Page 56 of The Last Session

“I’ll go.” Karen spoke. Relief flooded my system.

“Wonderful. Come on down, Karen.” He beckoned, then gently clasped her shoulder. “So I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Please try to answer everything, even if the answer isI don’t know.”

A gentle pulsing sound: Moon was tapping a soft metronome into her drum. It felt discordant to see her acting as the quiet observer instead of the animated leader of the night before.

“Will do.” Karen smiled nervously.

“So.” Sol started walking in a slow circle around her. “Last night at dinner you told us you suck at relationships. Right?”

“That’s correct.” She sounded as if she were being questioned on the witness stand.

“And you mentioned a friend suggested you come.”

“Yes.”

“What made your friend do that?” The drumbeat added a sinister quality to the questioning, a horror movie soundtrack warning us to pay attention.

Karen smiled ruefully. “Well, he knows my dating issues. Specifically, that I’m too picky.”

“Too picky,” Sol echoed. “After you start dating people—well, men; you indicated on your paperwork you’re straight—you decide they’re not good enough?”

“Sometimes. Oftentimes.”

“So, who’s the last person you left?”

Karen squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, goodness. Well, the last person was him.”

“Him!” Sol glanced over at us with surprise, a comedian riffing with an audience member for a laugh. “Yourexsuggested you should come here?”

“Yes. Well, we’d been friends for many years. We decided to try dating, and it just didn’t work out.” She shrugged.

“Interesting choice of words.” Sol moved his hand in a straight line, like reading from a book. “?‘It just didn’t work out.’?” My stomachdropped. Was my “work” going to look like this, a bad comedy routine?

Sol paused, glancing right at me as if he could hear my thoughts. “So, I’m being a little facetious, Karen. And there’re a few reasons for that. The first is that I know—or I feel—that this is in fact the way to break through to you. Because the issue is that you’re disconnected from your feelings.”

Disconnected? The woman who was reading self-help books on the plane?

Sol turned back to her. “Is that right?”

After a second, she nodded.

“You’re being honest with me, right, Karen? You’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”

“Of course not.” She scoffed.

“Good.” Sol crossed his arms. “Now, some might ask: What happened to cut you off from your emotions? And that’s an important question. But what I’m most interested in right now is the behavior. You say you’re too picky, but I think you’re actually picking these people on purpose. Just not consciously.”

“Okay…” She sounded unsure.

“I bet they’re all reeeeeally niiice.” Sol drew out the words. “Good guys, huh?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“And they bore the living shit out of you!”

She groaned and dropped her head. Now we all laughed.

“I mean, let’s take the last guy. You dumped his ass, and he’s still trying to take care of you!” Sol tipped his head, like he was hearing something the rest of us couldn’t. “He might’ve even… oh shit. Karen, did he… did he pay for this retreat?”

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