An Off Year by Claire Zulkey

you really think they’ll think you’re a baby?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I guess not.”
    â€œAnd even if they do, what happens then?”
    â€œUm, I guess I won’t have any friends then?”
    â€œAnd then what?”
    â€œAnd then what what ? Then I’d be really screwed and really pathetic. And then I’m sure you’d get really rich because I could come and talk to you about that all the time.”
    Jane laughed. “Okay, take it easy. See your friends—I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear from you. I’ll see you afterward, and we’ll discuss what went down.” She wrote on a piece of plain white paper my name, the date, and “Rx: See @ least 1 friend.” Her handwriting was unexpectedly cramped and scrawly.
    â€œIs this an official document?” I asked. “Did they not get you a prescription pad yet?”
    â€œI don’t write prescriptions,” she said. “This is just a reminder for you. Or you can toss it when you leave.”
    â€œAnd what happens next?” I asked.
    â€œWe’ll see when we meet,” she said. “See you later.”
    I had to admit I liked Jane, despite her giving me assignments. Or maybe because she was giving me assignments. It was hard to believe that we had to pay someone to tell me to look up my friends, but I must have done something to deserve needing a professional to remind me to do it instead of sitting at home waiting for Simpsons reruns to come on and petting Superhero. I certainly liked Jane more than I liked Gina, who simply left my reminder card on the reception desk and didn’t say anything. I slid the card off the counter and headed out without saying anything to her, either.
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    Dad was at work when I got home. I went to my room and pinned Jane’s “prescription” to my bulletin board, which I had totally cleared off before leaving for college. It felt good to have something up there again. But something was churning in the pit of my stomach, and it was that even though Jane was right about me seeing my friends, I was worried about things with Kate. I had called to complain to her a few times over the past few weeks about how bored I was, and I think she was getting a little sick of me.
    â€œCecily, it’s hot. Everyone here knows someone who decided to take a gap year,” Kate had said. “They go build shelters in Africa or promise to write in a journal every day or work on a pot farm or whatever. And then they’re supposed to come back like all worldly and whatnot. Hey, I gotta go, we’re heading to the gym.”
    The gym? Since when did Kate go to the gym? When we were in high school, we competed for who could get the slower time on the mile run. I had a feeling she wasn’t listening to me anyway. I would have felt better if it were “a gap year” and I had some noble pursuit I was going to follow for a year, something to show for myself, something that I knew would make me a more mature person. But I had no idea what I was going to do, and I wasn’t sure if I was maybe becoming less mature by the minute.
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    As I stared at the bulletin board now, I thought about how calling Mike would go. I didn’t want to call him just to sound stupid—I especially didn’t want to have him think I had a crush on him or something. This had never worried me before, but now he had a long-distance girlfriend and I was home alone. To get the image out of my head of me stammering on the phone while he and all his college friends (who would be listening in, for some reason) laughed at me, I went into the hall and tossed a tennis ball against Germaine’s door until she came out and yelled at me.
    I knew Kate would be coming home for Thanksgiving break, and I wanted to see her, just talk to her and feel normal again. After Germaine kicked me out of the hallway, I finally turned on my cell phone (which I had