and lovely dimples in her cheeks when she laughs. She’s already had boyfriends, all much older than us, who come and pick her up from school on their mopeds.
I’m almost always distracted in class. I read books or comics—holding them under the desk—I draw, I write stories and thoughts in my diary, and quite often I look at Ginevra.
“Hi, Giacomo, you finally got here,” she said, hugging me and giving me a kiss.
If Ginevra ever says anything to me in real life, I turn red and stammer and seem even more awkward and embarrassed than usual. So you can imagine how I’d be if she hugged me or actually gave me a kiss. In the dream I pulled it off a bit better than that, even though I was still excited.
“Is this your dog?”
“Yes, his name’s Scott.”
“He’s lovely. It’s one of the first times you’ve been around here, isn’t it?”
“You … you mean here, in this park?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It’s the second time.”
“I’m glad you’re here. We never have time to talk at school. See you soon, OK?” She gave me another kiss—this one was closer to my lips and made me turn really red—and walked away.
“Scott, I have to ask you an important question.”
Go on, chief
.
“How can I make sure I come back here the next few nights?”
Scott stopped and looked at me, but I don’t know if he answered my question, because just then I found myself in my bed with Mom shaking me and saying it was time to get up and get ready for school.
3
On Thursday, Roberto arrived almost half an hour early. He didn’t realize until he was at the front door, and rather than wait outside—or, worse still, in the doctor’s waiting room—he decided to go for a walk. Strolling slowly around the covered market in the Piazza Alessandria, a stone’s throw from the doctor’s office, he noticed an old drinking fountain with a thin but regular jet of water spurting from it.
In itself it was no great discovery, but at that moment it seemed like a revelation. Noticing that fountain, after passing it by for months, made him strangely cheerful. He washed his hands, stooped to drink a sip of water, and then resumed walking. The area was full of shops, workshops, bars, and restaurants. He stopped outside a small pet shop and stood there looking at a few parrots, a fish tank, and some Siamese kittens.
As he walked back to the doctor’s office, he vowed to explore a bit more of the neighborhood in the nextfew weeks. He sat in the waiting room for about ten minutes. Then the doctor said good-bye to someone, and the door leading to the exit opened and closed again. The exit was different from the entrance. When possible, that’s how it works in psychiatrists’ offices: you go in on one side and come out on the other; that way the patients don’t meet. Waiting to see a psychiatrist isn’t like waiting to see an orthopedist, for example. No one has any problem admitting he has something wrong with his ankle or his knee. Nobody has any problem meeting an acquaintance in a dentist’s or an ENT’s waiting room. On the contrary, they have a chat and time passes more quickly.
But practically everyone has a problem admitting there’s something wrong with his head. If there’s something wrong with your head, you might be
mad
, and you have no desire to meet someone you know in your psychiatrist’s waiting room, or when you leave after the visit—or rather, the session.
Hi, how are you? I’m a manic depressive with suicidal tendencies, what about you? I’m sorry, why are you looking at me like that? Oh, yes, I’m also your financial adviser and you’re not all that happy to find out your financial affairs are being handled by a manic depressive with suicidal tendencies.
The doctor opened the door from his office to the waiting room, came out, and stopped, surprised to see Roberto. “Here already?”
“Yes, I got here a few minutes early.”
“It’s the first time that’s happened since you’ve been