Pavlova of the Psyche

: Name: Albert Bernstein; Location: Portland, Oregon

Psychologist, writer. See my website albernstein.com for more information

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Description

Pavlova of the Psyche is a story of redemption.

Most people’s fathers don’t come back from the dead, even once. I should be so lucky.
. . . Other people have guardian angels who come down from heaven to help them in their moments of need. Mine came from hell with liquor on his breath and a hard on.

Psychologist, Dr. Rachel Reed is haunted by her past in more ways than she realizes. When she was twelve, her father appeared to her after dying in a car crash For the next twenty-five years he followed her, unseen and unremembered, as the force behind her soaring intuition, and as the source of Leona, Rachel’s self-destructive alter-ego who almost gets her murdered.
Then, a mile from shore in the frigid waters of Lake Chelan, Rachel’s father comes to her again to save her life by making her remember the hundreds of times he violated her body.
To her friends and clients, Rachel Reed is a gifted therapist who can make contact with the most tortured minds, and help them to heal. She is also a heavy drinking, promiscuous rebel who seems to get in trouble with every authority figure she meets, especially her boss, Richard Slater, the director of Evergreen Mental Health in Vancouver, Washington. Even the Mind Police -- the Crisis team that Rachel leads -- wonder if she’s a little paranoid.
In her battle of wits with Richard, Rachel comes close to losing everything -- maybe it’s because she can’t resist a good joke, a good margarita, or a good-looking guy who shows a little amorous interest -- until she recognizes that the real battle is not with Richard, but with herself. Finally, she wins by maturing a little in what Ira Shapiro, her best friend, would call the rachmones department.
Pavlova of the Psyche is a psychological novel, but to say so might sound like an unfortunate play on words. In addition to an exciting story, filled with danger, lust, and intrigue, both real and imagined, the book presents a vivid and realistic picture of psychotherapy -- how it’s done, the people it’s done to and the people who do it for a living. You might even run into your own therapist in these pages.
Then there are the books about sexual abuse and dissociation. Pavlova will surprise even the most avid readers of the genre with its unique blending of horror with humor, hope, and solid psychological fact.

What more can I tell you? Rachel speaks for herself.

Chapter Fifty Three: The Goddamned Elephant

I could imagine how excited Donnie and Richard had been when Chris killed himself just before the budget went into effect, providing them with another empty number they could fill with money for themselves. Jill was right; they were slime balls.
Aside from the Wild Man, there were four other names on the list I didn’t recognize, and I assumed they were dummies as well. Dummies weighing in at about twenty thousand apiece. My self esteem soared when I realized the value of my life had risen to over a hundred thousand dollars. The idea seemed funny to me, and I began chuckling.
The human mind can handle only so much emotion at one time before it goes into overload. I guess that’s what happened then. Ira found me sitting on the floor by the front desk, laughing so hard I could barely breathe.
"Rachel, are you alright?" He said as he came dashing down the hall. It seemed hilarious, the way he was always having to ask me that. I laughed even harder.
"Yes," I said, waving the letter at him. My voice came out as a high-pitched squeak, and that seemed funny too. Old Faithful flushed, and I laughed so hard I fell over.
Ira knelt beside me, smiling despite his obvious concern for my sanity. "Nu? So when do you let me in on the joke?" he asked.
"This," I gasped in an involuntary falsetto, as I held up the letter from Jill.
He took it from me and read. "I don’t understand. It’s just a list of names and numbers." Even though he had no idea what was so funny, he had begun to laugh too.
I held my mouth tightly shut, hoping that would help me get it together enough to explain, but seeing Ira laughing seemed so funny that giggles sputtered out between my lips, making a rude noise.
Ira responded with a Bronx cheer. "Same to you, lady!" Then he caught the giggles big-time. Soon he was whooping like a car alarm.
Maybe you had to be there.
I tried again to talk. "In the bu . . ." I couldn’t get the word out. I propped myself up on my hand and took a humongous breath. "Fake people in the budget. Look." I tapped my finger on the letter in the general direction of Chris’s name.
Ira wiped his eyes with his sleeve and squinted at the paper. "The Wildman, hoo-ha," he said, shaking his head as he realized what I was trying to tell him. "You’ve caught the momser red-handed, haven’t you?"
I nodded, and we both fell on the floor in fresh spasms of laughter.
"What are you going to do now?" Ira asked, as we both lay by the desk catching our breath.
"Call the cops," I said.
"Which cops?"
I thought about it, realizing I couldn’t just pick up the phone and dial 911. "I don’t know," I said. "Maybe Jill would know."
"What about Ken Franklin?" Ira asked. "He knew Chris, and he might even get some credit for coming up with information like this."
"Worth a try," I said, as I got up and looked at my watch. "He won’t be at the station. Do you think we should call him at home?"
"Do wild Popes shit in the Vatican?"
Ken was more than interested; he wanted to meet with us right away. We agreed on my apartment in half an hour. I thought I’d better call Jill at home too, since she was involved. I explained about Chris, and asked her if she had any objections to my using the list she got for me.
"None whatever, she said. "Go for it. Get the son of a bitch. Find out which prosecutor will be on the case, and I’ll give him a call on Monday morning."
I wondered, for a second, if all these people were just pretending to believe me. I’d gotten so used to being seen as crazy.
Then I realized that they had no reason to pretend. They were outside the system, and had no stake in keeping the elephant invisible. I allowed myself to believe there might be justice, but at the same time told myself not to get my hopes too high.
We spent a couple of hours with Ken at my apartment. He questioned us thoroughly about all the evidence -- what we did and when we did it. Cop stuff. All the while he took careful notes on a legal pad.
"Ken," I said, "you’re not going to get in any trouble over this, are you?"
"Are you kidding? If this evidence is as good as I think it is, they’ll probably promote me."
"What happens next?" Ira asked.
Ken gestured at the cardboard box full of papers. "Joe Thornton will be working his butt off over New Year’s." Thornton was the chief prosecutor for Clark County; evidently, Ken saw this as a top level case. "We’ll have to call the Feds, but with a little luck we can claim prior jurisdiction."
"So, what will happen to Richard?" I asked.
"That’s up to the prosecutor and what charges he decides to go with, but I’d guess we’re looking at six to ten. Maybe more, if the Feds get involved. It’ll be a few days before they get everything sorted out. Listen, Doc --" He looked at Ira with a little smile. "--Sorry. Docs. We need to keep all of this completely quiet until we know what Thornton’s going to do."
"No problem," Ira said.
"I won’t talk," I said. "But, Ken, will you call me when you know what’s happening?"
"Absolutely," Ken said. He gave us each a hearty cop handshake, picked up the box of evidence, and left.
Ira and I kept our word. We didn’t tell anybody but Glenda.
* * * *
Richard returned from vacation on January fifth. He spent the morning in the central area showing off the places where his tan had begun to peel and talking to anyone who would listen about the marvelous wines coming out of the mountains of Mexico, and how they were a wonderful ground-floor investment opportunity. The clerical people smiled, nodded, and listened intently, though on their salaries I doubt they had much need for investment tips.
I heard bits and pieces of his monologue throughout the morning as I brought commitment papers out to be filed. By about eleven, his captive audience had grown restive. They still smiled and pretended to listen, but they had begun shooting furtive glances at the stacks of work they hadn’t been able to do, and tapping their feet under their desks. Even though the room was beginning to sound like a construction site, Richard seemed completely unfazed. The fact that his audience had no interest in what he was saying had never slowed him down before.
Another baby.
I shook my head as I walked down the hall to my office. The phone was ringing when I got there.
"This is Dr. Reed."
"Good morning, Doc. This is Detective Ken Franklin." My heart started pounding as rapidly as the frustrated feet in the clerical area.
"A promotion," I said, "Congratulations."
"Thanks," he said, "Laurie and the kids thank you too. I owe you a big one, Doc. Look, my partner and I are on the way down to arrest your boss, and I thought you’d like to know. He there?"
"Yes, he’s here."
"How about Lewis?"
"No, I think he’s at home today."
"We’ll get him there. See you in a couple of minutes."
I dashed to Ira’s office. "Ken’s coming," I said. We found Glenda and hurried to the parking lot, where we stood quietly under the overhang trying to stay out of the cold rain that had been falling for days.
Presently a non-descript car pulled up and parked on the other side of the driveway, avoiding the fire lane. Ken got out from the passenger’s side and marched into the building, nodding to us as he passed. He wore a jacket and tie, but he still walked with the deliberate, shoulder-rolling gait of a patrolman. His partner turned up the collar of his raincoat and jogged ahead, more concerned with staying dry than making an impression.
The cops flashed their badges at the front desk, then strode down the hall to the central area. Old Faithful flushed as they passed.
Richard was talking about a great little cafe in Vera Cruz.. He hadn’t even noticed that anybody came in.
Ira, Glenda, and I stood by the doorway at the front of the crowd that was forming in the hall.
"Richard Slater?" Ken said, finally getting His Highness’s attention.
"Yes," Richard answered, flashing the cops a who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are look. "Who wants to know?"
On cue, both detectives held up their shields. "VPD, sir. We have a warrant for your arrest."
Richard turned white as Acapulco sand. "I demand to speak to my lawyer."
"You can call him from the jail," Ken said, as he took out his Miranda card and began reading the rights. The other cop stepped forward and cuffed Richard’s hands behind his back, dragging him by the arm toward the hallway. The crowd opened up to let them pass.
I ran ahead, pushed my way through the front door, and waited in the middle of the driveway.
Cold rain poured down. I felt it only vaguely on the top of my head as Ken and his partner led King Richard out the door.
Richard looked up and saw me standing there. I guess he had put two and two together, because I have never seen such a look of hatred in my life.
He glared as I stepped aside so they could approach the car.
"Bitch!" He spat the word at me as if I were a helpless psychotic. For some reason it seemed funny. I felt a smile trying to form on my face, but I kept it hidden.
"Uh uh," I said. "I’m a princess."
I backed away as Ken opened the door and pushed Richard, by the top of his head, into the back seat.
I watched the car drive away, then turned back toward the center. Most of the staff stood by the door with looks of shock and disbelief on their faces.
"We finally got that Goddamned elephant out of the parlor," I said, and went inside.
THE END

Chapter Fifty Two: Midnight Mass

Ira dying. I couldn’t bear the thought.
He refused to talk about it any more and made me promise not to tell. I held his secret consciously and silently, only inches away from my bruised and battered heart.
Ira Shapiro. Such a beautiful person, one of a kind, a perfect blend of . . . what? Edelkeit, sweet sensitivity. Ira used the word once to describe Greg. Edelkeit and anarchy. Composing a eulogy was, of course, easier than confronting the living, breathing reality of death.
How could he carry this burden in silence?
I was dying to talk to someone, or, better yet, do something to help in some way. If I started now, I might be able to discover a cure for AIDS in time, or if I didn’t, maybe I could talk Death out of taking him.
I owed Ira more than some farcacter rescue fantasy, and all the other excuses I made to spare myself from the pictures of him growing thin, pale and weak, wasting away, and finally, moving no more.
What must it be like for Ira? Every morning checking his body to see whether lethal purple spots had appeared during the night. Living in quiet terror of sore throats, or wondering each time his arms wavered during his last set of bench presses, whether this time his strength had gone for good.
I forced myself to look, it was the least I could do for him.
And by not turning away I discovered the essence of Ira. The man had forged himself in the dark fire of the shadow of death, a cherry blossom of iron. I’d never be at peace with it, but I understood.
Christmas was only a few days away, and the weather had turned soggy and cold. Holiday depression clients lined up at our doors the way more fortunate people lined up for cash registers and Christmas films at the multiplex. Everybody on the staff felt overloaded and stressed out. Except Richard. His Highness had gone to Mexico to check out a vineyard he was thinking of investing in. After Christmas, when the rest of us were hoping to slow down and catch our breaths, he’d be back, relaxed and tan, ready to goad us into new programs at the first of the year.
In the front end of my car there’s a rattle that nobody can fix. I’ve taken it to dealers and mechanics of all kinds, and, one Saturday morning, I even spent an hour dialing the number for Car Talk, but I didn’t get through. After about a year I decided to live with it and let it go. Most of the time I don’t even pay attention to the silly noise, but some days it just gets on my nerves. That’s exactly how I felt about Richard.
Three days before Christmas, in the midst of a thousand other more productive activities I began to get Richard fever again. That’s what Mindy calls it. Every now and then it flared up, like malaria. I’d feel the electric prickles of anger, and keep myself up far into the night plotting and scheming some way to convince people, once and for all, that he really was a crook. By morning, it usually went away.
This morning it hadn’t. At two a.m. I’d gotten up and pulled out the heap of budgets the Impossible Mission Force had copied the previous summer only to discover that our mission was indeed impossible.
Social Security numbers. There were pages and pages of them alright. Positions were all identified by the social security numbers of the people who occupied them, as if our names were some sort of state secret. Another little bit of needless confusion, courtesy of Donnie Lewis.
Why the fuck would they want to change social security numbers?
It wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself that question, but that night, in a panting, heart-pounding orgasm of insight, an answer came. There were more social security numbers than there were people. That had to be it! Richard and Donnie weren’t skimming just expenses, they were setting up fake employees and pocketing their paychecks. Things began to make sense all of a sudden -- like why Richard had tried to kill me. It wasn’t revenge for what I had done. It was to protect himself from what I might do if I ever had sense enough to put everything together.
Stupid. I had been so stupid not to realize.
Or was I being stupid now, playing detective again without a shred of evidence?
There was one way to tell.
That’s why I stayed up the rest of the night counting all the different social security numbers in this year’s budget. What a hassle. With all the split positions and program divisions, most of the numbers showed up more than once. Some of the clerical people, who were spread across all the programs, had their social security numbers appear as many as eight times.
As the dawn peeked through my window, I had them all listed, marked and color coded. One hundred and fifty-seven. Even with part-timers, the number seemed deliciously high. Maybe I had the gonifs after all.
Or maybe not.
I remembered how excited I had been when John Campi told me about the irregularities he found, and how certain I was that we had the goods on Richard. And how wrong. The board didn’t give a shit, and maybe no one would care now if he added a couple of people to the payroll and took the money himself. Boys will be boys, right?
No, the board wouldn’t make the decision on this one. We’re talking class A felony here. I’d go to the cops, and . . . Probably make an even bigger fool of myself. There may even be a law against accusing beloved community figures of malfeasance.
Stop this bullshit!
I willed my thoughts to slow down, and made a plan.
First a long swim to get my mind under control, then to the center, where I had another piece of the puzzle on my desk, right next to the pile of paperwork it had created. The coding manual listed the social security numbers of all paid and volunteer staff. I’d match one set of numbers to the other and go from there. Just the facts, ma’am.
I fought the water for the first half-mile, then gradually fell into a rhythm. By the end of the swim, my body trembled from exertion, but my mind felt wonderfully clear. I no longer needed to rush. I dressed, dried my hair, and stopped at Starbucks for a triple latte on the way to work.
At my desk, I opened the manual to the pages of social security numbers, took a deep breath and a long pull at my latte, then began to count.
One hundred and forty-nine. I did it three times, and came up with the same total.
Next, slowly and calmly, I matched one list to the other, marking off the numbers I found on both.
My heart began to sink into bureaucratic confusion as I discovered there were more discrepancies than I suspected. Thirteen numbers in the budget didn’t match the numbers and names in the coding manual. Eleven people appeared in the coding manual, but not in the budget, nine of them I could identify as new hires, but there were two I didn’t recognize. Obviously, the whole thing was more complicated than I thought, or I didn’t know what I was doing. Quel Surprise.
I might have put the whole thing away right then if I hadn’t, for some crazy reason, thought of Karma in that valkeryie outfit screeching out high notes.
A wake up call from my unconscious.
Karma’s social security number would be in the budget, but not in the coding manual. The budget had been prepared some time before the beginning of this year, when Karma was still here. The coding manual came out in the summer, after she got disappeared. Six or eight other people had left during that turbulent period as well, but that still left at least five numbers in the budget that shouldn’t be there. Unless I was all wrong.
Counting couldn’t provide the answer, I’d have to find the names that went with the numbers.
How?
Maybe Glenda or Ira would know. Or maybe John Campi. I shuddered at the prospect of bringing them in on another one of my little schemes. I thought about the other worldly-wise people I knew. There weren’t many.
Jill. What the hell. She was my lawyer, so, no matter how far off base I might be she still couldn’t tell anybody. Worth a try.
I dialed her number, but she was in court. Her secretary said she’d call me in the afternoon. Okay, I’d wait. Anyway, I had clients to see. Deena buzzed me just then to say my first appointment had arrived.
Celia Blake had no one to be with for Christmas, and she asked if I’d put her in the hospital.
"Isn’t there any place you can spend Christmas besides the hospital?" I asked.
"I thought about going to the AA party," she said. "But then I thought about what I’d do."
"What would you do?"
"You know." She rolled her eyes in the same way Jessica did when adults couldn’t see the obvious.
"Do I?" I said, raising my brows.
Celia looked at the floor and spoke in a soft voice. "I’d just get depressed and feel like killing myself, then they’d have to call you and spoil your Christmas."
"You’re doing this for me?"
"Rachel, you’ve worked with me longer than any other doctor. You know how I am." She shrugged. "I don’t really want to die, but when I get depressed I start feeling suicidal and I can’t stop myself. I don’t think it’s fair that I spoil your Christmas too. I . . . I don’t know if I’m supposed to know this, but this girl in the waiting room told me that when you were out sick it was because you fell off a boat and almost drowned."
"I did fall off a boat, but why is that so important to you?"
She hung her head again. "At first I was mad at you. I thought, ‘Why doesn’t she be more careful because so many people need her? Maybe she’s just trying to get away from us.’ But then I thought about how scary it must be to fall off a boat -- I’m terrified of the water." She hugged herself and looked up at me. "I told myself maybe you had enough trouble for awhile and didn’t need to worry about me. At first I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t overdose or cut my wrists or anything. But you always tell me not to make promises I can’t keep, because then I’ll feel even worse about myself. So I thought I’d better ask you to put me in the hospital, just in case. Is that wrong?"
"No, Celia, I think you made a good decision. And I’m touched that you thought about me, and didn’t want to spoil my Christmas. You’ve really come a long way."
"Really?" She beamed at me, not looking particularly like someone who has just asked to be locked up for Christmas.
"Really," I said, smiling back. It was a good decision and a sincere gift, a breakthrough for Celia. Rachmones comes in the strangest packages.
"Would you be mad if I asked you how you fell off the boat?"
"No," I said, and told her at least part of the story. When the session ended I arranged her admission and called the hospital gift shop to order Celia a teddy bear, wrapped and placed under the psychiatric ward tree on Christmas morning.
Jill called right after that. I told her about my suspicions, and the evidence I thought I had.
"What a slime ball," she said. For a minute I wondered if she meant Richard or me.
She meant Richard. She told me she’d call an investigator she used from time to time. "Fax the numbers to me and I’ll have those names for you right after Christmas," she said.
I didn’t want to use the fax, so I brought the list to Jill’s office after my last client.
On Christmas Eve I went to Midnight Mass with Carol, Jason and Jessica.
Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus.
Peace for glory. Most of my life I’d been pissed off at God for holding out, but that night, sitting next to my family, I wondered if maybe I hadn’t read the fine print in the contract. Maybe the peace didn’t come from God directly; maybe He just gave you the strength to make it for yourself. Maybe He was less like Marcus Welby, and more like Mindy Cohen. I liked Him a little better that way. Still, I didn’t take Communion. I wasn’t ready to get that close.
On Christmas morning, Jessica presented me with a framed painting she had done in school. Carol and Jason gave me a bright red dress from Nordstrom that raised my babe-quotient about a hundred points. " Just the thing for a scarlet woman," the card said. "We love you."
I gave Jessica a Winter Wonderland Barbie in a fur-trimmed gold coat. After a huge turkey dinner, Carol, Jessica, and I sat on the floor and played dolls until well after midnight. No ghosts came to spoil our fun.
Friday morning, the day after Christmas, I went out to run early. It was still dark when I crossed the bridge to Mercer Island. The gray sky had gotten about as light as it was going to by the time I reached the gate of the little cemetery where my parents were buried. I had been there only twice before, but I didn’t have any trouble finding the graves. REED, the stone said, and beneath it Herbert Charles Reed, loving husband and father, on one side, and Sarah Kenton Reed, loving wife and mother, on the other. Below their names were the dates of birth and death. My father, when he died, was only ten years older than I am now.
I stared at their names for a long time and thought about them. Destructive babies who had no business having babies of their own.
I took a step closer and looked down at the ground under which my father lay, turning to dust. Just a little raised area with no grass growing on top.
I spat on it and watched the phlegm begin to soak into the dirt.
I spat on my mother’s grave too. Then I laid a blood-red plastic rose on each mound and said goodbye to both of them. Forever.
It’s not as if I wouldn’t see them in my dreams. In my waking life, though, I was done with them. I turned, left the cemetery, and ran back to Carol’s for a shower and breakfast.
A little after ten, I drove to my father’s old bank in Seattle, presented identification, and asked to withdraw some money from my trust fund.
When Mom died, Carol and I divided our inheritance. Mine went into a trust fund that I had hardly thought about until Carol reminded me. I withdrew twenty-four thousand dollars and there was still enough left to buy a house.
Next, I stormed into the first travel agency I passed and bought two first class tickets to Paris, one for me and one for Ira.
* * * *
It was raining hard and almost dark when I pulled into the parking lot at Evergreen. Most everyone was gone for the holiday, except for Ira, who had volunteered to work so the goyim could be with their families. Jew duty.
I rushed back to his office and found him sitting at his desk.
"Greetings, Fearless Leader. I thought you were up in Seattle."
"I came back to give you a little Hanukkah present," I said, handing him a box wrapped in blue paper with orange dreidels and gold menorahs."
"For me?" he said, as he snatched the package, "You absolutely should have . . ."
He tore off the wrapping and opened the box to find a cashier’s check for seventeen-thousand dollars, and two tickets to Paris, one in his name, one in mine. "I figured neither of us would be busy the last two weeks of May," I said.
"You can’t do this," he said, trying to hand it all back to me.
"Yes I can. If I can jump off a cliff, I can do any fucking thing I want."
He just sat there holding the check and the ticket; he couldn’t even talk.
"You’re welcome," I said, giggling, and walked off down the hall.
I had meant to leave, but I stopped at the front desk because I saw a pile of mail the carrier had left. On top I recognized Jill Cawley’s creamy gray stationery. The letter was addressed to me, labeled "Personal and Confidential." Inside the envelope was a hand-written note saying that the number job turned out to be easier than she had thought, and that I should have a merry Christmas. The next page was my typed list of social security numbers, and the names that went with them.
Karma’s was there -- as Judith Rosenberg -- along with names of several other staff members that I recognized immediately. There were names I didn’t know, and that made my heart pound with the thrill of the chase.
One name I passed over as familiar until the impact of what I had seen made my knees so weak that I collapsed to the floor next to the desk.
Of all the goddamned chutzpa! Christopher Allen Johnson, the Wild Man of Felida, was on the payroll.

Chapter Fifty One: Favor

The rope held. I went over the edge and fell about ten feet before Ira pulled me gently to a stop. I giggled like a lunatic as I spun lazily at the end of my rope. Then I swung myself back and forth until I could push off against the wall of rock. Squawking, and flapping my arms in a crazy backstroke, I imagined I could fly out after the eagle.
"Are you okay?" Ira shouted.
"No," I said, "But it doesn’t matter."
He lowered me to the ground as gently as he would have lowered a baby. For the first time in my life, my mind was as empty, wide, and silent as the sky. I have never felt so free.
Ira climbed up, got my coat, and removed the rings from the rock face while I coiled the ropes. We packed up and went skipping and laughing down the trail. Once, I stopped at a guard rail and leaned over, hoping to see my illusions shattered on the rocks. All I saw was water, swirling and flowing toward the sea. It was enough.
As we climbed into Ira’s big pink car, I let out a tremendous sigh, and flopped down in the seat, completely relaxed.
Ira seemed a little stiffer than I’d expected. He turned to me with a serious look on his face and said, "Rachel, I have a big favor to ask."
"Anything!" I answered.
"You needn’t agree until you know what it is. I have to take you to my house so you can see something."
"Sure," I said, amazed at the sweet scent of the air and the brightness of the colors all around me.
Ira lived in a little house on about an acre of land near Battleground. His yard was neat and orderly, with precisely placed shrubs and trees. Many were leafless for the winter, showing an exquisite tracery of branches. I had been out here only once before. Ira came to visit people, but he didn’t entertain much.
A huge red Victorian couch dominated the living room. Besides that, there were two chairs and a large coffee table. On one wall hung a large photo of a dark, handsome man dressed for bicycling. Ira saw me looking at the picture.
"Jerome was cute, wasn’t he?"
I agreed, noting the killer smile and the devilish twinkle in his eyes. Why are all the best looking men gay?
"A lovely man," Ira said, wistfully. "But such a bandit. A little devil, and a fonfer like you wouldn’t believe. He could talk you into anything. Almost had me convinced we should move to Paris, if you can imagine that. Neither one of us had ever been. It was so like him to want to go there to live, instead of just visiting. The man never did anything halfway. But then he got sick." Ira turned his head toward the picture and blew Jerome a kiss.. "He died a good, quick death, thank God. Every day I long for him, and for Paris -- like whatever is left of him is there."
"Did you ever go?"
"Sadly, no. Besides the beautiful memories, Jerome left me considerable debts. He was not the sort of man who believed in denying himself."
"Oh, I’m sorry," I said, feeling sad for him. It was so like Ira to take on his lover’s debts even though he probably couldn’t have been forced to pay them. A real mensch.
"I’m not sorry," Ira said. "It’s my own little lesson in letting go. Can I interest you in some cocoa?"
"Sure."
"Good, while I’m fixing it, perhaps you’d step out on the patio and look at my children." He gestured toward a door at the end of the hall.
"Children?"
"Go see."
Ira’s children were trees. Not just any trees, but tiny, lovely bonsai trees arranged on shelves in a partially enclosed alcove with a sliding roof.
A two-foot pine, thick with healthy needles cascaded down from a tall brown cylindrical pot. A bare maple, twisted and gnarled, grew from an incredibly thin layer of earth in a flat tray. I marveled at a grove of small deciduous trees in a carpet of thick green moss. None stood more than ten inches high, but they looked for all the world like a real forest.
"Do you like them?" Ira asked, as he came out with two steaming mugs of cocoa.
"Oh, yes," I said. "They’re gorgeous. They look so old."
"Some are pushing fifty, and that one," he said, indicating the pine, "Is over a hundred."
"They’re so perfect; I could look at them for hours!"
"Good." He drew a deep breath. "Because the favor I have to ask is that you consent to be their godmother, so to speak, and take care of them if anything should happen to me."
"Of course," I said, "But nothing’s going to happen to you."
Suddenly the meaning of his words pierced me like a stake through the heart. "Ira, are you telling me --"
He closed his eyes and nodded. "Both of us were HIV positive. It’s been four years now. Jerome died quickly, and I, oom bashreen, have had no symptoms. Yet." "Life is another little thing I have to learn to let go of."
I rushed to his arms so quickly that I almost knocked the cocoa out of his hand. We held each other and cried together for a long time.
"I love you, Ira."
"And I love you, Rachel."
Presently, we pulled apart. "So you agree to care for my children when I’m gone?"
"Yes, I’d be honored." I said, sniffing back a fresh wave of tears.
"Good, you’ve made me very happy." He picked up his cocoa and took a sip. "I shall record it in my will, and, during the coming year, I’ll teach you what they need, and how to care for them. It takes at least a year to learn the ways of bonsai." He gazed on his trees with pride and love.
"My sister will inherit the rest of what little I have, but she lives in an apartment in Queens and she can’t provide a suitable home for the children. I can’t bear to think of her selling them. But she would, the bitch."
"I live in an apartment too," I said. "But I’ll move. I’ve been meaning to for about a year." I took his hand and squeezed it. "I’ll take care of them."
He smiled at me with tears in the corner of his eyes. "Thank you," he said.
As he drove me home, I asked Ira, just out of curiosity, how much money he owed. Okay, so I’m a yenta.
"Seventeen thousand dollars and counting," He said with a resignation that suggested it could have been a million. Social workers make even less than psychologists.

Chapter Fifty: Beacon Rock

At seven-thirty on that next Saturday morning I looked out my kitchen window and saw Ira’s Blazer already in the parking lot. Pink and radiant as the dawn, it stood waiting, head and fenders above all the other cars. The December morning was clear and cold, and the moon rode high in the lightening sky. At least it wouldn’t rain. I put on my down parka, hat, and gloves and picked up my pack, some food, and a thermos of coffee. With Ira you had to be ready for anything.
A lesson in letting go. I wondered what he had in mind, but I knew there was no point in guessing.
"Greetings, Fearless Leader," he said, as I waddled toward the car dressed for an assault on Everest. "You look especially lovely this morning -- something like a bright blue kishke."
What’s a kishke? Something like a babushka?"
"No, actually it’s a kind of sausage stuffed with flour and fat." I hit him with my pack until he begged for mercy.
He pulled out of the parking lot and drove to Highway 14, heading east along the Columbia River.
"So, where are we going?" I said, as I poured us some coffee. Ira didn’t answer, so I glanced over my shoulder into the cargo area to see if there were any clues. Climbing ropes and a large rucksack were stowed neatly in the way-back.
"Ira," I said, "I hope you didn’t bring those ropes for us. You know I don’t like heights. No matter what you say, you’re not going to get me to do any climbing."
"I have absolutely no intention of making you climb," Ira said.
"Good," I said, and leaned back to enjoy the drive.
At the huge paper mill in Camas, columns of white, stinking smoke rose straight up in the still winter air. Usually at this time of year there is rain and a sharp wind blowing down the gorge from the east side of the Cascades. We couldn’t have picked a more beautiful day.
Just past Camas, we began climbing the steep walls of the Columbia Gorge. Mount Hood loomed dead ahead like a colossal white sundae sparkling in the morning light. The road on the Washington side runs on top of the gorge. Two miles away, in Oregon, I-84 follows the river, with the sheer cliffs rising high above. We were in Skamania County now, also a part of our catchment area. Most of the county was remote and sparsely populated, with thick forests of Douglas Firs stretching from the river to Mount St. Helens. The few clients who came in from out here were called "Skamaniacs".
We drove in splendid silence, passing Multnomah Falls. Tiny on the other side of the river, you could see it between the trees if you know exactly where to look. The first rays of light were hitting the arc of the bridge and the luminous line of falling water, turning them into a bauble of pink gold among the green trees. As we approached the parking area for Beacon Rock, Ira slowed and used his turn signal even though there weren’t any cars around at this hour of the morning.
"Beacon Rock," I said. "I thought you told me I wouldn’t be climbing."
"Don’t worry, you won’t be," he said, flashing me one of his enigmatic smiles. He can be such a putz.
Beacon Rock is a nine-hundred foot plug of lava from an ancient volcano. Much harder than the surrounding rock, eons of wind, rain, and river have left it standing alone and erect at the edge of the Columbia like the penis of God.
Ira got out of the car and started unloading ropes and bags through the rear door.
"You liar!" I shrieked. "You said --"
"Lady of little faith. I swear to you that I have spoken only the truth. You will do no climbing today. I promise." He drew a six-pointed star over his heart. "Follow the trail," he said, pointing onward and upward. "I’ll be with you presently." With that, he shouldered his pack and bounded off toward the rock, ready for an act of love.
"Asshole," I said, under my breath, and followed.
The trail runs around, but not too near, the edge of the rock. Safely tucked back into the trees and bounded by sturdy guard rails where it isn’t, the path spirals about a mile to the top. It’s not too scary; I’d done it several times before -- it had to be one hell of a lot better than the route Ira was taking.
I trudged up, stopping to appreciate each little bit of scenery as a samurai might do on the way to commit hara-kiri.
If Ira wasn’t going to make me climb, what was he going to do? No way of telling. I decided I would go along with the spirit of the thing and stop trying to figure it out in advance. As if. Anyway, I could always say no to some silly-ass, dangerous stunt, if that’s what he had in mind.
But Ira wouldn’t put me in danger. He said he wanted to teach me about letting go. Why up here? What would he expect me to do?
To get a good grade, I’d have to let go.
I made my mind into a still lagoon, and thought of all the things I wanted to let go of. My parents, my past, my battle with Richard. I’d like to put them all behind me and move on. But how? Telling myself not to think about them worked just like the repeat key on a CD player. The greatest hits would come back again and again, in all their lurid detail, riding on William James’ white horse.
In therapy you learn to let go by talking your feelings into the ground. You talk about how hurt you are until it doesn’t hurt any more. In theory.
The trail I was walking on stretched a steep mile to the top of the rock. That talking trail in therapy seemed ten times as steep and it rose to infinity. I didn’t have enough years left. Maybe Ira knew a shortcut, some way to just let go.
Let go and what? Fall?
Again I calmed myself and followed the trail. Whatever it was I would find out in good time.
I turned a corner and looked out through the trees to see the river. It sparkled in the winter sun. Then I looked up, and there was Ira, sitting like some kind of faygelah elf on a point of rock about fifty feet above my head. Below him, the wall fell away in a straight drop to the water. If he thought I was coming up there, he was out of his mind.
He saw me and scampered down like other people might run down the stairs. "Lovely, isn’t it?" he said.
"Y-yes," I answered. "What the fuck are we doing up here?"
He smiled brightly. "Come over to the edge, enjoy the view."
"You’ve got to be kidding. You know I’m afraid of heights. I’m not going any closer to the edge than this."
Ira stroked his beardless chin and faked a Vienna accent. "Why are you afraid of heights?"
"Duh. Because you can fall from them and get smooshed? Do you think that could be it? Maybe not everybody has a death-wish as big as yours. Besides, I’m too clumsy, I always feel like I’m going to trip and fly out over the edge."
"Rachel, I will promise you two things from the bottom of my heart. First, I have no death-wish. You cannot imagine how much I love life. Second, you will not get smooshed. Your body will not be injured in any way, though I hope your preconceptions will shatter on those rocks down there in the water."
He pointed, but I could not look. "Ira --"
He wrapped his powerful arm around my waist, and draped my arm over his shoulder. "Come see," he said. "I’ve got you."
He had to drag me, but I went. The river and the gorge spread out for miles in every direction. From where we were, I could see several waterfalls on the other side, white against the dark green trees. Tiny cars moved along the distant highway and a train chugged west on the tracks above the road. Closer, the broad blue river had begun churning whitecaps where the current met the freshening breeze.
I forced myself to look directly below and gasped involuntarily as I did. Monster fangs of jagged rock grew out of the white and blue water. I tensed up and pulled back. The stiffer I got, the tighter Ira held me. I tried to breathe, but my lungs could barely move beneath the clamping muscles of my chest.
"Look," Ira said, "an eagle."
The great bird floated just below us in the air currents above the river, It flew so close that I could see minute changes in the feathers of his wings as he soared past. I willed my tension to fly away with him. It didn’t.
Ira pulled me back from the edge, and I began breathing again.
"See," he said, "That wasn’t so hard, was it."
I wanted to kick him, but the muscles of my leg were still too stiff.
He shrugged off his pack and bent over to pull something out of it. Blue nylon straps with two oval-shaped metal rings. It looked like a harness of some sort. A climbing harness. Oh, Jesus!
"This will fit better if you take off your coat."
"I’m not putting that thing on! That’s for climbing, and you said --"
"No climbing." He held out the harness. "Trust me."
I felt like a big baby. "Okay," I said, as I took off my coat. "I’ll play along." I took the harness and Ira explained how to step into the bottom part and put the top on like a vest. The rings -- he called them carabiners -- opened with a screw mechanism and slid through loops in the nylon. When the carabiners were hooked in front of my stomach and tightly closed, he went back to the edge of the cliff, reached over, and pulled up a rope, which he brought over to me and threaded through one of the carabiners. He tied a knot so fast I could barely see his hands move.
"Ira!"
He just smiled and put a finger to his lips, then he went back to the edge and got another rope, which he tied to the other carabiner.
The ropes, blue and purple, lay in two loose curves along the path like poisonous snakes with their ends hanging off the cliff. My heart pounded so loudly I could barely hear myself speak. "If I’m not going to climb, what --"
"Jump," he said, with a huge smile that made crinkles at the corners of his green eyes.
"No fucking way," I said, sitting down and folding my arms. He’d have to throw me over the side.
Would he?
"Listen carefully, Rachel dear, while I tell you that you are in absolutely no danger. Each of these ropes will hold two-thousand pounds and they are threaded through four rings anchored to the rock. Each ring can hold the weight of a moderate-sized elephant. The edge of this cliff is about five feet thick and it sticks out about twelve feet from the rock face. Ninety or so feet below us is a wide shelf, where the ropes are connected to safety anchors. I will be down there belaying, with the ropes wrapped around my body. I will lower you to the ground once you have jumped over the side. There is no way you can be hurt." He tugged on one of the ropes to tighten the knot. "These are the facts you must consider in making your decision to jump. Any fears you may have of smooshing, or anything else, are totally unfounded. They are illusions created by your mind. To let go, you must triumph over your illusions. Any questions?"
"I -- I can’t do this."
"How do you know that?"
"Ira, this is stupid. I can work on letting go in therapy. Besides, I think I’ve already gone through enough stress. I need this kind of tsuris like I need --"
"A loch in kop is, I believe, the phrase you’re looking for. A hole in the head. I have, however, the answer to that objection as well. He reached into his pack and pulled out a bright yellow helmet, which he handed to me. "When I get to the bottom and have the ropes wrapped around me, I will shout, belay on. You can jump any time after that."
Then he disappeared over the side.
"What if I don’t jump?" I shouted.
"I’ll wait."
"Hell may freeze over."
"I’ll still wait." And that was it. I didn’t hear a thing after that, other than the rising wind whistling on the corners of the rock.
Then -- "Belay on." The ropes moved slightly, then lay utterly still. In the shape of question marks.
There I was, sitting in the middle of the trail with my arms folded and feeling like a complete idiot.
Illusions, my ass.
I might have sat there all day, if it weren’t for a group of three teenaged boys who came bounding up the trail with a big dog running ahead. The dog came up, sniffed me a bit, and started licking at my face. I had to stand up to get away from him. The boys crowded around me.
"You gonna climb that cliff?" one asked, looking upwards.
"No," I said, "My partner is going to climb in a while. I’m just holding the safety ropes."
"Where’s your partner?"
I pointed to the edge. "Down there."
"Whoa," one of the kids said as he peered over, "That goes straight down to the water. Where is he?"
"On a shelf below us. Resting. It’ll probably be a half hour or so before he starts climbing again."
They stood around for a minute or two. Finally, one said, "Let’s go on to the top, this is boring." Thank God for short attention spans.
As they went up the trail, I took a step toward the edge and felt my sphincters clamp shut. Inside my boots my toes were grasping at the earth.
I willed myself further, thinking I might have twenty or thirty minutes until those boys came back.
I shook my head as I realized what had moved me.
Vanity. It was plain old vanity that made me get up off my ass. I didn’t want to look stupid in front of a pack of teenaged boys I’d never see again.
I thought of the interplay of forces, considering the possible trajectories of a leap of faith. I could let go of vanity and sit back down. Or . . . let go of whatever it was that made me reluctant to jump out into space a thousand feet above a raging river.
Let go of fear?
Let go of my need to be in control?
What would happen if I let go of everything?
Catch me, Kierkegaard.
I made my mind into a warm lagoon and let the chilly wind draw hot tears from my eyes. In the watery ambiguity that was my visual experience, I saw Leona as I had seen her at the edge of the pool. A four year old girl with a painted face and huge breasts.
My illusions personified. She wasn’t a whore, she was a baby.
They were all babies. Dad, Mom, Richard, and everyone else who had ever hurt me.
Did I have to stay a baby because of what they did? Or could I grow up at last at age thirty-six? Could I stand up tall, reach for the sky and -- fly?
My mind leaped then, but my feet didn’t get the message.
I stood there like a klutz. Before me was nothing but empty blue sky.
"Ira," I shouted, "are you still there?"
The wind carried his voice up the side of the rock. "Of course I am."
"Me too," I said.
And jumped.

