A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body by Lauren Weedman

entire table feels mortified on her behalf. When Dini realizes what she’s done, she leans in and whispers, “Oh Lauren, you are not a stray. I say that little speech every year. Hear me when I tell you, you are not a stray.”

    Just then it hits me that for as long as I’ve known Jay (about twenty years), he’s been known to take in strays of all shapes and sizes—mostly dogs, cats, birds, and fish. He takes them in and they run away or get eaten by coyotes living in the canyon behind his house. The last stray he took in, Chancy, was a seventeen-year-old nearly dead dog that did nothing beyond lie under a tree. Jay would gesture toward him with a sad face and say, “He’s dying. But I couldn’t let him die alone.” I remember thinking that he just loved to be able to tell everyone that he took in a dying dog—it offset his debauchery in the gym locker room.
    Now I understand: I am Chancy. Except I’m slightly hairier and in dog years I should be long dead.
    â€œI am grateful for my beautiful family,” Dini is saying. She starts to cry with joy.
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    The therapist that was recommended to Mathew and me held his sessions in his apartment on East 41 st Street. His name was Samuel, and he defended every disgusting or disturbing aspect of his practice as his gift to us “in order to keep costs down.”
    I would have paid twenty dollars more to have him not answer his telephone in the middle of a session. Ten more on top of that for him not to put an entire Entenmann’s coffeecake on his lap and pick at it for the entire hour. One hundred and twenty dollars more for him not to say, “These
cakes are so moist” in the middle of my talking about my abandonment issues.
    â€œYou have severe ADD,” he told me. “She must be driving you nuts,” he said to Mathew.
    Mathew did not respond to his question. He just lit a cigarette. (One reason Mathew agreed to keep coming was that Samuel let him smoke.)
    â€œI’d like to know if that’s true, Mathew,” I said. “Am I driving you crazy? I wish you’d say that. Tell me to shut the fuck up or—”
    The phone rang and Samuel put a finger up to pause me.
    â€œI’m in session,” he said into the phone. “Okay. Okay. 2:00 p.m. is fine. Okay. Bye.” To me he said, “Where were we? Oh, I want you to read the book Driven to Distraction, which will help you to control your ADD.”
    I sighed loudly.
    â€œWhat’s your problem?” Samuel growled, in his delicate therapist manner.
    â€œMathew bartends until 6:00 a.m.,” I said. “And even on the nights he’s not working he’s out all night talking to his bartender friends. I feel like he’s always trying to get away from me.”
    â€œWell, he probably is,” Samuel said, stuffing a crumbling piece of cake into his mouth. “Aren’t you, Mathew?”

    Mathew chose not to answer, which I’d never before realized was actually an option when someone asked you a question.
    Someone knocked on Samuel’s door.
    â€œCome in!” he yelled at the door. “This is my lunch,” he said to us. “I’m hypoglycemic—I have to eat.”
    A slim young man walked in and handed him a grilled cheese. Samuel explained it would settle his upset stomach.
    Mathew and I were there because the only conversations we seemed to have went like this: A said, “You hate me,” and B said, “No, I don’t. I love you.” We took turns playing A and B.
    Our quality time meant going out for Manhattans and seeing how long before I melted down and told him I was too fat for my knees. Or that I was so heavy I needed a wheelchair. I’d name and show photos of all the women I thought he should be with—women who I told him were as good-looking as he was. Then I’d ask him if he’d ever thought he was an alcoholic. He’d get insulted and