"I wasn't rejected or abused," I said quickly. "Nothing terrible has ever happened to me." Till last summer, I added silently.
She smoothed the bedcover with her hand. "Sometimes memories of traumatic events can be repressed, so that the individual doesn't consciously remember those events, and therefore doesn't know why she is reacting to a situation that is similar in some way."
"I don't think that's it," I said politely.
"Let me give you an example," Maggie continued. "A child is wearing a certain kind of suntan lotion. That day she watches someone drown at the beach. Years later she happens to buy the same brand of lotion. She puts it on and finds herself paralyzed with fear. She doesn't know why, but she can't go on with whatever she planned to do at that moment. The smell has triggered the feelings of the traumatic event she has long since repressed. Only by remembering the event, understanding what has triggered such an extreme response, can she overcome it."
I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable with the psychological talk. "Repressed memory isn't my problem," I told her. "But I will try the relaxation exercises you mentioned."
"And the incremental exposure."
"That, too."
She smiled agreeably. "Still need a walk?"
"Yeah."
"Stay on this block within the area of the four houses we're occupying. It's perfectly safe, but I'm an old worrywart. Check in with me in twenty minutes, all right?"
I nodded. "Thanks."
For the first few minutes I sat on the front steps of Drama House and gazed at the night sky. Across the road the tall tower on Stoddard cut a dark pattern out of the glittering sky, its clock glowing like a second moon.
I walked up and down the block, then circled Drama House, curious to see my room from the outside. Just as I reached the back of the house, I heard a noise from the fraternity next door, a grunt, then a thud, like a fall that had been muffled by grass. A guy swore softly. I peered around the lumpy trunk of an old cherry tree at the same time that Mike, standing by a window of the frat, turned to look over his shoulder. He grimaced when he saw me.
Maybe he thought I'd mind my own business and walk on, for a moment later he checked to see if I was still there and grimaced again. I wasn't moving; I wanted to know what was going on.
He threw a stone against a second-floor window and someone raised the shade. "I need your help," Mike called quietly.
He waited-I guessed for his helper to come down-stairs-and looked back over his shoulder a third time.
"Still here," I said.
The light in the first-floor room went on. The shade rolled up-it was the guys' bathroom. Maybe I shouldn't be looking, I thought, but of course I did. A stubborn window screen was yanked up.
"Ready?" I heard Mike ask the guy inside, then he leaned over, grunting and pulling. I stepped to the right of the tree to get a better view and saw a heap of a person on the ground, then a head come up above a set of shoulders as Mike heaved him onto the windowsill.
"Got a good hold?" Mike asked. "On the count of three. One, two-" In the bathroom light I saw Paul's head, then torso go over the window frame.
"Glad he's not any heavier," the guy inside said, tugging on the screen.
"Splash some cold water on his face," Mike instructed, "and let him stay in the bathroom for a while."
The shade was yanked down from the inside, and Mike turned away from the window. He seemed to be debating what to do, then strolled over to me.
"Out for a walk?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I guess you know it's past curfew."
"I have permission," I said. "What about you?"
He grinned. "I don't."
"What happened to Paul?"
"Oh, nothing too bad."
"Nothing too bad like what?" I asked.
Mike gestured toward the tree. "Want to sit down?"
Under a tree, alone with him in the moonlight? I wasn't sure.
"You climb trees, don't you?" he persisted. "You must if you're a gymnast."
The first strong limb was about four feet off the ground. I hoisted myself onto it-Mike was going to help me but thought better of it. Then I climbed up to a limb that grew in the opposite direction, about seven feet high. Mike made himself comfortable on the long lower limb. I wondered if he and Liza used to sit there together.
"Paul hangs around town and gets himself in trouble with the locals," Mike said. "I should have let him get his head split open by the giant he took on tonight. It's the only way he' ll get any sense knocked into it."
"You rescued him?"
"Are you kidding? I'm not an idiot. I grabbed him and ran like a good coward."
I smiled.
"Listen," Mike said, "you've got to keep this quiet, okay?"
"Give me a reason why."
"We need Paul for the production. But more important, Paul needs us," he added, his blue eyes intense, persuasive. "Theater is the only thing that has kept Paul in school. It's what has kept him from getting into the really bad stuff. We can't get him bounced out of here."
"He makes me very uncomfortable."
"He aims to," Mike replied. "It's just an act."
"Brian said the same thing about Walker."
Mike smiled. "Don't be fooled by Walker. At heart, he's a good guy."
I must have made a face, for Mike laughed up at me. "Yeah, I can see he's got a fan in you. But really, I don't know what I'd do without him. He found grant money for me so I could attend last year and this. He has taught me more than the books I've read or any of my other teachers. I'm really grateful to him."
"I'm glad he has helped you," I said, "but I still think he's an egotistical tyrant with a nasty streak in him."
"A lot of creative people are that way."