Chapter Forty Nine: Sleeping Dogs

As a little early Christmas present, Richard and Donnie announced that there would be a budget shortfall before the end of the year. All spending was frozen, and we probably wouldn’t get raises or new positions until April or May, if then. Same shit, different day.
As Richard intoned the grave news at All-Staff, I felt that same old tense-shouldered, jaw clenching anger. I vowed I wouldn’t say a word this time, just leave as soon as I found another job. My days of protecting people from Richard were over.
Mary raised her hand and asked why they hadn’t planned better, to which Donnie responded with some cock-and-bull story about the state not paying its bills.
"So," Mary said, "You’re telling us that the situation was completely unpredictable and there was absolutely nothing you could have done to avoid it."
Donnie glared at her. "Maybe you should see to controlling cost overruns in your own program and leave the planning to people who are qualified --"
"Did you have somebody in particular in mind?" I said. Sue me.
For a heartbeat or two, silence lay on the room like an eight-hundred pound gorilla. Then the laughter began. A nervous snicker or two started it, like the first patter of raindrops before a downpour, then the room broke up with laughs, hoots, and applause.
Richard scrambled to the front, pretending to laugh along with the joke, but at the same time holding his hands up for silence. His face had turned a lovely shade of red. "Very funny, Dr. Reed," he said. "Seriously, Donnie is doing everything humanly possibly to handle the situation. He’s been here until after midnight every night this week, trying to lessen the impact of this shortfall on all our programs. I think he deserves a round of applause for his efforts." Richard began clapping, and gave me a brisk nod from the chin, as if he thought he’d shown me a thing or two. The clerical people clapped along; they knew what was good for them, but hardly anyone else took it up.
Richard clapped all the harder and announced that the meeting was over.
I thought about what Claire had said about Richard and Donnie staying up all night to cook the books, and shook my head. I was really glad I had decided to leave.
Why copy pages of social security numbers? I didn’t have much time to think about it, my client was already in the waiting room.
In her first session the previous week, LeeAnne Hager, a thirty-two year old married white female had asked for help with what she thought might be a temper problem. For homework I’d suggested she keep a diary of the times during the week she felt irritated. It ran to almost twenty pages, most of which were about her husband. She wanted to explain each entry in detail so I could get a feel for what she had to go through.
"He thinks that since he works he shouldn’t have to lift a finger around the house. He expects me to have dinner cooked and everything shining clean the minute he gets home. I swear he thinks I’m sitting around all day eating bon-bons."
"And he’s never direct about it," she continued. "He’s the kind of person who always keeps his feelings bottled up. If the house doesn’t look the way he thinks it should, or I haven’t made anything for dinner, he’ll get this pinched look on his face like he’s angry, but he never comes out and admits it. He’ll just say something like, ‘What did you guys do all day today?’." She mimicked a sarcastic male voice when quoting her husband. Her conception of the bottle in which he stored his feelings seemed to have the end smashed off so it could be used as a weapon.
"So, what is it you’d like him to do?"
"For once, realize that raising children is just as much a full-time job as being an electrician, so he can understand why I’m stressed and I need some space once in awhile."
"That seems reasonable. How much space do you need, and how often do you need it?"
She carefully smoothed her wool skirt. "You sound like him. He always wants to pin me down. How am I supposed to know when I’m not going to be able to take it any more? Even when I do get out, I always know I’ll find things worse than they were when I left. Like Tuesday and Thursday nights he cooks dinner and stays with Michael and Gwendolyn, and I go and work out. Because of that, the rest of the week he expects me to be all nice and sweet and loving. Give me a break!"
"Do you want him to help more?"
She rolled her eyes. "Like he’s really helping. He always ends up making more work for me. When he does fix dinner, he’ll leave the kitchen a mess. Or sometimes he’ll just take the kids out for fast food. I just can’t get it through his head that after they eat that junk they get all wild and unmanageable the next day. Sometimes he’ll even buy them candy bars! I don’t know how many times I’ve explained to him that they go into sugar overload. He just says, ‘Honey, they’re kids’." She put her hands on her hips and mimicked again. "He doesn’t have to live with them the next day. I tell him about it, and all he wants to do is hire somebody to come in and help with the cleaning, or some babysitter to watch the kids, so I can relax and calm down."
"Do you think that’s a bad idea?"
"It might be alright if he was doing it to help, but that’s not what’s really in his mind."
"What is?"
LeeAnne looked at me like I was retarded. "You’re not married, are you?"
"No."
"I didn’t think so. If you were, you’d never ask a question like that. If you get married you’ll discover that men have only one thing on their minds. S-E-X. As soon as he thinks I’m feeling even a little relaxed, all he wants to do is go into the bedroom. He says, ‘Come on, it may even help your stress’." Her mimicking voice sounded greasy as three-day-old hair tonic. "I’ve told him a million times that I have a tipped uterus and having sex hurts. He never listens. All he cares about are his own needs. I’ve had to move into a separate bedroom, because he just won’t leave me alone."
LeeAnne’s husband never heeded her demand to sit down when he urinated so he wouldn’t spatter on the bathroom rug.
As she went through her diary entries, carefully wiping under the rim of each one to bring to light every last dribble of betrayal and insensitivity, it became apparent to me that LeeAnne’s anger was a relic of some other time. Present-day events served only as hooks to hang it on.
In a sudden flush of shame, I caught myself looking down on LeeAnne for the irrationality of her anger. In my mind, I was attacking her weaknesses in the same mocking way I attacked my own. Not good.
Scrambling for neutral objectivity, I asked, "Can you remember a day when nothing happened to make you angry?"
Her eyes flashed at me, as she forced an exasperated breath out from between tight lips. "You don’t know my family," she said.
My perception of LeeAnne shifted. I began to see that her pain was her identity, if she stopped fighting and let it go, she might cease to exist. I could identify with the hopeless heroism of lashing out while believing, at some level, the suffering would never be over.
I asked her a few questions about her childhood. Her parents were fundamentalist Christians who lived in Portland, and seemed to do everything right. She assumed they had been wonderful parents, but really, she didn’t have many memories of her childhood, and anyway, why was that important? She couldn’t say why she wouldn’t allow her kids to visit their grandparents without her, or why she had never found a babysitter she would trust to watch her children for more than an hour at a time.
She quickly became irritated with questions about her past and her parenting style. What did that have to do with anything? All she really wanted to talk about was the battle with her husband.
In an old vampire movie, when somebody starts opening the window at night and hiding from the light during the day, you know that when she brushes her hair aside there will be two little holes in her neck. LeeAnne bore the marks of abuse as surely as the undead walk by night. I knew, and wished I didn’t.
Repressed memories. Whether or not they exist is more a political and legal issue than a professional opinion.
If LeeAnne had consulted a therapist like Karma, she would be reading The Courage To Heal by nightfall and by next week she’d be dancing with demons, real or imagined.
Other clinicians, in terror of lawsuits and board reprimands, would scrupulously avoid any questions about her past. They might be tacitly condoning the coverup of the central truth in her life. Or maybe they’d be giving her the chance to feel better without the awful burden of remembering -- if there was anything to remember.
But, which would be best for LeeAnne?
I did not know, and realized that I could not know. You can’t treat somebody for what you’ve got. The wisdom of this maxim suddenly became as apparent to me as the reason for not touching a hot stove.
Pavlova of the Psyche had to dance away from this one.
I spent the rest of the session explaining how our differences rendered me less than objective. I was lying through my teeth; it was our similarities.
I told LeeAnne I would find another more appropriate therapist, and the three of us would sit down and work out the transfer next week. I thought I could arrange for her to see Dana Hilliard, who had always impressed me with how non-toxic she was, both as a Christian and as a mother.
I hoped LeeAnne didn’t feel rejected only slightly less than I hoped I hadn’t merely chickened out and dumped her.

Chapter Forty Eight: Revenge of the Velveteen Rabbit

I began to schedule times twice a day to remember. If I had to have flashbacks, God damn it, I was going to say where and when. Where was usually near a bathroom, until I noticed I wasn’t throwing up nearly so much as I used to. Nausea had been a way of life for me in intense situations; I was only too happy to let it go. Maybe this therapy was doing me some good after all.
I told Mindy I was working on letting go of everything.
"Everything?" she said. "If you let go of everything, what do you have left?" Then, out of the blue, she told me a joke.
Two therapists were talking, she said. One says to the other, "Those Freudian slips can really be embarrassing. Just the other day I was at the airport buying a ticket from this well-endowed agent." Mindy cupped huge breasts in the air with her hands. "I meant to say, ‘Give me a ticket to Pittsburgh,’ but instead I said, ‘Give me a ticket to Tits-burgh.’ I was just mortified!"
The other therapist says, "That’s nothing. Last week I was visiting my parents, and we were having dinner. I meant to say to my mother, ‘Please pass the potatoes.’ Instead, I said, ‘YOU FUCKING BITCH, WHY DID YOU RUIN MY LIFE?’."
I laughed, even though I had a vague feeling that she was making fun of me. It was the first time I realized Mindy Cohen had a sense of humor.
Then she asked me what I wanted to work on in the session. The thing that came to mind was what Ira had said, about everyone using me against Richard. I told her how much it had bothered me.
"Why did it bother you?" she asked.
"When he said it, I thought I couldn’t be hearing him right, like maybe he was joking or something."
"Why did it seem like a joke to you?"
"What he said was just too close to the stupid, narcissistic fantasy I had in my own head about what was happening at the center. I imagined I was the only one who really knew what was going on, and the only one who could stop it." A hot mask of embarrassment rose to my face. "I actually thought of myself as Joan of Arc."
I was sure Mindy would laugh, but she didn’t crack a smile. "How do you understand the story of Joan of Arc?" she asked.
I groped for details. "She was an uneducated peasant girl who had visions that told her to go and save France. She went to the king -- Charles the somethingth -- who was a real dork, and he let her lead the army. She beat the British and saved the day. Then she got burned at the stake, and later she was made a saint."
"It could be the story of your life, couldn’t it?"
This time I was sure she was making fun of me, but she just sat there with an impassive therapist-look on her face.
"Don’t you think it’s a little grandiose as an identity," I asked.
"Carol wouldn’t think so," she said.
"Huh? What does Carol have to do with what went on at the Center?"
"The same thing your father has to do with Richard."
I felt cold prickly tingles all down my back, as if Mindy had said some sort of magic word that had a physical effect on me. I wasn’t sure what the word was, but I knew it was just a part of a greater message, written on the sky in letters so huge and wispy I couldn’t grasp them. Still, I could feel their power throbbing in my head. It hurt.
"Wait a minute, Mindy," I said. "I think you’re telling me something important, but I’m not getting it. Please explain what you meant about Carol thinking I was like Joan of Arc."
"It was your job to save her and your mother from your father. It was also your job to save the Mental Health Center from Richard. You’ve always been the Protector."
"Protector?" I said, with a snort. "More like a sacrificial offering, don’t you think?"
"Isn’t a sacrificial offering a protector?"
"I guess, in a technical sense, I don’t see --"
"Exactly. The important part is what you don’t see, but still use to structure your life. I think you’ve been living the part of Joan of Arc for quite some time now."
I could feel my brow tightening as I thought it over. "I’ve certainly been burned a few times," I said.
Mindy cracked a smile over that one. "The trick is doing it without getting burned," she said.
"Or getting yourself to stop doing it," I said, with a sigh of resignation.
"Why do you have to stop?"
"Why? You just told me that my entire life story is based on the neurotic need to be a protector, and that I keep playing out the pattern over and over. It’s just another addiction, isn’t it? Another thing I have to let go of."
I felt like a worn out and useless stuffed animal tossed into the garbage heap, ready to be burned. "A terminal case of the Velveteen Rabbit Complex," I said. A little humor at the stake.
"The Velveteen Rabbit Complex? Are you talking about the story of the toy rabbit who became real?"
"Yeah," I said. "Like everybody else, I’m just chasing after some stupid fantasy that I think will make me real. Fooling myself. I thought it just had to do with fucking all the men who showed the slightest interest, hoping they would fall in love with me. Now you’re telling me it’s bigger -- that my whole life is based on a stupid neurotic need to protect people."
I felt absolutely useless. It was worse than anything I had ever experienced before.
And Mindy Cohen laughed at me.
I was furious, I felt like getting up and running out of the room. How could she laugh when she had just shown me that my whole life was all for nothing?
"Rachel, forgive me," she said, "I get this way when I finally understand what people are telling me." She pulled her chair over closer to me, and held out her hand. Weird as she was, I really did need a hand to hold. I took it.
"Rachel, I think you misunderstood the rabbit story. He doesn’t fool himself into thinking he’s real; he actually becomes real."
I hadn’t misunderstood. Rabbits don’t get to be real. Every time I read the story to Jessica I felt like I was lying to her to make her feel safe and secure.
To protect her.
To protect her from what?
The truth -- that there’s no magic.
I stared at the floor, scowling.
Mindy lowered her head to make contact with my eyes. "Silly rabbit," she said. "It’s our neuroses that make us real."
Another magic word. This one felt like the punch line to some enormous and wonderfully hilarious joke. I started to giggle.
"You fucking bitch," I said, "Why did you ruin my life?"
We both laughed so hard that we cried. Then we spent the last few minutes of the session blowing our noses together.
Real.

Chapter Forty Seven: Letting Go

It was after seven on my first day back. Ira, Glenda, and I had gone to Pinot Ganache for dinner and our first chance to talk since they’d brought me home from Lake Chelan in a basket. We had thought about going to Cisco’s, but it just wasn’t an evening for margaritas and taco chips.
For me, there would never be another evening for margaritas.
Even in the warmth of the communal fire I was still freezing in the snows of yesteryear. What a schlemiel.
"So what’s Mindy Cohen like?" Glenda asked
"A grownup," I said, "She looks like a mom, with short gray hair and sensible clothes -- you know, lace up shoes, corduroy skirts and heavy sweaters with kleenexes in the sleeve. And glasses."
"What color?" Glenda asked.
"I don’t know," I said. "Blue maybe. I don’t pay attention to what color people’s glasses are. Her eyes are brown."
Glenda took off her own glasses, which she had been wearing to read the menu, held them out at the end of their chain, looked at them, and let them drop to her chest, where they entangled with a huge pin in the shape of a 1950's rocket ship. "My one attempt to be daring," she said. "I wonder if anybody notices?"
"Notices what?" Ira said, with a tiny smile, half hiding under his moustache.
Glenda let out a long sigh. "You see what I’ve had to put up with the whole time you were gone? I don’t want to make you feel guilty or anything but --"
"It is all your fault," Ira said. Glenda kicked him under the table.
"Well," Ira said, "We have established that your therapist is an understated dresser, unlike some people I could name." Glenda kicked him again. "What does she tell you about yourself?"
My mouth was open, ready to speak before I realized I didn’t know.
Dinner came. I considered my answer while the server set down the steaming plates. "She doesn’t tell me anything about myself." I said, finally.
"I had that kind of therapist once," Ira said. "She thought I was boring."
"No, it’s not like that," I said, giggling a little at the idea that anyone would find Ira boring. "She doesn’t tell me anything. She just sits there and asks very serious questions, like, ‘Is that the way you want to live your life?’ then she blows her nose."
"Sounds very gifted," Glenda said, as she cut into her quiche.
"You know," I said, "I’ve wondered about that -- whether she’s a good therapist or not. I really can’t tell."
"Then she must be good," Ira said. "If she weren’t any good, you’d know in a minute. Anyway, the best therapists are the most transparent -- you look right through them and see yourself." He was having some sort of vegetable stew that looked better than my fettucini with smoked salmon.
I ate a few bites, thinking about what Ira had said. Transparent I didn’t need. I could see myself just fine; facing myself was where I had a problem.
"I guess she must be good," I said, "Because I go away from my sessions feeling like I’ve had my nose rubbed in existential decisions. She keeps saying that I have to decide what to hold onto and what to let go of. Like I really have a choice."
"You don’t think you have a choice?" Glenda said.
I made a noise that was supposed to be a laugh. "For me, it’s all letting go. Somehow I’ve got to work through my past, even though I’m only now discovering what my past was. I have to get beyond hating my parents -- and all the other authority figures in my life. Then there are the bad habits I have to get rid of -- we’re talking major addictions here, like drinking and indiscriminate sex -- but there’s so much more to it than that. It’s the whole way I think -- or don’t think, is more like it. It feels like I have to let go of anything spontaneous."
"Welcome to being middle aged," Glenda said.
"I know you’re joking," I said, but that’s just what it feels like. Sometimes all I can see on the horizon is this great big grey cloud. What am I going to do for fun?"
"Sleep," Glenda said, taking another bite of her quiche.
"You mean it, don’t you?"
Glenda made one of those thoughtful, frowning expressions that you know is really a smile in disguise. "Maybe," she said, "But that’s not all. There’s a certain joy that comes from being who you’re supposed to be and doing what you’re supposed to do, even though you do get tired."
"So, who tells you who you’re supposed to be?" I asked.
"Mindy Cohen," Ira answered. I wished my leg was long enough to reach him.
He turned to Glenda. "Twenty years makes a difference in the way people think, doesn’t it?"
"It certainly does," Glenda said.
"So, what you two old farts are saying is that I’m just immature, and I’ll grow out of it?"
Ira looked at Glenda and then back at me. "No, dear lady, that is not quite it. I think I speak for Glenda, as well as myself, when I say that you are one of the most amazing people we have ever met. You have talent and intelligence that are almost frightening to behold, and tsuris beyond what we can imagine in our worst nightmares. Somehow, you have to learn to balance those forces before they tear you apart. If you do, you will accomplish great things. If you don’t . . ."
"I’ll self destruct."
"Precisely," he said.
"And how am I supposed to find this balance?"
"We have faith in your ability to discover what you have to hold onto and what you have to let go of." Glenda said, and Ira nodded.
"You sound just like Mindy," I said.
Ira smiled all the way up to the wrinkles around his eyes. "If three people tell you you’re a horse, buy a saddle."
"Schmuck," I said, feeling a little miffed that these two didn’t seem to be taking my difficulties as seriously as I was. I knew they meant well, but . . .
"Speaking of schmucks, Fearless Leader, everyone has noticed a change in Richard since he tangled with you.
"Tangled with me! More like beat the shit out of me."
"Whatever it was, it took something out of him too," Glenda said. "He’s at the center a lot more now -- he even comes into the clinical area. And when he does, he’s sickeningly sweet. It’s like he doesn’t want to get anybody else pissed off at him."
"Mr. Public Relations," I said, "Kissing a little ass over on this side of the world for a change."
My anger began to burn hotter than the sauce on my pasta.
I sighed and put down my fork, making my mind into a tropical lagoon. "Don’t get me started on Richard," I said. "He’s something I know I have to let go of, but I just can’t. I still get so pissed off at him, but I know it doesn’t do me one bit of good."
I took a sip of cold water and tried to drown my murderous thoughts. "I talked to Claire today. She wanted to apologize for her part in getting me suspended. It surprised me; I thought she could give a shit. You know I told you she had a thing going with Richard? Well, she doesn’t any more. I guess the spitting finally got to her. Along with the fact that she saw him coming in from the deck right after I went over the side."
Ira and Glenda didn’t look particularly surprised.
I began to shake, and had to calm myself yet again. "It’s such a pisser," I said. "The more evidence I have that he tried to kill me, the more certain I am that I have to drop the whole thing, or I’ll drive myself crazy."
"What do you do when you meet the Buddha on the road and you can neither speak nor remain silent?" Ira said.
"Get another job," I said.
"Funny," Glenda said, "I thought you’d answer, ‘Kick him in the balls’."
"Been there, done that, got the tee shirt," I said, stirring the fettucini around on my plate.
"Much as I’d hate to see you leave," Ira said, "I can’t fault your reasoning." He sighed and pushed his plate away. "I think it’s time we begin to face ourselves a little and see how we all have been using you."
"Using me? For what?"
"To take on Richard for us."
"Yeah, right," I said. "Nobody else seems to have a problem with Richard -- present company excepted -- I’m the one with the authority issues."
"Ira’s right," Glenda said. "You were on the case, so nobody else had to think about what Richard was doing, or why he was doing it. We minded our own business, took our share, and let you take the fall for all of us."
"You guys didn’t; you’ve been with me every step of the way."
"All of us passed you the cup," Glenda said.
"I’m not so sure I buy this cockamamy idea in the first place." I said. "But even if you did pass me the cup, I sure as hell drank out of it."
"Yes," Ira said. "You did do that. And I, for one, sympathize with your efforts to let go of it. I may even be able to help, if you would be willing to give me a day of your time."
"A day? What do you have in mind?"
"I think I’d prefer it to be a surprise. What about this Saturday?"
"I have call."
"Not any more," Glenda said. "I’ll take it."
"No," I said, "It’s time I pulled my weight around here. How about next Saturday?"
"Good, it’s settled," Ira said. "I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. Dress for hiking."
"What?" I said, "Are we going to play Outward Bound?"
"The idea is right," he said, "But the direction is wrong."
"I’m glad I’ll be on call that weekend," Glenda said. "Hiking in December? Maybe it’ll even snow for you. Jesus, it makes me too cold even to think about it. I hope you two Girl Scouts have lots of fun." She wrapped herself tightly in her coat as we stepped out into the chilly mist. "Idiots." She said over her shoulder, as she hustled off to her car.
When I got home there was a message from John Campi on the answering machine. Just a friendly voice saying, "Call me when you get a chance," not the sort of thing you’d imagine getting uptight over, but for me it opened the door on an almost intolerable conflict.
John was a nice man. An attractive man. I liked him, and didn’t want to treat him badly. On the other hand, John wanted sex, and a part of me hated his guts for that.
Sex. All my life I’d trained for it like an Olympic event, developing stamina and honing my reflexes, delighting in the sheer physical skill it took to be an open and perfect receiver.
I leaned back on the couch, touching myself, and allowing my heart to bask in the remembered glow of naked power.
Then the trap door opened, strangling off my breath and leaving me writhing in syncopation with mindless, grunting thrusts and spasms as they filled me with nauseating gouts of foul-smelling slime. Gasping, I jumped to my feet.
Even thinking about sex was like playing Russian roulette. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to do it.
But I didn’t have to.
No sweaty, smelly, penis-brained man can make me do anything I don’t want to do. They can stand there drooling forever for all I care.
But can they prevent me from doing something I want to do?
One path lead to bondage, and the other to freedom, and, God help me, I could not tell which was which.
Not that I had to decide tonight -- after all I’d been through, who could blame me if I put it off until things got a little less hectic?
I could put it off until Kingdom Come. Not thinking is the most subtle of addictions. I could easily succumb to avoidance of pain, bathed in a sauce of sanctioned self-righteousness. Except that I was sick and tired of playing games.
At eleven o’clock I called John Campi and told him the whole story.
He was absolutely and completely blown away.
He said, "Rachel, I don’t know what to say. I can’t even imagine how bad you must feel; it makes me sick just hearing about it. If you want to talk or something, or if there’s anything I can do to help you, please call me. I mean it." A nice man, but way out of his league.
I crawled into my cold bed and snuggled into the down comforter until my own reflected body heat warmed me into sleep.
It would take a long time, and a lot of training before I’d be a world-class competitor again.
No dreams came that night.

Chapter Forty Six: Going Back

I wasn’t cured, but, for the first time in my life, I felt like I was all there. I had to work hard to hold myself steady in one time and place. Gut-wrenching flashbacks still stalked me, ready to pounce when the smallest thing -- a smell, a sound or a touch to a certain part of my body -- reminded me, in the most visceral way, of the horrors in my past, and sent me back. The pain hadn’t stopped, not by a longshot, I had just become more convinced of my ability to endure it. And to contain it well enough to go on with my life without messing things up too badly for myself or other people.
In our next session Mindy released me to go back to work, but only after grilling me thoroughly about all the things that could go wrong with my perceptions of clients because of what I was going through myself. Thinking of all the ways I could screw up was not something I did often. It scared the shit out of me. Therapy had always felt more like a creature of instinct and intuition rather than one of planning and intellectual decision making. I never worried about pitfalls, I just flew over them with leaps of inspiration.
I told Mindy, half jokingly, that it would spoil all my fun to have to think about all the details and second guess myself every time I worked with a client.
"Good," she said, "That’s the way grownups do therapy." More than anything else she ever said, that comment cut me to the bone. What an insult! It was like telling Pavlova that she needed dancing lessons.
The worst part about it was she was right. I did need dancing lessons. That very day, I arranged for regular appointments with David Slaughter, a crusty and careful therapist of Mindy’s generation, to discuss my cases. When I told her what I had done in our next session, I thought she would be pleased with my maturity. Instead, she just nodded and said she had been discussing her cases with David for years. Such a maddening woman!
It took forever for me to realize that she was using the way I did therapy as a metaphor for the way I lived my whole life.
Thanksgiving came, and I spent it at Carol’s. On the Monday afterward I returned to work.
"Welcome back, Rachel," Deena said, as I passed the front desk on that first morning.
"Thanks," I said, searching her comment for irony, and finding none.
The people I passed on the way to my office were friendly, and, though I strained to hear them, there did not seem to be any whispers behind my back.
First thing, I met with the Mind Police to catch up on my clients. Nobody had gone off the deep end, though Glenda had to meet with Celia Blake several times to reassure her that I wasn’t dying of a brain tumor or just pretending to be sick to avoid seeing her.
Greg had been taking names; he presented me with a list of disciplinary infractions that required my immediate attention. I took away everyone’s phone privileges.
After the meeting, the hallways seemed strangely silent as Ira and I walked down to the coffee room to freshen our cups. I figured a lot of people were taking the day off.
"I am most impressed with your clean living," Ira said. It’s almost ten-thirty and you haven’t even finished your first cup of coffee."
I looked at my half-full cup and shrugged. "It doesn’t have to cut through a hangover, so it goes further, which, come to think of it, is great, because the coffee here has always tasted like shit."
Ira smiled at me, and I remembered the vision of him jumping around like a cheerleader. I stopped for a minute, imagining him in a short skirt with pom-poms. He looked so cute that I had to hug him. It felt really good.
As we rounded the last corner to the coffee room, he put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "Brace yourself," he said.
Half the staff was in there waiting for me, along with a huge plate of doughnuts and a banner that said, "Welcome Back, Rachel." So much for my plan of sneaking back and fading into my old routines. Still, I was touched. Emotionally, not physically. People stood close and smiled at me, but nobody hugged me or put out a hand. That meant they had heard at least some of my story; everybody knows abuse victims have problems with touch.
Everybody but one. The knot of people parted to make way for Richard, who approached me with a counterfeit smile and an outstretched hand that he just about shoved in my face. "Welcome back, Dr. Reed," he said. "We’ve missed you."
I grabbed his hand like it was a poisonous snake, squeezing hard enough to wipe the stupid grin off his face for a second or two. Richard looked at me with his mouth still hanging open, then down at his hand. I smiled back at him and batted my innocent blue eyes, feeling free. He had already taken his best shot and I was still standing. I didn’t give a flying fuck whether he fired me or not.
Richard muttered something about a meeting, nodded to the people around us, and strode off purposefully, as if he had some place important to go. Maybe it was nap time.
Ira turned toward me and spoke in a stage whisper. "The surest way to spot a shmegegge is when he leaves a room, it feels like somebody came in." More people laughed than I would have predicted.
People came up to talk as we ate doughnuts and drank coffee. They seemed sincerely glad to see me. I noticed Claire hovering near the outer edges of the group, looking a little nervous. I remembered the message she’d left on my answering machine. I’d never called her back, so I supposed I’d have to talk to her before long.
I hadn’t called Steve either.
Even as I thought about him, he approached me with a smile that looked a little too tight for his face.
"Rachel, it’s good to see you." He looked deeply into my eyes and held on so long that I began to feel a little embarrassed. "Come talk to me later, okay?" He waited until I agreed before he disconnected.
Deena broke in several times to announce people’s appointments over the intercom, and the room began to thin out quickly. Only Claire and I were left. She shifted her weight from foot to foot as she smiled and said how glad she was that I was back.
"Rachel, I, uh, wanted to say that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble with that group and all."
"It’s okay," I said.
"No it isn’t," she said. Her voice quavered like she was on the edge of tears. "Can we talk?"
I didn’t particularly feel like reassuring her, but I followed her back to her office anyway. It would have been rude to do anything else.
"Rachel, I know you don’t think much of me, but there’s nobody else I can talk to about this. And it does have to do with you." Her voice shook with emotion, but she struggled to compose herself. "I, uh, know some things about Richard. I can’t tell you how I know, but I think there’s something really wrong with him." She messed up her mascara by wiping a stray tear with the back of her hand, then tried unsuccessfully to remold her face into a smile. "You probably think I’m stupid."
"No more stupid than I am," I said.
"You’re not stupid, Rachel, I’ve always wished I could be as smart as you."
I considered a snappy rejoinder, like "And I’ve always wished I had tits like yours," but I stopped it mid-thought, shocked at my own insensitivity. She was telling me something important about herself. And me. Claire admired my intelligence; she didn’t resent it the way I resented her beauty. I felt cheap.
"I don’t think you’re stupid, Claire, and I know this is hard for you. I got your message. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. I just didn’t feel like talking about Richard." I straightened up in the chair. "Please go on; I’m ready to listen now."
She gave me a brave little smile that could have been one of my own expressions, and continued. "I know you went to the board about something in the budget. Richard told me. When he found out about it, he got really angry --like you were just making up stuff to get him in trouble. I thought that’s what you were doing too, I mean, I knew you didn’t like Richard and all, and that’s what he said you were doing, so --"
"I can’t blame you for that," I said. "I’ve been wondering if I made it all up myself."
"You didn’t," she said. "He was just saying that, but I didn’t know. He told me you were an alcoholic and a liar, and he ought to fire you, and maybe he would because he had plenty of evidence that you were incompetent. Then he asked me if you’d ever started that dual-diagnosis group that he told me to have you do. I said you hadn’t, and he got all excited and said that it was insubordination and he could really fire you for that. I was sorry I told him about it, but I didn’t know." Another tear escaped her eye. "I was having an affair with him, Rachel. I know it was dumb --"
"Wait a minute," I said. "When it comes to that kind of dumb, I’m way ahead of you. You know I was having an affair with Steve?"
"Sure, everybody knew about that." So much for the illusion of subtlety.
We looked at each other a minute, then we both smiled. "Dumb," I said, and Claire nodded.
"I’m not, you know, seeing Richard any more," she said. "Even then I was thinking about ending it. He’s so nice sometimes, but he can be so strange -- mean even. I saw him do some stuff that was really weird. But I thought he was just stressed or something."
"Stress doesn’t make you spit on mentally ill people," I said.
Her jaw dropped and her eyes flew open like a yanked shade. "How --"
"I saw it," I said. "I was there in front of the Cascade Plaza. With Steve. The guy Richard spit on was named Myron. He’d been detained down here a couple of times."
"So you knew about --"
I nodded.
"Shit," she said. "I didn’t think anybody knew."
"I didn’t think anybody knew about me and Steve either."
We grinned at each other and shook our heads -- the farblonjet sisters.
"Anyway," Claire said, "The night he found out you had gone to the board, he and Donnie came down here and started changing things in the budget. He called me to come and help, because I was the only one who understood the importance of the situation. He said the whole center would be facing a big financial crisis if the board took you seriously, and we needed to make sure everything in the budget was the way it was supposed to be. We were here until five o’clock in the morning. He and Donnie were changing things on the computer, and I was Xeroxing the new pages and putting them in the binders. God, it was so boring -- pages and pages of people’s social security numbers -- I fell asleep a couple of times. It never occurred to me that we were doing something wrong. I was stupid, wasn’t I?"
I thought about saying something reassuring, but she waved me away and said, "You don’t have to answer. I know I was stupid. I was helping them do something illegal, but I never even thought much about it until after that night at Lake Chelan when you almost drowned." She took a deep breath and leaned forward a little. "He really hated you, Rachel; he was always saying awful stuff, but I didn’t think he would do anything about it. Then --" She took another breath. "This may sound crazy, but I know he was out on the deck right at the time you fell overboard. I was going up the stairs from the ladies’ room and I saw him come in the door. I didn’t think anything of it then, but later I put things together, and realized -- He must have seen you fall, but he didn’t do anything to help. I think he wanted you to drown."
My heart began to pound like a glacier breaking apart. "There’s a little more to it than that," I said. "I think he pushed me."
"Oh my God," she said. Why do I keep having that effect on people?
Claire reached out to take my hand, but stopped midair in the politically correct way. I caught her hand and held it in both of mine. There was more to Claire than I’d ever guessed. "What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Nothing," I said, calming myself by making my mind into a deep, still hot-tub. "There’s nothing I can do."
"What about the police?"
"What could I tell them? I don’t have any proof. The board didn’t want to investigate the budget. So, the whole thing is over. I’ve got to put it behind me and get on with my life." I let out the breath I’d been holding. "That’s what I’m working on in therapy."
Claire shook her head slowly with an expression of horror on her face. "It’s so unfair."
"There’s no such thing as fair." I said, feeling not near so tough as I sounded. "You know, the one thing that really gets to me is why he’d want to kill me even after he knew the board wasn’t going to do anything."
Claire pursed her lips, and seemed to be considering the issue. Finally she said, "Revenge. It has to be. He really hates you."
"I guess so," I said, "But it just blows me away." Only after I said them did I realize that my words could have been taken literally.
"Me too," she said, shaking her head. "Everything about this place is so strange. I don’t think I can take it any more. After the first of the year I’m going to look for a new job. Maybe you should too."
"Maybe," I said, amazed that I hadn’t even considered such a simple and effective solution. Putting your own needs first, what a revolutionary idea! Maybe there was something to this babe-consciousness after all. Another paradigm shifted; it was getting to be an every day occurrence.
"Claire, it means a lot to me that you shared all this with me. Thank you."
Her face lit up like she’d gotten an "A". I could see why people liked her.
On the way back to my office I wondered why I didn’t just hand in my resignation instead of putting up with all this mishegaas. Maybe Mindy would know. Of course, if she did, she’d never tell me.
I struggled to keep Richard at arm’s length inside my mind.
Steve was waiting by my office door. "Do you have a minute?" he asked.
I looked at the clock hoping for an excuse, but my first client wouldn’t be here for more than an hour. I did want to talk to Steve; I just wasn’t ready to take him out of the little box in my consciousness where I’d been keeping him. "Sure," I said. Already I was beginning to respond to the scent of his aftershave.
He closed the door. "I’ve missed you," he said, "More than I thought I would."
Uh oh.
He sat down on the couch and smiled at me. "How’s it going on your first day back?"
"Okay, I guess. A little overwhelming . . ."
"Are you alright?" He asked the question the way a therapist would, with emphasis on the word "you" and raised brows at the end. His posture -- leaning back and crossing his legs -- also indicated that he expected more than a "yes" or "no" answer. Oh well . . .
I ran through a brief version of what I had been doing for the past couple of weeks, and told him some things about my therapy.
"Mindy Cohen, huh? They say she’s good, but a little weird."
"I don’t think you can be good in this business without being weird."
"I guess." He shifted around, then leaned forward. "Rachel, I feel so bad about all these things you’ve had to go through. If there’s anything I can do. . ."
"Thanks," I said, "But I think I have to go through this on my own." I moved a stack of papers on my desk, hoping he’d take the hint.
He nodded, but didn’t show any signs of getting up. "I don’t know if anybody told you that Jenna and I are separated --"
"I’m sorry to hear that."
"Well, it’s been coming for a long time. I guess you of all people would know."
"I kind of hoped you’d work things out."
He drew a breath so huge it seemed to suck all the air out of the room. "Rachel --"
"No."
I said it! I actually said it!
"I mean --"
"Steve, please. Let it be."
He looked at me long and hard, projecting sadness and hurt with his beautiful, deep brown eyes. I felt for him, but I also realized that he didn’t have the slightest idea what real pain was.
"I guess I’ll see you later," he said, as he pulled himself out of the saggy, blue embrace of my couch.
"Sure," I said, looking down at the stack of messages on my desk.
"Do you want this door open or closed?" He asked as he went out.
"Closed," I said.
Claire would have been proud of me.

Chapter Forty Five: Swim!!

Mindy Cohen listened intently as I told her about my mother snatching Carol away and whisking her off to church, leaving me alone to face my father’s frustrated lust.
As I wiped away tears and blew my nose, she shifted her weight in the chair and asked, "Why do we have to talk about these terrible things that happened in your past?"
I was shocked and a little offended, even though I was already coming to expect this kind of off-the-wall question from her.
I shrugged and controlled the impulse to roll my eyes. "Because what happened to me then affects what I am now," I said.
Mindy smiled at me. "Do you think it does?"
"Sure." I said. "It has to. Doesn’t it?"
"I don’t know," she said. Such a maddening woman, why couldn’t she just tell me what she thought?
"But, this is supposed to be your area of expertise," I said. "Don’t you have an opinion?"
"Sometimes expertise means having no opinion."
"Wait a minute, are you saying that I could have gone through --" I waved my hand in the general direction of the past. "Everything, and it may not have had any effect on what I’m like now."
"That’s an interesting idea, Rachel, but no, that isn’t exactly what I meant." I waited for her to explain, but she didn’t say anything more.
"Aren’t you going to tell me?"
She smiled again. "Something as important as how your past affects your present is not up to me to decide. Any preconceived notions I have would be a disservice to you."
Bullshit.
"What about theories?" I said. "Or research? Haven’t you read up on sexual abuse?"
"Oh, here and there. But the more I read, and the more I see, the less I know what a sexually abused person is supposed to be like. This is therapy, not The Courage to Heal." She took a wadded-up Kleenex out of her sleeve, and blew her nose. She had a sinus condition.
It felt like a huge load had been lifted from my mind. I had imagined my therapy would have to be depressing drudgery, full of detailed recitations of the crimes done to me, angry letters to dead parents, and setting rigid boundaries so I could pick fights with anyone who tried to cross them. Was she suggesting it could happen in some other way?
I felt relieved and perplexed at the same time.
Now what? I looked to Mindy, and she gave me another one of those smiles.
"You just told me a powerful story from your past," she said. "What does it have to do with how you are now?"
I thought for a long time. I wanted to say that it made me hate my parents, but that wasn’t true. It was more like I thought I should hate them. But my real feelings were a tangled mass of contradictions -- love, hate, disgust and longing. So confused, I could never sort them out.
All of a sudden I felt jerks and twitches in my shoulders, as if my arms were trying to do something on their own. I let it happen, and watched as they rose from my lap, unfolded, and reached above me.
I wanted somebody to pick me up, and I knew with a certainty, solid and cold as a wall of ice, that nobody would.
My body shook with sobs once more, as I sat there holding my hands up to a warm place so high and far away that I could never even hope to reach it.
I saw boat lights moving away in the darkness.
"Swim or die," I said.
"Which is it?" Mindy Cohen asked.
"Swim." I didn’t have to think about the answer; the word just bobbed to the surface of my mind like a cork suddenly freed from tangles of weeds and muck in the depths of my soul.
"Swim!" I said the word more loudly, as if it were the one true thing in the universe.
I felt the raw power of my body pushing against the water as I flowed forward into bright summer light.
"Swim!" Other voices took up the word and spoke it. Softly, at first. I heard a toddler saying, "Swim, Ray- Ray."
"Swim!" Louder. People were shouting; I could see them on either side of the lane. Ira and Glenda were there, jumping like cheerleaders. Jessica and Jason threw streamers.
"Swim!" The Wildman shouted from the top of the Interstate Bridge. Celia Blake was up there with him, waving with her razor blade.
"Swim!" Steve, Paul, John Campi, and a hundred other lovers stood naked with their penises rising to salute me as I approached the finish line.
"Swim." Ghostly whispers floated like airborne dust from two gray figures, rotting, and wrapped in chains. My parents.
Richard was there too, pouring me a huge glass of wine and holding it out to me with an open-mouthed smile that seemed to drip with oil. "Die," he said.
"Swim!" Leona said, as she pushed him over the side.
She hovered above me with her angel wings flapping and a bright, loving smile on her painted face.
Then she reached down to pick me up. In the middle of the air, we became one.
Mindy Cohen was smiling at me.

