caused her recent depression.

"Well, I kinda did," Julie answered. "She could tell I was, uh, closing up on her."

"That was a pretty mild reaction for the way you felt. Don't you hold her responsible for missing the college experience you dreamed about?" Theresa had told Julia why Julie needed to see her.

Julie was very quiet for a while, then said "Dr. Waxman, I..."

"Call me Julia, please. I know our similar names are confusing, but I like to think you were a friend before you were a patient."

"Oh, yeah. Thank you," Julie responded uncertainly. "Anyway, it's hard for me to think of Mom as the same person who did those things. You must see it - how totally different she is. Back at graduation time, I used to lay awake at night thinking of ways I could get revenge on her and my Dad. But what would be the point any more?"

"For my whole life, I saw how my friend Candy was with her Mom. I was so jealous - I wanted that. I think all girls want that. Then, when I moved in with Glen, I got some of that with Betty - a lot it. It made me feel even worse for what I had missed. Now, I'm getting it from my own mother. It feels too good to spoil it by getting angry at her all over again."

"Julie, I've spent years with patients and failed to get them to the place you have just expressed. Are you sure you really need to see me?"

"Hey, I told you what my mind has figured out," Julie answered with some animation. "Maybe you can help me get my feelings to go along with my mind. Besides, you're the only person I can talk to about the Big Thing."

"Ah, yes. The Big Thing," Julia said, restraining a chuckle at the euphemism for Julie's intentional pregnancy. "Of course, you already know my view on the Big Thing from when we talked before."

"Yes, I know. You're afraid that it will poison our marriage. My problem is that I'm afraid it would destroy it right now if he found out."

"And you're hoping that time will bring enough reasons to stay married that you can survive as a couple when he finds out?" Julia asked.

"You seem so certain that he will find out," Julie said with some irritation. Julia decided not to respond, and they sat in silence for a while.

Julia broke the silence with a somber tone. "Julie, I am concerned that the Big Thing will affect your feelings and attitude toward your daughter."

"Oh, no, I'd never..." Julie started to object, but stopped in mid-sentence and stared at Julia.

When Julie seemed to sag in her chair, Julia spoke again. "I take it you've been concerned about that yourself. Do you think about Libby as the reason all of your dreams are gone?"

"Now, wait," Julie said with some irritation, "not all of my dreams are gone. I'm going to be with Glen forever, and that's my biggest dream of all."

"But you've already admitted that your marriage might not survive him discovering the Big Thing." Julia knew that was a very strong, inflammatory statement. She did not want to hurt the girl, but she had to make sure Julie had a realistic understanding of her situation. The tears that began running down Julie's cheeks told her she understood it very well.

"I'm sorry, Julie. I hope you know I would not intentionally hurt you. I need to find out where your head is about your situation. You were telling me that not all of your dreams are dead. What else is still alive?"

"I've always seen myself as a mother, and now I am one. And Libby is more wonderful than I could have imagined." Julie brightened up quickly when she mentioned Libby. "You know, when I hold her, I sometimes think how I would feel if someday she just walked away and never wanted to see me again. It makes me more sympathetic toward Mom."

"But you never think of Libby as the cause of what you missed out on?"

"She didn't cause it. I had her on purpose, and it was the only thing I could do. Mom and Dad were the ones who really killed the dreams."

"Yet you no longer hate your mother?"

"No! Are you trying to convince me that I should?" Julia asked with obvious anger.

"Of course not, Julie. I am trying to get a good picture of what you are thinking and feeling."

"I will tell you I hate that woman that was married to my father. But that's just not Mom."

"Do you believe that she was as much a victim of your father as you and Terry were?"

"Yes! Terry and I have talked about this a lot. He's not where I am, but we agree that Dad was just so powerful that he overwhelmed all of us. Mom became what he forced her to be. The woman that is married to Roland couldn't even be related to the mother I ran away from."

"Do you hate your father?"

"Oh, wow? I guess you are trying to find out. I would say I see him as the real cause of everything bad that has happened to me. I don't care if I ever see him again. Do I wish for bad things to happen to him? I guess being so hardheaded he lost someone like Mom is enough punishment. Of course, if he doesn't realize just what he lost, it isn't much punishment, is it?"

