“Have you ever talked to her about this?”

“I’ve tried, Dr. Delaware, but Melissa shows no interest in talking to me.”

“Funny,” I said. “She sees it differently.”

“Oh?”

“She perceives herself as trying to obtain information from you and getting rebuffed.”

Silence. Then: “Yes, I’m sure she does. But that’s a neurotic distortion. I’m not without compassion for her situation, Dr. Delaware. She’s dealing with a lot of ambivalence- intense feelings of threat and jealousy. It can’t be easy for her. But I need to focus on my patient. And Melissa could use your help- or someone else’s, if you’re not so inclined- in sorting things out.”

I said, “She’d like me to talk to her mother. In order to clarify her mother’s feelings so she can sort out the Harvard thing. I’m calling to find out if that’s okay. I don’t want to disrupt your treatment.”

“That’s wise of you. What, exactly, would you discuss with Mrs. Ramp?”

“Just her feelings about Melissa’s leaving- which, from what you’ve told me, sound pretty clear. After hearing it firsthand, I’d be able to deal with Melissa’s doubts.”

“Using your advocate role to propel her forward?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I don’t see any harm in that. As long as you keep your discussion circumscribed.”

“Any particular topics you’d like me to stay away from?”

“At this point, I’d say everything other than Melissa’s college career. Let’s just keep things simple.”

“Doesn’t sound as if anything about this case has been simple.”

“True,” she said, with a lilt in her voice. “But that’s the beauty of psychiatry, isn’t it?”

I called Melissa at nine and she picked up on the first ring.

“I checked with my contact- he’s a police detective on temporary leave so he has some free time. If you still want McCloskey looked into, it can be done.”

“I want it,” she said. “Tell him to go ahead.”

“It may take a bit of time, and investigators usually bill by the hour.”

“No problem. I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re going to pay him yourself?”

“Sure.”

“It could end up being substantial.”

“I’ve got money of my own, Dr. Delaware- I’ve paid for things for a long time. I’m going to pay your bill, so why not this-”

“Melissa-”

“No problem, Dr. Delaware. Really. I’m a very good money manager. I’m over eighteen, meaning it’s totally legal. If I’m going to go away and live independently, why not start right now?”

When I hesitated, she said, “It’s the only way, Dr. Delaware. I don’t want Mother even knowing he’s back.”

“What about Don Ramp?”

“I don’t want him involved, either. It’s not his problem.”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll work out the details when I see you tomorrow. Speaking of which, I spoke to Dr. Ursula and she says it’s fine for me to meet with your mother.”

“Good. I already talked to Mother and she’s willing to meet you. Tomorrow- isn’t that great? So can we cancel our appointment and do that instead?”

“All right. I’ll be there tomorrow at noon.”

“Thanks, Dr. Delaware. I’ll have lunch set out for you. What do you like to eat?”

“Lunch isn’t necessary, but thanks anyway.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you know how to get here?”

“I know how to get to San Labrador.”

She gave me directions to her house.

I copied them and said, “Okay, Melissa, see you tomorrow.”

“Dr. Delaware?”

“Yes, Melissa?”

“Mother’s worried. About you. Even though I told her how nice you are. She’s worried about what you’ll think of her. Because of the way she treated you years ago.”

“Tell her I understand, and that my horns only come out during the full moon.”

No laughter.

I said, “I won’t be in the least bit rough, Melissa. She’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.”

“Melissa, part of what you’re dealing with- a lot more important than money management- is breaking away. Finding your own identity and letting your mother do things for herself. I know it’s hard- I think it’s taken lots of guts for you to go as far as you have. Just calling me took guts. We’re going to work it out.”

“I hear you,” she said. “It’s just hard. Loving someone that much.”

The stretch of freeway that connects L.A. to Pasadena announces itself with four tunnels whose entries are festooned with exquisite stonework. Not the kind of thing any city council is likely to approve nowadays, but this bit of progress was carved into the basin long ago, the city’s first conduit to ceaseless motion masquerading as freedom.

It’s a grubby and graceless asphalt belt now. Three narrow, street-level lanes, bordered by exhaust-warped maples and houses that range from Victorian Relic to Tobacco Road. Psychotically engineered ramps appear without warning. Concrete overpasses that have browned with time- L.A.’s stab at patina- throw spooky shadows across the blacktop. Every time I get on it I think of Nathanael West and James M. Cain- a Southern California history that probably never really existed but is gloomily gratifying to imagine.

I also think of Las Labradoras and how places like the upper-crusty parts of Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and San Labrador might as well be on the moon for all their cross-pollination with the urban tangle at the other end of the freeway.

Las Labradoras. The Farm Girls.

I encountered them years before I met Melissa. In retrospect, the similarity between the experiences seemed obvious. Why hadn’t I made the connection before?

They were women who called themselves girls. Two dozen sorority sisters who’d married very well and settled into estate living at a young age, gotten a couple of kids off to school, and started looking for ways to fill time. Seeking comfort in numbers, they banded together and established a volunteer society- an exclusive club, sorority days renewed. Their headquarters was a bungalow at the Cathcart Hotel- a $200-a-day nest they obtained gratis, including room service, because one of their husbands owned a chunk of that hostelry, and another, the bank that held the mortgage. After composing bylaws and electing officers, they searched for a raison d’Être. Hospital work seemed admirable, so most of their early energies were focused upon remodeling and running the gift shop at Cathcart Memorial.

Then the son of one of their members was diagnosed with a rare and painful disease and transferred to Western Pediatric Hospital, the only place in L.A. where the ailment could be managed. The child survived but suffered chronically. His mother dropped out of the club in order to devote more time to him. Las Labradoras decided to offer their good services to Western Peds.

At the time, I was in my third year on staff, running a psychosocial rehab program for seriously ill children and their families. The chief of staff called me into his office and suggested I find a niche for “these girls,” talking about budgetary problems for the softer sciences and emphasizing the need to “interface with positive forces within the community.”

One Tuesday in May, I put on a three-piece suit and drove out to the Cathcart Hotel. Ate boiled-shrimp canapÉs and crustless sandwiches, drank weak coffee, and met the girls.

They were in their mid-thirties, uniformly bright and attractive and genuinely charming, projecting a noblesse oblige tainted by self-consciousness and self-awareness: They’d gone to college during the sixties, and though that consisted, typically, of four sheltered years at USC or Arizona State or some other place where the foment hadn’t really taken hold, even protected seÑoritas had been touched by the times. They knew that they- their husbands, their children, the way they lived and would continue to live- were The Enemy. The privileged battlements all those unwashed radical types clamored to storm.