Chapter Forty Four: Carol

I picked Carol up at the airport. She’d come right from work, wearing a long raincoat and pulling one of those carry-ons with a retractable handle and wheels. Such an efficient traveler, five minutes after her plane landed we were in the car. Her flight had taken twenty-nine minutes, and it took us only a little longer than that to get out of the parking lot. In a couple of weeks, at Thanksgiving time, it would take the same amount of time to get through the airport as it does to drive to Seattle.
I feel closer to Carol than to any one on earth. As always, I was glad to see her, but I felt my anxiety level rising as we batted small talk back and forth on the way to my apartment. I wondered why. There was so much I wanted to say, but the words seemed to be hiding inside me somewhere, trembling under a pile of trivialities, and I just couldn’t coax them out. She noticed right away.
"Ray, are you alright?"
"Sure," I said. "Well, I guess. I mean I’ve been through a lot of stuff in the last week and a half, and --"
"I mean right now. With me. You’re the psychologist, but even I can tell you’re uptight. You’ve asked me how Jessica is three times since I got off the plane."
I resisted the urge to comment on the cute guy in the Mercedes next to us. "Yeah," I said. "I can feel it, but I don’t understand what’s going on with me. What else is new?" I shrugged. "I mean, it’s not you, I’ve really been looking forward to seeing you, but now that you’re here, I’m so -- I don’t know -- scared is what it feels like, but I’ve never been afraid to talk to you."
"But there are things you’ve never talked to me about."
"There are?"
She laughed. "You’ve got to be kidding . You don’t know? Every time I bring up anything that happened in the time before Dad died, you change the subject. It’s like --"
"That son of a bitch. Did you see that? He pulled right in front of me, and he didn’t signal or anything." I tooted the horn and waved. "Thanks, buddy!"
"You’re doing it now."
"Doing what?"
"Changing the subject."
"I was just . . ." What was I doing? I forced myself to stop and think.
"We never talk about Dad," Carol said, angling herself toward me in the front seat of the car. "We don’t talk about Mom, either."
"What’s there to say about Mom? She spent the first twelve years of my life visiting relatives and volunteering at church, and the second twelve years lying on the couch smoking cigarettes, too depressed even to talk."
"No she didn’t."
"What are you talking about? I remember her not saying a word to me for days at a time. She’d lie on the couch in a cloud of smoke with her eyes half closed. She wouldn’t even answer when I’d ask her if she wanted to come to dinner, and . . ."
"She used to talk to me."
"She did?"
"Before I started school, when it was just the two of us at home, she would read to me, and play with me, and pretty much act like a regular mom. Even after Dad died, I’d usually get home an hour or two before you did, and Mom would be up. Not very lively, but she’d talk to me, and, you know, ask me what happened at school, make me a snack, that kind of thing."
I couldn’t imagine it. That smoky, distant, depressed lump -- up off the couch and making a snack. Who would have thought . . .
Then my world shifted again. I remembered the Velveteen Rabbit. Sometime in the distant past, Mom used to read it to me. I could hear her voice as she spoke the lines of the different characters. I’d be sitting on her lap with my head on her shoulder, smelling her perfume and hearing her voice come to one ear through the air, and to one, with vibrations, through her body. I liked that voice the best, I used to snuggle down into her soft robe and feel the story come up from inside her and let it put me to sleep. I felt so warm, so safe, and . . . Loved. I sobbed so hard I had to pull over.
Carol leaned over and put her arms around me. She smelled like Mom before she’d started smoking. Sweet, clean, and warm. Mom had loved me once, put me to bed in -- I could see it -- little bed with a white chenille bedspread and a blue blanket. And my bunny. It was before I became a princess, and before I became a bitch.
I nearly choked on my sobs as I told Carol what I remembered.
Carol traded seats with me and did the driving. As we pulled into the parking lot at my apartment she shook her head.
"I don’t know why you’re still living here. Wouldn’t you be happier in a nice house."
"At my salary? Psychologists don’t make anywhere near as much as engineers."
"What about the trust fund. We bought our house with mine and there’s still money left. You haven’t even touched yours, have you?"
"No. I’ve hardly even thought about the money since Mom died and we sold the house. I don’t even know how much is there, and to tell you the truth, I don’t even care. Somewhere inside me I knew I didn’t want anything from them, and now I guess I know why. Besides, I always wanted to see if I could make it on my own."
"You have."
"Right. Made it and just about lost it. I may need that money to live on if I keep going the way I have been."
"Well," she said with a smile, "If you get fired you can just come up and live with us. I’ll take care of you the way you took care of me. In fact, I’m ready to start now. Look." She rummaged around in her carry-on and came out with a container of cocoa and a bag of tiny marshmallows. "I made Jason stop on the way to the airport so I could get these. You always used to make cocoa with marshmallows for me, so I thought I’d return the favor."
"Jason told you I’m not drinking?"
"Yes, drinking is another thing you and I have never talked about. I think it’s high time we both start looking at what we’re doing. I’m glad you’ve stopped, and I’m going to try too."
"Do you miss it?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Me too."
We drank hot chocolate, talked, and cried all night. I told her what I remembered happening with Dad. She told me some things I had never known about Mom.
"Mom used to say you were Daddy’s girl." Carol said. "She would talk about the two of you, always working on your swimming and dancing together, like she was, you know, jealous or something. When I was real little I thought I belonged to Mom, and you belonged to Dad. I never dreamed . . . Oh, Ray-Ray, it must have been so horrible for you. I feel so guilty --"
"Why would you feel guilty?"
She laughed a little. "I think it was that stupid bed. Seeing it in the house I remembered how jealous I was too. I never knew what you had to do to get that bed. I can see why you’d want to get rid of it."
"If it bothers you I --"
"No, no. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just that, well, now that I know the whole story, it makes me sad." She stroked my shoulder, and I turned my face toward her. Lines of tears ran down her cheeks and her nose was dripping. She pulled another Kleenex out of the box that sat next to us on the couch, blew her nose, dabbed her eyes, and tossed it on the floor. Long ago we’d stopped carrying them to the trash can. The couch and the floor looked like it had snowed crumpled paper.
"Jessica loves the bed," she said. "She thinks it’s the most wonderful thing in the world -- next to her Aunt Rachel. It’s so weird how that bed means something so different to her than it did to you. For Jessica, it’s a gift of love and --"
"It was a gift of love for me too. In some insane way I know that."
I saw her cringe.
"I know I should hate him," I said, "But, somehow, I don’t. Do you think that’s crazy?"
She shrugged and gave me a weak smile. "You’re the psychologist."
"That again," I said. "I don’t know why people think psychologists are supposed to know all the answers."
"Don’t you?"
"Yeah, that’s why my life is such a stunning example of mental health. I just discovered that my father was fucking me from the time I was four years old, and I can’t even decide whether I should hate him. Do you think I should?"
"I don’t know."
"Did you hate him?" I asked. " Did you think he was a terrible man?"
"I . . . I don’t know. I never thought about it, I mean, I think it’s terrible what he did to you, but I barely remember him. The clearest memory I have is . . . that time, you know, the day he got killed. Mostly, he was like a stranger. I thought I was supposed to stay out of his way. I remember how we would play in the little rooms on the dark side of the house when he was around, and you were always telling me to be quiet. When I was real little, I thought it was a game, like hide and seek. When I got older, I realized that you were scared, then I started to get scared too."
Carol paused and rolled her eyes upwards like she was remembering something. "I didn’t get really scared until that time when Mom . . ." All of a sudden her face turned white. She raised her hand to her mouth and drew in a sharp breath. "Oh, my God," she said. "I just realized . . ." Fresh tears filled her eyes.
"What is it?" I asked.
"There was this time," Carol said, "Just before Dad died. He came up to my room, and asked me if I wanted to learn how to dance. I wanted to really bad . . ." She shook her head and kind of hugged herself. "I had no idea."
Carol blew her nose on another Kleenex. "He took me down to the party room and he put on that song he used to like so much --"
"Blueberry Hill," I said, feeling fear bubble up inside me.
"Yeah, that was the song. He had just started dancing with me, when Mom came running down the stairs, screaming at him to stop. She snatched me away from him and slapped him right in the face. Then she sent me up to my room, and, as I was going up the stairs, I heard her telling him to go find you if he wanted to dance with somebody. It was so weird, I didn’t know what was happening. Anyway, a few minutes later she came up to my room, and she was crying. She said she was sorry. She made me put on my coat, and took me outside. You came riding up on your bike just as we were going out the door. When Mom saw you she said something like, ‘Don’t you dare tell your sister about this,’ and then she just about threw me into the car and drove to church. I remember sitting in one of the back pews, looking at that big statue of The Virgin Mary while Mom was in the confession booth for a long, long time. Oh, God, Ray, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry."
The memory broke over me in a cold wave of nausea that left me gasping for breath. I knew just the time Carol meant -- I had bled for two days afterward.
I barely made it to the bathroom before I spewed up gallons of hot chocolate and fiery bile. Bits of white marshmallow floated in the dark water.
For some crazy reason, I thought about Watergate. I had been obsessed with the endless stories on TV, even though I really didn’t understand what was going on. I’d done a report about it for school, with a big poster that said, "Who Knew What, And When Did They Know It?" On the poster there were cutout pictures of all the Watergate figures -- Gordon Liddy, John Dean, J.E.B. Stuart MacGruder, John Mitchell -- with lines and arrows connecting them. At the bottom was a picture of President Nixon with big black question marks over his head. All the arrows pointed to him.
Mom knew about it all along.
There were four or five times I could remember when my mother showed enough interest in me to get pissed off at something I did or said. Every one of those times she had called me a little slut.
Right, Mom, but I was your little slut too. I was everyone’s little slut. I still am.
Leona used to hold me and soothe me on the nights when the pain between my legs was too much to bear. I’d sob quietly, as she’d tell me stories of a faraway kingdom ruled by a lovely princess who cared about everyone, even the tiniest ants under the ground. Whoever you were, you could go to her palace if you were hurt or sad, and she’d take care of you and make sure you had a warm place to sleep.
A lot of times I got up in the middle of the night and sneaked into Caree’s room. When I saw that she was sleeping peacefully, then I could rest.
Outside the dawn had begun to show as a little line next to Mount Hood, and I suggested we go out and watch the sun rise.
Bundled in our coats, we stood holding each other at the top of a little hill above the apartment complex as the sky began to lighten.
"Caree, what ever happened with Kyle?"
"Ou sont les neiges d’antan?" she said.
"So you’re not seeing him any more?"
"No. It was the funniest thing. As long as I kept telling myself I couldn’t see him, I kept going back. One day, I just said to myself, "Okay, you’re obviously going to do this, so just go ahead and do it," and then it was over. I never called him again. It was like when I finally gave myself permission to stay, I could go."
I hugged her tighter as the red ball of the sun rose from behind the mountain.

Chapter Forty Three: Flashes of Light

Home again. Now what?
I thought maybe I ought to buy myself a bed, but it didn’t seem to matter much. I could sleep on the couch and I wasn’t expecting any company. At least not that kind of company.
I sat down at the table and started sorting through almost a week’s worth of mail. All junk, except for a thank-you note from Jessica. She had drawn a picture of herself in the canopied bed with closed eyes, a big smile on her face, and a speech balloon full of Z’s. The letter said, "Thank you for the Princess Bed, Aunt Rachel. I love you. Love, Jessica." I put it on the mantel.
While I was up I noticed the flashing red light on my answering machine. When had I last played it back? Days ago, it seemed. I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone and I still felt hesitant about going over to press the button, as if the act would obligate me to leave the nowhere-land I had been living in since I left the center.
All my life I had just done things. For once, I sat on my tuches, stared at the flashing light, and thought.
Rachel Reed, whose name was writ on Kleenex, a puzzle who has just discovered that some of her pieces were still in the box. No wonder the picture had always looked so strange. What did it mean that I had forgotten so much of my past? Was what had been done to me so terrible that I could no longer be free and whole? Must I be an Abuse Victim now? Would I have to hate sex and love control? Would it never be over, or would it not be over until the fat lady sang?
The fat lady?
I see Karma as a valkeryie, festooned in ribbons, and belting out an aria of pain, vengeance, and damnation. Moving below her in the pit, twitching and moaning in their endless dance, are all the dead fathers, guilty of unspeakable crimes against their daughters. Blueberry Hill plays, loud as thunder and slow as a dirge, while corpses shuffle on what once were legs. Whoever they were and whatever they had been is overshadowed now by their one unforgivable crime.
Men who loved too much.
We’ll show them what love is. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. The fat lady sings of feminist issues as she guards the deepest pit in the hell of the fathers.
My own father, Herbert Charles Reed, stands at the edge waiting for my judgement. He is dead now, powerless. The shriveled remains of his genitals, severed and cupped in his hands, are all he has to show for his time on earth. Beneath pity. I can cast him down and stay here to jeer at him for eternity. Finally it is my choice.
Oh, the pleasure of it! Stronger than any orgasm, I can feel the raw bloodlust rising in my veins. Heat, steam, and pulsing power. My power. Swirling and flowing in my body, whipping me to a froth of anger to the rhythm of Karma’s song.
He is mine alone now; his soul my prisoner, as I once was his. No one could blame me for what I do, and no one will shed a tear for him. Except --
A tiny girl, perhaps four years old, with painted face and the hips and breasts of a grown woman. A miniature prostitute, whose sad and knowing eyes look out at me in reproach and resignation. She puts her arm around his waist ready to go with him into the pit, his Princess-Bitch and consort forever.
I had never seen Leona before.
Her sorrowful face tears at my heart and quenches the fire in my blood with lakes of ice water. A four year old whore. Why in God’s name would she, of all people, cry for him? Like giant letters in the sky, the message is too big. I can’t get my mind around it, and, for once, I swear to myself I will not act until I understand. Across the pit, I stare at that sad couple, my head pounding and throbbing to the dissonant strains of Karma’s song and Blueberry Hill mixed together. The pain is almost more than I can bear, but it is mine.
And then they are flying forward, pushed from behind. Richard raising his hands in triumph as they fall. "Yah," he screams, louder than the music. He has taken everything out of my hands. And everything from me.
They will not fall alone. As they topple into the pit, I feel the women’s magic stirring within me, joining my soul to Karma’s endless aria of revenge. Together we command the sacred power of justified rage. Richard has underestimated us. This time he has gone too far and he will not escape. As my sisters and I draw him toward the edge, his look of triumph turns to terror.
Below, in the pit, the flames burn brighter as Herbert Charles Reed joins the dance of the dead.
Brighter and brighter, the purest white light expands to fill the halls of Hell.
Not flames. Wings. An angel rises from the pit. The glare of innocence shines out from her tiny painted face, and all the music stops.
Leona and I stare at each other across the silent void. The power of Heaven and Hell hang in the balance as we face each other, and smile at each other with tears in our eyes. This is it. The only Grace I will ever know.
The battle can be with my father and Richard, or with myself. Leona has given me back the choice.
The room had gone completely dark, but for the flashing of the phone, when I finally decided to rejoin the world. I turned on the lamp and picked up a pen, ready to accept my messages.
"Hi, Rachel, this is Glenda, just want to see if everything’s okay. I’ll call back later. Bye."
Beep.
"Rachel, this is Claire. Uh, Claire Parkenning. From the center. I know this is a bad time for you, but I just had to call because I, uh, know something that, well, It’s about Richard, and I think it might have something to do with what happened. Please call me. I mean, if you want to. Not at the center. My home number is 699-4562.
Beep.
"Hi, it’s Glenda again. Please call when you get back. I’m at home."
Beep.
"Rachel, this is Steve. I’m really sorry about -- well about everything. I’d like to talk to you if you could give me a call. Please."
Beep.
"Rachel, Jill Cawley. I have a few options to discuss with you. Call Nancy to set up an appointment as soon as you can. 573-2210. Thanks."
Beep.
"Greetings, Fearless Leader. We are all here in your office, awaiting your return. One, two, three." A roomful of voices. "We love you." Ira again. "Come back soon, Glenda is on a tremendous power trip and she never lets us have any fun. She keeps --" Glenda’s voice. "It’s not my fault. Ira won’t stop fighting with Greg, and nobody gives me any respect. Please come back soon, I don’t know how much longer I can stand -- Ow! Ira! -- I don’t know how much longer I can stand baby-sitting these guys."
Beep.
"Rachel, this is John Campi. I wanted to know if anything had happened with your, uh, project, and, well, I just wanted to say hello. I’ll call you again later."
Beep.
"Ray-Ray, oh my God. I just got back from Bellingham, and Jason told me." Carol was crying. "I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you. I can come down tomorrow if you’re going to be there. Call me as soon as you get home. Use the pager number. I love you."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Hearing Carol’s voice made me ache to talk with her. As I waited for the tape to rewind so I could call her back, I wondered what on earth Claire might want to tell me. If it had to do with Richard, it could wait until hell froze over; he was the last person in the world I wanted to talk about.
I didn’t feel like talking to Steve either.
I did call Glenda and Ira, but neither of them were in.
* * * *
Evil dreams came that night, but in the morning I felt able to swim. The water embraced me like an old friend, and we wrestled playfully for more than an hour.
I came home at about the time Jill’s office would open and called for an appointment. Her secretary said she could see me at eleven fifteen, right after court.
A few hours and lots to do. I figured I would need a bed after all, because Carol would be flying down on the seven o’clock shuttle. She’d wanted to come sooner, but I’d talked her out of it. Jason and Jessica would drive down on Saturday and we’d all spend the weekend together.
I called Glenda and Ira at the center to let them know I was okay, then rushed off to the furniture store and bought a mission style bed and a mattress. Queen size. I told them I’d cancel the Visa payment if they didn’t deliver it by five. I stopped at the mall on my way to Jill’s and picked up some nice flannel sheets.
Antabuse. I had almost forgotten. I took out my cell-phone and called Phyllis Grimes, my OB-GYN, and sometime swimming buddy. Since I used "Doctor" as my first name, I got right through to her. Manipulating the system? Sure, but if I had waited for a call-back I might have chickened out. I told her I had a drinking problem and trouble at work and that I wanted antabuse to keep me honest. I also told her I was seeing Mindy Cohen for therapy and that I would sign a release. Phyllis agreed to phone in a prescription without too much hesitation. I imagined I wasn’t the first of her patients who needed help with alcohol. She was still warning me about possible side effects when I pulled into the lot at Jill’s.
Jill’s office, in an unassuming building near the courthouse, was decorated in rose, teal, and blonde oak, with huge botanical prints on the walls. The secretary took a minute from transcribing to buzz Jill, who came bounding out of her office all hearty smiles and firm handshakes. Bad news, probably.
"How are we doing, Rachel?"
"Actually, that’s what I was planning on asking you. You tell me, you’re the lawyer," I said, attempting to cover my anxiety with clumsy humor.
Jill’s smile dimmed a watt or two. "Well, yes. Of course I am." she said, politely, as she motioned me to sit on her teal colored leather couch. While I sat down and made myself comfortable, her face took on a look of real concern. "Are you feeling any better?" she asked, no longer sounding like a good old boy.
"Yes," I said. "I went to visit my family, I’ve started therapy with Dr. Mindy Cohen, and I just picked up my prescription for antabuse."
"That’s good," she said, writing notes on her yellow pad. "Is this Dr. Cohen an alcohol therapist?"
"She’s a clinical psychologist, like me."
"But she works with substance abuse?"
"Not primarily."
"Well what --"
"I think I need psychotherapy more than I need alcohol treatment."
"But we’ve already stipulated that you have an alcohol problem." More notes.
"What does that mean, exactly?"
"It means you present a letter from an alcohol program saying you’re in treatment, and you’re released to return to work, then they have to let you come back."
"But what if I’m getting a different kind of treatment and taking antabuse? Can Richard just fire me?"
Jill tapped her pen on the pad for a few seconds as she thought. "He can fire you for any reason, but if the reasons he gives are those same erratic behaviors that we have already connected to alcoholism, then he’ll probably end up paying damages under ADA. If he ran it by his lawyers, they’d advise him not to do it."
"What if I claimed I had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that alcohol abuse was only one of the symptoms, and that I was getting treated for that and --" Cold fire raced down my spine. "Will Richard be able to request my therapy records?"
"Only if there were the threat of a legal action, then his lawyers could request them. To get you back working all we need is a medical release." She wrote another note on her legal pad, looked at it awhile, then looked up at me. "What you said -- about alcohol abuse being a symptom of PTSD -- that could work, but it would depend on what the psychologist treating you had to say. Would she write a letter to that effect?"
"I suspect she’d say she’s willing to do the therapy, but she doesn’t want to be involved in the legal part."
"One of those, huh?" Jill said, leading me to believe that lawyers tell jokes about other professions the way we tell jokes about them.
"To tell the truth," I said, "I’d be kind of scared to ask her."
Jill put down her pen and stared across the room at a print of peonies. "I had a therapist like that once," she said. "He told me I needed to quit trying to plea-bargain all the time. He really pissed me off, but I think he saved my marriage." Jill began to tap on her blotter again. "Do you think Dr. Cohen would write a letter releasing you to go back to work? It wouldn’t be as solid, but I think it would do, I mean, unless your boss is determined to go ahead with firing you."
"I’ll ask her," I said, "But I’m not so sure I even want to go back to work."
"Well, you’re probably not ready to make that decision. Why don’t you take a few weeks to think about it, then tell me what you want."
I nodded. "Yeah, you’re probably right. I should take some time." Then I felt a pang of fear. "That decision may be made for me. I may not be able to work in this field anyway if the Board of Psychologist examiners yanks my license." I hadn’t thought much about the board complaint until then. When I did, at that moment, what I felt was less like fear and more like resignation. Everyone in the profession knows the stories. The licensing board is the bogey-man in all our professional nightmares. I might not hear a word from them for a year, and then it might be a letter asking me to surrender my license. Once you are called before them, there is no such thing as due process and no such thing as innocence. The Board of Psychologist Examiners answers to no earthly power.
"I really don’t think you’re in any danger of losing your license," Jill said. Her face broke into a smile that might have belonged to a cheerleader.
"Why not?" I asked. "You don’t know them."
"Oh yes I do," she said. "They aren’t like any of the other professional boards, that’s for sure. The lawyers who’ve dealt with them call them ‘The Inquisition.’ I know all about them, though. I’ve even tangled with them in court once or twice.
"So what makes you think --"
"Jurisdiction," she said, with another one of those big cheerleader smiles. She rummaged through the file on her desk and came out with a letter. "They have no jurisdiction in this case because no complaint has been brought by a patient or a patient’s estate. This is an employment issue pure and simple." She put the letter down in front of me. "I took the liberty of drafting this."
The letter was one page long, but it had about as many references and citations as my whole dissertation. RCW’s, WAC’s, and lists of somebody vs. somebody’s. Impressive and totally opaque. I assumed it meant that Jill was a very good lawyer. "Can you tell me what this means?" I asked.
"I’ve argued that their mandate is to protect the public, and that this case has nothing to do with that mandate. Your agency is the entity providing services to the public, not you. Oversight of the agency, or of employment disputes involving psychologists is beyond their jurisdiction."
"Will that stop them?"
"These cases," she said, pointing to a long list of somebody vs. somebody’s at the end of the third paragraph. "They represent several million dollars worth of judgements against boards that didn’t stop in similar situations. I really don’t think they will want to pursue your employer’s complaint." She didn’t blow the smoke off the tip of her pen, but she could have. "Aside from all this, I point out that there is absolutely no evidence of you presenting any danger to the public." She put the letter back in the folder. "That boss of yours is really an asshole, isn’t he?" "You could say that," I said, still reeling from the shock of possibly winning a round. Maybe there was some justice after all.
Jill was right though; I didn’t present much danger to the public. But neither Richard, asshole that he was, nor the Board of Psychologist Examiners were anywhere near as dangerous to me as I was to myself.

Chapter Forty Two: Mindy

It’s not as if I’d never seen a therapist before, it’s just that I had never been really crazy before. All the other times I saw people, it had been for normal stuff, like authority issues and everyday depression. I viewed it as training, mostly, personal growth, perhaps, but never honest-to-God treatment. Today I was hitting the big time, but on the wrong side of the couch.
I had rehearsed my first session a thousand times since I left Karma’s the previous morning. My thoughts kept coming back to how I could convince Mindy Cohen that, even though I approached her today a little bit down on my luck, I was still a peer, and every bit as talented as she was. Okay, my vanity was probably getting in the way, but there was a real issue. My skills would make me immune to most therapeutic tricks, so, what could she do to help me that I couldn’t already do for myself?
Maybe I ought to turn around and go home.
The rain beat down on the vinyl top of my car and the wind almost blew me into the next lane as I crossed the upper level of the Fremont Bridge over the Willamette. The arches above seemed to pierce the clouds, reaching to a height that might even make Ira think twice. The exit was just ahead.
Dr. Cohen’s office was in the high-rent district, Northwest Portland, right near Good Samaritan Hospital. Shrinks Row, they call it, hundred year old houses, tastefully redone and cut up into office space for the mental health people who had made it, or who were willing to spend a few bucks to pretend they had made it. Old farts, a lot of them, gown soft from too many years out of the trenches, seeing rich housewives rather than dangerous psychotics. How good could this Mindy Cohen be?
I needed her to be the best, or at least good enough to see through most of my bullshit. But what if she were too good? What if --
Oh God, what if she told me I was so damaged that I had no business seeing people? What if she thought Richard was right? Would she have to contact the licensing board to make sure I didn’t infect my clients with the mental sewerage bubbling up from my unconscious? If that happened, what else would I do with my life?
My throat began to tighten, and my gut began to murmur warnings. I hoped against hope I wouldn’t cry or throw up, at least in the first session.
I found the address. Bostwick House Professional Offices, a stately Tudor with peaked roof and exposed beams on the upper floor, painted several different shades of brown with a raspberry-colored trim line halfway up. Very tasteful, I thought, as I drove by several times looking for a parking place within the same zip code.
Finally, a BMW pulled out and I got a space that was only about a quarter-mile away. Call it plain dumb luck.
Dr. Plan-Ahead had remembered to wear a raincoat over her conservative charcoal skirt and burgundy sweater -- and had brought an umbrella as well. I also carried makeup, a brush, and hair spray in my purse, so I could maintain my professional image even if I were hit by a tidal wave on the way down Lovejoy. I was an hour and ten minutes early for my appointment.
Luckily, there’s a Starbucks on every single corner in Northwest -- three at least between where I was and Mindy Cohen’s office. I ducked into the closest one and ordered a skinny latte. Decaf. I drank it slowly, and pretended to read the paper.
Maybe I should say something to her in Yiddish to show her how sophisticated I am. So, Dr. Cohen, I hear you’re quite a baleboosteh in the psychological association. Do you have any problem working with all those goyim?
Maybe I should write a book on how to make yourself look like a complete asshole in one easy lesson.
I finished my latte, and only ten minutes had gone by. Were they sure it was decaf? I could feel a distinct buzz and my stomach sounded like the hippo house at the Portland Zoo.
My hands were beginning to tremble. I could really use a --STOP! I made my mind into a giant hot tub and allowed my tension to drift away in the steam. Another ten minutes passed.
I thought about eating something, maybe a croissant. Better not, it would probably wind up spattered all over her carpet.
With twenty-five minutes to go I stood on the wide front porch of Bostwick House, reading the names on the bronze plaque by the door just to make sure. Mindy Cohen, Ph.D., suite number 101. I opened the door, walked down the hall, and crossed the waiting room to the receptionist’s window.
"Hi, may I help you?" The receptionist looked like somebody’s mom.
"Uh, I’m Dr. Reed, I have an appointment with Dr. Cohen."
"Sure, at eleven. I’m glad you came in early, because you have some papers to fill out."
I took special care to fill out the forms neatly, with everything inside the little boxes provided. At the bottom I signed my name slowly, so that all the letters could be read -- Rachel Reed, Ph.D.
"Doctor Cohen will be with you in a couple of minutes."
"Okay," I said, and buried my face in a People magazine with Princess Di on the cover.
Presently I heard a door open, and talking in the hall. Footsteps approaching, and then --
AH-CHOO! The loudest sneeze I had ever heard in my life.
"Gesundheit." The secretary said, lifting her head up from her typing. Then to me: "Dr. Cohen is a world-class sneezer." Then back to her work. Were they a comedy team?
A rather matronly woman in her late fifties bustled across the waiting room with a Kleenex in her hand. Dr. Mindy Cohen.
I could beat her up easily.
"Dr. Reed," she said, "I’m Mindy Cohen. Please come with me." She didn’t offer to shake hands.
I followed her back to her office, big, mauve, and comfortable, with an actual fire burning in the fireplace. Her desk was a mess. Family pictures sat on top of piles of paper that may not have been moved since her kids were in the third grade.
She grunted as she sat down. For awhile she stared at the face-sheet I had filled out. "Dr. Rachel Reed from Evergreen, up in Vancouver," she said. "I think I’ve heard of you. Don’t they call you ‘the Pavlova of the Psyche’?"
"Well, some people do," I said, surprised and pleased.
"I guess that means trouble for me. You know what they say -- the best therapists make the worst clients." She flipped through the rest of the sheets, but didn’t appear to be reading them. "What brings you here, Dr. Reed?"
"Karma Shakti referred me. She said you were an expert in sexual abuse, and I, well, I’ve started having memories -- PTSD-type flashbacks, actually. When I’m having them it feels like they’re happening right then." I felt my face pulling into a grimace and shoved it back. "My father sexually abused me from the time I was about four until he died when I was twelve. I knew about it, but I thought it only happened once or twice. Then I had this experience where I almost drowned and the memories came flooding back all at once."
"Oh my, drowning and flooding, that experience must have been terrible for you," she said, then paused for a breath. "But it’s worse now, isn’t it?"
"Somewhat," I said.
"What’s the worst part about it?"
"That’s easy," I said, "The worst part is the wondering whether the things I see are real or if I’m going crazy, or if I’m just making it all up."
"Which would be worse?"
"What do you mean, ‘which would be worse’?"
"The memories being real, you being crazy, or making it all up?"
I thought about it a minute -- which was worse? "That I was making it all up," I said.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, ‘why’?"
"Why is making it up the worst part?"
"Because --" I said, hoping the explanation would roll right off my tongue.
Nothing came. I had to root around for an answer. "Because, that would mean I’m a lot crazier than I think I am," I said.
"How crazy do you think you are?"
I felt myself begin to breathe heavily. "Too crazy." I said, hearing my voice rise with the tide of emotion.
"What’s it like to be too crazy?"
"I don’t know what’s real. I get these pictures in my head of doing all these disgusting things. I feel them, and smell them, and taste them. And --" My stomach began to pump out the rhythm of sobs that shook me so hard I had to squeeze myself with my arms to hold together. "I’m afraid I’ll get lost and never be able to get back." My terror spoke its own name, and I couldn’t stop the tears.
She handed me a Kleenex. "Have you ever been lost?" She asked.
Immediately I began to shiver, feeling the cold water trying to swallow me up, and seeing only darkness. "In the water," I said, gasping for breath. "I couldn’t find the surface. It was dark and cold. I thought I’d sink forever." I felt myself folding inward and disappearing.
I couldn’t breathe.
Air. Finally, a huge gasp forced its way in. Another. I could feel the wall of defenses cracking. I let go.
Sobs and screams rushed up from the depths. The sounds came out of my throat, but the voice I heard was not my own.
A little girl, crying out in fear and pain. Jessica? No, it was Leona. Not gone, but not a separate thing inside me any more.
I -- we -- cried and cried. Old emotions, ugly and rotting, spewed out with my tears like seawater bursting from the lungs of a woman almost drowned. But, for the first time in as long as I remembered, I could really breathe.
Finally, I looked up to meet Mindy Cohen’s eyes.
"It seems like you’ve decided to stop sinking," she said.
I nodded, blowing my nose and wiping snot off my face. She was right. I had stopped sinking. I knew I wasn’t going to get any crazier than I already was. Still --
"May I call you Rachel?" She asked, and I nodded again.
"What do you need from me, Rachel?"
"I need you to listen, I guess."
"Just to listen? I’m sure you have friends who can listen to you. What is it you need from me?"
I thought about it for a few seconds. "I need you to help me get back in control."
She nodded, as if this were a reasonable answer. "When were you last in control?"
"Before --" I started to say, "Before Lake Chelan," but that wasn’t true. I thought back, trying to trace a solid line of rational behavior in my history, but every strand I followed was broken and twisted by stupid, self destructive actions that had just been blurting out of me my whole life. Stupid words, stupid sex, and stupid drinking.
"Never," I said.
"So who has been in control?"
"Leona." It just popped out.
"Who’s Leona?"
"Me, I guess, but there’s this part of me that doesn’t feel like me, and a long time ago I gave her a name. I’m not a multiple -- I’m always co-present."
"Is that how you think about it when it happens -- being co-present?"
"No, I usually don’t have time to think, I’m just trying to get myself out of whatever mess she’s gotten me into."
"What kinds of messes does she get you into?"
"Saying stuff. Starting fights, that kind of thing."
"And?"
"Drinking. Sex with all the wrong people."
"All of them?"
I smiled a little. "Not all of them. I do say no once in awhile."
"How bad is the drinking?"
Trick question. I thought carefully to compose my answer, wondering if I should use technical terminology. "I don’t know how to answer that question, I mean I drink too much, but --"
"Has drinking gotten you in trouble?"
"I’m suspended from my job," I said, gritting my teeth.
"For drinking?"
"Well --"
"Sounds like you have a story to tell."
I told it, with all the embarrassing details and all the doubts, right up to falling off the Lady of the Lake and the meeting with Richard.
She listened the whole time, nodding and making a few notes on a yellow pad. When I finished, she looked at her notes, and then at me. "Do you think there are any similarities in your relationship with your boss and your relationship with your father?"
"Other than the fact that they both screwed me?" I said, trying to be witty.
"Not necessarily other than that," she said. "Think about it for next time, today we have some decisions to make. About alcohol."
"I’m not drinking," I said.
"There’s more to it than that. Are you in alcohol treatment?"
My heart sank. "No," I said.
"Why not?"
I took a breath to answer and about two hundred possibilities flipped through my head. They all sounded like rationalization and denial. Stinkin’ Thinkin’. I started to cry again. "I don’t know what to say, except that I can’t bear the thought of having to accept all that twelve-step stuff as the only answer. It would be like going to a fundamentalist church and pretending to believe just to look good. I know alcohol is a big part of my problem and I need to do something about it, but I think pretending is just as big a problem for me. Bigger, maybe. I don’t want to go into a situation where I have to pretend."
"Maybe it wouldn’t be pretending, if you went and actually participated."
The words sounded loud and final, like the closing of a cell door. I nodded wearily, with tears running down my face. I tried to tell myself she didn’t hate me, that she was just doing her job. I looked at her. Short grey permed hair, long nose, lively brown eyes that looked kind, and --
Dimples! She was holding back a smile. She was enjoying humiliating me! Bitch. I would never come back to see her in a million years, even if she was a hotshot expert on sexual abuse. I clenched my jaw and looked her square in the eye.
She looked like she cared about me.
What the fuck --
"Dr. Cohen," I said, "Would you go into alcohol treatment? Would you go to a place where all there is to therapy is a bunch of bumper sticker cliches? Would you swallow that crap and think it could help you?"
"No." She said it calmly and quietly.
"Then why are you sending me?"
"I’m not."
"What do you mean, you’re not? You just said --"
She shook her head.
"What did you just say, then?"
"I assume you want the thought behind what I said, rather than the actual words." She took another one of those deep breaths. "Rachel, you definitely have a problem with alcohol. You know you drink irresponsibly, and you know you’re not going to get any better until you do something about it. What you do is up to you, not me."
"I’d take antabuse."
"You’ll have to talk that over with your lawyer and your employer. I’m not qualified to do mandated alcohol treatment. I’d be willing to work with you on your other issues, but the alcohol, you’ll have to handle elsewhere. Do you want to work with me on those other issues?"
"Yes," I said.
" What about Monday at two for your next appointment?"
Ite, missa est.
I got up to leave, but she stopped me by the door.
"Rachel, it sounded like you weren’t completely sure you fell off that boat. Did I hear you correctly?"
"Uh --"
"Never mind," she said. "We’ll talk about it next time."
I felt a little weak in the knees as I left the building, but it seemed that Mindy Cohen wasn’t so terrible after all. I was surprised at how much I had opened up.

