The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick Page B

surface. It sucked all the air out of the room.
    Or maybe like looking into a well, and feeling the urge to step away, so you wouldn’t fall in—and yet you lean in a little closer, anyway.
    Then his eye snapped shut and he went back to praying, so Wendy and I made our way into the kitchen.
    She sat down and removed her coat, but left her sunglasses on, which I thought was strange.
    “How was group therapy?” she asked me. “Arnie said very nice things about you.”
    “It was okay. Better than I thought it would be.” I smiled here, and you, Richard Gere, in my mind you whispered, Go on. Tell her. You sounded so proud of me. So I said, “And afterward, I accomplished one of my life goals.”
    “Really?” she said very loudly, enthusiastically, and then leaned in toward me. “Which one?”
    I looked at her small knee—the left one; it was black because she was wearing leggings under her wool skirt—smiled, and said, “I had a beer with an age-appropriate friend at a pub. And after only one meeting with Arnie.”
    “ Bartholomew! I’m so proud,” she said, but it sounded too enthusiastic—fake—which depressed me. “Who was your lucky drinking partner?”
    “Max.”
    Her orange eyebrows popped up from behind her white sunglasses. “Max from group therapy?”
    “Are two people a group? I thought there would be more than one other person in group therapy,” I said, because I did think that and had been wondering about why there were only two of us.
    “We pair up people, like partners. Support buddies. We don’t want to overwhelm people like Max and you with a larger group. You need to start with small steps.”
    “Max is grieving over a cat named Alice,” I said, just stating a fact.
    “People grieve for all sorts of reasons. It’s probably best not to compare or try to measure.”
    I nodded in full agreement, thinking the Dalai Lama would also nod if he were here.
    “What did you two have to drink?” Wendy asked.
    “Guinness.”
    “Yum! I love Guinness! Guinness is good for you, they say. One of the healthier beers. Something about the dark color is good for your heart, I think. I read that somewhere. Makes me feel better about drinking beer when I do. So I always drink Guinness. Also, you can’t drink as many. Too filling. So it’s a safe beer too. I’m glad that you and Max—”
    “Why are you wearing sunglasses?” I asked. It was a logical question. People don’t often wear sunglasses indoors. Wendy had never before worn sunglasses during one of our meetings. And yet, as soon as the words jumped out of my mouth, I realized that the question was weighty and would change the nice, easy flow of the conversation. It was as if the power had shifted and I had become the counselor—or at least that’s how it felt to me. I sort of sensed that I needed to become the counselor—like something needed to be done, and I was the one to do it.
    Wendy paused and took a few seconds to think about her answer. In my mind I saw her eyes look up to the left, but I couldn’t tell for sure because of the dark black lenses that were reflecting the circular light above, making two glowing circles out of one—twin robot moons.
    Finally, Wendy said, “I was playing softball with my boyfriend and his buddies and I took a line drive to the face. Wanna see?”
    I didn’t say anything in response, but she took off her sunglasses, anyway. Her left eye was almost swollen shut. Iridescent yellow, purple, and green filled her eye socket like an oily puddle of gasoline rainbows.
    “Based on the look you’re giving me, I should probably put these back on,” Wendy said, and then she was wearing her sunglasses again, smiling—yet her smile wasn’t true, and harder to look at than the actual bruise.
    Remember the bruise on her wrist last week? She wasn’t playing softball , you whispered in my mind, Richard Gere. She needs help. This woman needs saving .
    I looked at her wrist, and there was still a red mark,