"You don't think he realizes it?"

"I have no way of knowing, and I certainly don't want to ask him," Julie declared. "My guess would be that he has made her into the villain in his mind."

"You're very reluctant to admit to hatred, aren't you?" Julia asked.

"To me, hatred is an out of control emotion," Julie explained. "If you had grown up with us, you would have seen what out of control emotion can do. I don't ever want to be like that." Theresa had stunned Julia several times with her insights and declarations. Now, her daughter had made a stunningly profound statement.

"Does that make you, um, restrain your emotions a lot, then?" Julia asked almost without thought.

"Not the good ones," Julie said with her first smile in a long time.

Writing or pretending to write notes was an excellent way to plan a new line of questioning. Julia thought it was time for that change, and wrote for a minute or so before continuing.

"Was there anything else from your talks with Megan that caused you to be jealous or depressed? Something besides the college experience."

"Oh! Um, yeah, there was," Julie responded quickly. "She has so many things, anything she wants, in fact. Mom and Dad had money like that. I could have had most anything I wanted."

"But you didn't want it?"

"Of course I wanted it. I just wasn't willing to pay the price."

"Which was... ?"

"Be exactly what they expected me to be. Get straight A's, keep my virginity, go to their college, be their perfect little display doll."

"In other words, buy their favor?"

"Yeah, I guess that's the way I thought about it."

"Was that such a high price?"

"If I hadn't started going with Glen, I might have been willing to just go along. What they wanted meant being separated from him. That was too much."

As the session neared its end, Julia tried to explain some of the harsh questions she had asked. Julie assured her she understood and thanked Julia for listening and for making her think.

Julie had understated the impact of all of Megan's talk of wealth and possessions. And it was not just Megan. The entire store, and especially its clientele, screamed 'MONEY'. When she drove, Julie parked their ten-year-old economy car in the back lot with the cars of the warehouse gang. Most of the sales staff drove cars more like the customers'. The main lot usually resembled a luxury car dealership.

All day on the job, she interacted with people whose only concern about dropping several thousand on a single piece of furniture was whether it was exactly the right color, or whether it could be delivered in time for the big party. Price never seemed to be an issue.

For a girl who had once been able to live that way, it was hard to be reminded that she was now on the other side. Several of the salespeople were themselves quite well off. Her fashion conscious eye knew how long the women could go before wearing the same outfit again, and it was a long time. She had struggled to get mix and match clothes that at least looked like something different every day of the week.

To her credit, Julie had not let the wealth gap bother her for the first year of her marriage, but her constant interaction with Megan over the summer broke through her ability to ignore the disparity of her own circumstances.

The Menconi home was filled with quality things. One of the few activities Julie had shared with her mother as a teen was shopping. She had hated the clothes her mother forced on her, but she learned to recognize quality, nonetheless. She had no negative feelings about the home furnishings, and already had a good eye for quality and style when she started working at the store. That was partly why she became a successful salesperson so quickly.

Even her sessions with Julia could not keep her from feeling more and more deprived as time went on. With Glen planning on being a teacher, she knew that she would never be able to shop in the store where she was working. The exquisite items that her customers ordered so casually often cost more than any car they would likely own.

Julie was not naturally greedy or covetous, but she did like nice things. The economic disparity was something that wore on her little by little over a long period of time. In retrospect, she might have been better off finding another job, but she probably could not have equaled her earnings anywhere else.

She was certainly not the first poor person making a living selling things she could never hope to buy. Nor was she ungrateful for the good things she did have. But neither was she impervious to the contrasts between the haves and the relative have nots.

Glen's desire to be a teacher had always bothered Julie, being the one thing about him that she was not thrilled with. She held him in such high regard that she believed he could be as successful as her father, or the store owner, or any other man if he would just choose something more lucrative than teaching.

Julia ferreted out Julie's feelings and fears about their future financial outlook. Of particular concern to her was the possibility that the girl might start to think less of her husband, even fall out of love with him. She had certainly seen it happen.