Chapter Forty One: Women's Magic

Tired. So tired. I could barely stay awake long enough to drive home. I knew it was only a matter of time until everything would hit me, but at that moment I could feel oblivion reaching out to draw me to her breast. I locked the door, dropped my purse on the chair, and stood looking at the couch, still unmade from last night. Dead. All that was left was to lie down.
And in that sleep of death what dreams may come?
I see my mother, smiling her cancer-personality smile -- it always came too quickly, held too tight, and stayed too long. She’s going to volunteer at church, already in her plastic rain bonnet. She leans down to kiss me good bye, and I finally get up the nerve to say something. I am seven.
I grasp her arm. "Take me with you."
"I can’t sweetie, I need you to be a big girl and look out for your sister." She smiles more brightly as she buttons her sweater. "If you were with me, who would play with Carol?"
"Mom! Please don’t leave me alone with Dad."
"You don’t mean that, honey. You know your father loves you."
"No, please, Mom. I’m afraid."
Her smile glows brighter and brighter -- hundreds of teeth gleam like lighthouse beacons shining directly into my eyes. I go blind.
Still smiling, she kisses my cheek. "Be good, Honey, I’ll see you at dinner time."
"Mom."
She picks up her purse. Straw, with pink silk roses that match her lipstick.
"Mom!"
She takes out her keys.
"MOM!"
She blows me a kiss off the two fingers that aren’t holding keys. "Love you."
"MOM, PLEASE!"
The door closes.
"Mom?"
As soon as she leaves, Dad puts Blueberry Hill on the record player.
"Dance with me, Princess."
And then he is on the dock, and I’m in the water. He drives me. It hurts, but in some crazy way it feels good. He always demands so much more than I ever believe is in me. And gets it. He gives me power, the only way it ever comes. Through hardship.
Then I see his burning, smiling, crying, ghost-face speaking to me. The lips move, but I can’t hear the words. Is he mouthing, "I’m sorry?"
Then, there is Richard shouting, "I’m not sorry." Smoke pours out his mouth.
I awoke to an insistent knocking at my door. The room was dim and the clock on the wall said seven-thirty. I couldn’t have guessed seven-thirty in what century.
"Rachel?" I heard a woman’s voice from outside. Glenda. I dragged myself up the rest of the way to consciousness and sat up.
"Rachel?" The knocking had changed, as if she were tapping on the door with a key.
"I’m coming." I had meant to shout, but it came out soft as a whisper. I put my feet on the floor, surprised to see that they were still in shoes.
"Rachel?" She sounded worried. I stood and walked to the door, It felt like I was carrying the couch with me.
"Just a minute," I said, as I tried to figure out how to work the deadbolt. Finally, I remembered.
Glenda was dressed for work, and she smelled like fresh perfume. Was it morning already?
"Rachel, are you okay?"
"Yeah," I said. "Come in."
"I didn’t think you’d be sleeping," she said. "You’re such an early riser. I called a couple of times yesterday, but you didn’t answer, so I thought you might have gone somewhere. Then I drove by here on the way to work and saw your car." She shrugged. "I figured I’d just drop in to see how you were doing." I knew she was looking at my wrinkled clothes and the unmade couch. I thought she also might be scanning the room for bottles and glasses. I was surprised I had enough vanity left to be glad she didn’t see any.
"I came home yesterday, and all I could do was sleep." I shook my head as I looked at the flashing light on the answering machine. Three messages, and I had slept through them all. "I wasn’t even drunk."
"Steve came by and told me you wouldn’t be in for awhile. He put me in charge. Rachel, what’s happened?"
"Richard suspended me for being an unprofessional drunk and reported me to the licensing board."
"Oh, no!" She reached out a hand to touch me and stopped it in mid-air. Her hand hovered there, both blocked and pushed forward by her love for me. Inside I felt my own heart, stained, dark, and small, but still beating. I held out my arms for her hug.
She made a pot of coffee and some toast while I took a shower, then we sat down across from each other at my dining room table. I told her about my meeting with Richard. She listened quietly and without comment. A real pro.
"What are you going to do?" She asked.
"I don’t have the slightest idea," I said, realizing that for the first time in my life, I had nothing scheduled. "I think I’ll go to Carol’s for a couple of days, then decide."
Glenda nodded. "That sounds like a plan. Do you need me to do anything?"
"Take care of stuff at the center and give my love to Ira, Greg, and Paul. You can tell them what happened."
"We’ve already notified your clients that you were going to be away."
I smiled at her. "I guess you’re Mother Superior now."
"Yeah," she said dully, "hallelujah."
"There is one more thing, if you wouldn’t mind."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Pray for me."
After Glenda left, I stared at the wall for a few minutes. Since I wasn’t going to die I had to decide what to do with the rest of my life.
First things first. I collected all the alcohol in my apartment, beer, wine, vodka, and two bottles of ridiculously expensive golden tequila, and took them down to the dumpster. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging. I imagined myself going to AA meetings and putting a "One Day At A Time" bumper sticker on my car. Maybe I’d get a little plastic Jesus for the dashboard too.
That reminded me of Church. On some Sundays my father would wake me up to go to seven o’clock Mass. He was very religious; as a young man, he’d studied to be a priest. Kneeling next to him in my white ruffled dress, hearing prayers echo from the walls of the almost-empty church, I would stare at the life-size marble statue of the Virgin in a niche near the pews. I believed that the real Virgin would watch me through the statue’s eyes, and sometimes, quietly in my mind, I would ask her to help me.
I drove down to the big gas station on Mill Plain and rented a U-Haul, then came back to the apartment and, with my bare hands, dismantled the Princess Bed, wrestled the parts down the stairs, and loaded them into the trailer. Even in the November cold I was sweating like a pig by the time I was done.
I took another shower, then drove north toward Bellevue. I played my Edith Piaf tape over and over, all the way up. The little sparrow was a drunken slut too. I wondered what dark thoughts she kept at bay by singing.
The day was just beginning to fade into twilight when I pulled into Carol’s driveway. Her van wasn’t there but the lights were on. As I got out of the car the door burst open, and Jessica came running out.
"Aunt Rachel! What are you doing here?" She jumped into my arms, almost knocking me down. She was dressed for basketball practice and smelled like a peculiar mixture of soap, grape gum, and sweat. "Why do you have a trailer? Are you moving or something?"
"No, Punkin’, I have a present for you in the trailer."
"For me? What is it?" She dashed over to the U-Haul and yanked on the door handle. "How do you get this open, Aunt Rachel?"
"Hold your horses," I said. "I’ll get it in a minute. I want to say hello to your Mom and Dad."
"Mom’s not here, she’s in Bellingham on a business trip. Dad’s fixing dinner. He’s making homemade Big Macs. I’m sure he’ll make one for you. What’s in the trailer, Aunt Rachel?"
"Hi, Aunt Rachel." Jason stood on the porch smiling at me. He was wearing a flowered apron and holding out a glass of wine. "Carol’s up in Bellingham and won’t be back ‘til day after tomorrow. Jess and I are batching it. You’re just in time for a Big Mac -- almost as good as you can get at McDonald’s." He looked down at the wine in his hand. "This is for you. Don’t you want it?"
"No, I’m off alcohol for awhile."
He shrugged and sipped the wine himself.
"What’s in the trailer, Aunt Rachel?"
"A bed. You know that big fancy bed you like so much?"
"The Princess Bed? For me?" She was yanking on the door so hard the trailer was rocking.
"That’s right, Punkin’. I decided it was just too big for my apartment, and since your room is so much bigger than mine, I thought -- if it’s okay with your dad -- I’d give it to you?"
"I can have it, can’t I, Daddy?"
"I guess so," Jason said, as I opened the door of the U-Haul."
"It’s all broken!" Jessica shrieked.
"No it isn’t, Punkin’, I had to take it apart to get it in the trailer."
"Duh," Jason said, and Jessica shot him a sharp look. "Stop it, Dad."
Jason looked into the U-Haul. "This thing is huge. What say we bring it in after dinner?"
The homemade Big Macs were a lot better than the ones you get at McDonald’s, but my throat was so tight I could hardly get more than a few bites down. When we were done, I told Jason to leave the dishes for me, and we all went to work taking apart Jessica’s old bed and putting it in the garage. Then we carried in the Princess bed and set it up. When it was finally done, she raced around the room, getting all her dolls and stuffed animals and arranging them against the pillows and headboard.
"Oh, thank you, Aunt Rachel, this is the most beautiful bed in the world."
It was.
Jessica played by herself in her room for awhile. Jason and I did the dishes, then sat down on the couch. He had his second glass of wine. I would have had four or five by then.
"Carol will be sorry she missed you. She was just saying the other day that she hadn’t seen you for a while, and that she wanted to get together."
"I’d like to see her too. Maybe I can come back in a few days."
"Are you taking some vacation time?" he asked.
"Not exactly," I said, and caught him up on at least some of the things that had happened since I’d left for Lake Chelan less than a week ago. Jason was a good listener, if he was shocked, he didn’t show it. He kept asking if there was anything he could do to help. You know how systems analysts are.
Jessica came in while we were talking, she was carrying the box of makeup I’d given her months before. "Aunt Rachel, can I do your face? Mom says I’m getting really good at it."
"Not now, Honey," Jason said. "Aunt Rachel and I are talking."
"It’s okay," I said. "I think I could use a complete make-over. Do you do hair too?"
She scrunched her eyes and looked at me. "I don’t think I can do anything with your hair. It’s too short. I might be able to put it in a pony tail, but some would hang out the sides."
"Well, you can just do the face then. Can you make me look like Meg Ryan?"
"Who’s that?"
"Never mind."
Jason was attempting to stay serious, but his mouth was kind of curling up at the corners. "I don’t know if you realize what you’re letting yourself in for."
"Dad, I know what I’m doing."
"I’m sure you do," he said, barely suppressing a laugh. "I guess I don’t understand this girl stuff."
"Dad, you’re not supposed to understand, you’re a boy."
"I guess you’re right." Still smiling. "If nobody minds I’m going to turn on the TV and catch the last of the Seahawks game.
"Nobody minds, Dad. Believe me." Jessica said, then turned to me. "You can sit right here, close to the light. Put this towel around your neck."
I sat very still for what seemed like an hour while she applied foundation, blush-on, and even eye shadow. I watched her face as she worked. She was concentrating so hard that I thought she’d bite through her lower lip.
"How are things going at school? Anything interesting happening?"
"Adam says he isn't talking to me."
"Is that bad?"
"No. Not really."
"Why not?"
"He just says he isn’t going to talk to me. But he says it about six times a day. I just can’t believe it! If he doesn’t want to talk to me why does he keep telling me? She cocked her head and flashed her eyes -- a babe in training. At the same time she brought her hand up and unconsciously chewed a knuckle. She got eye-shadow on her nose.
"You want to know how to drive him crazy?" I asked.
"How?" She was grinning now.
"Give him what he wants; stay away from him. He’ll never be able to get you out of his mind then."
"I don’t want to stay away from him. He’s too much fun to tease."
Women’s magic. We all know it, but none of us is smart enough to use it.
Finally, Jessica was done. She presented the mirror with an expression of mixed pride and trepidation.
I looked.
Eye shadow spread, a luminous turquoise from lash to brow. That the artistic fade was a concept beyond her understanding was also apparent by neat carmine circles on my cheeks. The rust colored lipstick almost matched. If Ronald McDonald saw me he’d probably ask me out. I kept a straight face, however. "Thanks, Punkin’ I can’t remember when I looked this good.
From the couch I heard the snort of an aborted giggle. "Jessica," Jason said, "It’s past your bedtime."
"Can’t I just --"
"Bedtime."
"Okay. Aunt Rachel, will you tuck me in?"
In Jessica’s room the Princess Bed looked different, an innocent dream rather than a sordid nightmare. Snuggled in, with all the dolls and stuffed animals, she looked safe, happy, and very beautiful.
"Will you take me to school tomorrow?"
"We’ll see. I have to leave pretty early."
"I love you, Aunt Rachel."
"I love you too, Punkin’." I kissed her goodnight.
The game was almost over when I got back. The Seahawks were losing big-time.
I sat down on the couch to watch the last few minutes. It seemed strange to be here with Jason, without Carol. I watched him as he watched the TV. He was such a nice man; Carol was so lucky. I wondered what had happened with her and her New-Age musician.
Jason must have felt me watching him just then. He turned toward me and smiled. Such nice green eyes.
My God, what are you thinking? My stomach clamped so hard I almost bent double. I dashed to the bathroom and puked for what seemed like hours.
Jason knocked on the door and asked if I was alright. "Yes," I said, "I’ve had stomach-flu for a few days. I thought I was over it, but I guess not. I’ll be okay."
"If you need anything, let me know."
I knelt by the toilet bowl until the spasms past, then got up to wash my face. In the mirror, for once, I saw myself as I really was. The sobs welled up from the inside burning hot, like magma from my very core. The tears eventually washed away the ridiculous clown makeup. Underneath, I could still see that there was something very wrong with me, something I could no longer ignore, and something I had no idea how to fix.
I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes demons danced. Dad, Richard, Mom, even Pastor James, and the Board of Psychologist Examiners leaped and twirled around me. I was their Princess-Bitch.
At four in the morning I couldn’t take it any more. I left a note saying I had business to take care of and drove off into the dregs of the night.
It was still dark when I reached Vancouver, but the first red cracks were crazing the sky. The gas station was open all night, so I dropped off the U-Haul and filled up. Then I went home and put on my running shoes.
I ran towards the river, past the strip malls and subdivisions. People were getting up; I could smell coffee, bacon, and auto exhaust in the cold air. Just as the sky grew light, the rains came. Cold water steamed off my burning skin as I turned onto the I-205 bridge across the Columbia to Portland. The center lane was for pedestrians; traffic surged by on either side, separated from me by concrete barriers. A freezing cold east wind blew down the gorge, hitting me with little flecks of ice as I ran.
I got off the highway at Sandy Boulevard, heading toward -- I didn’t think about it. I just ran.
A little before nine I was standing in front of Karma’s house near Mount Tabor Park. Her car was there -- a beat up yellow Datsun with a bumper sticker that said "The Goddess Is Alive And Magic Is Afoot." I rang her bell.
Karma answered the door in a huge dress made of a nubby, multicolored fabric woven somewhere in the third world. Warm air flowed out of the house making me realize how cold my skin was.
"Rachel?"
"I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I was out running and I --"
"You ran here from Vancouver?"
"I, well. Yes. Karma, can I talk to you?"
"Of course. Come in. I’ll get you a towel."
Karma’s house smelled like incense. The walls were covered with beautiful quilts and weavings. She brought me a couple of towels and motioned me to sit on a wood framed futon couch while she went to the kitchen to make some tea.
Soon she returned with two steaming mugs, and sat down in the Papa-San chair across from the couch. The wicker frame snapped, crackled, and popped. "I’ve heard about you almost drowning in Lake Chelan, and that you no longer work at the Center -- welcome to the club -- Richard must be --"
"Karma, I’m falling apart. I need your advice."
"My advice?" She leaned forward in her huge chair and took a sip of her tea, kind of squinting at me. "You don’t look good." She said. "I mean --"
"I know what you mean, Karma. I feel like I’m going crazy."
"It’s happening to you , isn’t it?" She nodded slowly, the woman who had seen it all. Flashbacks?"
"Yeah, I can’t get them under control. I keep seeing my father --" The tears came again.
"Tell me," Karma said.
I took a deep breath. "My father had sex with me from as far back as I can remember, until two days before he died. I see pictures of it all, every day. Also I have addiction problems with alcohol, and, I think, sex." As I spoke my breath came in ragged, tremulous gasps. Karma listened quietly. "I’m so confused," I said. "I know I need to be in treatment of some kind, but I don’t know where to start. This is your area, Karma, I’ve always avoided it, and, to tell you the truth, kind of looked down my nose at it. Who should I see? I need someone who --"
"Mindy Cohen," she said. "The best. Can even handle a prima-donna therapist like you. Or me."
"What’s she like?"
Karma made a face while she carefully considered her answer. "Scary," she said.
I smiled at her, but I could feel my lower lip trembling. "That sounds about right for what I have to deal with. May I use your phone while I’ve still got my nerve?"
Karma gestured toward the phone, and told me Mindy Cohen’s number from memory. I called, and took a canceled slot for the next day, then I hung up and got ready to leave.
"You’re planning to run all the way back to Vancouver?"
I shrugged. "I’ve got all the time in the world."
"Maybe so," She said, "But -- the weather. You wouldn’t want to catch a cold. How about a ride?"
"Sure," I said. "Thanks."
On the way back we talked about this and that. Nothing heavy.
As I opened the car door to get out, I turned toward Karma. "You’ve been so kind --"
She waved my thanks away with her meaty hand. "It’s nothing," she said, smiling. Then, "Rachel, don’t give up. It’s never over."

Chapter Forty: Auto Da Fe

Monday morning, Glenda rented a car and the three of us drove back. The first winter storm was blowing in, and the sky hung gray and heavy above us. At the top of a ridge overlooking the lake, Ira pulled the car off the road and got out. "Do you want to see where it happened?" He asked.
I really didn’t want to see anything, but I got out of the car and walked to the edge anyway. Ira put one arm around me and with the other pointed to a tiny cabin on the far shore. I recognized the dock and the boat.
"They said you must have swum almost a mile in forty-two degree water, with all your clothes on. Nobody can believe it."
"I had help." I said.
"Help?" Glenda asked. She had come over to join us, and had put her arm around my other shoulder. My skin began to burn, but I ignored it.
"My father," I said. "He came back from the dead to show me pictures of every single time he fucked me."
"What?"
"That’s what was in my mind when I was swimming," I said. "I relived every time he fucked me or made me blow him, from the time I was four until he got killed when I was twelve."
"Oh my God," Glenda said, and they both held me closer. I know they meant well, but their arms felt like molten lead on my shoulders. I put up with it as long as I could, then I had to shrug them off.
"I’m sorry," I said, "but since it happened, I can hardly stand being touched.
"I understand," Glenda said. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not now."
"Rachel." Ira had tears in his eyes. "We love you, and we are here for you."
"Yes, we are," Glenda said, and they both moved closer to me. I wanted so much to hug them, but I just couldn’t. Instead, we stood there close, but not touching, crying in the cold wind.
Back in the car, we said nothing for the next twenty miles or so. I sat in the backseat, huddled in my coat and shivering. Glenda covered my legs with her jacket. I wished I could go to sleep, but the demons in my mind wouldn’t let me. They burst out of the darkness to jab me with pitchforks and branding irons, and to leer at me with lolling tongues and tobacco on their breath.
I had suddenly inherited a horrible new past that I could see, hear, feel, smell, and even taste -- the salty viscosity of semen haunted the latte I had bought for the road. But I didn’t remember. Not in the way you ordinarily think of remembering -- in which there is some sense that what you’re experiencing actually happened at another time. This was always now. As if some crazy time machine in my head would, without warning, drop me into some horribly distorted version of the past. The people and places were all familiar, but what we were doing was unimaginable, but nauseatingly real. It was like a bad dream had somehow escaped from sleep and was stalking me in daylight. It was real, but, oh God, it could not be true.
I desperately wanted a drink. The demons roared with laughter, pointing at me and screaming, "Alcoholic!"
I pulled myself back to the car and tried to make small talk. "I guess Greg and Paul have to mind the store. I hope the detention gods are quiet." My voice trembled.
"Yeah," Glenda said from the front seat. I could tell she didn’t know whether or not to continue the conversation. The silence hung over us, heavy as the lead-gray sky.
"Fearless Leader," Ira said. "I believe it would help if you were to talk."
"I know," I said. "I’m sorry I’m pushing you away like this, but --"
"No apologies are required. Just say whatever is on your mind. We will listen."
God, how I longed to speak. I hungered to name the beast who shadowed my waking dreams, to give it the shape, form, and limits of words.
The way my father touched me, his little princess, and little bitch. All the things we did together. Were they real, or was I making them up? Diseased relationship or diseased mind? Take your pick.
The only way I could tell was by examining it all in excruciating, gut-twisting detail. The sooner the better. For three and a half hours I shoveled slimy, foul-smelling piles of mental garbage out into the light of day.
Glenda and Ira listened.
Exhausted finally, I began to feel calmer.
Except --
"Guys," I said, "I really appreciate you listening to all this. There’s something else I need to talk about, but I’m almost afraid to say it. I’m scared you’ll think I’m crazy -- I mean crazier than I am." I laughed, even to my own ears the sound was dry and mirthless as a desert wind.
Glenda spoke. "Say whatever you need to say. It’s alright."
"I don’t know what to think of this myself. Whether I believe it or not -- like I could really know what to believe. But --" I laughed again, it sounded like gasping for breath. "I think somebody pushed me into the water."
I paused.
They didn’t stop me, so I continued. "I think it was Richard."
Dead silence. Thirty seconds seemed like the lifespan of the universe.
"Why?" Glenda asked. "Why would he do that?"
I told them about my outburst in the upstairs party room.
"I think what I said made him realize that it was me who brought the stuff to the board. He was pissed, I could tell. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut, but it just came out. Anyway, I was scared and felt like I had to puke -- you know how I get -- I ran out of the room so fast I almost knocked down a table. That’s why I had to throw up, I mean, it wasn’t because I was drunk. I went to the women’s room first, but there were no stalls. People were smoking in there, and it made me feel even sicker, so I went out on deck. I was leaning over the rail and I thought I heard somebody open the upstairs door, and, when I tried to stand up I felt a hand on my back. Pushing me."
There was another one of those long silences. Now that I’d spelled it out, the story seemed pretty far-fetched, even to me. Maybe I was falling-down drunk. It made a lot more sense.
"Why do you think Richard --" Glenda asked.
"I smelled a cigarette. He pretends he doesn’t smoke, but he always goes outside to sneak them. I caught him at it once." I said, realizing that my evidence was even thinner than smoke in the wind.
"No, I mean, why would he do it?" Glenda said. "Even if he did realize right then that you were the one who gave the budget stuff to the board. Though I think he already knew. Even if he did, why would he try to kill you? They weren’t going to do anything to him except watch him a little more closely. What would he have to gain? The whole scam was only for a few thousand dollars a year at the most. Why would he --"
"Revenge," Ira said.
"Ira," she said, "you don’t believe --"
"I can’t rule it out." He said.
"To kill Rachel because she cost him a few thousand dollars a year?"
As I thought about it, the whole thing seemed preposterous -- except for the money part. I felt like I was worth about twenty bucks.
Glenda sighed. "There’s no way to prove it."
"That’s why I believe it may be true." Ira said.
I wished I shared his confidence.
* * * *
Home at last.
I didn’t take Glenda up on her offer to stay over. I wanted to sleep for a week, but I told them I’d be at work tomorrow. I needed to occupy my thoughts with something constructive.
I carried my bag into the bedroom and was hit by a wave of horror as I opened the door.
The Princess Bed. Mother of nightmares. The setting for many of those nauseating internal porno-flicks, the ones that came complete with smells, tastes, and animal noises.
I slammed the door and collapsed, gagging and sobbing, while the demons had their way with me.
Later -- an hour, a year, I don’t know -- I got up. The light was flashing on my answering machine, so I pressed the button.
"Rachel, this is Steve. I, uh, heard what happened and I hope you’re doing okay. What I called to say is, Richard wants to see you as soon as you come back to work, and, well, I think you ought to bring a lawyer. I’m not really supposed to talk to you about this, but I thought I had to tell you. I’m sorry."
A lawyer? What the hell did I need a lawyer for?
I dialed the Evergreen number and asked for Steve. It was ten-to-five.
Deena recognized my voice. "Hi, Rachel. I’m glad you’re alright. Steve has gone for the day; he’ll be back in the morning. Oh, I have a message for you from Richard. He says to come talk to him as soon as you come back. Are you coming in tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I’ll see you then. Have a nice night."
Sure.
I wanted to call Steve at home, but I didn’t.
Instead, I called Jill Cawley, who was the only honest attorney I knew. She agreed to meet me at ten.
Fiery, molten rage and cold fear fought with my demons for control of my soul. As they battled, I paced my apartment, avoiding the bedroom. Finally, I drowned them all in straight tequila.
Sweet Sleep.
I awoke on the couch, fully dressed at four a.m. I needed a swim, but I couldn’t bear the thought of water, so I went running instead.
You can’t go blind when you’re running. My thoughts chased me down the dark roads to the river and there I watched the sun come up from behind Mount Hood, illuminating a bright new day full of bright new shit.
I came into the center a little before ten. There was a message from Jill saying she’d be a few minutes late. I told Deena to buzz me when Jill got there, and went down to the coffee room to hide. There were a few staff people in the coffee room watching Pastor James on the TV. They didn’t pay any attention to me. I poured myself a cup of coffee and shuffled off to a corner.
"As it says in the Holy Bible of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, ‘Whosoever believeth in me, his shall be the Kingdom of Heaven.’" Pastor James’s voice boomed out of the set. Somebody said "Amen, Brother. Where do we send the money?"
"I’m talking about today. NOW!" Pastor James bellowed. "Are you ready to accept the Kingdom of Heaven? Are you ready to be forgiven of all your sins and feel his grace flowing over you like a cool and cleansing rain, secure in the knowledge that you are saved for all eternity?"
This was the part of the service when people approached the pulpit, many on their hands and knees, to have the old charlatan put his hands on their heads and promise them that they would go to heaven. His deacons would graciously accept donations in return for eternal salvation.
"Here they come, crawling." One of the staff members said.
"Jesus Christ!" another shouted, followed by a chorus of Amens from the group around the tube.
"No, Look! The second guy crawling up the aisle. It’s Donnie!"
I moved forward and joined the group by the set. We watched as Donnie Lewis, his face wet with tears, crawled on his belly up to Pastor James’s waiting hands. Slowly, very slowly, Donnie rose to his feet, folding his hands in prayer and bowing his head to receive the blessing. As the pastor’s hands touched his head, Donnie jumped and grimaced as if he had been given an electrical shock instead of salvation. Then he fell to his knees and turned his tearful face up toward Pastor James, who said something to him. Donnie nodded, still crying, and stood up again. As he walked back toward his seat he handed a check to the waiting deacon.
"Holy shit," somebody gasped.
"Amen, Brother." someone else replied.
"Dr. Reed," Deena’s voice broke in over the intercom. "Your appointment is here."
I met Jill in the waiting area, She had long, tawny hair pinned up on the top of her head and wore a severe-looking grey suit. "Hi, Rachel," she said, shaking my hand. Her huge smile and dimples may have been unprofessional, but at that moment they seemed awfully comforting. Together we went down the hall to the executive wing. "Let me do the talking, okay?" Jill said.
"Okay." I answered, feeling my entire body shake at about seven-point-five on the Richter scale.
I tapped on Richard’s door and he looked up from his computer.
"You wanted to see me?" When our eyes met my shaking intensified and the embers of my anger glowed white-hot, ready to explode into purifying flame. Fire in my belly instead of worms.
"Yes, Rachel. Come in and close the door."
Jill followed me in. "This is my attorney, Jill Cawley. I would like her to be present at this meeting." Jill stormed in, leaned across the expanse of his desk, and stuck out her hand. From my side I could see that she had to brace her knee against the edge to reach that far.
"But--" he said, staring at Jill’s hand. After a second or so he reached out to shake it. You could almost hear the gears shifting. "That is, of course, your right." He maintained his stern demeanor, but the little muscle under his eye began to twitch. For once I had caught him unaware.
"Sit down," he said, glancing at a file folder on the center of his immaculate desk. He reached for it, then pulled back his hand. Change in plans.
He looked up at me. "Dr. Reed, I’ve asked you to come here this morning to inform you that your recent conduct has shown repeated evidence of poor judgement and unprofessionalism to the point that I feel that this center must take action." He slid a sheet of yellow legal paper out of the file without opening it, and put on his reading glasses. "Beginning more than a year ago you were reported by an emergency room physician as saying that you were late for an evaluation because you had been sleeping off a hangover."
"Oh, come on," I said. Then felt Jill’s hand on my arm.
"My client will listen to your statement, but we reserve the right to rebut when you are finished."
"Yes, that will be fine." Richard said, then looked back at his paper to find his place. Jill’s hand patted my arm. "It’s okay," she whispered.
Richard continued. "Several days later, a staff member complained that you used ridicule and undue pressure to persuade her to wear a sticker identifying herself, untruthfully, as a homosexual."
Claire. Of all the ridiculous bullshit!
"Shortly after that, your handling of the case of Christopher Johnson showed extremely poor judgement that may have been instrumental in causing his suicide. First, you allowed Mr. Johnson, a diagnosed schizophrenic and a resident at Rebound House to carry a lethal weapon."
I could feel the flames of rage whirling inside me. I imagined jumping over Richard’s desk and tearing out his lying throat.
"Then, against police orders, you encouraged a member of your staff to risk his life climbing the Interstate Bridge in an attempt to apprehend Mr. Johnson, who had just been released from jail, and who had been reported as armed. After that, when Mr. Johnson escaped from the hospital, you took matters into your own hands, going out to Felida to find him, and possibly frightening him into hanging himself."
"He’d already been dead for hours," I shouted, standing up from my seat. Jill’s hand pushed me back down. I was surprised she didn’t get burned.
"You were requested to form a dual-diagnosis parenting group, and given a time limit in which to do so. You ignored the time limit and placed the center into a position of non-compliance on a very important grant."
I knew that one was a setup.
"Your poor judgement and reckless behavior intensified after that. You regularly made unprovoked verbal attacks on Center staff members, and others, including myself, Donnie Lewis, and a member of the audience at your talk at Lake Chelan."
Flames roared in my ears, and I could feel sweat dripping from my forehead and down my back. I was about ready to engage in another one of those "unprovoked attacks." The Remington bronco rider on Richard’s desk looked to be just the right weight.
"You have engaged in several blatant sexual affairs since you came to work here, one with a subordinate, and one with your married supervisor, and were repeatedly observed in public and highly unprofessional displays of affection."
"While you were fucking Claire." I said, my words spewing out like cinders from a furnace. This time Richard was the one who got out of his seat.
Jill grabbed my shoulder and held me down. "I need a minute to speak to my client," she said, as she bustled me out into the hall.
"Rachel, you have got to stay quiet or I can’t help you."
"Why don’t you stop him? everything he’s saying is --"
"If he’s lying we’ll take care of it later."
"He’s not lying. He’s just --" My stomach dropped about ten stories into an icy lake. "He’s not lying, exactly. In a way, it’s all true." I felt a cold gray wave drown the fire in my belly, leaving only queasy ashes, and, immediately, I felt like throwing up. I controlled it, but just barely.
"We’ve got to go back," Jill said, and I followed her like a condemned woman on her way to the gallows. "Don’t worry," she said, "I’ll take care of it."
Richard sat at his desk, calm and composed now. "Dr. Reed," he said, "This outburst is just the latest in a series of unprofessional and insubordinate actions. As I was about to say when you interrupted me, you recklessly attempted to disarm a suicidal patient in the waiting room. And, even though the receptionist offered to call 911, You ordered her not to do so."
He put down the folder and looked at me. His face turned into my father’s then back to his own. "The fact that you have a drinking problem has been well known throughout the center, and I believe that your drinking has impaired your judgement to the point that you represent a danger to your clients, your staff, and quite possibly yourself." He took a deep breath and stared hard at me. The spot beneath his eye twitched and jumped like a cat that had been hit by a car. Vaguely, I wondered why he was so nervous. "At the party on the Lady of the Lake, I personally observed you to be so intoxicated that you staggered into a table and almost fell down. Less than five minutes later you were outside on the deck vomiting, and fell, or jumped, overboard. An action that almost cost you your life."
Richard paused and softened his gaze. "Rachel, I hate to do this but you have given me no choice. There is more than enough evidence here to terminate you from your position at Evergreen Center for Mental Health."
Inside, I felt like cold wet ashes covered in slime.
"If you proceed with this action, my client will file a wrongful termination suit in federal court," Jill said. Her voice was calm, steady, and about a thousand miles away. "You have alleged that my client has an alcohol problem, which, according to the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act is a disability, requiring the accommodation of treatment rather than summary punitive action. I would recommend that you withdraw your threat of termination immediately." As Jill spoke, she leaned forward and slid the file across the desk to a point just out of Richard’s reach. She opened it and read. "This is a letter of resignation prepared for my client’s signature. Have you seen this before, Rachel?" she handed it to me.
"No," I said.
"My client will not sign this letter, but I would like a copy," Jill said. "Shall we take it out to the copy machine?"
Richard looked confused. "Alright," he said. Then he looked back at me. "I will confer with the Center’s attorneys on this matter and inform you in writing of my decision. Until that time you are suspended. Is that understood?"
I nodded, feeling almost too weak to move. Jill had to help me up. "Her suspension is with pay, of course," she said.
"Of course," Richard said. His face looked bright red.
"Dr. Reed," Richard said as we approached the door. "I feel it is my duty to inform the Washington State board of Psychologist examiners of these matters. They will undoubtedly have some questions as to your fitness to retain your professional license."
At least he didn’t spit on me.

Chapter Thirty Nine: In the Hospital

I woke up in Chelan County Hospital, which was considerably better than some places I can imagine ending up that night. Lying, still cold under a pile of blankets, in a metal bed with a curtain separating me from the rest of the world. So tired I could barely move. I felt like flash frozen shit. My left arm had an IV drip and my right had a bandage on the wrist. My head was thick as a brick.
I remembered swimming in cold water and noticed I was still shivering. Hypothermia. How badly damaged was I? It looked like I’d been admitted rather than just treated in the ER. I wondered who had given them my insurance policy number. I tried to sit up, and, immediately, learned the true meaning of the word "headache." I began to retch. At that moment I didn’t feel so lucky to be alive.
The retching and the pain brought it all back. Pushed into the water. Swimming. And --
Oh dear Jesus, the memories! I saw and felt everything. Retching and puking, nothing coming out but little spatters of lake water on the floor. Still I could taste -- God, no it couldn’t be.
I cried for a long time, and finally slept.
Bright light. The curtain opened and some people came in. A doctor and a nurse.
The nurse wiped my face and adjusted my pillow. Then the doctor grabbed my head and shook it. At least that’s what it felt like. He shined an even brighter light in my eyes and pressed a stethoscope, colder than the water of the lake, up against my chest.
"How am I, Doc," I asked, in my best weak-but-brave voice. He ignored me and went on with his examination, which was so rough I got the distinct idea he was mad with me. I was getting pissed myself. I’d been pushed into the lake and had somehow managed to swim to shore, and here this schmuck was pummeling me like I was already a med school cadaver.
"So, did they find out who pushed me in?" I asked, less for the information than to remind him I had already suffered enough for one night.
He looked at me like I was out of my mind. Believe me, I know that look. At that same instant, I realized I was in a waist restraint.
The asshole doctor continued to ignore me. He just picked up the chart and walked away. With his back to me, he finally spoke. "The man from mental health will talk to you now."
I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. Somebody tries to kill me, and I end up in restraints. What the fuck was going on here? That seemed like a reasonable question, so I shouted it to the physician’s departing back. Predictably, he just walked on. I shouted my reasonable question a few more times, until the nurse came back, telling me to be quiet or Doctor will have to have me sedated. I was about to tell her to fuck the doctor when Kevin Thorvald walked in.
I was so relieved to see a familiar face in the midst of this nightmare that I didn’t think about why Kevin was here to visit. I barely knew him, but I’d seen him at the conference during the day. He was the Mental Health Professional for Chelan County.
Oh Shit.
"Are you okay, Rachel?" At least he was going to talk to me.
"Kevin, what the fuck is going on here?" It still seemed like a relevant question.
"That’s what I hoped you’d tell me," he said, with the same kind of bland, professional I-won’t-be-shocked-or-judgmental tone I had used a million times.
"Somebody pushed me off The Lady of The Lake and I swam to shore. Kevin, somebody tried to kill me."
The pause seemed two hours long. Then he asked, "How did you cut your wrist?"
I held it up and looked at the bandage. I couldn’t remember.
At that moment I realized I was in deep shit and getting deeper. You never think about how to convince someone you’re sane until you’re doing it badly. I tried to project as much rational calm as I could muster -- precious little, actually. I realized I had to play for time to remember what had happened to my wrist. "Kevin, how about if I just tell you the whole story from the beginning?"
"Sure, Rachel." He pulled up a chair and sat down with his notepad on his lap. "I’m ready to listen." I felt reassured, but only briefly. Interested concern is a therapist’s stock in trade; it didn’t mean he was on my side. As I tried to remember, I fought down another wave of nausea.
"I was on the cruise, at the party. I wasn’t feeling well, so I went out on the deck to get some air." I left out the part about the argument with Richard. I didn’t think it was relevant to the story.
Then I remembered Richard at another party, going out on his deck for a smoke.
Richard pushed me! It had to be. He’d actually tried to kill me. I felt rage filling my body like an electric charge. That son of a bitch!
An unexpected cloud of grey despair covered the sharp edges of my anger. In my mind, I saw Richard standing by the rail with his hands still extended after pushing me over the side. He was smiling that big, stupid, open-mouthed smile, and I could even smell the tobacco on his breath. Then his face changed into my father’s, panting and leering with his tongue hanging out. Fucking me.
Then, like a panicky crowd stampeding toward a fire exit, the memories came, shoving their way into my conscious mind. Too many, too strong. I couldn’t stop them. They felt like they were all happening at once. I started retching again with tears streaming down my face. Somewhere in the middle of that emotional storm, I realized I was going to have a hell of a time convincing anybody I was sane. I doubted it myself.
Flooding is the technical name for it. I held onto the word like a lifeline, but the force of the images ripped it out of my hands. Adrift in a storm made of my own history, sinking, swirling, and bobbing to the surface at the mercy of irresistible currents, in the company of faces from fever dreams and creatures from nightmares. One second I was four years old in my brand new princess bed with my father's hands roughly moving between my legs, in the next I was flying toward the cold black water, feeling the imprint of Richard’s hands on my back. Every place I’d been touched was red hot, like the coils of a stove. I couldn’t pull away; the hands burned into my body. Then I was in another place at another time gagging on the salty taste of semen.
A voice in my head shouted, "Nobody believes you because it isn’t true." I see my mother shaking her head, turning away, and walking down the hall to her bedroom. The click of the lock sounds louder than thunder.
Adrenaline rushed through my bloodstream like water pouring over a collapsing dam.
"Flooding," I heard my own voice inside my head. "Memories. Not really happening now. Flooding. It will end."
Then Karma’s voice. "It’s never over."
Kevin sat quietly, waiting for me to stop crying and gagging. I would have done the same thing. The part of my mind that was watching all this happen knew it didn’t look as bad from the outside as it felt on the inside.
I let it happen; let it flow through me. Made my mind a deep, still lake.
The lake was freezing cold! I struggled to the surface again and tried to find another picture of calm. The warm sun, blue sky -- and contrails. It was like trying to rest comfortably on a pile of broken glass.
Somewhere out there I could hear Kevin saying, "That’s it, do what you need to do. Keep breathing, slow and easy." I knew he was trying to help, but I was still pissed at him for telling me what to do. How dare he be calm when my whole world is ripping apart? I was the one going through this. All he had to do was sit there and murmur platitudes. I wanted to strangle him.
The whole thing took less than ten minutes. From Kevin’s point of view there wasn’t much to see. I knew I could tell him I was flooding and he’d understand. But I didn’t tell him. Call it vanity. Or damage control.
I had to start right now convincing Kevin that I hadn’t completely lost it, or I’d be on twenty-four hour hold. I tried to keep myself in one place and time.
I took a deep breath, then another. "Kevin," I said, "this whole thing has been such a shock to me. I’m feeling confused and panicky. Every time I think about it, I feel like I’m back in the water. I keep trying to put the pieces together, but some of it I still don’t remember clearly. I do know I wasn’t trying to kill myself.
I was leaning over the rail, puking, and I think somebody pushed me off the boat. I don’t know who pushed me, or why, but I didn’t jump. Maybe I fell." How could he believe my story about being pushed off the boat? I hardly believed it myself.
I held up my bandaged arm. "I cut my wrist putting it through the window of the cabin where I went for help. You can check that with the guy who brought me in." I knew he would. I braced myself for his next question.
"How much had you been drinking?"
My immediate thought was, "Not that much," but I knew that was the official alcoholic answer. Normal people who have two drinks think they’ve had a lot. I’d had two glasses of wine at dinner, and a beer -- no, a beer and a half -- on the cruise. I thought that precise count might convince him of my responsibility.
Then I thought about the plastic cup of merlot and wanted to kill Richard. Shut up, Leona! No, it wasn’t Leona. She’d gone, and left me alone with my murderous impulses.
"Were you drunk?" Kevin asked, with the directness your best friends can never muster.
"I don’t think so, but I had been drinking." I knew he’d reached his own conclusions about what had happened.
"Rachel, I don’t know how you survived out there. The docs say people can’t live more than three or four minutes in water that cold."
"I’m a good swimmer," I said, and maybe that was the reason. Or maybe there was something else. Other people have guardian angels who come down from heaven to help them in their moments of need. Maybe mine had come from hell with liquor on his breath and a hard on. I didn’t even want to think of that possibility, much less share it with Kevin. "A very good swimmer," I said.
"And very lucky."
Lucky for a drunk who fell off a boat when she was puking.
"Yeah," I said, "I was lucky."
"You said you thought somebody pushed you?" His voice rose at the end. It was a question.
"I don’t know; I was leaning over. It felt like someone pushed me." I wanted to shake Kevin and scream that Richard had tried to murder me, but I knew better. It was beginning to dawn on me that nobody was going to believe I was pushed. Ever.
Kevin went on with the exam. I passed the mental status part -- I faked knowing who I was, when I was and where I was. The evaluation ended, as I knew it must, with a grave and earnest referral to alcohol treatment. I was royally pissed off, but I had to keep reminding myself that he was only doing his job.
Kevin told me they wanted me to stay the rest of the night for observation, but I could go in the morning. As he stood up to go, he looked me in the eye and said, "Take care, Rachel." He patted my shoulder with real concern.
His hand felt like a branding iron. I flinched. He apologized immediately. We don’t touch clients. He was trying to treat me like a friend. Fuck him.
As he left, Glenda and Ira burst through the curtains. They were both crying. They stood on either side of my bed hugging me and telling me they loved me.
This time the touch felt good. In their warming embrace the cold finally began to dissipate. I floated into a dreamless sleep. They were still in my room when I awoke the next morning.

Chapter Thirty Eight: Swimming

Cold.
Unbelievable cold.
Can’t move.
Sinking. Clothes pulling me down.
Can’t stop. Deeper in the icy dark.
Lost.
Which way is up?
Reflexes. Legs kick. Arms push me upwards. Hands grasp the water.
Surface.
Air?
No. Can’t breathe.
AIR!
Hate that dive reflex.
Stupid joke, to push me in.
Where’s the boat? Somebody there?
Can’t see it. Hear the motor.
There! Boat lights.
Can’t make it. Too far away. Too fast. Too cold.
Alone.
Swim, or die?
Swim!
Turning. Turning. Little spots of light.
Shore.
Swim, bitch!
"Swim Bitch! Stroke harder! You're getting behind. Push it! Come on don't rest now! Put your back into it, not just your legs. God damn it, you little bitch. Stroke!"
Dad is shouting.
The water in Lake Washington is cold, but I can feel the sweat on my face. I'm twelve years old, and, like most every day, I'm swimming until my arms are numb and my legs feel like they're about to fall off.
My father is trying to make something out of me, and, as usual, I’m not measuring up. I’m scared to death. What else is new?
Not good enough; the stopwatch says it all. He’s mad. He’ll chew me out. Or just ignore me, shaking his head with an expression of disgust.
He's been drinking.
Dad was a swimmer when he was a kid. He almost made it to the Olympics. Almost. This is how he used to train. Every single day. I've heard the story a million times. He wants me to be as good as he was, but I'm not.
I feel like crying. I am crying. I push harder and I go blind. Everything else gets dim. I can't hear I can't see. There's just me and the water. It's a fight to the death.
I'm so angry I want to kill it. I fight with my arms, my legs, my whole body. I don't come back to myself until I cross the finish line and he's there to pull me out.
When I go blind, I swim faster. When I go blind, I almost please him.
"You’re one fast little bitch when you put your mind to it," he says, as he puts the towel around me. It feels almost like a hug.
Swimming hard. I have maybe four minutes before my body stops, and I sink forever.
Swim!
My mind floats upwards, toward some warm, bright place, far above the freezing lake.
I see Dad’s face. He tells me I have to go back; I’m not allowed to die.
I go blind.
My father lights a cigarette as we walk back to the house from the dock. I’m still breathing hard. Shivering and sweating at the same time. It’s gotten dark and the air is cold.
He doesn’t say anything and he isn't staggering -- good sign.
Into the changing room.
I turn on the shower and wait for the water to heat up. He flips his cigarette into the toilet and goes upstairs, probably to get another drink.
Into the shower stall. Take off my suit. Standing under the hot water, I start to relax. I still have homework , but not much. I want to go to sleep.
I turn off the shower and he opens the stall door. His pants are off, and his penis sticks out between the tails of his shirt.
"Come dance with me," he says, stepping into the shower stall with me. Afraid. I try to send Leona, but he’s too fast. I smell alcohol and tobacco on his breath as he kisses me. Two days later he will be dead.
Leering face. Hot tobacco and liquor breath. Rough hands and hard kisses. His penis inside me, not Leona. Hurting. Stretching. Tearing.
Not just that once. A hundred other times. A thousand.
The changing room. My room at night. His truck in the woods.
Penis in my mouth. "Swallow it, if you love me."
"Come dance with me." Pumping to the sound of Blueberry Hill. Over, and over, and over, and over.
It isn’t over.
It’s never over.
Swim, Bitch!
The lights are close. Windows. A cabin. A dock with a boat. Skier’s ladder reaches down to the water.
Hands on the ladder. Too cold to move. So tired; I want to sleep.
Legs shaking, I force myself up the dock and to the door. No doorbell, but there’s window. I try to tap on it.
My hand goes right through the pane.
A man’s voice says, "What the fuck?"
I collapse in a puddle of blood and ice water.

