Free Hand

My name is Riva Bergman, I have four kids, I’m a school librarian, I hate tomatoes. I’m not sure if I need to punctuate this and I’m just rambling so I can fill up ten lines on this unlined paper so this graphologist can analyze the dots on my i’s and the crosses on my t’s and the slant of my letters and conclude that I’m a kind and refined person who is sensitive to people’s needs and in touch with my feelings and also very creative. Because of course he won’t publicly announce that I’m a dimwit and a coward and that I have zero confidence or ambition, even if it’s the truth, which is why I find this whole handwriting analysis business stupid. It’s great for teens who love hearing how amazing they are, but — hey, I’m done, ten lines. Goodbye.

I turned my paper facedown and shook my wrist. Around the table, heads were bent, pens flying over paper. For a moment, I thought I should rip up my paper and write a new paragraph — would this graphologist guy be insulted by what I’d written? He’d assured us that it didn’t matter what we wrote, he wouldn’t even read it.

I shrugged. Who cared, really? It had been Miriam’s idea to call down a graphologist to our parents’ anniversary party. Personally, I thought the point of a family party was to sit around and schmooze with your siblings, and enjoy a good meal, of course. But Miriam argued that we needed a program, and since nobody offered other ideas, and she actually got this David Karr’s phone number and called him, and she was sponsoring it; did we have a choice but to cooperate?

The waiter brought in dessert. I stood up and went to the kitchen to cut up some fruit for my diabetic father (kind, sensitive to people’s needs). When I returned, Karr was collecting the papers.