This was one of those areas where all a therapist could do was help the patient to explore their feelings and concerns thoroughly, then try to give them the best possible perspective. Through the fall and the holiday season, the lost college dream receded in importance, and the economic outlook dominated the sessions. Julia could see the issue growing in importance in Julie's mind, and sensed that she was conducting a controlled retreat with her patient.

In a couple of sessions, Julia suggested it might be best for Julie to find a different job. That suggestion was met with surprising resistance, considering the emotional turmoil resulting from the job. Julie made very sound arguments about the level of her earnings and the excellence of the medical coverage. Julia had to concede that she probably could not duplicate them elsewhere.

When Julia asked if a reduction in earnings and benefits might not be worthwhile to keep from being bombarded by the economic disparity every day, Julie resisted that idea vigorously. After more detailed discussion, Julia concluded that Julie liked working in the environment of money and expensive things. It was becoming like a fairy tale dream for her, and she did not want to give it up. If she could never have those things, at least let her be around them and dream.

The therapy sessions gave Julie an outlet for her frustrations and kept her from taking them out on Glen or Libby. Unfortunately, her bleak economic future was not the only thing about the job that triggered dissatisfaction in Julie.

Nearly every sales organization has 'God's gift to women' on the payroll. Depending on the class of the organization, he may be crude and sleazy or quite urbane and sophisticated. The furniture store had not one but two such men employed.

The commission structure allowed senior sales 'consultants' to earn very attractive incomes. It only happened through legitimate skill, hard work, and tenure, so the caliber of consultants was generally high. That only made more impact on Julie.

The problem was that these men were polished extroverts. They were impeccably groomed and dressed. They drove the kind of cars the customers had, and they frequented the higher class clubs and restaurants. And they were committed single hunter types.

With Julie's looks, she was a constant target of male customers and employees alike. The owner and the sales manager, a woman, were very ethical people, and very much attuned to the dangers of harassment and sex discrimination. As did all new employees, Julie had an orientation session where it was made clear that no sale was worth her tolerating any kind of abuse or pressure from a customer. That message had been reinforced regularly, and there had been a few times when she had sent a customer away because of crude or suggestive comments. She was learning how tenuous was the correlation between money and class.

With her two flirtatious coworkers, there was never a problem of harassment or crude behavior. They were both classy guys - but classy guys with active hormones. They were always courteous and helpful to her, but they missed no chance to deliver a compliment, either.

It did not take long for the wolves to determine that there was zero chance of getting Julie into bed, or of even getting her to go out with them. To her, that was not even a remote possibility. That, however, did not diminish her appeal in their eyes, and only seemed to redouble their efforts to flirt with her.

Any woman responds to compliments and flirtatious attention, and Julie was no exception. Knowing what the guys really wanted did no harm to her ego, either, regardless of the fact that she would never even consider it.

The real impact of the two guys on Julie was to put Glen at a disadvantage by contrast. They were bon vivantes, while Glen hardly had a life. They avidly pursued and talked endlessly about every pleasure that was in vogue. All Glen did was go to work, go to school, swim, and spend as much time as he could with Julie and Libby.

Both of the guys could have modeled for GQ in their work attire. Glen went to work at night in clothes appropriate for a warehouse, including the store vest and ID badge. To school, he wore jeans and whatever top was appropriate for the weather.

The guys seemed to have a contest to see who could make Julie react the most to their compliments. Glen was uniformly sweet and considerate. He worshipped her body nearly every night with a lotion massage. But he was not constantly heaping praise on her for her beauty.

Julie was certainly no venal airhead to be swayed by superficial things. She understood and appreciated Glen's drive and determination, and stood in awe of his endurance. She melted every time she saw him loving up Libby, and she fairly vibrated as he applied lotion to her naked body.

But there was little excitement or flash in their lives, and that was what the two guys represented in abundance. She knew Glen was the reality of her life, but she could not stop the tendrils of discontent from worming their way in over the months.