Chapter Thirty Seven: The Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake is an old fashioned passenger ferry built in the late 40's. Her main use is getting people to Stehekin, fifty miles uplake, and other places not accessible by road. At night she can be rented for private cruises.
Just at eight, we left the restaurant and joined the line of people stumbling aboard. Actually, Greg was the only one who stumbled, and that was because of the pain in his loins not the drinking. He looked like a prisoner-of-war in the battle between the spirit and the flesh. Nobody else would care if he wanted to fuck a waitress, (I don’t know what Marci would have thought) but Greg would have cared -- to the depths of his soul. We all pretended he was a real lady’s man. Sometimes the kindest, most intimate thing you can do for a person is cherish his illusions.
"Stand back!" I said, "Greg’s trying to pole vault."
"Pole vault?" He asked, not getting it. "Oh," he said, and I could almost see him blush in the dark. Then he laughed. "Rachel, I have a suspicion that you had something to do with what happened back there in the restaurant."
"Moi?" I said, ruffling his hair. "No way. It’s just your natural sex-appeal. By the way, Marci asked me to tell you that she gets off at midnight." By this time everybody knew I’d paid Marci to come on to Greg.
"What time does the cruise end?" He asked.
Glenda answered. "One o’clock. You’ll have to swim back, but the cold water will probably do you some good. Maybe you ought to take Rachel with you, she could stand a little cooling down herself."
The Lady has two indoor cabins, upstairs and down. There was a big open deck downstairs -- I’m sure there’s some nautical term for this, but who cares -- at the back of the boat. The view was great, but with the cold November wind blowing off the lake, nobody opted to be out there looking.
Inside there was warmth and music. Upstairs, people congregated in small groups by the windows, watching the lights as we pulled out. A lot of folks came up to me and commented about the presentation. My fifteen minutes of fame grew into twenty, then thirty. I tried to pretend I was a real star and people wanted me for my body instead of my mind. The beer helped.
The refreshments were all upstairs, a keg in ice, a few jugs of cheap wine, and a platter of cheese and crackers. Party fare on a budget, the same as it’s been since my first year in college. I felt nostalgic, and a little horny. It wasn’t college I missed, though, it was Steve. The beer helped that too.
As I was filling my cup, I noticed a cooler labeled "Slater" in big black letters. My curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it. Inside were about five or six bottles of Chateau-something-or-other, on their sides of course. Richard's illusion is, if you’re drinking fine wines you’re not really doing it to get drunk.
I had seen him networking with the other management types up here. Going around with a bottle saying, "You really must try this cabernet." A few people seemed to be helping him cherish his illusion. He was heading toward me.
"Interesting presentation," he said as he got within hailing distance. Leona squirmed inside me like a mischievous fetus. I knew if Richard tried to give me some of his wine, she’d take a pull right from the bottle. I didn't have to worry, though. He didn’t offer. I took my cup of beer downstairs to the real party.
The lower deck was cleared for dancing. From the stairs, it looked like American Bandstand in Birkenstocks. The social committee had set up a big stereo, which was, at the moment, pumping out Motown.
There was already quite a crowd on the floor. Good party. Glenda was down there kicking up her heels. Literally.
People weren’t exactly dancing with each other, just moving together out on the floor. The music was so loud you couldn’t talk, but that didn’t matter. At a really good party most communication is by gesture anyway. You wave, raise your cup, grab somebody’s butt -- that kind of thing.
I noticed a couple from Spokane standing pretty close and actually dancing together. The office romance waltz. I wondered if Steve and I had been that obvious. I missed him a lot. At the same time I felt myself scanning the room for interesting men. I may have been depressed, but I wasn’t dead. I left the stairs and waded out onto the floor.
"Rachel Reed, the Pavlova of the Psyche! You absolutely have to dance with me!" Ira pranced over and swooped me into a not particularly graceful dip. The story of my life -- when I finally do get swept off my feet, it’s by the gayest guy in the room and I have a cup of beer in my hand. At least I didn’t fart. I was lucky Ira spent so much time lifting weights or I would have been sitting on the floor in a puddle of beer.
The music changed from Motown to Talking Heads. Someone had programmed the disc to go right to cut number six. Swamp, the all time favorite. The bluesy opening notes got everybody out on the floor in time for the chorus.
Hi. Hi hi hi hi hi. We all sang along, waving, pointing at each other and making funny faces. Clients would get very worried if they saw their therapists acting like this.
Hi hi hi hi hi. Hi! It was tribal. Like dancing around a campfire to the beat of drums.
During the ritual dancing Leona grab-assed a man named Ted from Seattle -- I would have tried a more subtle come on, but she beat me to him. Ted’s reaction proved that white guys actually could jump. When he finally hit the ground, he looked around in a bewildered way. I smiled and pointed at him. "Ted, right?"
He nodded and pointed back. "Rachel?"
I nodded. I never know what to say at times like these. It didn't matter, the music was too loud to hear anything anyway. Hi hi hi hi hi. They’d hit repeat. Once was never enough for Swamp.
Ted was cute. He stood about five-ten when he wasn’t jumping. Light brown hair, thinning a bit on top, a moustache, and an outdoors kind of face. Grey eyes. Fairly trim, with a little bulge at the middle, wearing Dockers and a burgundy sweater over a plaid shirt. Regulation mental health menswear. A tiny stud in his ear hinted at danger held at bay.
We kind of danced together for a song or two. I hoped there’d be a break in the music so we could actually talk. No such luck. It was a continuous playing CD machine, unless Marvin Gaye and Talking Heads cut an album together.
I thought of suggesting we go out for a breath of air, then I looked at the steamed-up window facing the outside deck. It was thirty eight degrees and windy out there, hardly the place to make small talk.
Upstairs perhaps? I pointed at my empty cup. "Want a beer?" He shook his head and waved his palm back and forth. A non-drinker.
Having just suggested getting a beer, I couldn’t just stay there without appearing terminally dependent. I put a hand on his shoulder --Leona almost caressed his cheek, but I kept control. "See you in a minute," I said, wondering if I had overplayed my hand.
As I climbed the steps I got a little pissed at myself. The party was full of friends I hadn’t seen for months. I had given a serious and well received presentation, proving myself to be an authority in my area. A convention like this is supposed to be an opportunity for the meeting of minds and the sharing of ideas. Careers in management were being developed by the networking upstairs. Of all the things I could be doing, I’d picked getting hot and bothered about whether a guy I’d known for twenty minutes was attracted to me or not.
As I drew my beer, I felt pretty disgusted with myself. I drank it down and filled the cup again, then looked up. There was Richard.
"Rachel," he said with an open-mouthed smile. "How would you like to try something really good for a change." He held up the bottle so I could read the label. "This is an excellent merlot. Chateau Rainier -- it’s grown right here in Washington, but it’s considered the equal of anything the Loire valley has to offer." I smelled tobacco on his breath, and he had a little trouble pronouncing "considered" and "Loire".
Richard poured some wine into a plastic cup and held it out to me. Leona eyed the open bottle in his other hand. He seemed to be in that state of alcohol-induced fellowship that makes everybody look like a drinking buddy. I should have just tasted the wine and gone about my business.
Instead, Leona took over. I snatched the bottle and turned it around, as if I were looking for the price tag. "Nice wine, Richard. I bet it cost a lot, but that doesn’t matter, since you’re putting it on the old expense account."
He kept smiling and acted like he didn’t hear me. His eyes were as hard as bloodshot marbles.
My stomach flipped. I handed back the wine and turned to go before Leona got me in more trouble.
"Too bad Steve couldn’t come," Richard said loudly as I turned. People were staring.
"Weak, Richard, very weak," Leona said, over my shoulder, as I tried to get out with a little dignity. I didn’t see the table until the corner jabbed my hip. It hurt like hell, but, thank God, the table didn't fall over and I didn't spill anything.
I dashed down the stairs.
I had really blown it this time. Nausea wracked my guts and I was working hard to hold back tears. Oblivious of the party around me, I crossed the lower deck, heading toward the women’s room. I was glad I had a place to go.
The restroom room was full of people. And smoke. It made my nausea worse. Claire was in there with a cigarette in her hand, waiting for a stall. I didn’t know she smoked.
I needed air. I shoved my way out of the women’s room, and dashed toward the outside door and pushed it open.
The deck was deserted. The cold wind helped to calm me, but I still felt like I had to throw up. I tried to lean out over the rail, but it was dangerously low. I had to move to the place where the bannister of the stairs joined the deck rail, so I could have something to hang onto while I puked my guts out. I leaned way over to avoid hitting the deck. How embarrassing! I was glad the stairs to the upper cabin were between me and the window -- even if it was all fogged up.
I couldn’t stop puking. Dinner and stale beer poured out of my mouth and down to the dark water. Far away I heard music and the sounds of people laughing. I could still smell the tobacco smoke from the women’s room. My stomach turned over again.
Finally, I finished. I hung there gasping, trying to catch my breath, then I tried to stand up.
I couldn’t. Something was on my back. A hand, pushing. I fell forward, into the dark.
The water was so incredibly cold.

Chapter Thirty Six: Fruit Antiques

The Next Thing. That’s what I live for. And cocktail time.
Cocktail time was five o’clock, and sometimes noon.
The Next Thing was the Mental Health Biennium at Lake Chelan. We were leaving the day after my phone conversation with Liz.
The Biennium is a lot of fun, if you like drunken brawls. It’s held on the first weekend in November every other year, and is the highlight of the social calendar. I usually count the days until it comes like a kid before Christmas, but this time I didn’t even feel like going. I had to, though. They’d asked me to do a presentation on communicating with psychotics.
People love my presentations. I’m always surprised, because I can never see what’s so special about them. The things I say to clients always seem like no-brainers to me. Not everybody feels that way, though; I have a following. In the program I‘m billed, courtesy of Ira, as "Dr. Rachel Reed, the Pavlova of the Psyche." I show a few videos of me working with clients, then talk about what I did. No big deal.
Usually, I revel in the attention. This time I felt bored and distant.
The Mind Police drove up together in Greg’s van, The Amazing Kidmobile. We had to move aside Barbie clothes, Legos, and other less easily identified items to make a place to sit. Glenda was upset because there were clothes, but no Barbies to dress.
Paul had to stay behind to cover emergency calls -- he drew the short straw. Steve wasn’t coming either. I tried my best to make that a matter of no concern. Hah.
Lake Chelan is in North-Central Washington, about three hundred miles from Vancouver. Most of the drive is through rolling brown emptiness. The landscape fit my mood perfectly. The others listened while I bitched about the Board not doing anything.
"I still can’t believe they would sweep the whole thing under the carpet like that," I said. "How could it not make a difference to them?"
"They aren’t completely ignoring the whole thing." Glenda tried to reassure me. "Liz did say they were going to do something about it, didn’t she?"
"She said they were going to require a better accounting of administrative expenses in the future, and they’d see to it that there’d be no more abuses, and thank you very much for your effort."
"That’s something, isn’t it?" Glenda said. "You said you wanted to stop him, and I think you’ve done that."
"I didn’t mean just the money stuff," I said, "I wanted to stop him. He’s a criminal and they don’t even care."
"You don’t know he’s a criminal, Rachel," she said. "All we ever had were guesses from your accountant friend. He couldn’t even tell for sure without seeing the ledgers."
"You sound just like him," I said. "I called John right after I talked to Liz, and he said that the Board might have figured that there wasn’t enough evidence to take action against Richard, especially if they thought he was doing a good job as executive director. John said an audit of the ledgers would pretty much destroy the working relationship between Richard and the Board, and that maybe the best thing we could get was that they would clamp down on him, and make him use standard accounting procedures for reporting expenses. John talked like we hadn’t lost."
"Maybe we didn’t lose," Greg said. "Richard will probably think twice about what he does now that the board is watching him more closely."
"Dream on," I snapped. "Nobody seems to realize what a Goddamned snake he is." Frustrated, sick anger knotted the part of my stomach that can only be undone with alcohol. I looked at my watch. Ten in the morning; we could be at the hotel bar by noon.
Stupid. Worse than stupid. Nobody else had been counting on Richard’s public humiliation to give meaning to their lives the way I had. Shame warmed my face and twisted my stomach tighter; I felt like one of those old harpies who sat next to the guillotine, knitting.
But then, there was also that icy blade of dread cutting into my spine. I knew it wasn’t over.
"I’m sorry," I said to Greg. "I know you’re trying to make me feel better, and I appreciate that. It’s just that I have this really bad feeling about the whole situation. I’m afraid what we did is going to make everything worse. I think he’s going to try to get back at us for messing with him."
"What could he do?" Greg asked.
"Anything," I said.
"Rachel," Glenda leaned over and put her hand on my arm. "Maybe things aren’t as bad as you think. I mean, you’ve been through so much lately with -- you know -- Steve and all."
The Mind Police all knew about our affair, and that we had broken up. We just never talked about it.
"Yeah," I said, grasping her hand. "I know my head is messed up and I should listen to what you’re saying. Still --"
"Our Fearless Leader is right," Ira said. His tone was unusually serious. "We did lose, and Richard will retaliate. He is not a man to be trifled with. I think we all should watch our backs. Especially Rachel."
Silence. Just the sounds of the tires humming against the road, and the November wind, lashing out at the dead brown hills.
A few miles past Ellensburg, the landscape changes abruptly from high desert to the lush beauty of the Okanagan. We climbed into craggy foothills covered with sharp rocks, dark evergreens, and bright deciduous trees. Yellow and red leaves flew through the air along with a trace of snow, as we passed tiny mountain farms where Heidi would have felt right at home. Everything that is beautiful about autumn was there. Crisp air carried the scent of the Wenatchee Valley below -- wood smoke and fresh apples. No one could stay upset in a setting like that.
We were watching for a roadside stand where we could buy apples, when, from a long way off, we saw a huge barn-like structure with red letters, a story high, that read: FRUIT ANTIQUES.
Ira was, of course, the first to notice. "Fruit antiques! What a concept! I absolutely love it! We must stop this very instant to see this exhibition celebrating my cultural heritage. It’ll be like the Holocaust museum of taste. Couches from the 50's! Leather through the ages, and --"
"A life-size statue of Judy Garland." Glenda said, deadpan.
"Really?" Ira said. "Greg, Sweetie, turn right here." He indicated the direction with a limp-wristed point.
Greg turned so sharply we almost rolled.
"Yes!" Ira said. "I love recklessness in a man."
Greg skidded to a halt in the gravel and parked next to a collection of ornate European coaches, which made us think that maybe we hadn’t misunderstood the sign after all. Ira posed by an ornate blue and white number so Glenda could take his picture. "Goodbye peasants," He said. "Your beloved queen will go the rest of the way to the lake in the royal coach."
"The only problem is, it turns into a pumpkin at midnight." I said, pleased to find a scrap of humor left in the empty pantry of my soul.
A bullet headed guy came out, scowling at Ira and warning him not to touch the coach because it was a real antique and the only one of its kind in the country.
"Certainly, sir," Ira said, "But tell me, is this one of the authentic fruit antiques we read about?" The man just went inside and didn’t answer.
Huge cardboard bins filled with every kind of apple you can imagine stood bulging by the door. We bought big, red Romes, Golden Delicious, and bright green Granny Smiths. Back in the car, Ira used his pocket knife to cut sections of apple, which he’d toss to us like they toss fish to Keiko, the Killer-Whale. The freshly cut sections smelled like nectar and ambrosia, and they tasted even better. I could feel my gloom beginning to fill with apple-scented autumn air and rising toward the cloudless blue sky. No contrails.
Then I saw the lake. Deep, still, and the exact blue of a Milk of Magnesia bottle. I began to feel as if I could float above it and sail through the bright empty sky.
Lake Chelan is fifty miles long and never more than two miles wide, a trough scooped out by retreating glaciers. Just below the surface the water is a brisk forty-two degrees year-round. Imagine the ultimate water-ski run, encircled by brown hills with a line of bright little cabins at the water’s edge. At the end of the lake, framed by huge locust-trees that glowed golden in the autumn sunlight, was Campbell’s Lodge. We had arrived, and it was cocktail time.
My presentation was at four the next afternoon. I came in about ten minutes early and fiddled around with the video equipment, cuing the tape and adjusting the volume. I looked up to find all the seats full, and people standing in the doorway. Everybody I knew had come, including Richard and Claire. A tingle of excitement danced up from the bottom of my stomach and broke free as a giggle. And a big smile to all those people who really, really liked me. And those few who hated my guts. I smoothed my heathery-green tunic as I stood up and hoped the lights brought out the auburn in my hair. I was on.
I warmed them up with a few trade jokes.
"How many narcissists does it take to change a lightbulb?
One. But the world has to revolve around him."
"What happens when a co-dependent drowns?
She sees somebody else’s life flash before her eyes."
Then I showed a tape of a twenty-six year-old paranoid schizophrenic named Mikey, who had gone off his meds and was decompensating fast. His parents, his therapist, and the visiting nurse had all tried to get him to go back on medication, but he was refusing. He thought the CIA was spying on him.
"Why would they want to spy on you?" The Rachel on the tape said. God, was I glad I’d remembered to sit up straight when we made the video.
"I hear their voices on the Internet." Mikey said. "They say things about me that they don’t think I can hear. But I hear them."
"Why would they want to spy on you, Mikey?"
"To see what I’m doing."
"Why do they care what you’re doing?"
"The government is trying to stop me."
"Wait a minute here," The Pavlova of the Psyche said, as she leaned forward, making her stomach stick out twice as far as her boobs. "When I look at you, I see a kid from Vancouver who lives in his parent’s basement. What you’re trying to tell me is, there’s more to you than that. This," she waved at his tangled hair and unwashed clothes, "Is only a disguise? There’s somebody else underneath?" Pavlova sat up straighter in her chair, rolled her eyes toward the door and then back toward Mikey. "Who are you really?" She asked in a stage whisper. A few people from the audience chuckled.
Mikey looked puzzled.
"Come on, you can tell me."
Finally he spoke in a soft and tentative voice. "I think I maybe could be a secret agent from God."
"But you’re not sure. Sometimes you think you are, and sometimes you think you’re not?"
Mikey looked down at the floor. His hands scuttled around like anxious crabs.
"Nobody’s ever sure, Mikey." I said.
Mikey fidgeted some more and finally spoke. "I hear their voices on the Internet."
"Yeah, those voices. I bet they say bad things about you, don’t they? They try and convince you that you’re just --" Pavlova shrugged, "I don’t know. What do they say about you?"
"They call me a little shit."
"No! How could they say that? You’re not a little shit, are you?"
"I think I could maybe be a secret agent from God."
"Maybe, but I think you sometimes wonder if you maybe could be a little shit, because the voices keep telling you that’s what you are."
"I don’t like it when they spy on me."
"No, It sounds Scary. So scary you could almost forget who you are."
His fingers wrestled with one another.
"Are you scared?"
He nodded.
"A secret agent from God, or a little shit -- that is a scary choice." Pavlova said.
"They also say I’m a turd-brain."
"That’s a complete pile of crap. I know you’re not a turd-brain."
Mikey looked up at Rachel and tried to smile. His expression shifted rapidly back and forth from what looked like a grimace of pain to the slack, non-expression of a psychotic. Flashes of life from a worn-out neon sign.
"Little-shit, turd-brain." He said.
"Little-shit, turd-brain, secret agent," I said. "It’s a free country. You can be anything you want to be." It got a great laugh.
Through the rest of the tape I helped Mikey untangle the snarled skeins of his existence, to the point that he decided to go back on medication. Manipulation, sure, but with a certain style.
I got applause when I stood up to comment.
"Is there anybody here who hasn’t felt like a Little-Shit, turd-brain, secret agent?" I asked, getting a huge laugh, and, in the front row, the steely faced stare and raised hand of a chunky woman with big hair.
"I just don’t understand the ethical implications of encouraging clients to use that kind of language," she said.
"What about it don’t you understand?"
"Why you think we should encourage inappropriate language when we’re supposed to be teaching our clients the values they need to be accepted in society."
While I stood there wondering what to say, Leona blew a loud sigh out my mouth and rolled my eyes upward, then right back at Big-Hair.
"What do you call it when you go to the bathroom?" I asked.
"What?" She said, outraged.
"What do you call it when you go to the bathroom?" I asked again.
"I don’t see how --"
"I want to know what kind of appropriate language you think we should use in place of the language our clients speak," Leona said. "Maybe in your world people go poo-poo, but where people like Mikey live, they have to wade through real shit. Not much else is real for them except the Goddamned shit. It’s where they are every single day of their lives, and that’s why we’ve got to go to them --because they sure as hell can’t come to us. If they could, what the fuck would they need us for anyway."
Big hair’s face had lost its color. Intricate waves and curls flowed around white eyes, white skin, white teeth and red lipstick. I took a deep breath and pushed Leona away. Immediately, I felt like throwing up.
"I’m really sorry about being offensive," I said. "But I feel so strongly about the idea of putting ourselves into the client’s frame of reference. To me, that’s what therapy is all about. We didn’t get all this training just give people helpful advice. We have to go where they are, and, if we’re lucky, bring them back."
Silence.
Then a few claps. And more. They were applauding!
I really pulled that one out of my ass.
The rest of the presentation went more smoothly. Afterward a lot of people came up to touch the hem of my garment, and tell me they believed in what I said. I hardly heard them. Every part of me trembled. My thoughts and emotions were spinning in a blender -- shivery ice, sour lime juice, sugar and burning tequila -- swirling, whipping, and frothing, but never really coming together.
Ira put a hand on my shoulder and shouted out, "Ladies and gentlemen it is party time. This meeting will adjourn to the bar immediately."
God, I loved that man.
The Margaritas weren’t exceptional, but nobody cared. Glenda ordered a humongous basket of taco chips, and soon everyone was practicing Tibetan junk-food fighting. Ira caught a few chips blindfolded.
Later that evening the conference was sponsoring a starlight cruise on the Lady of the Lake. Not to be missed. We figured we’d better get an early dinner if we were going to make it to the dock on time. Though there were plenty of other restaurants around, Greg suggested we eat in the hotel dining room. Actually he begged.
"Why do you want to go there?" I asked. "The food isn’t that great."
"It’s really personal," he said, holding his head down and turning his big brown eyes up to meet my gaze. "You see, I’m in love."
"Here he goes again," Glenda said as she threw a taco chip at Greg’s head. "Who is it this time?"
"There’s this waitress," Greg said. "Her name is Marci, and she is the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. She has red hair, creamy white skin, and long beautiful legs that I’d love to feel wrapped around my shoulders."
"Greg, she’s about seventeen years old." Somebody said.
"Age doesn’t matter when you’re really in love," Greg answered to a chorus of hoots and catcalls.
"Call 1-900-FLOWERS when all you want is talk." Ira said, in the deep voice of a television announcer.
While Greg continued to elaborate the details of his sexual fantasies, I got up and went to the dining room.
Marci was indeed a babe, but she couldn’t have been a day over sixteen. I gave her twenty dollars and asked her to help me play a joke on Greg.
"All you need to do," I said, "Is wink and smile at him during dinner, and afterwards, ask him if you can feed him his dessert. He’s a minister, and he won’t attack you, I promise."
She agreed readily, without even considering the political correctness of my request. She loved acting, she said, and had starred in the high school musical. We arranged everything so we’d be seated at her table, I told her I’d point out Greg by kissing his cheek. The irony was lost on her.
A few minutes later, at the table in the dining room, Greg’s eyes locked on Marci, and he began licking his lips. "You’re so cute!" I said to him, and kissed his cheek.
Marci immediately went into action. She dashed up with her pad and inserted herself between me and Greg. She looked down at him, batting her eyelashes, and said, "Is there anything I can get for you sir?" He ordered a cup of coffee, which she ran off to get for him without bothering to ask what any of the rest of us wanted. She poured the coffee, staring soulfully into his eyes. The kid was good. "If there’s anything you want, sir, anything at all, just ask for me. My name is Marci." She ruffled his hair. "What’s your name?"
"Greg," he said, his voice a high-pitched squeak.
"See you later, Greg," she said as she took orders from the rest of us, all the while winking and smiling at him.
When Marci went back to the kitchen Glenda said, "Greg, if you touch her, I swear I’m reporting you to Children’s Protective Services."
"It would be worth it," Greg said.
Marci stayed in character all through dinner. Just as Greg finished she came up to him with a big dish of chocolate ice cream.
"Greg," she said. "I brought you this, because you looked like the kind of man who likes chocolate."
"Oh, I do. I do!" He said. I noticed that all the other servers were watching, and there were a few heads sticking out the kitchen door.
"Greg, I want to feed it to you." She said in a husky voice far beyond her years.
Greg was beginning to sweat. "Okay," he said in that same high pitched voice.
Marci pulled his chair out, tucked a napkin under his chin, then sat in his lap and fed him ice cream, one sensuous spoonful at a time. I noticed she sat on the edges of his knees, far from contact with the napkin over his crotch.
As we got up to go Marci kissed his cheek. Behind Greg’s back I flashed her a thumbs up sign.
I thought I heard applause from the restaurant as we crossed the lobby.

Chapter Thirty Five: The Writing on the Sky

Contrails, that’s what they’re really called. The pathways of high-flying jets, etched in ice crystals on the blue of the stratosphere. There are days, especially in Indian summer, when the sky is so still that ten or twelve trails can cross each other and remain floating above, in various stages of turning to smoke. As a kid I thought the jets were skywriters, working in letters so big that you could see only a small portion from anywhere on earth. The message was always too huge to grasp.
The clock said 3:05; for hours, I’d been trying to go back to sleep. Instead I kept thrashing about on the couch remembering I’d watched the lines of crystal slice through the sky, one at a time, slowly, like a surgeon’s scalpel. On the ground, I’d felt each freezing cut as it ripped through my heart.
"I just can’t handle the guilt anymore," Steve had said, staring at the ground as we walked around the jogging path.
From the beginning I had known this day would come, and these very words would have to be spoken. I just didn’t know the sky would be so blue, and the leaves of the cottonwoods so yellow, the wispy celestial messages so painfully white, and, for once, clear.
The converging lines of lust and guilt that graphed the course of our love had finally crossed somewhere in Steve’s mind. The balance had tipped, and X marked the spot. There it was, up in the sky, too big to ignore any longer.
In the dead of so many nights, when other people were contentedly dreaming that monsters were chasing them, or that they’d gone to work without their clothes, I had been following those same huge, icy, and inexorable lines of logic, and had always arrived at the same conclusion. I knew I would lose him. Haunted by Paul’s flaccid ghost scribbling diary entries in the darkest recesses of my mind, and shamed by the remembered scent of urine drying in a car heater, I had seen the truth, plain and bright as an Indian summer day.
Men love women who are soft and feminine. I’ve never been that kind of girl.
Knowing what would happen could not protect me from having to play it out that day, nor afterward, in the dark of a hundred more sleepless nights, from having to play it back, over and over, looking for . . . I have no idea what I was looking for.
"I care about you," Steve had said, "but I can’t feel good in this relationship, with the deception, and the constant fear of being caught."
"I was beginning to like that part," I’d said.
He’d looked at me to see whether I was joking. I don’t know what he saw, because I didn’t know whether I was joking or not.
"Steve," I’d said, "I love you." I had always been too afraid to say those words; now it didn’t matter. "If you ever want to --"
"No. I can’t. This has to be a clean break. I can’t handle it in any other way."
Then, another contrail had split the sky.
Now, I tossed and turned another night, thinking of new ways to talk him out of it, as if the sheer force of reasoning could alter the truth and change the past. Stupid. Futile. But I didn’t think for a minute that mere stupid futility would stop my mind from playing back this scene a thousand more times while my body longed for sleep.
The clock said 4:45. Too late for sleep. Maybe a swim? The pool would open at five thirty. I draped the comforter over the back of the couch and dragged myself into the kitchen to put on coffee.
When you first jump in, the water of a swimming pool feels so cold. Later, when you’ve been swimming awhile, it’s the air that seems cold.
I began my swim with a leisurely crawl, which was all my kinked and knotted muscles could tolerate. I reached and stretched, feeling myself grow longer and more sinuous. I tried to extend my body down the entire length of the lane, and, gradually, everything began working together, my arms, my legs, my breathing, and the beating of my heart. My body began to revel in the beautiful complexity of its relationship with water. Water is solid when I grasp great clumps of it and throw them behind me. I can feel the spinning shape of the tornado that pushes me forward even as my legs create it. Hard and solid, yet soft enough to glide through like empty air. I can fly.
My body began to crave speed, and the oblivion that came with it. I pushed harder, until there was nothing but the drumming of my heart to the rhythm of my breath, and the passionate struggle of my muscles embracing the water, tough, yielding, and strangely warm. I go blind.
An hour later I climbed out of the pool to a ripple of applause. People always stop and watch me swim. I’m a real water-babe.
Back to Earth, my adopted home, with its craziness and wretched scraps of love.
I had an evaluation waiting at the hospital. An overdose. She was unconscious yesterday afternoon, and still in intensive care. With any luck she’d be awake this morning and ready for transfer.
Intensive care units always remind me of church. The light is dim, and everything is done in reverent silence to the sacred music of machines humming, beeping, and hissing. Readouts flicker like candles lit to attract the attention of saints, and nurses glide by like acolytes on holy errands. In this church, communion is given by tubes up the nose.
"Hey, Rachel," Denise Schaffer, the head nurse, spoke in a quiet voice that I could still hear on the other side of the room. Her short gray hair bounced a little as she grabbed a chart and walked across the unit at about the top speed I can run in a sprint. By the time she reached me, the chart was open to the correct page. "Room three. Peggy Nielsen. Unmarried female, fifty-seven, waitress. Overdosed on Amitriptyline and called her son. Unconscious when she arrived, but breathing, and in partial renal failure. Dr. Mueller pumped her stomach and sent her here, in case she went into respiratory failure. She’s stable now, and awake. On a drip because she’s refusing food and liquids. Says she wants to die. Dr. Stephens saw her this morning, and said she could be transferred any time. All yours." Denise handed me the chart. "Stop by the station on the way out. I’ve got a picture of my newest grandbaby."
"What number is this?" I asked.
"Four," she said with a big smile. "My youngest daughter’s first. A son."
"Congratulations!" I said, tucking the chart under my arm and approaching the little cubicle they called room three.
Peggy Nielsen sat propped up in bed with her eyes shut, but not asleep. She was still connected to a cardiac monitor and one IV drip. Her face was pale, wrinkled, and shapeless as a handful of laundry on the way to the dryer. Traces of green eye shadow remained on closed lids, and her hair, once bouffant and dyed a cheerful shade of yellow, unknown in nature, looked like a trampled haystack. Her lips were dry and chapped, as only an oxygen mask can make them. Under the sheet her body looked like a pile of dough, but her arms rippled with muscle.
"Ms. Nielsen, I’m Dr. Reed. I’m here to evaluate you for possible involuntary commitment."
"Shit," she croaked, opening one eye to look at me. "That’s all I need." Then she started to cough.
I poured a cup of water from the pitcher beside her bed and handed it to her. She drank a swallow before she remembered that she was refusing to eat and drink. She stared at the little plastic cup like it was the one who had tricked her, then finished the water. I poured her some more. "Would you like to order some breakfast?" I asked. "I can recommend the scrambled eggs. They taste just like cold, greasy rubber."
She was looking at me with both eyes now, and I noticed from the readout that her heart had speeded up a bit. I had her attention.
"So why’d you try to kill yourself?"
"What do you care?"
"It’s my job to care. Do you want to make something of it?"
"Like I really could," she said. In the look she gave me, I saw a surly teenager, almost buried, under the years of hardship that had shaped her face.
"Oh, I don’t know. Take that tube out of your arm and you could probably deck me."
It would be a vast exaggeration to say that she smiled, but there was a detectable change in her expression. She drank a little more water and asked, "How come you’re playing stupid games?"
"Two reasons. One, I have a warped sense of humor, and two, if I didn’t, you’d probably ignore me. You know, close your eyes and say, ‘Let me die.’ Am I right?"
An almost imperceptible nod.
"You know, I’m not totally convinced you want to die," I said, watching her face and the heart monitor readout for a reaction. "After you overdosed, you called your son."
"Bullshit. He called me. Probably wanted money."
"Why’d you tell him what you’d done?"
She shook her head and made a peculiar snorting noise, which might once have been a laugh. "Stupid. Didn’t want him to think I relapsed."
"How long have you been clean and sober?" I asked, knowing that only AA people call drinking a ‘relapse’.
"Fifteen years. Anniversary’s next week."
"But you weren’t planning to live to see it. How come?"
"Reasons."
"What kind of reasons?"
"My own reasons."
"Jesus. If you aren’t one tough old broad."
The ghost of a smile flitted over the grave of her face, then her eyes began to fill with tears. "Shit," she said through teeth clenched so tight that the tiniest sob couldn’t squeeze through.
"You don’t think you’re tough?"
"No."
"Is that why you tried to kill yourself? Because you’re not tough?"
She nodded slightly, looking at me with the lower part of her face held rigid, and her eyes beginning to widen and fill with tears.
"What makes you think you’re not tough?" I asked.
At first she didn’t say anything, as if she were trying to ignore me. I waited.
Finally she spoke. "I told my boyfriend to get out," she said. Her jaw was still clamped, but her chin was beginning to tremble.
"Why’d you do that?"
"Relapsed. Bad. And he wouldn’t stop."
"But you still love him?"
She nodded, and the tears ran down her face. "Stupid."
"How long were you together?"
"Three years. Met him at AA."
"Seems like you had to choose between him and your conscience, and you’re not so sure you made the right choice."
The sobs broke free. They sounded like an empty fifty-gallon drum dragged along a sidewalk.
After a while she made a funny wheezing sound, then a gulp. The sobbing disappeared, and her face turned into soggy plaster again. All that was left of her outburst were the tracks of her tears.
"I did what I had to do," she said. Her face scrunched into a crying expression again for a second before she yanked it flat from the inside.
"Sounds like your heart wasn’t going along with the program."
"Stupid," she said. "It’s just that I felt so -- Like --" She sighed loudly. " Like for the last two months all I can do is cry. I can’t go to work. I can’t even get out of bed. I don’t sleep, I just lay there and smoke." She sighed again. "I can’t even eat -- you’d never tell by looking at me."
"It sounds like you’re depressed."
"That’s what Dr. Mueller said. He gave me the pills." She snorted again. "I hate pills."
"Did you take them?"
"Once. They didn’t do no good. Made me sleep all day. Anyway, pills can’t cure what I’ve got."
"What have you got?"
"A bad case of stupidity. Getting this way over a man. I know better, but I just can’t --" The fifty-gallon sobs broke through again. I let her cry.
"You’re depressed, not stupid." I said after awhile.
"What’s the difference?" She asked, after swallowing her tears again.
"In the way you feel -- nothing. In what can be done to fix the problem -- everything."
"You mean the hospital, pills -- that kind of crap -- don’t you?"
"Yeah," I said. "That’s the idea. There is medication that will help you more than the amitriptyline."
Dr. Mueller was one of those Marcus Welby types -- heavy on the white hair and bedside manner, light on the up-to-date knowledge. We’re in the serotonin generation now; Prozac or Zoloft probably would have been a better choice.
"But medication isn’t all of it." I said. "Depression is like a humongous hangover. You can’t see beyond it. It seems like it’s always been there, and always will be there. You feel like there’s no point to living and start thinking it would be better to die."
She lay back on her pillow, smacked her dry lips a few times, and stared at the ceiling. "There’s a reason to live?" She rolled her eyes and gave me that teenager look again. "What is it? Jesus?"
I laughed. "I came here to put you in the hospital against your will, not to insult you." I poured another glass of water and handed it to her. She drank it all. "I don’t know why you should live," I said, "but somewhere inside that hard head of yours, you do."
"Why do you live, Doctor?"
I thought about it a minute. "I want to see what’s going to happen next."
"That’s it?" she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. "That’s it."
* * * *
Back at Evergreen, I saw Steve as I picked up my mail and phone messages at the front desk. We were cordial, but distant. I saw Deena too. Guilt washed over me in an icy wave. I knew better than to get involved in an office romance. I’d advise a client not to do it. But in less than three years I’d been involved in two. I felt like a stupid slut. Depressed, I told myself, not stupid.
In the Caribbean they raise people up from the dead to work in the cane fields. I knew how they felt.
My head hurt from exhaustion, and the bottle of Beaujolais I drank last night, trying to get to sleep. I know better than that too. My caffeine level was already dangerously low. On the way to the coffee room, I saw the phone message from Liz Macready. The Next Thing. My zombie heart began to beat by itself as I rushed back to my office to return the call.
"I can’t tell you everything that happened," Liz said, "But the board was quite concerned and upset by the material you presented. The finance committee looked it over very carefully, and they decided that we needed a much better accounting of administrative expenses, as well as several other areas. We met with Richard and Donnie several times, and I can assure you that there will be no abuses in the future. The Board asked me to thank you for making the effort to bring this matter to our attention."
It took a minute for what she said to sink in. "That’s it?" I asked.
"I’m not sure what you mean," she said. "I think we have taken care of the problem."
"You’re not getting an outside audit?"
"The finance committee did confer extensively with some of the auditors we already use. They felt there was no need for an additional audit."
"And Richard is still Director?"
"What?" she said, sounding puzzled. "Of course he’s still Director."
"Oh," I said, feeling a trail of ice forming along my spine. I begin to shiver.

