off your pedestal. Now yougot to be upset about this. And so what do you

do? You come in here today and say to Julius: what`syour secret life? You

want to knockhim off his pedestal, level the playing ground. Same page?»

Philip nodded slightly.

«That`s the way I see it. Hell, what else could it be?»

Philip fixed his eyes on Tony and responded, «Your observations

are not without merit.» He turned and addressed Julius: «Perhaps I owe

you an apology—Schopenhauer always warned against allowing our

subjective experience to contaminate objective observation.»

«And an apology to Pam? How about Pam?» asked Bonnie.

«Yes, I suppose. That too.» Philip glanced fleetingly in her

direction. Pam looked away.

When it became apparent that Pam had no intention of responding,

Julius said, «I`ll let Pam speak for herself at her own pace, Philip, but as

for me—no apology is necessary. The very reason you`re here is to

understand what you say and why you say it. And as for Tony`s

observations—I think they`re right on target.»

«Philip, I want to ask you something,” said Bonnie. «It`s a question

that Julius has asked me many times. «How`d you feel after you left the

meeting the last couple of sessions?»

«Not good. Distracted. Even agitated.»

«That`s what I imagined. I could see that,” said Bonnie. «Any

thoughts about Julius`s final comment to you last week—about being

given a gift by Stuart and Rebecca?»

«I didn`t think about that. I tried but just felt tense. Sometimes I fear

that all the strife and clamor here is a destructive distraction taking me

away from the pursuits I really value. All this focus on the past and on our

desires for change in the future only makes us forget the fundamental fact

that life is nothing but a present moment, which is forever vanishing. What

is the point of all this turmoil, given the ultimate destination of

everything?»

«I see what Tony means about you never having any fun. It`s so

bleak,” said Bonnie.

«I call it realism.»

«Well, go back to that bit about life being only a present moment,”

Bonnie insisted. «I`m just asking about the present moment—your present

response to being given a gift. Also, I`ve got a question about our

postgroup coffee sessions. You charged out pretty quickly after the last

two meetings. Did you think you weren`t invited? No, let me put it this

way: what is your present moment feeling about a coffee session after this

meeting?»

«No, I am unaccustomed to so much talking—I need to recover. At

the end of this meeting I will be very glad to be through for the day.»

Julius looked at his watch. «We`ve got to stop—we`re running over.

Philip, I won`t forget my contract with you. You fulfilled your part. I`ll

honor mine next meeting.»

_________________________

Weshould set a limit

to our wishes, curb

our desires, and

subdue our anger,

always mindful of

the fact that the

individual can

attain only an

infinitely small

share of the things

that are worth

having…

_________________________

After the session the group gathered for about forty–five minutes at their

usual Union Street coffee shop. Because Philip was not present, the group

did not talk about him. Nor did they continue to discuss the issues raised

in the meeting. Instead they listened with interest to Pam`s lively

description of her trip to India. Both Bonnie and Rebecca were intrigued

by Vijay, her gorgeous, mysterious, cinnamon–scented train companion,

and encouraged her to respond to his frequent e–mails. Gill was upbeat,

thanked everyone for their support, and said that he was going to meet

with Julius, get serious about abstinence, and begin AA. He thanked Pam

for her good work with him.

«Go Pam,” said Tony. «The tough–love lady strikes again.»

Pam returned to her condo in the Berkeley hills just above the

university. She often congratulated herself for having the good sense to

hold on to this property when she married Earl. Perhaps, unconsciously,

she knew she might need it again. She loved the blond wood in every

room, her Tibetan scatter rugs, and the warm sunlight streaming into the

living room in the late afternoon. Sipping a glass of Prosecco, she sat on

her deck and watched the sun sink behind San Francisco.

Thoughts about the group swirled in her mind. She thought about

Tony doffing the costume of the group jerk and, with surgical precision,

showing Philip how clueless he was about his own behavior. That was

priceless. She wished she had it on tape. Tony was an uncut gem—bit by

bit, more of his real sparkle was becoming visible. And his comment about

her dispensing «tough love»? Did he or anyone else sense how much the

«tough» outweighed the «love» in her response to Gill? Unloading on Gill

was a great pleasure, only slightly diminished by its having been helpful to

him. «Chief justice,” he had called her. Well, at least he had the guts to say

that—but then he tried to undo it by unctuously complimenting her.

She recalled her first sight of Gill—how she was momentarily

attracted to his physical presence, those muscles bulging out of his vest

and jacket, and how quickly he had disappointed her by his pusillanimous

contortions to please everyone and his whining, his endless whining, about

Rose—his frigid, strong–willed, ninety–five–pound Rose—who had the

good sense, it now turns out, not to be impregnated by a drunk.

After only a few meetings Gill had assumed his place in the long

line of male losers in her life, beginning with her father, who wasted his

law degree because he couldn`t stand the competitive life of an attorney

and settled for a safe civil service position of teaching secretaries how to

write business letters and then lacked the fortitude to fight the pneumonia

that killed him before he could start drawing his pension. Behind him in

line there was Aaron, her acne–faced high school gutless boyfriend who

passed up Swarthmore to live at home and commute to the University of

Maryland, the school nearest home; and Vladimir, who wanted to marry

her even though he had never gotten tenure and would be a journeyman

English composition lecturer forever; and Earl, her soon–to–be ex, who

was phony all the way from his Grecian formula hair dye to his Cliff note

mastery of the classics and whose stable of women patients, including

herself, offered easy pickings; and John, who was too much of a coward to

leave a dead marriage and join her. And the latest addition, Vijay? Well,

Bonnie and Rebecca could have him! She couldn`t rouse much enthusiasm

for a man who would need an all–day equanimity retreat to recover from

the stress of ordering breakfast.

But these thoughts about all the others were incidental. The person

who compelled her attention was Philip, that pompous Schopenhauer

clone, that dolt sitting there, mouthing absurdities, pretending to be

human.

After dinner Pam strolled to her bookshelves and examined her

Schopenhauer section. For a time she had been a philosophy major and

had planned a dissertation on Schopenhauer`s influence on Becket and

Gide. She had loved Schopenhauer`s prose—the best stylist of any

philosopher, save Nietzsche. And she had admired his intellect, his range,

and his courage to challenge all supernatural beliefs, but the more she