And If I Don't Want to Ride the Ride?

First, I must apologize for my long hiatus. While the therapist my mother sends me to feels that these little chronicles are beneficial to our work, he felt a triste to the Continent would be more so. I pointed out to him that such a vacation with mother might cause damage equal to several years of additional therapy. As such, I told him I had to find his recommendation a bit suspect. He responded to my concerns by opening my file and asking me about my dreams of late.

My dreams, of late, have been unimpressive.

Transatlantic travel with mother is always typified by three things: mother's use of my checkable luggage space, savory crepes every morning for breakfast while in France, and my rental of a bicycle while everywhere else.

Mother always asks why I don't want a bicycle at home. I told her that I cannot live La Dolce Vita at home. Mother told me only I could live a life so dreary that its wild side would only venture into bicycle rides. The therapist my mother sends me to asked how I felt about that comment. I told him I wished my mother could appreciate cinema as much as her college Italian course.

He did not laugh either.

The therapist my mother sends me to insisted that surely something of merit happened in my months abroad. I asked why it was surely so. I told him that surely people take uneventful vacations. Surely, I said, such vacations were the source of bad vacations. My therapist sighed until I recounted a story.

The only event of interest to occur during my time in Europe occurred at the American embassy in Italy. I had somehow misplaced my passport en route from Paris.

"What a shame you'll miss luncheon, Harold. I'll see you at the hotel this evening," Mother said. Mother only ever references the places that she visits in a day. My visit to the embassy was implied.

On my way out of the embassy, I paused against the outer gate, watching pedestrians shuffle by on the sidewalk. In particular, I was engaged by a small boy across the street. He looked to be six or seven, but he was dressed in an infant's dressing gown that was meant to look like a navy sailors' suit.

"Poor kid. Thank Christ he's too young to feel real shame."

There was no question the girl talking to me was American. More than her accent, she was dressed in blue jeans and a ratty tee-shirt which advertised STICK AROUND - I'M LOADED.

"I was thinking that outfit is probably quite comfortable," I mused.

The girl snorted and called out across the street, "Hey kid! Get off the merry-go-round! Runaway while you still can!" She seemed quite satisfied with her commentary and grinned at me. I looked at her for awhile. It was clear that she anticipated some sort of reply from me.

Unfortunately for her, I had nothing to say at the moment and merely looked back at her. She gave a smile and sigh.

"Are you Peter?"

The therapist my mother sends me to asked why I lied and agreed that I was, indeed, Peter. I told him I was lonely. My therapist said that loneliness would certainly explain wanting to talk to a pretty girl. Loneliness, however, would not explain my employment of deception to talk to a pretty girl. The therapist my mother sends me to explained that loneliness is not pathology, but lying is pathology. My therapist said that if it were true that I acted only out of loneliness with the girl, I could have simply introduced myself honestly.

I told my therapist that he has never been honestly lonely.

The girl, whose name was Sarah-Marie Parker-Williams, had evidently planned to meet Peter, the cousin of a friend, in front of the American embassy that afternoon. After agreeing that I was the sought-after Peter, we made our way across town to Piazza San Marco, a touristy area that Sarah-Marie had marked in her "Europe for Dummies." She mentioned several times that she would "totally love some coffee and biscotti." I told her that I had never considered that one could entirely love coffee and biscotti. She laughed that polite laugh that I hear from mother's friends at dinner parties, that polite laugh that people use to fill awkward silences and cover awkward utterances.

We found a small cafe and approached the counter. It was a long, clear display case filled with cookies and confections. I have never been much of a fan of sweets, but a hot espresso sounded agreeable.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked why I would go to a cafe if I didn't want to go to a cafe. I reminded him that I do not have a sweet tooth, not that I dislike cafes on principle. He replied that that was fair enough, but he blushed.

If I were him, I wouldn't have been listening carefully to my story, either.

"Una cafe and una biscotti, por favora," Sarah-Marie announced to the clerk behind the case. I could see that he was unimpressed. He nodded disgustedly to a co-worker at the espresso machine.

"Quale biscotti?"

Sarah-Marie nodded with exaggeration. "Si, biscotti." I considered stepping in, but did nothing.

The clerk gestured to the bakery case with equal exaggeration. "Si, quale biscotti?" Then he turned and murmured something to his co-workers that my Italian could not decipher. It certainly sounded derisive, though.

Sarah-Marie pressed her fingers to the glass and pointed. "This one, asshole. A biscotti."

I do not know if the clerk spoke English, but he certainly understood the venom in "asshole."

I followed Sarah-Marie, her espresso, and her biscotti to a table outside. She dropped herself into a chair and pulled another over from a nearby table for her bag.

"'Biscotti' means 'cookie,'" I offered.

"He probably fucks around on his wife," she countered.

As the afternoon progressed, I learned a great deal about the sort of Peter I was supposed to be. Peter is in his first year at graduate school, doing a semester of research in Italy. Something about history, evidentially.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked if I found it difficult to maintain the deception that I was Peter. I told him that it was fairly easy, seeing as Sarah-Marie did the majority of the talking and only asked close-ended questions. My therapist asked if I had wished I had had the opportunity to try on the role of Peter more, to talk more as Peter that afternoon. I told my therapist that I felt I had tried on the role of Peter quite enough, that I assume that Sarah-Marie would have been as loquacious with the real Peter as well. My therapist asked if I thought my mother would have liked my being out with Sarah-Marie that afternoon. I told my therapist that my mother would have described Sarah-Marie as the sort of conversationalist that can only be silenced through violence or alcohol.

Sarah-Marie was what my mother would call vapid, but pretty enough to get by in life. She was blonde, though my mother would point out that she is not naturally so. We were about the same height; I am short for my age, a fact Sarah-Marie was quick to point out.

"You're a nice guy and stuff, Peter. But I just want to put it out there that we cannot hook up, ok? I'm not trying to be rude, you know? I'm just putting it out there."

Sarah-Marie raised her hand a good foot over her head and pursed her lips.

"You have to be at least this high to ride this ride, ok?"

I walked her to her youth hostel without incident and met mother for dinner.

The therapist my mother sends me to seems to feel that the most important aspect of this story pivots on whether or not I was sexually attracted to Sarah-Marie. I told him he was missing the point, not that I knew what the point was. I was, however, certain that it had nothing to do with sex. Not everything, after all, is Freudian. My therapist indicated that my beginning the story with an emasculated boychild in a sailor suit and ending it with an outright sexual rejection seemed sufficiently Freudian to him. He then indicated that he is, after all, a therapist.

It seems to me that one cannot be rejected if one has failed to advance in the first place, and I felt having my psyche judged on the basis of coincidental encounters with children seemed a haphazard way to conduct psychological medicine.

Had the therapist my mother sends me to not indicated the end of our session, I would have told him as much.

It is comfortable being home again.