Chapter Thirty Four: The Writing on the Wall

I had forgotten that when you take anything to an accountant you have to wait for a long time.
Fall came, and with it, the new MCMHQ quality monitoring system. What a pain in the ass! Everything anybody did that was vaguely related to a case -- we’re not talking just treatment here, but things like scheduling an appointment, or billing the state for services, and even sweeping the building -- had to be coded by the employee’s social security number, service, and client number. Everyone got a master list of social security numbers for all employees along with service codes and all the other numbers we might have to fill in. The manual weighed five pounds, and woe unto you if you entered a single digit incorrectly .
Richard had made sure the whole project was identified as belonging to the clinical director, so everyone blamed Steve for adding a bunch of bullshit paperwork just to please the bureaucrats in Olympia. There were a lot of jokes about losing our names and being given numbers to replace them.
Steve handled the whole thing remarkably well. He went along with the jokes, even to the point of wearing a tee shirt that said, "Hi I’m 547 89 4043." I made it for him. The thing that came through and began winning people over was the fact that Steve believed in the system. He worked late many nights checking code sheets and entering them into the computer himself. When the first printouts came in, he called a meeting to explain what they meant, and how we finally had a record of what we were doing, and the impact it had on our clients. He showed us how the system made sense and worked tirelessly to make it more usable and relevant. I was so proud of him.
I also missed him. Those late nights cut into our time together. Except when I came to visit him after everyone else had gone home. I was getting to be an old hand at wandering the building at night.
The September sun was just turning into October rain when John Campi called.
"Hi Rachel. I think I have something very interesting for you. Do you want to, uh, get together."
"I’d love to. If you want to come by tomorrow evening, I’ll cook you dinner."
"Sure, that would be great."
Over baked salmon with a sauce of lemon and cilantro, salad, and a nice chardonnay, John explained what he had found.
"There are two separate issues that make me think your board would want to audit the records that were used to compile these budgets. First, look at this." He showed me some pages from before Richard came, and from the budget for his first year. "These older budgets are pretty straightforward. They use the same system throughout. You can add up the lines and columns the same way, no matter what the program or funding source. But this next year everything changes. They use a different system for each program and for each funding source."
"Is that important?" I asked.
"Well, what it does is make the whole thing needlessly confusing. This really isn’t a single budget; it’s about eight separate budgets cobbled together."
"Why would they do that?"
"I think it’s to make it difficult for anyone to audit it as a unit. Each of your funding sources audits its own part of the budget, and when you look at it that way, each section makes some sense. It’s only when you start comparing one section to another that you begin to realize that they don’t compare. It’s absolutely ridiculous."
"Could it be because each funding source requires different kinds of records? I know we have to use different reporting forms in the clinical programs."
"No, that isn’t it at all. The person who does these budgets might say that, but the differences in the separate budgets don’t follow any standard patterns. Nobody would require that books be kept like this, and, it seems that whoever did these really doesn’t understand accounting. I couldn’t believe some of the naive tricks this guy pulled." He shook his head in disgust. "What these remind me of are the kind of books that a mom and pop type business might keep if they were trying to conceal a little income from the IRS, and overstate a few expenses. Pitiful stuff, but so hard to audit that it might not be worth the time."
"Can you tell what it is they’re trying to conceal?"
"That’s the second issue. I think you were right about overstating executive expenses. Look at this." He opened his briefcase and took out several graphs, which he laid out on my kitchen table. Unlike the budget, these were very clear; they showed executive expenses by program, by year, and by percentage of total expenditures. Even I could see they were growing faster than the national debt.
John let me examine the graphs for a minute or two. Through the corner of my eye I could see a little smile of satisfaction on his face; he knew how good he was.
"It took some doing," John said, "but it’s all there -- you just have to know where to look and be willing to wade through a lot of garbage to get it out."
"Amazing!" I said, batting my eyelashes. "It looks like Richard and Donnie ran up about thirty thousand dollars worth of expenses last year."
"There’s no way of telling from the budgets exactly what items were charged to the executive expense cost centers, or who actually got the money. But --" He pulled out another graph, this one showing a breakdown by travel, lodging, food, and various other categories. "These guys must have incredible appetites. And look at this ‘miscellaneous’ category. It’s four times the size of all the rest put together. If that isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is."
My heart pounded with the thrill of the chase. "So, it really looks like Richard and Donnie are crooks?"
"Whoa," John said, holding up his hand. "That’s not a judgement I can make from these figures, but there’s plenty here that would make your Board sit up and take notice. And, off the record, I’d say yes, there is some skimming going on. Stupid skimming. It’s a lot of work and risk for not much money."
"I think thirty thousand dollars is quite a bit of money."
"Well, they couldn’t be skimming the whole amount. A lot of these costs have to be legitimate. There’s no way of telling, but I don’t think they could be misappropriating more than a third of that."
"That’s still ten thousand dollars."
John smiled and shook his head. "For that amount they might want to consider honest work."
"You don’t know these guys," I said.
"I don’t even want to know these guys." He put all the budgets and graphs back into neatly labeled folders and handed them to me. "Well, Rachel, you’re on your own. And I --" He hesitated.
"Yes?"
"I really admire you. You’ve got a lot of guts."
"Guts? Me? You’ve got to be kidding."
"No, really. Most people wouldn’t say anything, they’d just keep their heads down -- know what I’m talking about? What you’re doing takes courage." He lowered his head and rolled his eyes up at me. "It kind of turns me on."
"That kind of guts I’ve got," I said, as I put my arms around him and kissed his cheek. He smelled good and his body felt big and solid.
I took his hand and lead him to the bedroom.
* * * *
The next day I went over the figures with Ira and Glenda. I wanted to make sure I could explain the stuff before I brought it to Steve or the board. My co-conspirators were impressed with the graphs, and my ability to throw around accounting jargon.
I showed the graphs to Steve, and he stared at them for a long time with his chin resting on his hand. I could almost see the headache forming in the muscles of his brow and the back of his neck.
Finally he spoke. "This looks pretty unequivocal." He said.
"I think so." I said, as I tried to massage his neck. The tendons were tight as bridge cables.
"What do you want to do?" He asked.
"I want to go to the board and show them these graphs, but I told you I wouldn’t do anything without your okay."
"What if they ask you where you got this material?"
"I’d tell them that the budget is a public document," I said, sounding much more sure of myself than I felt. "I’m scared to death, but I feel like this is something I have to do."
"I guess you do, don’t you?" He was still staring at the graphs, lying where he had laid them out on his desk. I began to get nervous about them being out in plain sight, remembering Richard’s habit of barging in.
"Can we put these away now?" I asked, as I reached down to pick them up.
"Wait, I’m still looking at them." Then there was a knock at the door. I snatched the graphs and stuffed them back into the folder and steeled myself to face Richard.
The door didn’t open. Instead there was just another knock.
"Come in," Steve said, followed by a little cough at the back of his throat.
Claire opened the door. She looked a little nonplussed to see me standing behind Steve’s chair. She glanced at her watch. "Sorry to interrupt," she said. "But I thought we were supposed to meet now."
Steve looked at his desk clock and said, "That’s fine we were about done anyway, come on in."
I gave Steve’s shoulders one more deep squeeze with my thumbs and finger tips. "Neck rub?" I said, looking at Claire.
* * * *
I ran back to my office while I still had my courage up, and called Liz Macready, who was the only person on the board I actually knew. She volunteered in the day treatment program. Liz agreed to meet me at the Clark College cafeteria in two hours. It wasn’t the best place in town, but it was the only place I could be absolutely sure we wouldn’t run into Richard or Donnie.
Liz Macready was a plump woman in her early sixties who looked like everybody’s favorite Grandma. Her late husband had founded Mac-tronics the local high-tech giant. She had curly white hair, dimples, and grey eyes that sparkled more brightly than the half-carat diamond studs in her ears. She wore a Nautica jogging suit and Nikes.
Over chef’s salads, I showed her the graphs and pointed out a few examples of sloppy and deceptive bookkeeping that John had suggested I use to convince people. This was the third time I’d gone through it, so it seemed a little easier.
"Oh, my goodness," She said, patting her lips with her napkin. I could tell she didn’t quite know what to make of what I was showing her. "What do you think this means, Rachel? Surely you don’t believe that the center is doing something illegal?"
"Liz, I don’t know what it means; I’m a psychologist not an accountant, but some people on the staff are concerned enough about what we see here to think we should present it to the board."
"Maybe we should ask Richard to explain it to us."
"I’m not so sure that would be a good idea. The accountant who went over the budgets and prepared these graphs thought there was a good chance that Richard and Donnie are purposely concealing the misappropriation of funds. He thinks the board should order an audit."
"But we have audits all the time and nobody has ever found anything that was suspicious. The state auditors always complain about how complicated the budget is, but Donnie says that’s because they don’t understand how complicated the finances of a mental health center are."
"The accountant says that the budgets don’t need to be this complicated and confusing. He thinks Donnie and Richard are hiding something."
"Oh my goodness, I don’t quite know what to say." She took a sip of her iced tea, then patted her lips again. "Perhaps this accountant could come and explain things to the board."
"I’m afraid not. He only did this because he is a personal friend of some people on the staff. He just looked over the budgets to tell us whether or not he saw anything irregular. He said I should meet with some members of the board, and you all could decide what to do next. I called you because you’re the board member I know best. Liz, can you help me set up the meeting? And please, for now, don’t tell Richard and Donnie about it."
"Oh my goodness," she said, still patting her lips. Then, she set her jaw and took a breath. "Yes, of course I will. I’m not sure I understand all of this, but I know that you are highly respected by the staff and the board, and, if these issues concern you, they should concern us as well." She frowned and shook her head slightly "This whole thing is terribly disturbing to me, but I agree that we should get to the bottom of it."
"Thank you, Liz!" I said, admiring her decisiveness and feeling very grateful.
* * * *
Liz called the next day to ask if I could meet with the board that evening at Sam Kauffman’s dental office. As soon as I put down the phone, I felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins on the way to my gastrointestinal system. I figured I might as well walk down to restroom before I needed to run. I met Glenda in the hall and told her the meeting was tonight, and that I’d tell her more later.
In the women’s room, after my ritual ablutions, I calmed enough to think about what I intended to do. I sat quietly and made my mind a deep, still lake. I could hear Old Faithful softly through the pipes. I pretended it could flush my panic down the drain. I imagined the scene, and every time my fear began to overtake me I’d go through the relaxation exercise again. I longed for a good stiff drink, but I knew if I started that it would only end in disaster. Leona might decide to kick somebody in the balls.
The aggressive thought felt good. I imagined the hapless mugger, first with Donnie’s face and then with Richard’s. Whump! Crunch! Yes! Pay-back! I admitted to myself what this was all about and felt better. At least well enough to leave the restroom.
I was so tense I had to think my legs, one step at a time, back to my office. I felt like that shiny, gold droid in Star Wars. Rachel Reed, ball-busting mechanical girl, on her way to the biggest confrontation of her life. My only consolation, the only thing I had to hold onto -- besides the fantasy, I mean -- was the knowledge that I was really going through with this. I could not be stopped, and I would not stop myself. It was as close to courage as I have ever come.
I opened my office door and nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of applause. The Mind Police were all there, Glenda, Ira, Greg, and Paul. Standing and clapping, they made way for me to get to my desk. I was overwhelmed. I sat down in my chair more heavily than I had intended and almost fell over. They clapped even louder as I regained my balance.
"Where do we meet tonight?" Glenda asked.
"You? All of you? You don’t have to --"
"Yes we do," Ira said. "We have the evening all planned. We all go to the board meeting and then to Cisco’s for the very first in a series of farewell parties for Richard and Donnie. It is not to be missed."
"If Cisco’s will let us back in after the mess we made last time," Glenda added.
"There is that," Ira said. "But if we have to sit in the car and drink beer, we’re still going with our Fearless Leader. Right?" He turned to the others, and they all stood up and began clapping again, chanting, "Ra-chel! Ra-chel! Ra-chel!"
I stood up too and hugged each of them separately, then all of them together. Tears filled the laugh-lines around my eyes.
We were still entwined when Steve came in.
"What’s this?" He asked.
"Group Hug," Ira said. "Come join us."
"What the hell," he said, and joined the pile.
"Tonight’s the night Rachel goes to the board," Glenda said. "Wanna come? Big party afterward!"
I felt Steve tense up and begin to pull himself out of the hug. "Wait a minute," he said as he rushed over to close the door. Everybody else turned in his direction. I heard Steve’s sharp intake of breath before I could tell what he saw.
On the wall behind the door was a day-glo pink poster that said Farewell, Richard and Donnie. See you in about twenty years. Two stick figures, vaguely recognizable, stared forlornly through a barred window. The Donnie figure held a tube of K-Y jelly.
"Oh my God!" I said, and broke up laughing so hard I had to sit down again. At the same time I was scared to death of what Steve might be thinking. The laughter choked off in my throat as I waited for his reaction.
He smiled, but the corner of his mouth was twitching involuntarily. "You guys," he said, shaking his head. "No, I don’t think it would be wise for me to come along. But -- Good Luck." He gave me a quick little squeeze and left.
* * * *
I threw up twice more before the meeting, but that was nothing.
At seven o’clock we filed into Sam’s office. There were five board members already seated around a conference table: Sam himself, grey and tweedy, Cal Griffin, an attorney who looked just like what he was, Barb Glazer, another attorney with striking red hair. There were also two guys I didn’t know, one bald, in an anonymous business suit, the other with hair, thick glasses and a nerd-pack in his shirt pocket. And Liz, who rose immediately to shake my hand and usher me to the only vacant chair. The Mind Police had to stand by the back wall. The guys had all put on coats and ties for the occasion. Glenda and I were wearing business dresses with no dangley earrings or chunky jewelry.
Still holding my hand, Liz turned to the board. "You all Know Dr. Rachel Reed, director of the Crisis and Commitment Program." The board members nodded in my direction as Liz continued. "Yesterday Rachel shared some disturbing news with me and requested a confidential meeting with the board to discuss some very serious issues regarding the center budget. Before she speaks, I would like to thank her and her co-workers, whom I’m sure she will introduce, for their concern and willingness to bring this information to our attention." Several members of the board nodded agreement.
My stomach responded with a long wet growl, which I ignored as I introduced my team. Then I sat down, opened my briefcase, and took out the handouts we’d copied at Kinko’s before we came in. My heart was in my mouth, tasting like copper and acid.
Sam Kauffman spoke. "Dr. Reed, as you know, it is not the standard procedure of this board to meet with staff members without the knowledge of center administration. Liz has explained that the nature of the information you have to report to us is such that it can only be handled in this sort of setting. It is your reputation, and the high regard in which you are held by the administration that lead us to our decision to grant your request for this meeting. We are eager to hear what you have to say. Please proceed."
I cleared my throat, and, once more, became a deep, still lake. "When this began," I said, "we had no idea that we would be coming to you like this. It all started a few months ago when we first took on the demonstration project grant. There were many staff members who were concerned that even though some staff people had to be laid off, more new people were being hired. So many in fact, that we didn’t have desks for them and there was no money to buy even basic office equipment."
"Richard was able to get money from the state to cover those desks and prevent further layoffs," Sam said.
"Yes, he did," I said. "But there was already a great deal of turmoil by the time he got that second grant. We had a management team retreat, and Richard and Donnie encouraged us to look at the budget so we could understand how it worked. Well, we did -- some of us -- and, we were confused about some of the items -- specifically the amounts that were going out for executive expenses. We knew Richard, Donnie, and Steve had their cars paid for by the board. And --"
"That arrangement is perfectly legal and not uncommon in an organizations of this size," the businessman I didn’t know said.
"Yes, I’m aware of that," I said. "Richard told us at the retreat. Still --"
Glenda interrupted in a gentle, but resonant, voice. "It was legal, but we thought it didn’t look good for the center to be leasing expensive cars while people were being laid off."
Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Liz spoke up. "I don’t think it is fair to Dr. Reed and the staff members to question them about their assumptions. She is explaining why she looked more closely at the budget, which is a public document that she was encouraged to read and understand. I’m sure Dr. Reed would be willing to answer questions once she has presented her material." She looked at me. "Isn’t that correct?"
"Absolutely," I said, wondering if it would be appropriate to get up and kiss her. "Thank you."
"Ms. Rizzio is right," I continued. "The idea of the cars didn’t sit well with a lot of staff people, along with some other things we saw, or thought we saw, in the budget. We did ask Donnie a few questions, but he was not very forthcoming with answers." I took a breath, and took heart that Barb Glazer smiled a little at my remark about Donnie. "I consulted an accountant I know and asked him, as a personal favor, to look at the budget and explain the parts I didn’t understand. He was very concerned with what he saw, and suggested that I contact the board and point out the irregularities. I placed the accountant in a difficult professional situation; he didn’t know what he was getting into. He has asked that he not be directly involved. He did give me some information to present to you and suggested that you talk with your auditing firm as you decide how to proceed."
I handed out the graphs and examples, then went through John’s presentation just as he had laid it out for me. When I finished, the board members spent a long time looking at the materials before anyone spoke.
Sam Kauffman was the first to recover. "Dr. Reed, it looks as if you and your accountant friend have put considerable time and effort into compiling this information. And --"
Cal Griffin interrupted Sam. "Where did you get the back budgets that you analyzed to get this material?"
I felt a blush rising to my cheeks. I wasn’t sure what to say, but Glenda was on the case before I could open my mouth. "The budgets came from several different sources. As the board knows, the center budget is a public document, and we are members of the public."
Griffin smiled at her. "I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t have access to the documents. Frankly, I was just curious. There are some items referred to here that I haven’t even been able to get ahold of."
"It did take some doing," I said.
Sam glared at Cal. "As I was saying, we appreciate your effort, Dr. Reed. This material will obviously require some study and consultation. Thank you for bringing it to our attention." He looked around the table at the other board members, and said, "I trust you will be able to stay and discuss this information." He turned to us. "Thank you all," he said. We were dismissed.
* * * *
Cisco’s let us in, but the waitress did look at Ira kind of funny when she put down the salsa and chips. I don’t believe I have ever enjoyed Margaritas nearly so much as the ones we had that night. The were an exquisite combination of ice, nectar, and fire. I had too many of them, but I wasn’t the only one. Ira, who remained a good boy all evening and didn’t make any mess, was the designated driver. After midnight he took Greg and me home in his pink Blazer. On the way we passed Sam Kauffman’s office. The lights were still on and there were still cars in the parking lot.

Chapter Thirty Three: Mission Impossible

Good morning, Doctor Reed.
This man:
Richard Slater. Director of Evergreen Center for Mental Health, and possible Anti-Christ, is attempting to exploit and abuse everyone he can get his hands on. He is robbing the governments of the United States, Washington, and Clark County, as well as the freedom-loving peasants of Evergreen.
In his quest for world domination, Slater has made two fatal errors:
Hiring this man:
Donnie Lewis. A living argument for the proposition that aliens came to Earth and mated with slugs. And --
Lining his own pockets with money from the Evergreen budget.
The evidence needed to stop Slater is in the budgets for the last four years. They are kept, under lock and key, in Lewis’s office, guarded by eagles, as dangerous as they are tacky.
This man has the key:
Doctor Steve Kravitz. Dissident official in the Slater government, who, even though he harbors pro-democracy sentiments, may be too anxious to be of any help whatsoever.
Your team will consist of the following members of the Impossible Mission Force:
Ira Shapiro.
Mountain climber and flaming queen. And --
Glenda Rizzio.
The Godmother. Dangerously accessorized Social Worker with known Mafia connections. And --
John Campi.
Nice-guy accountant who is willing to help, but can’t be officially connected to this operation.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to get the budgets, so we can throw those narcissistic assholes out in the street where they belong.
This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds.
* * * *
"Ecretsay eetingmay." I leaned forward to whisper to Ira and Glenda, who were sitting in front of me in the next-to-last row at all-staff meeting. My ancient metal chair popped and clanged with the effort. It was so loud I had to repeat myself. "Ecretsay eetingmay eyemay officeay --"
"Eating what?" Ira said.
Glenda poked him in the ribs. "She said ‘ecretsay eetingmay,’ stupid. It’s Pig-Latin."
"So, is this a Catholic thing?"
"Ira! It means ‘secret meeting.’ Don’t be so dense."
"Oh, I get it." He said with an exaggerated nod. "So this meeting is a secret."
By that time Richard was glaring at us, and most of the room had turned around to see what was going on.
"I don’t know these people," I said. "They just wandered in off the street." "How dare you say you don’t know me!" Ira said in a voice straight out of La Cage aux Folles. "You’re the father of my child!" He put an arm around Glenda and hugged her close.
Everyone laughed. Except Richard. He tried to put on that open-mouthed inner-child smile, but he couldn’t get there from the red face and clenched fists.
"We’ll be good." I said, as we all sat up straighter and folded our hands in our laps.
Richard continued with whatever he’d been saying, and I wrote a note on my legal pad and handed it to Ira.
Dear idiots: You are cordially invited to a secret meeting at my office at five o’clock today. Be there or I’ll kill you. So much for subtlety.
* * * *
"You really are convinced Richard is a crook, aren’t you?" Glenda said.
"I’m not sure." I answered. I felt an uncomfortable stirring in my stomach. "I need to be honest about this with the two of you. And with myself.
"I don’t know why this is such a big deal to me, but it is," I said. "I’ve hated Richard since I first got here, and I’m not really sure why." I groped for words, as I moved into uncharted territory. "He makes my makes my skin crawl, like he’s -- I don’t know -- evil." I felt myself begin to shake as I said the word. Something strong and ugly was moving beneath my anger at Richard. I didn’t understand it, but here I was making plans for all of us to risk our jobs acting on it.
Ira reached over and put his hand on top of mine. I took a deep breath and continued. "At first I thought I was being irrational, and that it was, like adolescent rebellion stuff. But it’s so strong. I feel so certain about it, and I’m never really sure about anything." I shook my head. "It’s like some of the feelings I have about clients -- intuition, can I call it that? But with clients I want to help, or at least understand. With Richard I just want to -- I don’t know." Tears began filling up my eyes and running down my face. What did I want?
"I want him to stop." The thought jumped out of the darkness.
"Stop what?" Glenda asked.
I took another deep breath so I could speak, but nothing came out at first. I didn’t know. Something was writhing inside me. It was big, and it hurt, but it had no shape or form; I couldn’t get a hold on it anywhere. I knew it was hungry.
"I want him to stop hurting people," I said. "If I can prove he’s stealing, maybe someone will listen, and stop him." The words came out sounding reasonable, but I knew the feelings they described were not. I was surprised that Ira and Glenda weren’t laughing. Instead, they were looking at me, rapt. And nodding.
"What do you want us to do?" Glenda asked.
I explained what John Campi had told me about the budgets, and showed them the list of the items he wanted.
"There’s something pretty strange about breaking into our own building in the middle of the night to copy documents that are supposed to be part of the public record." Glenda said. She scrunched her brows over the tops of the red glasses that she’d put on to read the list.
"I like it." Ira said. We have to break into the fortress to get the information we need to topple the evil dictator. It sounds like Mission Impossible." He started humming the theme.
"You’re such a dork." Glenda said, rolling her eyes toward Ira. "I’d hate to mess up Ira’s fantasy life, but isn’t there any place else we could get the budgets without stealing them?
"I don’t think so," I said. "At first, I thought I could just call the County and get copies, but they didn’t have them. At least the woman I talked to in the Human Services department had no idea where they were. She said that the agency was required to keep back budgets, and if I would just call, the people at Evergreen would be happy to show them to me. Then she asked my name."
"You did not tell her, did you?" Ira said in a vaguely Eastern European accent.
"Hell no," I answered. "I told her I was Ira Shapiro."
"Good," he said. "You should never use your real name."
We all laughed a little louder than the comment warranted.
Glenda spoke up over the laughter. "Okay, so we’re planning to get the budgets out of Donnie’s office in the middle of the night -- Christ, this does sound like Mission Impossible. How are we supposed to get in? She stopped a minute, then smiled. "Does Ira have to make holes in the door with that silent drill --"
"You leave Mr. Happy out of this!"
"No, no." Glenda said, giggling. "I mean the drill -- you know -- that the really cute black guy used when he was drilling into locks. It never made any noise."
"I never noticed that." I said.
"Neither did I," said Ira.
"Okay," Glenda said. "I didn’t notice it either, but my Dad used to talk about it all the time. Mission Impossible was the most intimate subject he could handle. Anyway, how are we getting in?"
"Steve has a key." I said. "For when Richard and Donnie are out of town."
"And is he giving us this key?" She asked.
"He’s thinking about it." I said.
"When are you planning on doing it?"
"Next Thursday. Richard and Donnie will be in Spokane."
Ira and Glenda looked at each other then at me. "We’re in."
* * * *
"I just don’t know what to do." Steve said. He was pacing barefoot around the living room of my apartment in what used to be the soft afterglow of sex. "I mean, Richard is going to know where the information came from. I have the only other key, and --"
"Steve, if we don’t find anything Richard won’t even know about it. If we do, we’ll go to the Board and he’ll be so busy trying to cover his ass it won’t matter where the information came from in the first place. He’ll probably think it came from someone on the board. Anyway, if things are as bad as the accountant thinks they are, they’ll have to can him. Who cares what he thinks then?"
Steve wrinkled his brow as if he were thinking it over, then got up and began wandering around the room. "You never said who this mystery accountant was. Why is it such a secret?"
"He’s a friend of mine who does auditing. He’s helping out, but he says he can’t be involved officially if the center doesn’t call him in."
"A friend, huh? Where do you know him from?"
I could feel myself blushing. "Just a friend. He works for a big accounting firm in Portland."
Steve stopped his pacing and looked hard at me. I could almost see the gears turning in his mind. Twice he opened his mouth, as if he were going to speak, and then changed his mind. Finally, he said, "I can’t find my boots."
I got up and took him by the hand. "They’re over here, by the front door. You seemed to be in quite a hurry to get undressed when you came in." I ruffled his hair, then put my arms around him and drew him close. His body was stiff and unresponsive, but men get that way after two orgasms.
He gave me a perfunctory kiss, then bent down to retrieve his boots. He knew where his socks were; they marked a trail of passion leading to the bedroom. He picked them up, then sat down to put them on. After a long time, he spoke. "I’m not sure that getting rid of Richard would be such a good thing. I mean, even if he is overstating expenses -- and we don’t know that for sure -- still he’s done a lot for the center. Who’d take his place?"
"Somebody honest would be a nice change." I said. "What about you?"
"Sure. In your dreams. They’d never hire me."
"Why not? I think it would be great to have a real clinician running things. At least you wouldn’t spit on clients."
"No, I wouldn’t do that. But --" He stared off into space for a few seconds. I hadn’t really thought about who would replace Richard if he were fired, but Steve seemed to be considering the question even as we spoke. I wasn’t so sure I liked that turn of events. I wanted to be Cleopatra or Mata Hari, not Lady MacBeth.
I sat down on the arm of his chair and smoothed his hair with my fingers. "All we need to do is get the budgets and let the accountant look at them. If he finds something, you can decide what happens next. Nobody will do anything unless you say so."
He rubbed the inside of my thigh where my robe had fallen open, then looked up to meet my eyes.
"Okay."
* * * *
At ten o’clock Thursday night, we pulled into the Evergreen lot in my cabriolet. The last evening group had ended an hour before, and the building was dark. The janitor came on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I figured we’d have the place to ourselves. I also figured we could turn on some lights, because it was not unheard of that the person on crisis call might come in to check a file before making the decision to hospitalize somebody. Ira was disappointed that we didn’t have to wear black coveralls and stocking caps.
We got out of the car and approached the center, crouching under the cover of the rhododendron bushes that lined the walkway. Not that we needed to hide, it just seemed like the thing to do. At about the same time we all began humming the Mission Impossible theme.
"Dum dum. Dum dum dum dum. Dah da Dum. Dah da." We were doing it in three part harmony by the time I got the door open.
"Ira! You keep Mr. Happy in your pants," Glenda whispered." Rachel’s got a key."
"You guys never let me have any fun."
The building was stuffy on that August night. Despite all our protests, we could never get Donnie to leave the cooling and heating systems on their "day" settings until nine o’clock. Steve once opened the box and changed the settings. Two days later "night" started at six o’clock, as always, and there was a new lock on the box.
At the switches by the front desk, we turned on lights in the central area, the clerical pool, and the hall where our offices were. We carefully avoided lights anywhere near the executive wing.
The central area seemed dead-silent at first. Then the sounds emerged from the background. Florescent lights buzzing, computer cooling fans whooshing and rattling in their housings, screen-savers humming and clicking as their patterns changed -- insects in an electronic jungle. Every forty-six seconds, the toilet in the front men’s room would flush itself. No plumber on earth could fix it. We called it Old Faithful.
The sounds we lived with every day and hardly noticed seemed powerful and ominous -- like the building itself was stalking us in the night. My mouth dried up and my eyes kept jerking in the direction of any changes in the mechanical background noise. My reptile brain would hiss,, "What was that?" and my rational side kept having to answer, "It’s nothing." I didn’t know why I was scared, but I noticed Glenda kept wiping her hands on the side of her slacks. Ira looked the way he always did; there was no way of telling what that man was thinking.
"First we need to go to Donnie’s office." I said. My voice sounded high and choked. Glenda and Ira followed without a word.
At the end of the central area I opened the door to the executive wing with Steve’s key. We used flashlights to navigate to Donnie’s door. Steve’s passkey should have opened that too. But it didn’t.
I jiggled, pushed, and pulled, but I couldn’t get the key to turn in the lock. "It doesn’t work." I said, feeling a peculiar mixture of hysteria and relief. "Steve’s key must not be able to open Donnie’s office."
"Maybe you didn’t say the right magic word." Ira said. "Which one did you use?"
I smiled at him through the dark. "Shithead."
"That should work," He said. "Let me try." I shined my flashlight on the door. Ira attempted to turn the key without success, then he grabbed the handle and yanked, turning the key at the same time. I heard a click, and the door swung open.
A hundred glass eyes picked up our flashlight beams, bouncing them back in shades of yellow, blue, and angry red. We all gasped at the same moment.
"God, those things are spooky," Glenda said. "They remind me of that Hitchcock movie about birds. It scared the shit out of me when I was a kid."
I played my light around the room. Eyes glowed and bird shadows reared up like gargoyles. I could almost hear the rustle of feathers and the click of talons. My heart boomed in my ears and I could feel panic bubbling in my chest. Old faithful flushed again. It sounded like a tidal wave.
"What was that?" Glenda’s voice came out in a shriek, and I jumped what seemed to be about six feet in the air. Coming down, I lost my balance and my flashlight connected with an eagle on the shelf next to me. It gave and toppled over into the darkness. I braced myself for the crash.
It never came.
I turned my flashlight toward the spot in time to see Ira putting a hideous bird back in its place. "Let’s try to be a little neater, shall we, girls? And if you’re going to hyperventilate please do it a little more quietly. It sounds like an asthma ward in here."
Gradually our jagged breathing cracked into nervous giggles. I reached inside myself for something, anything, to hold onto in the dark. I found music playing in my head. Dum dum, dum dum dum dum. The Mission Impossible theme. I hummed, tentatively at first, then a little louder. Ira and Glenda joined me, and we began to get a grip. Our flashlight beams steadied enough to search the room.
The budgets in question were on a bookshelf opposite the safe. The last four were bound in simulated leather with the Evergreen logo -- a tree -- and the year stamped in gold on the spine. They were supported by the wall on one side and an enormous brass eagle with eyes made of glowing red LED crystals on the other. The pre-Richard budgets, just under the ceiling in an anonymous row stretching back into the dim past, were in three-ring binders with "Budget," and the year, written in magic marker on the rough blue cloth.
We got the ones we needed, and carried them down the long dark hallway to the clerical area where the big copy machine was. The room was brightly lit, but we were still humming against the dark.
"It’s so good to be back in the light!" Glenda gasped.
"A real machaya." Ira said.
I knew what they meant.
"That was an interesting medley, Fearless Leader," Ira said. "I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Mission Impossible and Blueberry Hill combined like that."
"I guess I just do weird things in the dark," I said.
We checked the budgets to John’s list. All we had to copy were 231 pages. Twice as long as my dissertation. The old budget was easy. We just took it out of the binder and copied it in a stack. The newer budgets were much harder. They were bound fast, so they had to be copied one page at a time. Also they were printed so close to the margins that each page had to be copied twice to get everything in. Ira and Glenda copied; I got to do the trimming and taping. We knew it would be a very long night.
By one o’clock we were almost done. A good thing too, the warm building and the repetitive work had us all yawning and nodding. The rustle of paper and the whirring of the copier combined with the moving bar of white light were like a hypnotic induction. We had to switch jobs or fall asleep. It was my turn to hold down the pages down and press the button.
At first I thought the tapping was something going wrong inside the copier. It wasn’t.
The noise was coming from down the hallway, by the front door. We all stood up and listened. Tap tap tap tap. Someone was knocking at the front door. Who the fuck?
"Police." Tap tap tap tap.
Oh shit.
I thought about running away. Mars would be about right. Then I grabbed myself by the scruff of the neck and dragged myself down the hall. On the way I picked up my purse from the chair where I’d left it.
The cop stopped knocking when he saw me. The flashlight he’d been using was about a yard long. At least he didn’t have his gun out.
I opened the door. "Yes officer?"
"May I see some identification, ma’am."
"Certainly." Slowly and deliberately I pulled out my driver’s license and the card identifying me as a County Designated Mental Health Professional. "I’m Dr. Reed, the head of the Crisis program. I’m working on an emergency case and I had to come down to get the file."
The cop studied my ID, then copied the numbers in a little notebook. "The lights have been on for a couple of hours. I thought I’d check out the situation."
"I know." I said. "I’ve been on the phone with the family off and on since seven o’clock." I shook my head and rubbed my ear. "It’s one of those cases."
"Is that your vehicle in the lot?"
"The Volkswagen? Yes it is."
He wrote something else in his notebook. "Do you anticipate being here much longer?"
"No, I’m almost finished."
"All right, Doctor. Have a good night."
"Thank you, Officer."
I closed the door and made a mad dash for the nearest restroom, where I barfed into a toilet that promptly flushed itself. Old Faithful.
We finished the job, and returned the budgets without further incident. In the car I had Glenda and Ira duck down in case we should pass the cop on patrol, but the roads were as empty as my stomach.

Chapter Thirty Two: Hope Springs Eternal

After the trip to Seattle, Steve started coming down to my office more often. At first I was overjoyed.
I looked up from a pile of paperwork and there he was, standing outside, not wanting to interrupt. I flashed him my very best welcoming grin and he came in and closed the door. I stood up to meet him with my heart going pitty-pat. He responded with a hug and a weak little smile that quickly returned to a wrinkled-brow look of concern. "Do you have a minute to talk?"
"Sure." I turned up the wattage on my smile to try and lighten up the situation. "And what would you like to talk about?" I crossed my fingers behind my back -- Please don’t let it be problems with the relationship.
"It’s the new MCMHQ quality measurement system." He said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "The state wants it in place, like yesterday. But, so far, no center has been able to get it up and running. It’s just too cumbersome. What do you think?"
"Marv seems to like it." Steve narrowed his eyes, showing me he was in no mood for levity.
"This is a serious issue. Richard wants us to push to be the first center to get it on line. You know how he has a fatal attraction for software."
"And beating out other centers."
Steve sighed and rolled his eyes a little. "Yes, that too. But it does make sense to be first, because it would kind of be a payback for the variance on the grant and the extra money. Also, some important people would owe us a big favor if we got it working." He sat down on the edge of my desk. "And the system is going in everywhere -- eventually." He got back up. He was better at discussing this sort of thing while running, but since warmer weather had come lots of us ran the loop at lunchtime, he felt there were things he couldn’t bring up. Running or not, Steve liked to think in motion.
I sat down at my desk to give him pacing room.
"I’m concerned about the clinicians." He said as he strolled back and forth across my office. "They’re just going to see it as more paperwork to please the bureaucrats in Olympia."
"It isn’t?"
"Well, Yeah. Sure it is. But how can we show them it’s a good idea?"
"Do you think it’s a good idea?"
"Yes. The idea is good, but the input forms need adjustment and there are still some bugs in the software. Richard thinks we could score major points with the Mental Health Division by using the system first, then asking for more money and clerical help to administer it and upgrade it."
"Just what we need."
"But, Rachel, there’s an opportunity here."
"Yeah, for Richard. The rest of us will be putzing around with a system that’s only half finished. It’ll be like The Grant That Devoured Evergreen all over again."
"It’s not that bad, it’s just . . ." He sat down again on the edge of the desk. "So, you don’t think we should do it?"
"Do you think the opportunity is worth having everybody pissed at you?"
"Why would they get pissed at me? He said, as he got up again and started walking. "I mean, I know they would, but what I just can’t understand is why they always get pissed at me when anything changes. I hate that; it’s so unfair." He began pacing with a vengeance then. The clomp of his boots was hard enough to rattle the stack of unwashed coffee mugs on the corner of my desk.
"Do you really expect them to be fair?" I said, leaning over to catch the mugs before they fell.
"Yes!" He said as he turned rapidly in my direction. "No. Shit, I don’t know what to expect."
"For one thing, you can expect that if people don’t accept it, Richard will make it sound like it was all your idea."
"Can we leave Richard out of this, for once?" His dark eyes bore into me, then immediately softened as he rushed over to my chair and put an arm around me. "I’m sorry, Rachel. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Anyway, you’re probably right. Jenna said the same thing."
"Well, I’m glad that Jenna and I agree." I said, willing my face into the best smile I could come up with, even though it was thinner than a Kleenex. I struggled toward superficial cheerfulness the way a drowning swimmer claws her way to the safety of the surface, but my heart felt like it was wearing a cement overcoat.
Babes don’t have to deal with situations like this.
I stood up, put both my arms around him and drew his head softly to my shoulder. While I did that, I pressed my body against his and rotated my hips ever so slightly. Top that one, Jenna! I breathed a little easier as I felt him respond to my ministrations. "You’ll think of something," I said. "You always do."
"You think so, huh."
"Of course."
"I don’t know. Maybe I should tell Richard that we ought not to do it."
I really missed the old days when he used to come in to cop a quick feel.
We met about once a week for sex at my place, and we were even able to spend another night together at a meeting in Yakima. Still, I felt things had changed, but I wasn’t sure exactly how. He seemed more dependent, but I couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or bad. It was more work, sure, but it brought him closer to me.
* * * *
I remember driving back from Yakima in Steve’s Volvo. The air conditioning was on but the car was still uncomfortably warm in the Eastern Washington heat. I was enjoying the trip, though, watching the brown, featureless hills go by, with my feet up on the dash so cool air could blow up my dress. Fleetwood Mac was on the tape player, and I was dancing as best I could in a seat belt as I sang along with Stevie Nicks. "What would you say if she promised you heaven? Would you let her in?"
I wondered if Steve might want to stop at a pond I knew near Goldendale and go skinny-dipping.
Out of the blue he asked, "What is it you have against Richard?"
I said a silent good-bye to the feel of cold water against hot skin, and shifted my mental gears. He’d asked a serious question, and it deserved a serious answer, even if I didn’t feel like being serious. I thought for a minute as I turned down the tape. The things we do for our men.
"He bends the rules for people." I said, putting my feet down and sitting up straighter. "At first it seems like he’s giving you something. Then you start wondering how you’re going to explain it, and then, when you think about it, you decide maybe you shouldn’t mention it at all. Then he has you. And it’s over nothing. A goddamn chair. A teeny weeny out of step raise. Or the big one -- a few extra dollars to go to a conference when the training budget is all gone. Or maybe the chance to get rid of somebody you hate."
Oops.
"What are you trying to say? You mean Karma? You don’t know the half of that story! I turned toward him and saw the furrows in his brow in profile as he stared at the road.
"Okay, I’m sorry." I said, rubbing his shoulder with a conciliatory hand.
"I don’t need you to be sorry." He said, still staring at the road.
"What is it that you do need?"
He glanced at me, then back at the road, all the while flexing his fingers on the steering wheel. Several times I saw his lips purse then flatten again. Finally he hit the wheel with the palm of his hand and said, "Maybe for you to have a little more -- I don’t know -- insight into your own behavior."
I was stung. Like all therapists, I consider myself the benchmark for objectivity. "Just what behavior are you talking about?" My stomach followed my question with several loud gurgles that sounded exactly like whispers behind my back.
"Oh, you know. Projection. You’re always talking about Richard in the same terms people use to talk about abusers."
"Have you ever thought those might be the right terms?"
"For Karma, maybe. But I expect more from you. You’re not one of those women who makes abuse into her whole identity." He paused. "Except when you’re dealing with Richard."
I held my voice level as I asked, "And what do you think is the politically correct terminology for talking about Richard, Dr. Kravitz?" Leona loomed dangerously near the surface. I shoved her back down to her cellar somewhere in my lower gut, where she started to kick, scream, and pound on the walls. I wondered how far we were from a restroom.
"Narcissistic is fair." He said, turning toward me with a little smile. "But you have to realize he’s a politician; he just doesn’t see the world the way a clinician would."
"You’re right about that. I can’t remember the last time I spit on a client."
Steve laid his hand on my shoulder. "Rachel, believe me, I know what you mean. What he did to that man was disgusting. I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. But --"
"But what? Do you think there is any justification for that kind of shit from a Mental Health Center director?"
"No. But there’s more to him than that."
"Yeah, what?" World class Axis II pathology?" I said, through lips clamped as tightly as my anal sphincter. I considered asking Steve to pull over, but my pride was still stronger than my pain.
"Axis II is not a competitive event," he said, with a little raise of his eyebrow and a tic or two of his cheek muscles that may have been the early stages of a smile. He glanced briefly to check my reaction, then stared at the road as if he were racing at Le Mans.
"There’s a lot more to Richard than you think," Steve said after a bit. "His political abilities are almost an art. I mean, in his own way he’s a master of behavior change. I know it sounds weird, but he’s the most effective person I have ever met at getting things to happen in the way he wants, and I almost admire him for it."
"You admire him for being manipulative?" I asked.
"Yes, he is a manipulator, but what are we but professional manipulators anyway? His manipulation has made us into the most respected center in the state."
"Mussolini made the trains run on time." I said.
Steve took a deep breath. He seemed about to say something, but instead he reached down and took my hand. "Rachel, I didn’t mean to start a fight with you over this. I’m sorry."
I squeezed his hand. "Dr. Kravitz, I think you’re a victim of the Velveteen Rabbit Complex. You just want to be real, and you think Richard can give that to you."
"Huh?"
Just then I saw a gas station. "Pull in here, please. I need to use the restroom."
When I got back to the car he was leaning against the headrest with his eyes closed. As soon as I got in, he put the car in gear.
"Steve, I don’t want to fight either," I said, laying my hand on his leg. "I’m willing to listen. What is it you want me to do about Richard?"
"Don’t accuse him unless you know all the facts."
"And how will I know the facts?" I asked. "Richard certainly doesn’t share them with me."
"I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I promise."
I smiled at him and kind of pinched his cheek. "But what about the stuff that you don’t know?"
He flashed me a tepid smile. "So what is this stuff you want to know?"
"How about the stuff you didn’t tell me about Karma, for starters."
"Okay," he said as he drew a breath and shifted his position on the seat. "She was a loose cannon, she almost got us sued for putting Claire on probation for no real reason -- just because she didn’t like her."
I considered making a comment, but thought better of it. I just let Steve continue.
"Also, she filed a complaint against me with the Licensing Board. It was ridiculous, really, but you know as well as I do that makes no difference in dealing with the Board."
I shivered involuntarily. A complaint against you with the Board was a trip to Kafka-land. "What did she accuse you of?"
"Unethical behavior in supervision. I took her to task for the counter-transference involved in billing alleged abusers for the treatment of their victims without any agreement, or court order, or anything. She said I was advancing my own political agenda over the needs of the clients. Bullshit. It was complete bullshit. She was trying to sue the center by attacking me before the Board."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Richard had a high powered Seattle lawyer go down there and tell them the whole thing was Center policy, and I was only following orders. They dismissed the complaint in three days."
"Amazing!" I said. I was impressed at the raw power Richard had brought to bear -- the Board usually won’t even return a phone call within three months.
"At that time I had already asked Karma to resign for insubordination because she wouldn’t stop the perpetrator billing, but she had refused. She just couldn’t get it through her head that she was making a legal decision without the benefit of a trial. We had already been threatened with one lawsuit. It was just a stroke of luck that Donnie found those irregularities in her expense account."
"Yeah, a stroke of luck." I said, unconvinced.
"It was."
"Mr. don’t-ask-don’t-tell himself suddenly got very concerned with misappropriation of expenses, didn’t he? I bet they keep secret files on everybody."
"There you go again, accusing without any facts." Steve’s voice became shrill.
"But you were the one who told me --"
"I said ‘creative accounting’ not crime."
"But Steve, how would you know? If Richard and Donnie were taking money out of the budget and keeping it for themselves there’s no way you’d know about it."
"Rachel --"
"I mean it. You wouldn’t know."
"Maybe I wouldn’t, but somebody would. The budget is a public document and it gets audited all the time."
"Sure it’s a public document. Did you ever try to see one?" I asked. "I mean the current one. Richard gave me an out of date one when I asked two years ago, and I haven’t seen one since."
"I have one."
"Good. Let’s get it audited."
"You know it’s not that simple."
"Nothing is simple around Evergreen, that’s the fucking problem. Why can’t we just get some independent person to look at it and see what they say? It’s like getting a second opinion. If we do that, and the auditor says there isn’t a problem, I’ll drop the whole subject."
"I don’t know. I’ll think about it."
We rode in silence for a few miles. We’d passed through Goldendale while we were talking and were now making the steep descent from the high desert to the Columbia Gorge. Just above the river there’s a life-size model of Stonehenge, built by a local eccentric as a memorial to local soldiers who died in World War I. Except for certain times in the spring when bikers use it for parties, the place is usually deserted. The view is great; I asked Steve if we could stop for a minute to look. To tell the truth, I had other intentions. I was hoping we could smooth the gouges in the surface of the relationship with some quick passion. Nothing like a blowjob to take the edge off things. Below us the riverside farms and orchards spread out like a scene in a child’s picture book. There was even a tiny train puffing along the tracks. It was so perfect it brought tears to my eyes as we, high above, carried out pagan rituals leaning against fake stones in the hot wind.
* * * * *
The new budget weighed a ton. Steve gave it to me that next Monday in a canvas tote bag with a towel on top of it. I felt like a smuggler carrying it out to my car. At home it rested on my kitchen table, solid, dark, and mysterious as the black monolith in 2001.
Now I had it, what was I going to do with it? I couldn’t just take it down to Audits-R-Us and say, "Look this over and call me if you find any embezzlement."
I thought of John Campi, whom I regarded as something like a sexual workout partner. I hadn’t seen him in months, not since things had gotten going with Steve. John was the only auditor I knew, and he was a really nice man, but could I call him out of the blue and ask him to look over the center budget? We weren’t exactly friends, if you know what I mean. We just kind of used each other to scratch when it itched.
If I called him, I knew what he’d expect -- if he were interested at all.
I’d feel like a whore.
It wouldn’t have to mean anything. Steve and I certainly weren’t involved in an exclusive relationship.
Still I didn’t like the idea of using sex that way -- even if it was to uncover secrets that might topple an evil regime.
Then again, it might be something like being a spy. When you think about it, Mata Hari was a whore.
But she ended up in front of a firing squad.
Shit. I picked up the phone and dialed John’s number. He was really glad to hear from me; I guess he was between women or something. He said he’d come over Thursday evening.
What had I done?
* * * * *
It was a hot night. John Campi sat in his boxer shorts at my kitchen table. He drank a beer while he flipped through the pages of the budget.
"This is incredible." He said. "I can’t believe your auditors put up with this kind of mess. The whole thing seems designed to confuse and mislead people. But it’s so crude. It’s like some first year accounting student was trying to create a document that would be hard to follow. I can’t believe this!"
He pointed out all kinds of accounting irregularities and lame attempts to make things hard to read. Overall, he seemed more aroused by going through the budget than he’d been when we were making love. I wondered if Mata Hari ever had the same problem.
"So," I said. "Is it possible that they’re padding the expense account?" I felt like a huntress, drawing her bow as she moves in for the kill.
"Anything’s possible, but there’s no way to tell."
My arrow flew off into the night without tasting blood. "What do you mean there’s no way to tell?"
"Well, it does look like they’re concealing something. And there are a huge number of expense accounts attached to every single program and section, but in order to catch inappropriate expenses, I’d have to see the ledgers where they entered the numbers originally."
"That’s not in here?"
"No," he laughed and took a swig of his beer. "The ledgers would be in a safe somewhere in your accountant’s office."
I knew the safe he meant. The Bakusa eagle hung on the wall just above it.
"So, the budget can’t tell you anything about their expenses?"
"They seem high, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t legitimate."
"Oh." My chest deflated like a leaky balloon.
"But." He smiled at me. "There is another way. It takes a bit of auditing skill, but if we had several years worth of budgets we might be able to see changes -- like cost centers that grow out of proportion from one year to the next. If we found something like that, you could request an audit of those expenses and find out if they’re appropriate."
"I could do that?"
"Well, not you. Probably your Board of Directors. Or a representative of one of your funding sources. Somebody like that."
"How many years of budgets would it take to get that information?" I asked.
"The ideal would be to go back to the previous administration."
"If I could get the budgets can we hire you to do the job?"
He held up his hands. "Whoa, That would create all kinds of ethical problems. The center would have to hire me. You couldn’t do it."
"So there’s nothing I can do?"
He took another pull on his beer. "Rachel, I think you’re right that there’s a problem here. Whoever wrote this budget is just the kind of guy we watch out for when we do an audit. He thinks he’s smarter than everybody else, but he really isn’t."
I laughed. "You sure you’ve never met Donnie?"
"Let’s say I know the type. There are only so many things this guy would know how to do, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for an auditor to find irregularities -- if your Board of Directors wants them found. It’s just a matter of looking at back budgets and seeing if some cost centers are growing too fast, and then looking at the ledgers to see why."
"But you said you couldn’t do that."
"I can’t, but I’d be willing to go over the previous budgets and see if there’s a problem. If there is, I might be able to tell you what to say about it, but it would be up to you to convince your Board of Directors to get somebody to audit the ledgers."
"Oh, John, you don’t know how great it would be if you could do that! It would help us so much!"
"No problem." He said, looking at me in a really appealing way, like someone who was pleased and surprised at the same time. His eyes kept wanting to pop open instead of crinkling shut, and his jaw hung a little loose beneath a flickering smile. I knew that expression at the level of my DNA. It was the look of a man who’d unexpectedly had his muscles swooned over. I was touched.
"One more thing," he said, raising a finger and lowering his brow. "This conversation never took place."
"Cross my heart," I said.
He smiled again and I gave him a really big hug.

