Trust me, guys, I’ll see both of you eventually. Separate sessions.
Papers would be filed, property divided, but these two would never lead totally separate lives.
Ian had seen to that.
By the time Grace had completed her sketchy case notes and the light went on announcing the last patient of the day, she was already planning her evening.
Quick stop at the casual fish place near Dog Beach for halibut and chips and a Sidecar, enjoyed in a vinyl booth well away from the bar. Concentrating on her food and flashing stay-away signals at any man who had designs.
Oh, yeah, a salad to start. And maybe not halibut, possibly Dover sole if they had it fresh. Or that scallops/soft-shell crab combo. Then zip home, change into shorts and a tee, take a run on the dark beach. After that, a long shower, masturbating under the spray. Followed by a quick review of the pile of psych journals that had climbed way too high and when her eyelids lost the battle with gravity, a nightcap of junk TV.
Maybe she’d think of the red room, maybe not.
Yawning, she checked the mirror in the closet, touched up her makeup, tugged her white blouse tight into black slacks, and reminded herself she was an authority figure and ready for Mr. Andrew Toner from San Antonio, who’d found her through an esoteric article in an obscure journal.
Written without Malcolm but aping Malcolm’s style because Grace, though adroit at psych-prose, hated it and refused to develop a style of her own. In the beginning, she’d looked forward to seeing her name in print, read every pub word for word, only to find them arid.
Malcolm, for all his virtues, was the typical professorial scribe, unable to scare excitement out of an asteroid strike.
For a layman to find Grace’s solo venture, he had to be motivated.
Of course Andrew Toner was, he’d come to see her all the way from the Great State of Texas.
When patients from out of town sought her help — not as rare as you might think — they were often perfectionistic, compulsive types. The kind of folk who’d google psychological treatment aftermath violence or something similar and scroll for hours.
Let’s see if she was right about Mr. Andrew Toner.
She walked down the bare hall that served as a decompression tunnel for her patients, smiled, and opened the door to the waiting room.
Found herself staring at the face of Roger, the man she’d fucked mindlessly last night and dismissed the moment it was over.
No way to dismiss him, now. Ever.
He laid eyes on her and seemed to shrink. Then he loomed in Grace’s visual field.
Him. Oh God. Neurons popped as Grace’s brain worked to make sense of what was happening. All that mental activity produced... nothing.
Roger/Andrew was doing no better. Still seated, a magazine in his lap, his jaw had dropped and he’d turned ghostly pallid and Grace felt her own mandible sag uncontrollably.
Aping a patient? She’d never been suggestible. What was happening?
The authoritative smile she’d entered with lingered, unwanted, idiotic. Grace forced her lips shut, wasn’t sure what expression was squatting on her face.
She felt stiff, inanimate, a waxwork dummy. Had no idea what to say. Even if she’d managed to come up with words, they’d have remained trapped by her strangulated larynx.
Roger/Andrew kept staring at her, finally moved his lips. Out came a mouse-squeak of humiliation.
Grace turned hot. Cold. Frozen.
Andrew and Grace.
Roger and Helen.
He’d lied about his name, too.
No comfort, there. Grace’s limbs were permafrost.
Sound filtered through a window. A car with a faulty muffler rumbling by.
Thankful for the distraction, Grace prayed for more noise. None followed. She remained rooted. Paralyzed.
This was new, different, this was dreadfully different.
Sweat pooled in Grace’s armpits. Trickled down her rib cage. Pores opened, she felt herself bathed in perspiration.
She never sweated.
And now her chest was tight and breathing had become a challenge. As if a huge animal had settled on her diaphragm.
Andrew Toner stared. Grace stared. Two helpless... offenders?
No, no, no, she was stronger than that, there was always a solution.
None came to her.
Stupid girl.
redredredredred.
Grace remained standing in the doorway. Andrew Toner remained seated.
Both of them encased in an aspic of shame.
Again, he was the first to find his voice. Dry-croaking: “My God.”
Grace thought: If there is a God, He’s laughing His deified head off.
Her brilliant response: “Well...”
Why had she said that?
What could she say?
Stupid girl. No no no I’m smart.
And I haven’t done anything willfully wrong.
Miles from actually believing that, she dredged up enough rationalization to look straight in the pretty blue eyes of Andrew from San Antonio, Texas. A man who’d traveled to see her because she had something valuable to say about... wearing the same tweed sport coat and rumpled khakis as last night.
Different shirt.
So his hygiene is decent. Who gives a fuck!
Grace forced air into cement lungs. Thought about how to phrase her apology.
Yet again, he beat her to it. “I’m so sorry.”
What did he have to apologize for?
Grace said, “You’d better come in.”
He didn’t budge.
“Really,” said Grace. “This isn’t the end of the world. We need to work it out.”
With nothing more than hope and bluster to propel her, she headed back toward the therapy room.
Hearing footsteps behind her.
There he was. Following instructions.
Just as he had last night.
Chapter 9
Five-and-a-half-year-old Grace was an expert at hiding.
With no alcoves or nooks in the single-wide and only one door in and out, the key was to stay close to walls. As far as she could from the strangers.
Out of arm’s reach, when possible.
She didn’t have a word for the concept but had learned about arm’s reach by accumulating bruises and sore spots, a couple of bloody noses, the loss of one tooth. A baby tooth, but when Ardis’s hand shot out to slap Dodie’s face and the combination of weed, whiskey, and anger shoved him off course and his knuckles collided with Grace’s mouth, it hurt a lot.
She didn’t cry. Crying didn’t come naturally to her and besides, she didn’t want to be noticed. She’d been eating a Fudgsicle and dropped it and stooped to pick it up.
The blow hurt Ardis, too. He kept shaking his hand and screaming in pain.
Dodie laughed and that made Ardis even more mad and the second time he went for her, he punched her in the forehead and it was her turn to scream, calling him filthy names.
That made him laugh and he lunged for her again. She feinted out of the way and tried to outlaugh him, which enraged him further and he wound up to deliver one of his roundhouses, the blows that left Dodie’s face swollen and, the next day, all black-and-blue.
But Ardis’s rhythm was off and he ended up on the floor and Dodie got off with a fingernail graze.
Grace thought: Now he’s using his fist all the time. They’re both so stupid.
Throughout the melee, neither of them noticed her, backed into the farthest spot she could find, blood mixing with chocolate from the Fudgsicle, creating a sweet, repellent mud that streamed down her face.