As a boyfriend, Glen had done very well at the excitement aspects of their relationship. But when suddenly faced with family responsibility, he was so determined not to fail that he could only see what he had to do for survival and for future success. The little getaway weekend at the cabin had been a nice infusion of some excitement, but it had never been repeated. They barely went out to dinner or an event of any kind once a month. He had become so consumed by the urgent that he was losing sight of the important. He was doing his part to make the contrast unflattering to himself, even though he knew nothing of the comparison that his wife faced every day. As for his goal of teaching: he never had any reason to question or reevaluate it.

That was a subject Julia began hammering on in their sessions after the holidays. Julie discussed her feelings and concerns readily in the sessions, but had never voiced a word of concern or discontent to Glen. Her guilt toward him was already so heavy that she could not imagine criticizing him in any way. Julia's counsel to start talking to him about his career choice fell on deaf ears. He was killing himself to fulfill his dream. How could she suggest to him that his dream wasn't a good one for his family?

As the winter wore on, Julie steadfastly refused to open up to her husband about her concerns. She also refused to try to prod him toward more romance and excitement. Her guilt would not let her do those things, and thus her guilt caused them to smolder and fester inside of her.

Glen was practically killing himself. Only his steadfast commitment to swimming kept his body from deteriorating under the constant demands and the minimal sleep. Only the kind of mental discipline that allowed a person to excel in a grueling sport like swimming could keep him to his murderous schedule.

On top of his full slate of classes, he was constantly working another course on the side. The U allowed certain 'non-core' course requirements to be fulfilled by proficiency exams. As spring approached, he was working on his fifth such exam, having successfully tested out of four courses in the first year and a half. He believed he could graduate a year from the coming May, after just six full semesters and two summer sessions.

In what little extra time he had at school, he began exploring employment possibilities, an effort that was not encouraging. He discovered to his dismay that the Extension had not placed a teaching grad in a metro area public school in seven years. Those demand districts were able to pick and choose their candidates, and always chose from more highly rated schools, often insisting on advanced degrees. Even State did not place many grads in the area.

The sad fact was that when he graduated, he would have to move his family to another city, probably a much smaller city. They would have to leave their families and the wonderful support system that had allowed them to get to that point. He would miss his family, but Julie really was finding a family for the first time. It would be very hard on her.

Economically they would take a big beating. As he checked out the salaries at some of the districts where grads had gone recently, he saw that most were barely more than his wage at the grocery store. Julie was making more than he was, and more than the starting pay at any of the out-state districts. It was a cruel awakening to one of the realities of his chosen profession.

Glen was a very goal-oriented person, and tremendously disciplined. What he was not was wealth-oriented. In all the years that he pointed toward a teaching career, he really never took a serious look at the financial prospects. He knew that the retirement and health benefits were usually very good, but he had paid little attention to the salaries. As a matter of fact, the main reason for choosing teaching was because it was the avenue to coaching, his real dream.

For several days after his examination of the placement history, Glen had difficulty sleeping, a problem he could ill afford. Julie knew something was bothering him and asked about it several times. He, however, was terrified of telling her what their prospects were. She would never find a job that she liked as well and that paid as well in one of those smaller towns. How would they afford an apartment and a car on the salaries being offered? It seemed to him that teaching was intended as a supplementary income for a family, at least in the smaller, poorer districts.

What troubled him as much as anything was why it had taken him so long to discover these discouraging facts. Was he being mercenary to put so much emphasis on the pay? But he had a family to support! That was the key factor! A beginning teacher was supposed to be single and able to live in minimal accommodations until the salary got closer to a living wage. Those starting salaries were never intended to support a wife and a child.

What should he do? Teaching and coaching was all he had ever thought about doing. Would he have to go on for a Masters and try to get into a better-paying metro district? But that would add almost two more years, and the Extension did not have a Masters program in Education. Where would he go? The tuition at Addison University was out of sight, as it was at two other private colleges in town. The degrees from those schools were worth a lot more, but he had to get there, first. Even with the trust money and his earnings from work, he couldn't cover the cost. Besides that, sooner or later they had to move out on their own.

After four days of turmoil and very little sleep, Glen had reached no resolution to his problem, but was able sleep from sheer exhaustion. Then, he was blind-sided by another event that was very disturbing to him. Ellie got her swimming scholarship to State.