Chapter Thirty One: Emerald City

A series of chance encounters on that trip to Seattle were to change my life utterly. At the time, Captain Clueless here had no idea at all how significant they’d be. They just seemed, well, funny.
Farblonjet. Like you wouldn’t believe.
On Friday, we drove up in separate cars to meet at the Holiday Inn in the University district. I got there first -- at about seven in the evening -- and checked in. My luggage consisted of a change of clothes, my cosmetics bag, and a suitcase full of lingerie. I also had four bottles of decent champagne in a cooler. As soon as I got to the room I opened one and put it in a bucket of ice, so I could have a glass or two while I slipped into something more comfortable.
My body tingled with excitement at having Steve all to myself for a whole weekend. When I opened the door for him, I felt sensual and light, as if I were dancing on air. And horny as hell. My ardor was laced with the sweet, heady understanding that he’d had to cross a line to get here. I wasn’t sure at that moment just how far I wanted the relationship to go, but I felt a visceral knowledge pulsing up from my loins that I wanted things to go a little farther than they were. I threw him down on the bed and fucked his brains out.
After about two hours of sparkling sex and bubbly wine, we got hungry. We decided to try this Thai restaurant we’d heard about that was somewhere near the stadium. Steve insisted on driving, even though we were in my home town. Macho? Maybe, but more like making himself designated driver. I’d had a bit of champagne.
Steve hates driving in an unfamiliar city. He has panic attacks which he keeps under control, just barely, by demanding directions through clenched teeth, then critiquing them for timeliness, clarity, and lack of ambiguity. I knew; I had driven with him at a couple of conferences because he was the only one whose rank entitled him to a rental car.
That night, I was the world’s most considerate navigator. Still his blood pressure was redlining by the time we saw the restaurant too late to make a left turn, and had to park three blocks away on the other side of the street instead of in the parking lot, because there was a space big enough that it did not require him to back and fill. I didn’t say anything, but what a nice night it was for a walk.
The restaurant was all they said it would be. We had shrimp that tasted like orange fire, with garlic and a hint of lemon. It was out of this world.
On the way back to the car after dinner we got held up.
I wish I could say the person who did it was a middle class white guy with a good education, but that’s not the way it went down. He was a scrawny Hispanic teenager with bad skin, bad teeth, and a disposition to match. He wore a bandanna covering his hair, and a cross big enough to crucify a small animal. I could see it shining in the mercury vapor lights because he had his shirt unbuttoned all the way to his belly-button. Like a juvenile delinquent in a 50’s movie, he carried an actual switchblade knife that was probably about seven inches longer than his penis.
"Gimme your money, Motherfucks." He said, as the blade snapped open. The words were menacing enough, but his voice cracked and his hand was shaking so hard he had to kind of bounce it up and down and wobble the knife to hide the tremor. Pathetic. A frightened person trying hard to be frightening, I actually considered detaining him. He had the stance right, though. Slightly crouched, loose and springy, with his legs wide apart. He stood there bouncing and staring at the knife in a way that made me think that he’d like to toss it from hand to hand with a devilish smile on his face, and that he’d never catch it in a million years if he tried. I could see the whiteness of his knuckles even in the dark.
"I said gimme your money, motherfucks!"
Steve and I stood there in shock for a few seconds and didn’t do anything. This made the mugger even more nervous. He took a step closer, pointing his knife first at one of us then the other. "You motherfucks deaf? I said give me your fuckin’ money!" He seemed to be paying more attention to Steve than to me.
What can I tell you. His crotch was right there. While he was trying to stare Steve down, I connected with his balls like I was converting the point in the final seconds of the Superbowl. It was the kind of moment women's self-defense instructors can only dream about. I heard a crunch, and the poor schlemiel rose several inches above the pavement and landed hard, with no attempt to break his fall. I think he curled into a fetal position while he was still in the air. He screamed loud enough to wake Susan B. Anthony.
I didn’t stay around to admire my handiwork. I grabbed Steve’s hand and shouted, "Run!"
The car wasn’t far, and no one pursued us. Steve got the doors open and in a few seconds we were out of there.
Adrenaline, champagne, and the wine we drank at dinner churned in my bloodstream. I don’t think I’d ever been so high. I probably said "Fuckin’ A!" about two hundred times. I’ve never used that phrase before or since; I’m not even sure what it means. At that moment, however, it captured the essence of what I was feeling. It was like really being Leona.
Steve didn’t say much; he just drove. Even in my excitement I couldn’t miss the smell of urine in the close confines of the car. It is to my credit that I never mentioned it, or even asked why he ran the heater on such a warm night.
* * * *
The other event that changed my life happened that next Sunday morning.
Steve and I had gotten up early, made love, gone for a run, showered, and checked out, all by nine o’ clock. The meeting didn’t start until eleven -- the Center Directors weren’t into early rising. We decided we’d go downtown and graze at the Pike Street market.
It was a glorious morning. The Olympics sparkled across the sound and Mount Rainier loomed over everything like an enormous dish of vanilla ice cream. We drove downtown separately. I’d had my tape player fixed and was singing along with a new Edith Piaf tape -- knowing, but not caring, that in two hours I’d be driving back to Vancouver alone.
Downtown Seattle drops off steeply to Elliott Bay. The Pike Street Market is at the bottom of the hill, almost at the waterfront. We had to park about six blocks away, near the hotels, offices, and department stores where there was no traffic and a wide selection of empty parking spaces, since almost everything was closed at that hour. I pulled in behind Steve and we walked arm in arm down toward the market.
On the way we noticed religious slogans scrawled in blue marker on the sides of buildings, sidewalks, mailboxes, and most other places a person might be able to reach.
"Repent now for the time of Jehovah is coming in the names of love and hate to all people black and white. The lamb of God shall lead with the Lion of Judah".
Steve read several inscriptions out loud. "Sounds like one of yours."
"I think it is one of mine. There’s this itinerant manic named Myron, who comes into town singing, preaching, and walking naked through shopping malls. This blue religious stuff is his trademark. When he’s on Lithium he’s a real sweetheart, but when he’s not he’s a handful. I’ll bet he’s preaching down by the market."
"Forrr-niii-caaa-tion!" An unmistakable baritone rang out and bounced among the buildings. "The Lord he don’t like fornication, masturbation, or miscegenation! God give you a dick, but he don’t want you to use it. Do you, God?"
"That’s him." I said. We hurried to the next corner and there he was -- in front of the main entrance of the Cascade Plaza Hotel, preaching to a middle aged couple who had just come out of the hotel and were trying to get away.
"This pretty lady here too young to be your wife. So what you doin’ comin’ out dis fancy hotel holdin’ her hand? Fornication! It must be fornication!"
The couple tried to ignore him as they hurried away. The wife who’d been mistaken for a mistress was having a hard time keeping a straight face.
Myron was wearing tattered shorts and a cape. On his head was what looked like a two foot piece of plastic pipe covered with blue writing and various other decorations. He carried an eight-foot cross made of thinner pieces of pipe tied together. His legs, arms, and hands were wrapped in aluminum foil. His voice was still strong, but his body looked thin and sick. I thought I’d go say hello, then call the local Mental Health Professional.
Another couple came out the door and he turned to meet them.
"Fornication! God know you been doin’ de fornication boogie. Ain’t you? Fornicatin’ all night up there in that fancy hotel?"
The couple was Richard and Claire.
Richard looked really pissed. "You. Get out of here!" He said as he approached Myron. "Leave us alone."
"Watch out, God. Dis rich guy gettin’ mad. He look like he wanna kill somebody."
He did. Richard marched out into the street, pointing his finger at Myron. "Did you here what I said? Now fuck off!" He pointed down the street. "Get out of here. Now!"
Richard took another step, approaching Myron with his fist balled to strike. Richard’s head loomed above Myron’s plastic crown.
"Mr. Rich man, I know you tough. But you look funny, ‘cause yo’ pants unzipped and I see a tiny little white head peepin’ out at me." Myron pointed a foil-wrapped finger.
Richard looked down.
"God, I just made dat rich man look." Myron started doing a little dance. "I bad, God I know I bad!"
Richard leaned forward like he was going to shove Myron, but he pulled back his hand and kind of brushed it on his pants.
Then Richard hocked up a loogie and spat it right in Myron’s face. I couldn’t believe it. I was ready to rush forward and make something of it, but Steve held me back.
Richard turned away from Myron, grabbed Claire’s arm, and dashed off down the street.
"Don’t worry, Mr. Rich Man." Myron shouted. "God understand. He gonna forgive you."
I ran up to Myron and offered him some Kleenex from my purse. His eyes grew wide, and a huge grin cracked his face. "Doctor Rachel Reed, Esquire-ette! You came all the way up from Van-Couver to give me Kleenex, for to wipe dat rich man’s spit outta my face. You must be my Guardian Angel." He fell to his knees. "Let’s all pray together!"
I called the Mental Health Professional on duty and waited for the cops to pick Myron up.
"Good bye, Doctor Reed," He shouted from the squad car. "Soon as I get out of the hospital here, I’m gonna come down, visit you. You take care, now."
I waved as they drove away.
Steve smiled at me and shook his head. "Saint Rachel, Our Lady of the Manics. We’ll build the shrine right here." He came over and hugged me. "You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met."
"Pavlova of the Psyche," I said. We kissed quickly, and he had to go. The meeting was about to begin.
Another cherry blossom fell, and with it, the course of my life up until that moment.
* * * *
We did something else that weekend, and, now that I think about it, I suppose it was just as significant than the other two events I’ve just described. We visited the house I grew up in on Mercer Island.
I hadn’t been back there in years and had just sort of put it out of my mind, but Steve wanted to see it.
"You don’t talk about your past." He said. "I know you grew up in this area, but I’m not sure where."
"Mercer Island."
"What about taking me on a tour of your old neighborhood?"
"There isn’t much to see. The house is there, but the whole area is different. All built up. We used to live in the middle of the woods."
"I have a good imagination."
So we went. I drove this time, across the floating Lake Washington bridge and onto the island. I followed Mercer Way awhile, then pulled off on the private road that lead to the little clump of houses on the waterfront where I grew up. We stopped a little way up the hill. "There it is," I said, feeling absolutely nothing.
"That big one right on the water? It looks like a ship."
"It looks like a ship inside too. It has portholes and all these long halls with tiny rooms. There are these huge windows on the lake side, but the rest of the house is really dark. We never even used all of it. My sister and I used to play hide and seek in the empty rooms."
"You just have that one sister."
"Yeah, Carol. She’s married now and lives over in Bellevue."
"She must be Jessica’s mom." He’d seen her pictures and various samples of her artwork that decorate my home and office.
"Yeah. Carol and Jessica are my favorite people in the world. Jason too, Carol’s husband."
"What about your parents?"
"They’re dead."
"You never mention them at all."
"There isn’t much to say. My dad was an investment banker who worked all the time and drank a lot. He got killed in a car wreck when I was twelve. After he died, my mom got really depressed and stayed in her room. She died of cancer when I was in college. We sold the house, and Carol came to live with me. We pretty much raised ourselves."
"That’s it?"
I groped around for a story. The clearest memory I had was of the day my father died, but I didn’t want to get into that. I looked out toward the dock. The starting platform was still there. "My father used to make me train for swimming in the lake. He really pushed me hard; he wanted me to go to the Olympics. He also sexually abused me."
"Oh. I didn’t know." Steve said in that I-know-I’m-treading-on-holy-ground tone of voice that male therapists use when they talk about someone’s history of abuse. "Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to bring me here."
"It’s okay. It’s just -- " Again I groped for words.
"You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to."
"I know. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just that -- I don’t know -- the whole thing about being a child seems so foggy and unconnected. It’s like remembering a dream. Sometimes I wonder if I ever really was a little girl."
Steve didn’t say anything.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Chapter Thirty: Grooming

Celia Blake sat conspicuously huddled in the waiting room when I arrived the next morning. She was two days early for her appointment. She never asks if she can have some extra time; she just shows up and sits in the waiting room until somebody notices.
“Good morning, Celia; are you looking for me?”
“You’re probably too busy to see me.” She pulled herself deeper into the huge coat she had wrapped around her like a refugee’s blanket. Her face looked pale and completely devoid of makeup, which was unusual. On the positive side there were no visible contusions or lacerations
“Do you need to see me?”
“There’s nothing you can do.” She pulled even deeper into the coat, like a turtle into her shell.
“I guess that’s up to you to decide. Look, I’m going down the hall for a cup of coffee. When I come back, you can tell me whether you need to see me or not. You look like you could use a cup of coffee yourself. Do you want one?” I waited for her answer for a few seconds, then turned to go.
“If you want me to have one. With cream and sugar.”
“We don’t have any cream, just that white powder.”
“Never mind then.”
Glenda was in the coffee room waiting for the pot to finish brewing.
“Hey, Fearless Leader. Borderline alert in the waiting room.”
“I know. She’s down there deciding whether she needs to see me.”
“If you want my opinion, she needs to see you.”
“Duh. We’re at the stage in therapy when she has to ask directly. I’m trying to teach her to communicate with words rather than razor blades.”
“Good luck.”
The coffeepot started to make those spitting, gurgling noises that meant all the water was gone. We picked up our mugs and advanced on it, drooling. Maybe ten more seconds.
I heard running in the hall. And someone calling my name.
Deena burst into the room. “Rachel, your client has a razor blade and she says she’s going to cut herself.”
“Oh shit.” I said and followed Deena down the hall.
“Tell her to use words instead. They cut deeper.” Glenda said as she bounced along beside me.
I stopped. “What about the coffee?”
Glenda looked puzzled.
“Come on. Bring me some. I’m jonesing really bad.”
“Okay. What about a doughnut, or maybe a bagel with cream cheese?” I smiled at her and ran down the hall.
“Should I call 911?” Deena asked as we approached the waiting area.
“Not yet. Give me a minute.” I said, as I looked over the situation.
Celia leaned against the far corner of the waiting room. Her coat lay at her feet and her bare arms pointed outward in a bizarre parody of a gunman getting the drop on the empty room. Her right hand held a razor blade at her left wrist. A few drops of blood had already trickled down her hand and dripped on the floor. Nothing serious. Yet.
The blade was poised for an up and down cut rather than a slash. Not good.
She looked like a wild animal who, through some miscalculation, had cornered herself. Her eyes, terrified, confused, and filled with tears, jerked and jumped as she scanned the room against anyone who might try and protect her.
She saw me.
“I swear I’m going to do it this time. You can’t stop me.”
“Huh?” I said as I began walking toward her, acting like I was completely out of it. I didn’t have to pretend.
“Don’t come any closer!” She shrieked. “I’m really gonna do it.”
I continued my advance. The rest of the room dimmed, leaving her arm, her hand, and the blade bright, almost glowing, in the central circle of my perception. Celia’s stance was dramatic, but she was way off balance. Her arms were extended too far. I could see the movements they would have to make to get into position for a deeper cut. She’d have to raise her left wrist to accept the blade because her right hand was rotated awkwardly outward, toward the room. The whole arrangement was more suitable for showing the point of the blade going into her skin than for making a quick and efficient cut.
“Stop now!” She screamed. I was about six feet away and still advancing.
“Celia, you little devil, you.” Slowly I raised my right hand to my brow and shook my head. She followed it with her eyes. I took one more step forward ending with all my weight on my right foot, so I was leaning back slightly. Covered by my hand movement, I slid my left foot forward and into position just below the clenched fingers of her left hand.
“Oh, Celia, what a terrible time you picked to do a thing like this. I haven’t had my coffee yet and I can’t even think. How am I ever going to figure out what I should do? I’m just really stupid till I’ve had my coffee. Look, Glenda’s bringing me a cup, and she’ll be here in a minute. Can I just sit down to wait? Like over here in this chair next to you?
I pointed with my left hand, my arm moving in a slow sweep across her body line to indicate the chair immediately to her right. I looked up only long enough to see her eyes following my hand, then shifted my weight, rotating at the waist and bending my knee at the same time. I jammed my right elbow into the space between her arms, pushing them apart, as my weight knocked her further off balance. I swung my left hand up to catch her right wrist. At the same instant, I moved my right hand down from my brow to snatch away the blade.
Celia sat down in a forlorn heap as I turned to Glenda and held up the razor blade. “Now can I have my coffee?” I asked, with what I thought was just the right sang froid.
“Karate Mama.” She said as she handed me the mug. It was still hot.
“Sure you don’t want a cup, Celia?”
She looked up from her sobs long enough to shake her head.
“Glenda, would you be willing to do the detention papers and call in a transport order while I talk to Celia for a couple of minutes.”
“Anything you say, Fearless Leader.”
I lead Celia back to my office, where she flopped down, still crying, on my ratty blue couch. I scooped up all the pillows in the room and handed them to her. She hugged them close and looked out over the top of the pile.
“You’re mad at me.” She said.
“Is that what you want?”
“No, I just want to die.”
“How come?”
“You wouldn’t understand. You never do.”
“So, how do I show you some understanding? Just stand back and let you die?”
She didn’t answer. She just lifted the compress our nurse had given her and looked under it. “The bleeding has stopped.”
“Someplace inside you, it’s still bleeding. You feel your life is draining away as I talk to you.”
She shot me a look. “You always think you know what I’m thinking.”
“Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“Does this have to do with Brandon?” For a couple of months she had been living with a guy she’d met at AA. Dating is a concept she doesn’t understand.
The name precipitated a fresh flow of tears. “You think you know everything, don’t you? You’re always telling me to treat myself like I’m a human being, and act like I’m worth something. Why do you make me do that when all I am is a filthy whore! That’s all I am, and all I ever will be.” She began pounding her leg.
“So, are things going badly with Brandon?”
“No. He’s the first person who’s ever been nice to me. You’d like him, I know. He thinks you’re great. He’s always telling me to do what Dr. Reed says. And work my program. And take my medication.”
“You’ve been slipping on that last one, haven’t you?” For the past few months, since she had stopped drinking, Celia had been fairly stable on an anti-depressant, with a low dose anti-psychotic to control the outbursts of suicidal thinking. “What’s the matter, were you feeling too good?”
“I’m a cheap worthless whore. That’s all I am, and all I’ll ever be.”
“Who says that? ”
“Everyone.”
“Brandon?”
“No. He says he loves me. He says I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“Were you unfaithful to Brandon?” My heart sank for her. I had dared hope that sobriety, medication, and a relationship in which she wasn’t getting beaten up all the time would help her to level out and stop repeating some of her self-destructive patterns. Some people have the hardest time with success.
Celia cried and pounded her leg.
“Tell me what happened?” I said.
“There’s nothing to tell. I’m just a cheap whore.”
“There’s always something to tell. Rule number one of therapy. Where did you meet this other guy?”
“At a meeting. I’m still going to the ones at the Blue Door. Brandon has been on graveyard, so he’s been going to that ten-o’clock meeting over by the mill.”
“So Brandon wasn’t there when you met this guy.”
“No. It was a night that I actually talked. Brandon always told me I shouldn’t pass, that I should tell my story. He’s always saying I have nothing to be ashamed of, that it was the alcohol.” She glared at me. “A lot of the time he sounds like you.”
“So, you told your story. And . . ?”
“I told everything. About the drinking, the cocaine and all the men. And the suicide attempts. A lot of people came up to me afterwards and gave me hugs. He was one of them. His name is Jeff. He told me that we were a lot alike, that when he was practicing, he used to pick up all kinds of women, and he would hate himself for it. He said now he was in a relationship, and he wanted to stay true, and maybe we could help each other. We all went to coffee at Denny’s, like always. We talked for a long time, and I think I really helped him. I told him a lot of the things that you tell me, and I told him he ought to see somebody over at Evergreen, but he said he was afraid to talk to strangers.”
“He told you he could get all the help he needed just by talking to you?”
“Yes.” She burst into another episode of crying and leg pounding. I waited.
“So you tried to help him?”
“I was helping him at first. He was feeling a lot better -- he wasn’t having suicidal thoughts anymore. He said I’d really helped him a lot.”
“Just exactly when and how were you helping him?”
“Well, at first I’d just talk to him after meetings. Then he asked if he could call me if he was feeling suicidal or something.”
“And he always called at night when Brandon was at work?”
“He said nights were the worst times for him.”
“And he told you not to tell anybody about it. Right?”
“He said his girlfriend was a little jealous, and he was afraid Brandon wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, Celia --”
“See, I’m just a cheap whore and --”
“Wait a minute. Could you just stop a minute and listen to me.”
She turned her pale and tear-streaked face toward me and nodded. Her fist hovered above her leg.
“Let me tell you the story, and you tell me if I get it right. Okay?”
She nodded again.
“You met this Jeff at AA. He comes up to you saying your story really helped him to understand himself. He wants to keep talking. You get together after a few meetings and he tells you how much you’re helping him, and then he asks for your phone number so he can call you when he’s feeling suicidal -- which happens only while Brandon is at work -- but he won’t go to see a therapist, and he tells you not to tell anybody about it.
She nodded again
“And the whole time he was telling you what a great help you were to him, and how, if it weren’t for you, he’d probably be back to drinking. Or dead.”
“That is what he said.”
“How did you feel when he said that?”
“I felt good. Like I could really help another person.”
“He probably told you that you had a natural talent --”
“He said I was a better therapist than you. I knew he was just saying that, I’m not really a therapist but --”
“It felt good to be that important to somebody.”
“I wanted to be like you.”
“Did you ever think he was laying it on a little thick?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Like he was telling you what you wanted to hear to get into your pants.”
“No. I was the one who asked him.”
“Let me guess. One night, when Brandon was at work he showed up saying he knew he wasn’t supposed to come over, but he was feeling really bad --”
“He said he just wanted to say good-bye.” She began sobbing. I knew she had identified with his feelings, because she had called me to say good-bye at least ten times.
“And you wanted to show him that somebody really cared about him?”
She nodded again, sobbing harder. “See, I’m just a cheap whore.”
“Celia, did it ever occur to you that he was setting you up? There’s even a name for what he did to you. It’s called grooming. If he had just walked up to you and asked you to go to bed with him, you would have told him to get lost. You would have known it was wrong for you. So instead, he led you up to it by asking you to do little things -- talk to him, give him your phone number, don’t tell anybody -- each one made you compromise your rules a little more, and each one moved you a little closer to going to bed with him. And the whole time he was telling you how great you were, like his own personal Rachel Reed.”
“You make it sound like he planned the whole thing.”
“I think he did.”
“But he was really suicidal.”
I sat back and took a deep breath, wondering what to do next. In Celia’s world the concept that someone could use suicidal feelings to manipulate did not compute. It could not compute. If such a thing were possible, it might mean that all her pain was nothing more than a cheap trick to get attention, which is what frustrated authority figures had been telling her all her life.
“Celia, some people don’t tell the truth. Even to their therapist.”
“Oh.”
My phone rang then. Glenda was done drawing up the papers and the cops were here to take Celia to the hospital. Though I believed the crisis had passed, we couldn’t just let her go after her display in the waiting room. Whoever evaluated her tomorrow would probably send her home.
“Time to go to the hospital.”
“Do I have to?”
“What do you think?”
“Okay.” She put down the pillows and stood up.
We walked together out to the lobby.
Steve was waiting by my office door when I got back. “Heard you had a little excitement in the waiting room. People are already calling you the fastest psychologist in the west.”
I smiled and blew smoke off the tip of my finger. “Want to see it again?”
He laughed. Then we just stood there smiling at each other. I pointed to the door. “Come on in.”
“I can’t, I’ve got a client. I just wanted to know if you’d be home around seven-thirty tonight. I can come by if you are.”
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
He leaned closer and whispered, “Shopping at Frederick’s again? I can’t wait.
* * * * *
I had some jingle bells left over from Christmas. I tucked them behind my garter belt straps, and bounced a little when I opened the door to let Steve in.
“You weren’t kidding were you?” He said, as he pushed the door closed and took me into his arms.
“There are some things I never kid about.” I said as I went for his zipper.
Later we sat on the couch and shared a bottle of Beaujolais that I just happened to have lying around. Steve had put his clothes back on, and I was wearing my red silk robe. I snuggled in next to him, enjoying those few relaxed minutes as much as the sex. Well, almost as much.
“Are you still interested in going to Seattle in two weeks?” Steve asked.
“And spend two whole night together? Are you kidding? I’ll be there with bells on.”
Steve glanced over at the bells on the floor by the door where they had fallen. “Maybe you could leave those behind. The rest of the outfit would be nice, though.”
“So what are we doing?”
“Anything we want to, really. There’s the big meeting, where the mental health center directors plan their legislative agenda. Richard wants me to do a dog and pony show about our clinical programs for about an hour on Saturday morning, and there’s a clinical directors’ caucus on Sunday at eleven. I have the rest of the time free.”
“Jenna doesn’t want to come?”
“She has a continuing education program in Eugene.”
“I can’t wait.” I said. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but how do you get out of going to the whole meeting?”
“I’m not invited. As a lowly clinical director, I get to speak only when spoken to.”
“How like Richard to say a thing like that. He’s such an asshole.”
“Rachel! He didn’t say it; I did. He’s not as bad as you think.”
“God, you sound like all the program directors. What about all the stuff you said at the retreat.”
“Nobody picked up on it, so I guess it really wasn’t such a big deal. Just like Richard said.”
“What do you mean, ‘Just like Richard said’?”
“Nothing. It’s just that before the retreat I was talking to him about some of the things people might be concerned about. He said he didn’t think they were big issues, but he encouraged me to bring them up so we could discuss them if people wanted to. He said he thought you might be the only one, though.”
“You mean he told you to say what you said?”
“He didn’t tell me what to say, he just encouraged me to bring up any issues I thought might be causing problems for people.”
“And you didn’t really mean them?”
“Well, I did mean them, but not in exactly the same way you did. I mostly wanted to clear the air so we could move on.”
“And he thought I was the only one who had any problems with what he was doing?
“He meant among the program directors. He knows a lot of the staff feel the way you do. Look, Rachel I know you think he hates you, but he doesn’t. He respects you. He thinks you have real leadership potential.”
“Like Karma?”
Steve laughed. “No, not like Karma. All Karma wanted to do was advance her own political causes; she didn’t care what harm she did to the center. You do care. You’re trying to make the center a better place and --.”
“Everybody thinks I’m wrong. Don’t they?”
“No, Of course not.” My robe had come open and my left boob was hanging out. I noticed, and tried to cover myself, but Steve leaned over and gently caressed my breast with his hand. Then he kissed me.
I should have shut up.
“Steve, have you ever thought Richard is grooming you?”
“For what?”
“No, I mean like in abuse.”
“Abuse? Oh come on, Rachel, This is the real world here. Not every powerful male figure you don’t like is an abuser, and everybody else is a poor helpless victim. That’s how Karma would see things. The world isn’t full of villains and victims. That’s just a bunch of political bullshit and you know it. Besides, how can he be grooming me? I know what’s going on. I’m using him as much as he’s using me.”
“Steve, that’s just the point.” My stomach was telling me I was going too far.
“What’s the point?”
I wanted to say that’s what grooming is all about-- confusing the issue of who is doing what to whom, making the situation so ambiguous that normal logic no longer applies. Like. . . Shit. Like what Steve and I were doing with each other. My own line of reasoning turned back on itself and began to strangle me. I was so confused. Maybe the world isn’t full of villains and victims, just a bunch of stuffed rabbits scrambling to get the wretched scraps of love they think will make them real.
“Nothing, Steve. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Peace of Landru

Dissent had quieted considerably at the center; it was getting hard to find a decent gripe session. Not that I was looking. I had other things on my mind. Still, amid the storms of lust and longing, that were my life at the time I could not shake the feeling Richard had beaten us all. The retreat, and his machinations with Olympia seemed -- to me, anyway -- darker and more sinister than anybody else wanted to believe.
Or even think about. We had new and interesting programs. We had secure positions. We had desks. We had peace.
We also had shiny phallic cars in the parking lot, well stocked wine cellars and offices that were wannabes for Architectural Digest -- or The American Journal of Eagle Fetishists, depending on where you looked. It seemed patently obvious, to me, that King Richard and Donnie the Dork were living above their means, and that it must be at center expense.
Nobody cared. Even Ira and Glenda, my two favorite unindicted co-conspirators, were getting tired of my theories.
“Given that you’re right -- and you may be,” Glenda said, as she poured herself another sip from the pitcher of Margaritas the three of us were sharing, after work, at Cisco’s on the River. “How are you going to prove anything.”

“I was kind of hoping our fearless leader would set up a sting operation.” Ira said. His soft green eyes sparkled with malicious intent. “All three of us could dress as femmes-fatales and --”
“In your dreams.” I said.
“Yeah, Ira. What were you going to do with your moustache?”
“Nothing, sweetheart. I was going to be the Italian.”
“Get out of here!” Glenda threw a tortilla chip at him and he snatched it out of the air. His hand moved so fast I never even saw it.
“Thank you.” He dipped the chip in salsa and ate it.
Glenda’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”
“You didn’t know I was an adept at Tibetan junk-food fighting?”
“No, seriously. I’m impressed. Can you do it again?” As she spoke, Glenda threw another chip. Ira snatched it and ate it before her hand was back on the table.
“Yes.”
“That is un-fucking-believable.” Glenda said.
“It isn’t as hard as it looks. I can teach you how to do it.” Ira said.
“Sure you can. I can’t even catch a softball.”
“It’s easier than catching a softball, a taco chip is moving a lot slower. Catch this.” He flipped a chip lightly in her direction, and it bounced off her ample bosom before she could get a hand up to catch it.
“See what I mean; I’m a klutz.” She shrugged and finished her Margarita.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ira said. “Now, hold your hands up before I throw this one. Be ready.” He tossed another chip, and Glenda caught it easily. “See.”
“See what? I was ready, you told me you were going to throw it. I knew what you were going to do.”
“That’s the secret, Grasshopper. Anyone can catch a taco chip if they know it’s coming. When you threw it at me, I knew what you were going to do.”
“Did the monks teach you ESP too?” She asked.
“It doesn’t take ESP, just paying attention. Watch what I do.” In slow motion Ira raised his hand from the table, moved it over to the basket of chips, took one, raised it, and drew back for the throw. “This is exactly what you did. Look at how you’re responding.” He pointed the chip at Glenda’s hands, which were already rising to catching position.
She looked down at her hands and giggled.
“That’s the trick. Your hands know what to do, but your mind doubts their ability.”
“So what. I still can’t catch.”
“Don’t worry about catching at first. Just bat it away.” He tossed the chip with an exaggerated flick of his wrist, and Glenda batted it halfway to the next table. He followed with six more in rapid succession, and Glenda connected with each one.
“Karate Mama!” I said, with real admiration.
“Hee-yah!” Glenda said, raising her hands like a third-degree black belt. He flipped two more chips at her and she batted them away.
Ira put his hands together and bowed to her across the table. I don’t know what it was -- maybe a flicker of his eye or something -- but I knew the next chip would be for me. I watched his hands. Everything else in the room darkened and faded to the background. Ira’s hands appeared to glow, as if in the beacon of a spotlight.
Beautiful. Slender, pale, and graceful as ballerinas, they pressed together at the fingertips, then floated apart as he finished his bow. Both hands, palms down now, seemed to be returning in a smooth motion to his side of the table. Not completely smooth. His right shoulder glided back with the motion of his hands, but his left was moving forward. His hand was reaching down toward the basket. I could see the angle at which it would grab the chip and fling it into the air, right at my nose.
My hand was in position hours before Ira’s left the basket.
“Son of a bitch!” Glenda’s voice exploded out of the darkness, as I dipped the chip in Salsa.
Ira bowed again, and blew me a kiss. He threw a chip with his right hand that time.
“Karate Mama, yourself,” Glenda said, as I caught the chip. I threw it at her, and she batted it away.
I would have liked to order another pitcher, but Ira and Glenda had to go. As we walked out, the carpet seemed to crunch under our feet. Looking around, I saw that half the people in the lounge were throwing taco chips at one another. The hostess and the bartender stood to one side, shaking their heads at the spreading mess. “Food fight.” Ira whispered to them as he laid a twenty dollar bill on the counter.
The night was a little cool, but it wasn’t raining. I put the top down on my Cabriolet, looking forward to a bracing drive home, with the wind blowing through my hair. My senses felt sharp and open; I could almost taste the night.
Driving home I realized we never finished talking about Richard and Donnie. A sting operation. I wondered if Ira had anything in mind -- besides femmes-fatales. I smiled to myself at an image of Ira in a wig and bustier. The fantasy shifted to an image of Richard and Donnie in front of the board of directors at what they thought was just a regular old bullshit, ass-kiss, and rubber-stamp meeting.
One of the board members, maybe Sam Kauffman, the chair, would say, “It has come to our attention that you and Donnie have been shamelessly padding your expense accounts. This board has voted to fire you both, and we have turned over all to the information to the IRS, so they can prosecute you for tax evasion.”
Yes! I let myself go with the fantasy and enjoy it. I could see the sweat popping out on Richard’s forehead as he tried to explain that it was Donnie’s fault, and he didn’t know anything about it. Asshole. Old Sam says, “Shut up, Richard. You’re lying, just like you always lie. But we won’t let you lie any more. We’re only sorry that we didn’t see it sooner. But we see it now, and we’re going to stop you forever. We’re going to send you to a place where you can’t hurt anybody any more.”
The sweat is pouring off Richard’s face and tears are running from his eyes. “Please don’t!” He’s crying. “Please don’t! I’ll be good.”
Sam grows bigger and bigger. He’s standing over Richard, saying, “You will go to prison for the rest of your life, and all the other convicts will line up to fuck you in the ass.”
Richard is on his knees with his hands up, like he’s praying for forgiveness. “No, please! Please!”
Sam is growing bigger and bigger, and he has a long white beard and hair that floats around his head. He points his long finger down at Richard, and says, in a booming voice, “AFTER THAT YOU WILL DIE AND GO TO HELL!”
Richard is shrieking, “NO! NO!” But the flames are already around him. He is burning in hell, and knowing why.

From the middle of the fire, he turns his eyes up to heaven and says, in quiet voice with no bullshit in it at all, “I know what I have done and I’m truly sorry.” He’s begging the Virgin Mary to save him because she is the only one who can. He raises his arms to be picked up, and tears are running down his face. And the Virgin reaches down to hell to save him, saying, “I know you are really sorry for what you did. I will save you, and you will be a good man from now on. I will send you back to earth because your children need you.”
Everything turns to bright white light.
Headlights.
I swerved away from them and almost ran off the other side of the road. I pulled over, panting and prickling all over with little needles of adrenalin. My daydream of revenge had taken on a life of its own, and had become a vision. I felt psychotic. Panic washed over me like a cold wave, as I saw myself in restraints in a holding room. I knew enough not to fight it. I let go and allowed myself to float to the surface, where I took slow deep breaths, until my mind became a deep, clear lake.
Calmer now, but still shivering, I put the Cabriolet in gear and drove home very slowly. It was just a childish revenge fantasy, that’s all. By the time I reached the parking lot I was laughing at myself for having such a crazy daydream. As I put the top up I was thinking how silly the whole thing was. Richard doesn’t even have any children.
My apartment felt cold when I came in. Colder still, when I glanced at the answering machine and no light was flashing. I thought about building a fire in the fireplace, but settled instead for a shot of the brandy I kept around for medicinal purposes. I sipped at it as I went around drawing drapes and picking up the various and sundry junk that was lying around.
The clock said 10:20; time to get some sleep. I pulled on my old flannel nightgown and crawled under the covers.
My bed was my most prized possession. My father made it for me when I was a little girl. With an arched canopy, curtains, and pink satin flounces everywhere, it was the most feminine thing I ever owned. And the biggest; it filled the entire room. Such a bed is designed more for the boudoir of a princess than the apartment of a professional woman, but this was the first place I’d lived that was big enough even to consider taking it out of storage and setting it up. It was great for sex games, but, for some reason, I had a hard time sleeping in it.
I lay awake listening to the buzzing in my head for awhile, then picked up my pillow and comforter and went to the living room couch, which was where I actually slept most nights. I knew it would be awhile before I could doze off, so I poured myself another brandy, snuggled up with it on the couch, and turned on the TV.
I lucked out in finding a rerun of the real Star Trek. It wasn’t Bonanza, but you can’t have everything.
Most of the crew of the Enterprise had landed on planet where the people dressed like ancient Greeks, and had everything their hearts desired. There were no wars, no problems, and everybody was happy. They owed it all to this godlike creature named Landru. When people met on the street they wold say, “May the Peace of Landru be upon you.”
It was like perpetual Disneyland. Some of the crew wanted to stay -- that is until Captain Kirk discovered that the Peace of Landru was merely another word for mind control, and the whole planet was actually nothing more than Landru’s pantry. He was just keeping people happy until he ate them. Bummer.
Kirk and the guys saved the day, of course. They killed God and fucked up paradise for everybody. Better living through Federation values.
The show and the second brandy relaxed me. The Peace of Landru rested on my soul, and I slept.

Chapter Twenty Eight: On the Midway

At Disneyland, there’s a roller coaster you ride in the dark, with bright lights flashing in your eyes. As soon as you’re strapped in, vision can no longer tell your brain where you are, and all you have left is what you feel. You lurch, fall and whip around, never knowing what’s coming next. Space Mountain. Every time I’ve ridden it, I’ve gotten nauseous and sworn I’d never do it again. Still, I go back. I seem to forget the part about wanting to puke, and remember the feeling of flying.

I hurried to Steve’s office for our regular meeting. We’d changed it to Monday at ten, for important business reasons.
“Knock, knock,” I said, standing in the doorway, holding a couple of files I’d brought along for camouflage.
Steve swiveled his chair toward me, and began to rise. I noticed he had already drawn the blinds. Yes!
I closed the door, still looking businesslike.
Then, into Steve’s arms. I loved the crisp feel of his freshly starched shirt, the scent of his aftershave -- Old Spice; I’d bought a bottle for myself, to tide me over the long lonely weekends. His breath was warm, scented with toothpaste as our lips met.
“I’ve missed you.” I whispered, between frantic kisses.
“I’ve missed you too.” His hand caressed my breast, briefly, as we kissed, then moved to my back, and down, to slide along my bottom. I ground myself against his growing erection, as his fingers traced the outline of my garter belt, then pushed up my skirt to touch the smooth skin underneath. I never wore panties on Mondays.
We didn’t make love at the center, of course, and we always stayed completely dressed. The unspoken rules were no more than the structure of a sonnet. Within the fourteen allotted lines, our love could find infinite variety and beauty. Lingerie was a big part of it. For several months, Victoria’s Secret and Frederick’s of Hollywood were the most frequent entries on my Visa bill.
“Do you think you can get away this week?”
“Maybe Thursday, Jenna might go to dinner with a client.”
“I can’t wait.” I forced my hand inside the warm waistband of his pants. No unzipping.
His hand moved gently between my legs. “Maybe we can spend a whole weekend together. In June there’s a conference in Seattle.”
My heart sang wet arias of lust.
Suddenly, a knock at the door.
Steve jumped backwards, toward his desk, leaving me in the middle of the room with my foot up on the seat of the client chair. There was nothing to do but bend over and pretend to tie my pump as the door opened and Richard walked in.

He glanced at me, perplexed.
“There’s a nail in my shoe that keeps stabbing me. Steve was going to fix it.” I took off my pump, stood up, and sat down in the chair, pretending that was the way I always did it.
“Here.” I handed the shoe to Steve, who was working hard to keep his breathing under control. He began to study it, as if it were one of the great puzzles of the twentieth century.
“There’s nothing on the outside.” He gasped.
“Let me see it.” Richard snatched the shoe away from Steve, then stuck his hand inside. “I do feel a rough spot right here. It’s not a nail, though; it just seems like the lining is folded over. I think I can fix it.” He pulled a fancy silver knife from his back pocket and began sawing away at the inside of my shoe. In a couple of seconds he pulled out a tiny triangle of leather and held it up. “Here. This was your problem. Try it now.”
I put the shoe back on my foot, wondering belatedly if I should have stood up again to do it. “Oh, That’s a lot better. Let me try walking on it.” I got up and walked across the room. “Yes, you’ve definitely fixed it. It feels great!”
Richard shook his head. “I don’t know how you women can walk in shoes like that. I’d break my neck.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I have a hard time with them myself.” I stood there smiling and wondering what to do next.
“It looks like you’re busy.” Richard finally noticed.
“This is our weekly supervision meeting.” Steve said, in a more normal voice. His hyperventilating seemed under control.
“Sorry.” Richard said, to both of us. Then he turned to Steve. “I need to talk to you about my presentation to the Board. Stop by when you’re done.”
Richard paused at the door on his way out. “Rachel, it seems like a long time since we’ve talked. Check my schedule with Jeannie and we’ll do lunch.” He wrinkled his brow as he looked around. “Someplace bright, not like this dark cave Dr. Kravitz calls an office.” He grinned at his own joke, then pointed at us like a Vegas comic as he walked out the door. “Ciao.”
“Ciao.” I mimicked, after he closed the door. I moved to Steve’s desk ready to take up where we left off.
I leaned over, slid my arms around him, and started tickling his ear with my tongue. He stayed where he was, not even turning his chair toward me. The roller coaster began roaring toward the pit, and my stomach had dropped three floors by the time I backed away from him and sat down.
“I just don’t know if I can take this.” He said, still staring at his desk. I waited, breathing hard.
Our affair had been going on a little over two months. Actually, two months, eleven days and thirteen hours. Once a week, or so, Steve would come to my apartment to make love. We’d do some heavy petting any time we could be alone at the center. Once I even pulled him behind the bushes when we were running by ourselves at lunchtime.
I lived for those frantic, fiery moments.
Steve could be a passionate and abandoned lover when he wasn’t having anxiety attacks. When he was, the relationship seemed less Disneyland and more like a tawdry midway, where our love became the stake a game of chance. My dizzy fate rode on a wheel marked with thoughts, feelings, hormones, and neurotransmitters spinning in the carnival of his heart. I never knew which of his emotions would win.
I watched him, almost hearing clicks, as the wheel of fortune spun to a stop. Guilt. Lust. Guilt. Lust. He angled his head in my direction.
I smiled at him and crossed my legs Sharon Stone style, making my own luck. Click. Click. Click.
He smiled back, and I felt his eyes rooting around under my skirt.
The wheel stopped.
Lust.
Celebrating my victory by breaking the rules, I had his pants unzipped before he could move from his chair. He leaned back heavily, relaxed, as my tongue began to coax and tease him to a full erection.
His cock stood out pink and hard on a field of grey flannel. I felt the vibrations of his soft deep moans as I opened my mouth and drew him in all the way. Try and keep your mind on work after this, Dr. Kravitz!
On my knees, under his desk, I felt like one of the great temptresses of history. It was only later, with the salty aftertaste of semen in my mouth and the lining of my shoe coming undone, that I wondered if Cleopatra would have stooped to a blowjob under her boss’s desk.
Sure she would. I know the type.

Chapter Twenty Seven: Deus ex Machina

Richard, Donnie, Steve, and Craig were almost an hour late getting back from lunch. We sat around the room, watching the butcher paper come untaped and curl down from the walls. I considered making a crack about long lunches, and expensive French restaurants but, for once, showed the forethought to keep my mouth shut.
Other people talked and laughed. Tracey lay down on the floor to take a nap. I went out the back door of the hotel and stood under the overhang, watching the heavy fog fall off the mountains and cover the beach. After awhile I began to shiver. Then I felt nothing.
A voice drew me back from the gray blankness. “They’re here.” Dave spoke from inside as he stood by the door, holding it open. “Aren’t you cold out here?”
“Huh?” My body had already walked halfway to the meeting room before my mind caught up.
“Where were they?”
“Who knows? But Richard has some sort of an announcement.”
Everyone looked up from their places as Dave and I walked in. Richard stood at the front of the room, rampant amid drooping flowcharts. “Dr. Reed,” he said, “You’re here. We were afraid you had gone for another swim.” Polite laughter followed.
As I took my seat, I scanned the room. People seemed up, and a little excited. Waiting. Steve appeared relaxed; he was leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He smiled at me, and my heart raced, pumping fresh, heated blood to my cold skin. His smile felt like the sun coming from behind a cloud. A warm throb rose up to my face and broke it open into an answering grin. The puppy-love poster child.
Richard paced and rubbed his hands in anticipation. “Now that we’re all here, I can begin.”
“Dr. Kravitz tells me you call it ‘The Grant that Devoured Evergreen,’ and I know how difficult and unpleasant it has been for all of you, and for the hard working people in your programs. I must admit that Donnie, Steve, and I had no idea when we got the money how much trouble it would cause for the whole staff. You all deserve an apology.” He hung his head, but his gaze still moved around the room, checking people’s reactions. “I was wrong, and I’m sorry.” He raised his head and made brief eye contact with each of us, one at a time. We watched back from behind our therapist faces, a room full of caring and concerned poker players.
“I believe it is my obligation, as executive director of this center, to take responsibility for the problems I have inadvertently created. That’s why we’re late from lunch. For the last hour I have been on the phone with legislators and bureaucrats from Olympia. In some cases I had to get them off the golf course to talk to me. I told them it was a matter of utmost concern and emergency. I told them we were locked in a weekend-long discussion, during which we had come to the unavoidable conclusion that we would have to cut personnel and services to satisfy the terms of the grant, and that I as executive director, speaking for our board and our staff, could not believe that this was the state’s intention when they awarded us this grant. I told them we were seriously considering returning the money.”
“You’d best believe that got their attention.” Donnie said with a sound somewhere between a wheeze and a cackle, that must have been a laugh. Richard glared at him, then composed his face as he looked back at us to continue his oration.
“Based on our firm stand on this issue, and our outstanding clinical and fiscal record, we have obtained, from the Commissioner of Mental Health, an in-principle agreement to go at variance with some of the data-collection provisions of our contract. And a one-time appropriation of fifty thousand dollars from the State’s emergency reserve fund to be used exclusively for the purpose of purchasing furniture and fixtures. Donnie has run some preliminary figures, and it looks like I can say to you, with some degree of certainty, that there will be no layoffs, or shifting of clinical to grant-support positions. And -- Steve has told me this is of the utmost importance -- there will be no further sharing of desks.” Richard finished, beaming, with his hands above his head. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I congratulate you!”
For the space of a heartbeat no one spoke or breathed, quiet descended on the room like a mantle of redemption bestowed by a smiling god.
Until a grating falsetto song broke the silence. “Ding dong, the witch is dead!”
It was Steve. The room exploded into laughter, then applause as he stood up to lead the ovation.

Chapter Twenty Six: Seeing Elephants

As the erotic haze began to dissipate, we untangled ourselves, and attempted to brush off the wet sand. Steve stayed on his knees, using his handkerchief to clean off my thighs and bottom. His strokes were gentle and caressing, but they didn’t do much but move the sticky sand from one place to the other. I struggled back into my panties and jeans, but he remained kneeling on the ground. “Can you help me up?” he said. “I think I pulled something in my back.” I held out my hand and drew him to his feet. The extra weight caused a muscle at the back of my thigh to seize up. Both of us grunted in pain. We shared one more kiss, then hobbled back to the hotel. The glow in my heart kept us both warm and dry.
We stopped for one more long kiss in the deserted hallway. “See you tomorrow,” I said, pitching my words to the no man’s land between question and statement.
“Of course,” he said, then limped off toward his room. I watched him go, wondering if he would look back at me. He did!
I cursed myself for having started the old internal scorekeeper already.
I heard myself humming. Carole King’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow reverberated inside my mind -- a pleasant change from Blueberry Hill. I felt like singing out loud, but I restrained myself. I settled for a little dance down the hallway to my room; the cramp in my leg didn’t even bother me.
The word married did flash across my mind, raucous and bright as a police car on code, but I let it pass, pretending it was chasing someone else. I pushed all the things I didn’t want to think about to dark, unnoticed places and drew the curtain. Nothing could spoil my dance with love.
I had no idea what time it was, so I opened the door quietly, like when I used to sneak in after curfew, making believe somebody cared what time I got in. The light was still on, and Mary was in her bed reading. She wore gold-rimmed glasses and a flannel nightgown. Her beautiful salt and pepper hair lay loose on her shoulders. The digital clock said 10:21. Early curfew. Claire wasn’t even there yet. Mary put down her book, and stared at me over the top of her glasses. “Swimming again?” she asked.
“Oh, I went for a walk on the beach, and kind of tripped.”
She smiled and shook her head. “We may have to suspend your beach privileges until the weather gets better.”
“Please,” I said as I slithered out of my wet jeans. “Give me one more chance. I’ll be more careful tomorrow. I have to be. I’ve only got one outfit that isn’t soaked.”
Mary burst into giggles when she saw the sand all over my panties. “Just what were you doing when you tripped?”
I felt red heat rising to my cold wet face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “It’s just . . .” She started laughing again. “I used to mess around on the beach in high school, but not in the rain. Haven’t you ever heard of the back seat of a car?”
I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to giggle with Mary, and describe the whole thing. Another part realized she would not approve. She was a grownup. And, for all I knew, she may have been the one who started the rumors about Steve and me in the first place. All of a sudden I felt cold. I shrugged my shoulders at her and went into the bathroom. The hot shower felt wonderful. I stayed under it for a long time, hoping Mary would be asleep by the time I came out.
The room was dark when I opened the bathroom door. I tiptoed to the other bed and crawled in on the wall side -- it was my night to share with Claire. The sheets smelled like bleach, but they felt smooth and soft. Soon they captured my body heat and gave it back to me like a warm caress. I thought of Steve for a second or two before I fell asleep.
I awoke startled, with a light in my eyes. Claire had come in; I heard her humming to herself as she got ready for bed. The clock said 1:37. She didn’t bother to turn out the lamp when she went into the bathroom. I rolled over and went back to sleep.
The rest of my night was filled with weird dreams. Chris lay on my office couch and Steve, still dressed in his parka, leaned over him, doing something to his neck. “The damage done by hanging can be fixed, but you have to do it just right,” Steve said as he pulled, twisted, and pushed. Chris’s eye came open, but he didn’t move. Steve shook his head. “This is going to take a long time. See how his tongue is hanging out?” Then the window exploded in a shower of glass, and Richard stuck his head in. “Ha!” he said, leering at me. The smell of tobacco on his breath was so strong it made me nauseous. Richard pulled his head out and stuck it back in, over and over, saying “Ha!” every time. I looked down and saw myself naked and covered with sand.
I awoke to the sound of rain on the window. At first, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t broken. Claire was still asleep next to me. Her hair smelled like cigarettes. Every muscle in my body felt stiff and sore as I dragged myself to the shower to wash the dreams away. I needed a good swim to get my head working, but aside from the raging ocean, there was no place to go.
After my shower, I worked on my hair and face. The magic was not with me; I ended up looking just like myself. I kept trying, though, until the craving for coffee overpowered my craving for beauty. Just as well. I heard Mary and Claire talking. They’d be wanting the bathroom soon.
When I came out, Mary was brushing her hair, and Claire was scrunching down under the covers saying, “I don’t want to get up.”
“Coffee, anybody?” I asked, “There’s an espresso place just across the street.”
“That would be wonderful!” Mary said as she went to her purse for money. “I’d like a tall mocha with nonfat milk.”
Claire stuck her head out from under the covers long enough to order a skinny latte.
The rain had slacked to a gentle mist, but I put up my hood anyway so my hair wouldn’t frizz. Halfway across the parking lot I stopped to savor the sweet smell of salt air, and the sound of the surf. I allowed myself a brief revery of hot bodies and cold rain, then crossed the street to get the coffee. I didn’t have a hangover to combat, so a depth charge wasn’t necessary. I ordered a double skinny latte.
The hotel room was full of steam, thick and cloying with the scents of competing perfumes. I took my latte out on the lanai, and closed the sliding door to shut out the sound of hair dryers and the smell of cosmetics. A fog rolled in as I watched.
Finally the clock said 8:45, the earliest I could go down for the nine o’clock retreat.
“Eager, aren’t we?” Mary asked as I picked up my purse and notebook.
“Just bursting with positive motivation and creative ideas,” I said through the closing door.
Yes, I was hoping to see Steve, but no, he wasn’t there.
Marv sat by the door, handing out copies of an article called Blueprints for Quality. I sat in the lobby and pretended to read it.
The hotel had a coffee shop that looked and smelled like a Denny’s. I casually wandered down to see what was happening. Most of the management team was inside eating eggs, bacon, and hash browns. No Steve. I strolled back down the hall, looking at the nondescript seascapes hanging every twenty feet.
Nine o’clock. The crowd straggled in from the coffee shop; many were still wiping grease from their faces and talking about how they never ate breakfasts like that at home. One by one they took their seats. I finally sat down next to an empty chair, hoping.
No luck. Marv abandoned his place by the door and sat down next to me. At that moment Steve came through the door. Seeing that things were already getting started, he walked right up to the front and took an empty chair. He winced a little as he sat down. I had a big smile waiting in case he turned around, but he didn’t.
The day’s task was to come up with a strategic plan that would help us use our resources in a more proactive and productive way. It had started as trying to figure out how to shift things around so the grant wouldn’t have such a huge negative impact, but Craig wouldn’t hear of such a pedestrian goal. His forte was strategic planning, and he was going to show us that a strategic plan was what we really needed. Early on, he became obsessed with drawing an enormous flow-chart on butcher paper taped to the walls. He translated everything that anybody said into circles and arrows with dotted lines linking everything to everything else. Craig looked pleased with himself as he smeared the walls in an anal-expulsive frenzy. Long after people stopped making comments, he continued to find new and fascinating connections. The air grew heavy with the scent of Magic Marker. Even Richard’s eyes glazed over.
I kept stealing glances at Steve, trying not to be too obvious about it. He spent most of the morning doodling on his pad and shifting around in his chair to relieve the strain on his back. He looked at me only once. I wondered if he was trying to forget last night.
Craig was so wound up he skipped morning break. People wandered in and out of the meeting room at the behest of their bladders. I went to the bathroom twice, but Steve never even got up. As the day wore on my disposition began to sour. This whole retreat was nothing but smoke and mirrors. Canned presentations and contrived exercises, rather than talking about what was on our minds. Everybody was sitting there ignoring the whole thing or playing along with the official line that we were a healthy, happy organization with a few minor growing pains. There were enough elephants in that room to start a circus parade.
By lunch break, the hieroglyphics all over the wall made the room look like the tomb of some long-dead executive from a primitive culture. I felt like I was in two places at once. Part of me had grave concerns about how the retreat was going, but a larger, stronger, more persistent part was dying to know if I had a lasting treasure or just a moment’s pleasure. I went straight to Steve.
“How’s your back, Dr. K?”
“I’ll live.”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He smiled at me. I could see the dimples under his beard. “I’m not sorry, and you didn’t hurt me.”
I meant to be cool, but the smell of his aftershave disrupted my brain chemistry. Like a pheromone, it drew me toward him with an instinctive force, older and more powerful than rational thought. I leaned over and whispered, “I’ll be easier on you next time.” What a stupid, transparent ploy! I stood there waiting to be flattened by his response, feeling like a lovesick possum in the middle of the interstate.
Before he could say anything, Richard loomed up behind him and put an arm on his shoulder. “Lunch meeting at the Maison de la Mar. We have twelve o’clock reservations. I’m driving over right now.”
Richard strode off toward the parking lot and Steve turned to follow him. Then he stopped. He looked back at me and whispered. “Next time I want to do it in bed. Naked.” He waggled his eyebrows and hobbled after Richard, leaving me weak-kneed and damp in the middle of the lobby floor. Funny how love can make each second the most intense you’ve ever experienced.
“Hey Rachel, we’re going down to the Pelican for crabs and beer. Want to come?” Dave came up beside me on his way to the door.
“Sure,” I said, “Sounds like just what the doctor ordered.” I followed him out into the rain not even caring that my parka was still up in my room.
The Pelican Pub seemed like a friendly place, with walls of weathered wood decorated with nets, floats, and seashells. Over by the bar, a giant carved pelican cavorted with a fish hanging out of his beak and a mug of beer in his wing. Most of our group was already sitting at a big picnic table covered with newspapers. Dave, Tracey and I joined them. Water from my wet hair dripped onto the newspaper.
Mary smiled at me. “I thought you said you were going to stay dry.”
My heart began ticking like the timer on a bomb. I hoped she wouldn’t say anything about last night. “I’m a Pisces, I just can’t stay away from the water,” I said with a big, dumb, open-mouthed smile. “How about a glass of that beer?” It was enough. She passed the pitcher and said no more.
The beer was heavenly -- thick and almost creamy tasting. They brewed it right on the premises. I started a little conversation about how good it was, just to make sure we didn’t get back to the subject of my encounters with water.
Dave took a big swallow and exhaled in appreciation. “What do you think?” I asked. “France or California?”
“Oregon all the way!” he said, and drank another swallow.
Claire raised her glass. “We ought to have a toast.”
“Good idea!” Mary raised her glass as well. “To Evergreen, getting marginally better than Amway!”
We drank. I wondered what made Mary think things were getting better, but decided not to ask. Anyway, the server put down a platter of huge Dungeness crabs, a stack of red plastic crab crackers, and a pile of bibs. The bibs sported a picture of a crab with a knife and fork in his claws, cheerfully licking his lips. We all put them on, as much for the ambiance as the protection.
“Look at that crab on your bib,” I said to Dave, “Why do you think he’s so happy?”
“He’s about to eat,” Dave said, staring down at the bib, “I can empathize with that.”
“But what is he going to eat?” I asked.
“Crab!” Claire said. She seemed pleased to know the answer.
“So he’s happy about being a cannibal,” I said, “It’s one of those points to ponder -- like why at barbecue restaurants, they have pictures of little pigs in chef hats serving barbecue to other pigs.”
“Thanks for the insight, Dr. Reed,” Dave said, “I haven’t thought of anything that heavy since 1968, which was the last time I dropped acid.” He pushed his John Lennon glasses up on his nose.
“Has it been that long?” Tracey asked. “I could have sworn that you were tripping last week.”
“That shows what you know; I was just singing Purple Haze,” Dave snapped.
“That was singing? What were all those ‘woo woo woo’ noises?”
Dave rolled his eyes, and pointed to Tracey. “Generation gap time. You guys see why I say to never trust anyone over sixty? For your information, Grandma, that was feedback, which is an integral part of the lyrics of any Jimi Hendrix song. You’ve gotta sing ‘em with the feedback, and the air guitar.” He stood up and demonstrated.
“Got this feelin’. An’ I don’t know why,
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.
Woo wooo woo wooo-ooh.”
“See what I mean?” Tracey said, as Dave grew more rapt in his imaginary guitar solo. “That part isn’t so bad; it’s just that he always pretends to smash the guitar when he finishes. He makes these crashing noises, and spits all over everybody.”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Dave said as he smashed his air guitar over Tracey’s head, making the same sound a six year old makes shooting a pretend gun. “It’s part of the lyrics!”
Tracey wiped off spit with her napkin.
People laughed, but not too much. We knew from experience not to encourage them.
“Crabs aren’t really cannibals,” Marv said. “Actually they’re scavengers. They’ll eat anything that’s dead, and the deader it is, the better they like it. When I was a kid, we used to catch them with rotten chicken necks tied to a string. The stronger they smelled, the more crabs you could catch.”
“That’s what my crab is happy to be eating,” Mary chimed in. “Mmm. Rotten chicken necks.”
“Ooh, gross,” Claire added.
We ate our crabs, drank our beer and engaged in the usual table talk. Nobody said a word about the retreat. Finally I decided to bring it up myself.
“What do you guys think about the retreat?” I said, unable to think of a more creative gambit.
Nobody answered. It was the first time everyone had been quiet since we sat down to lunch.
“Mary, a little while ago you said we were getting marginally better than Amway. Do you really think we are?”
“It was just a joke, Rachel.” After she spoke she went back to cracking crab, even though she had finished eating a few minutes ago.
“Doesn’t anybody see how we’re being manipulated -- with all this budget and strategic plan crap --to keep from asking too many questions or discussing anything that we think is important?”
Marv spoke up. “I don’t know that I’d call it manipulation, so much as being told how things are.”
“Huh?” I don’t know which surprised me more -- what Marv said, or the fact that he was actually tracking the conversation.
“I think Marv’s right,” Dave said. “It’s like the forces we’re dealing with are bigger and more complex than I realized. The terms of the grant, the budgeting process, accountability requirements, you know. Richard and Donnie understand those things; I don’t. I just want to be left alone to run my program in peace.”
“But look at the way things are going; programs are being canceled, people’s jobs are being changed. How can you think you’re going to be left in peace.”
“I always have been, and if I don’t get anybody too pissed off at me, I hope I always will be,” Dave said. He suddenly seemed years older than when he sang Purple Haze.
“But look at this retreat. We were supposed to be discussing the grant and all the problems that it’s causing for the staff. We haven’t even talked about that.”
“I thought that’s what the strategic plan is about,” Claire said. “That’s what we’re going to talk about this afternoon.”
I ignored her. “All we’ve gotten is a bunch of propaganda about the budget, and a facilitator who’s doing his best to keep us from discussing any embarrassing topics.”
Mary looked up from her crab. “Nobody’s keeping me from discussing embarrassing topics. It seems to me that the only people who have a problem with what’s going on are you and Steve.”
“That’s just the point,” I said, “Steve has brought up a lot of important issues, but they haven’t gone anywhere.”
“Maybe that’s because they were Steve’s issues, and not anybody else’s -- except maybe yours.” The sharp edge of Mary’s voice sliced into me. We were never close friends, but until that day outside Karma’s office, I had always thought she kind of liked me. I hadn’t expected an attack. For a few seconds I held back any reply while I looked around the table. I hoped someone would jump in and defend me, but it didn’t happen. The beer in my stomach began to burn. I still knew I was right.
“You have to admit Richard messed up on the grant.”
“Well, of course he did,” Mary said, “Do you really expect him to just come out and say he didn’t know what he was getting us into? And what good would that do anyway? What we need is a chance to talk to him directly like we’re doing here, without anybody standing in the way.”
“You mean Steve.”
“Yes, I mean Steve.”
My body began gearing up for a fight. Mary was attacking my man, and I felt like scratching her eyes out. Way stupid. I held myself back as a cold wave of self-doubt washed over me. For the first time I recognized there was a distinct possibility that nobody at this table agreed with me. I began to shake, and expected nausea any second. I took a swallow of beer to steady myself against the onslaught, but it never came.
Instead, I felt my trembling cease as rapidly as it had begun. Solid, steady and calm. I knew this feeling; I used to get it just before swim meets. My fear and doubt would disappear, leaving only a will to win that was clear and hard as a diamond. It was like turning into someone else. I looked at Mary across the table as if she were an opponent in an intellectual game. Like chess. Or maybe therapy.
“Mary, it sounds like you’re putting aside the whole issue of Richard’s character. You don’t think that’s important at all?”
“No. Well, yes. I certainly don’t think it’s as important as you do.”
“What about his car? What about the way he plays around with his expense account? Do you think that’s all right.”
“Not particularly.” Mary took a deep breath and blew it out loudly. “Everybody knows about Richard’s narcissistic tendencies, Rachel, but not everybody seems as upset about them as you are. I admit that Richard is not one of my favorite people, but he is the sort of person it takes to run a place like this. He’s a politician, and he acts like a politician. What do you want? It probably is bad judgement on his part to use center money to lease his car, but it is legal. If I were running the center I would probably do it differently, but I’m not.”
“What about Karma?”
“What about her?” Mary said, “You told me yourself that Karma was misusing expense money.”
“What she was doing was no different than what Richard is doing.”
“Except that she didn’t ask anybody about it. Richard’s accounts are audited and approved by the board.” Mary was getting angry, but I still felt solid, calm and in control.
“Sure they are, but you saw yourself how complicated the budget is. I don’t think the board understands it any better than we do. I’ll bet if somebody who knew what they were doing got in there and checked the figures they’d find that Richard and Donnie are raking off a lot more than anybody realizes.”
“Come on, Rachel, don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid? Richard has some grandiosity and entitlement issues, sure, but there’s no evidence that he’s doing anything illegal. I think the real problem is he doesn’t understand things much better than we do, but he can’t admit it.”
“I think everybody is vastly underestimating the seriousness of his pathology.”
“You do, huh? So what are you going to do about it, Rachel? Detain him?”
People began shuffling around. One by one, they stood up to leave. Mary dabbed her mouth with her napkin, then reached into her purse for a tube of Chap-Stick, which she put on her lips, capped and returned in one smooth and flowing movement.
I could not believe I had lost.

Chapter Twenty Five: Retreat

The conference room stood off from the lobby, on the landward side of the hotel. It had no window, but there were some pictures of sailing ships on the wall to remind us we were at the beach.
Mary, Claire and I bustled in about five minutes late. We found everybody standing around, eating muffins, and drinking coffee. I was ravenous. I wanted to grab a couple of muffins and stuff them into my face, but that hunger was nothing compared to the deep-seated starving for attention, awakened and tantalized by the sudden turning of heads when we came into the room. It was probably my imagination, but I thought people were looking at me and liking what they saw.
Men involuntarily track babes with their eyes. I’d seen it a million times but had never felt it myself, at least not without wondering if my slip were showing or I had spinach in my teeth. This time I allowed myself to believe the guys were paying attention because I looked good. I enjoyed a ten-second feast as I crossed the room to put my things down on one of the chairs. I felt so light and graceful that I didn’t want to spoil the illusion by eating. Besides, Steve was over by the chairs talking to Marv, and I wanted to make sure he saw me. I knew I was being adolescent, but I thought I was doing it right this time.
Steve looked up as I passed. “Good morning, Dr. Kravitz,” I said, trying to make my voice sound buoyant and musical. I was vamping it up, but I didn’t need to. He froze in the middle of a bite, without even bothering to wipe the muffin crumbs out of his beard. The image of his surprised and appreciative face jumped into my heart then, and it lives there to this day.
Marv paid no attention to the fulfillment of my eighth-grade fantasy. He was still waving a stack of papers and talking about needing at least half an hour to discuss the ethical side of quality measures.
Steve wasn’t listening to Marv. He was smiling, standing up taller and sucking in his gut -- the mating dance of the American Male. He winced a little as he gulped down his bite of muffin so he’d be able to talk. “Good morning, Rachel.” His voice was a little thick, but his eyes followed my every move as I selected a chair.
You know that scene in Beauty and the Beast, where they dance in the room with the chandelier while the teapot sings? That’s what it felt like for those few seconds as I savored the instinctive caress of his eyes. Like an erection, it was a response that could not be faked. My juices were flowing.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s take our seats and begin.” Richard spoke, and the moment shattered like a crystal chandelier hitting a cold stone floor. We all sat down.
Next to Richard was a tall man, of about forty, with short hair, combed straight back, and tortoise shell glasses. He wore pressed corduroys and a blue shirt with a little polo player where the pocket was supposed to be. Corporate casual, he looked out of place among the jeans, sweatshirts and third-world ornamentation we mental health people like to wear to the beach.
“I’m pleased to introduce Craig Crispin, who has agreed to facilitate this weekend’s retreat,” Richard said. “Craig has an international reputation, and has worked for many Fortune 500 companies. We are extremely lucky to have him.” With something between a pat on the back and a shove, Richard propelled the tall man to the center of the room. “Craig, you’re in charge.”
The internationally renowned retreat leader flashed his teeth at us and waved. I wondered if we were supposed to clap.
Craig Crispin looked to be an athletic type, just bursting with positive attitude. “I’m really glad to be here,” he said. “Richard has told me something about Evergreen, and I’m really eager to meet all of you! I think we’ll break the ice by using a little exercise I worked up for AT&T. We’ll go around the room, and I want each of you to tell me your name, your program, and --” He broke into a puckish grin. “Your wildest dream for the future of Evergreen.” He paused for a moment while we exchanged puzzled looks. “Oh, I know it sounds embarrassing, and maybe even a little silly, but, if you try it, you’ll find it stimulates that old right-brain creativity and sense of humor. We want to start out with something that shifts paradigms, and tells us that this is not your typical stuffy old business meeting. This is something different and exciting! Who wants to go first?”
Nobody raised a hand. “A little shy, huh?” he said. “Well I guess I’ll get things started. I’m Craig Crispin, of Crispin and Associates. My wildest idea for your future is -- let’s see -- You expand your program to cover the whole state, and you get where you have to go in plenty of time because you all fly helicopters with therapy couches in the back!” He paused while his imaginary helicopter crashed like a lead balloon. “Any other ideas?”
Craig had the same kind of open-mouthed, head-tilting , inner-child smile that Richard used. The old right brain does strange things to grown men. I was wondering what this exercise had to do with the grant, layoffs, expenses, morale -- or anything -- when Richard put up his hand and waved it like a second-grader.
“I’ll go,” he said, looking at Craig, who was nodding and smiling. “I’m Richard Slater, the executive director. My wildest fantasy is, that we get a two million dollar grant, solely dedicated to raising salaries for the entire staff.”
A shovel full of pure bullshit. Nobody would stand for this kind of blatant manipulation. I got ready to jump in and blow the whole deception wide open.
But people were already laughing at Richard’s comment. They seemed to like it. And him. What could they be thinking? They had all read the board minutes about the cars. They knew about the sneaky underhanded way I had been set up with Paul’s layoff. They knew about Karma. Why were they playing along with this stupid exercise and acting like things were normal?
“I’m Steve Kravitz, the Clinical Director, and my fantasy is: we get a bunch of thought receiving machines and mount them on top of our building, so we can pick up the entire city. We’ll monitor everybody’s thoughts, and if we detect any psychopathology we’ll zap ‘em with mind control rays.” Steve leaned back in his chair with a deadpan expression.
Everybody else glanced over at Richard and Craig to see how they were taking it. Richard laughed a little, but Craig just stood there with his mouth open. “Thank you, Steve,” he said, “Anybody else?”
Tracey raised her hand. Craig took a look at her gray hair and matronly figure and seemed distinctly relieved. “I’m Tracey Hahn, co-director of Day Treatment, and my wildest fantasy is: we get these time machines, see, and we go back to our clients’ past and stop their parents from fucking up their heads.” Little ripples of laughter spread across the room. Craig squinted at Tracey, as if he couldn’t believe someone who looked like a church lady could say something so psychotic. He didn’t know Tracey. She delighted in blowing away people’s expectations -- especially her grandchildren’s teenaged friends.
Dave was next. With his round glasses, balding head, and ponytail he looked like a guy who used to play bass for the Grateful Dead. “I’m Dave Butler, and my fantasy is: we all get naked in this big room and rub Crisco all over each other and --”
“Talk honestly about our deepest feelings!” Tracey said.
“Yeah!” Dave said, “Bring back the nude encounter group!”
Giggles and snorts. Somebody shouted, “Pass the Crisco.”
Claire stood up, waving her hand to get the group’s attention. “I’m Claire Parkenning, director of the Outclient Program. My wild fantasy is, we open a satellite Clinic in Camas.”
“Creative idea!” Richard said. Craig smiled and nodded, as if this exercise had an actual purpose.
“I’m Mary Aldrich from the Children’s Program. My fantasy is, we all get out of Mental Health and sell Amway.” Even an old chestnut like that got big laughs.
“Wait a minute,” Steve spoke up in a voice loud enough to cut through the giggles. “I like a joke as much as anybody, but I think we all came here with some serious issues to discuss. People are angry, hurt and frightened. They have ideas they want to express, and questions they want answered.” He turned to Craig. “With all due respect, I don’t think we’re going to get to those things by asking people to share their wildest fantasies.”
Silence hit the room with the muffled thud of a wet blanket.
“This is good,” Craig said as he turned his chair around so he could lean on the back. “Why don’t we all brainstorm individually about the issues we want to discuss. We’ll make a master list on the flip chart, and prioritize the items, so we get to them in order of importance. Okay, now let’s take five minutes for all of us to write our questions down.”
It seemed to me that, rather than facilitating discussion, Craig was doing his best to keep people from talking. I stared at my pad, as the power of Steve’s comment diluted in the rustling of papers and the scratching of obedient pens. I felt alone, isolated by my bad attitude. For the second time that morning, I began to doubt my own perceptions. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be done. A retreat was a new thing for me. A business thing. I wondered if I should look at it as something from a different culture, a diversity I could honor by making more of an effort. I decided I ought to play along with this little exercise, and, like a client who wants approval more than insight, I struggled to translate my sincerest concerns into sound bites.
We read our lists, one item at a time, and Craig wrote his version of what we said on the flipchart. He sometimes used apostrophes with his S’s to make plurals more emphatic. Some questions, like “When will Day Treatment move to the new building?” or “Is there money for more psychiatric time?” he took down verbatim. Others, like , “Can we give up merit and cost of living to keep people working in our programs?” became “possibility of shifting expenses.” My question about why we had lots of money for cars and wine and still had to lay off clinicians became “Concern’s about expenditures.”
Before we did the priorities, Craig asked Richard if he noticed some common threads running through the questions. Right on cue, Richard answered that he did see a common thread. Really, all the questions had to do with finances and the budget. Not only that, Richard had been so presumptuous as to anticipate some concerns in this area, and he had already instructed Donnie to prepare a training session for the management team.
Donnie jokingly referred to his presentation as “accounting for dummies.” A full pratfall. The guy didn’t even have the grace to take a Freudian slip.
Craig considered the whole thing very proactive.
What followed were the four most boring hours I have yet spent on this planet. Donnie’s presentation was peppered with little bits of homespun wisdom, like: “As soon as the state gets the bills they start trying to Jew ‘em down. All therapists are obviously dyslexic because they always fill out their time sheets and purchase requests ass-backwards and upside down.” He also suggested that some of our clients need showers something fierce. I think he meant the kind of showers they had at Auschwitz.
Karma would have strung his balls into a necklace, but nobody there seemed to think it was worth the effort.
The gist of the presentation was that the various governments that gave us our money demanded we spend it and keep track of it in ridiculous ways only Donnie and Richard understood, so we might as well just accept it.
There was some new, and possibly useful, information under the pile of dreck. I did my best to understand what he was saying, though it took me so many cups of coffee to stay awake, I thought I must have been missing all the critical points while I was in the bathroom -- like why departmental budgets would cause the destruction of life as we know it. I also had a hard time following the rationale for crediting administrative expenses here, there, and everywhere instead of putting them all in their own budget category, so they could be added up in one place. I asked a few questions, all of which Donnie fielded as if I had suggested he was funding Contras with State dollars. Finally, he said, “Dr. Reed, maybe you ought to save your comments for subjects you know something about.”
Leona tensed my muscles as she snapped, “I do know something about this.” She pulled me upright to face him eye to eye. “I am an expert on dangerous mental illness.” I leaned into Leona’s aggressiveness so gracefully that my stomach stayed perfectly still. I didn’t even burp. Donnie scowled at me, then he bared his teeth. The expression began as a snarl, and turned into a sheepish smile. I had actually backed the fucker down.
I waited for applause.
“You two seem to be having some communication problems,” Craig said. At least he didn’t have us paraphrase each other, or fight it out with foam rubber bats.
Finally, it was time for lunch. The hotel sent in clam chowder, sandwiches and fruit. This time I allowed myself a decent meal. I really wanted to talk to Steve. His comment this morning had led me to believe he really did understand some of my concerns about the center. I imagined an interesting conversation and perhaps a walk on the beach. It didn’t happen. Steve spent lunchtime in animated conversation with Richard, Donnie and Craig. The big kids.
After we ate, the hotel person told us she was ready for us to check in. Where was she when I needed her? We divided up, three to a room; Mary and Claire were sharing with me. Richard, Donnie and Craig got rooms to themselves. Steve was in with Marv and Dave. After we put our stuff away, we broke out the raingear and hiked down to the beach.
We walked in little groups. The rain was still coming down hard; its rattling patter on Gore-Tex hoods, and the pounding of the surf made conversation difficult. Steve walked with Richard, Donnie and Craig. I kept hoping he would break off from his group and walk with me, but that never happened either. I ambled along with Tracey and Dave continually adjusting my hood so it wouldn’t mess up my hair.
By mid-afternoon, back at the retreat, I realized we weren’t allowed to talk about anything controversial. The answer to most every question seemed to be, “Because the budget says so.” Like the Bible, that one ambiguous document seemed to raise all the questions and provide all the answers at the same time. All we had to do was believe.
Steve did his best to steer the discussion toward some sort of candid dialogue about real concerns, but he kept running aground on shoals of state regulations, tangled in endless strands of undulating numbers, and sinking beneath the weight of Craig’s cheerful take on everything.
Richard and Craig kept nodding, and congratulating each other on how well things were going. Donnie, after his presentation, sat glowering with his arms folded. Several times he drifted off to sleep.
Richard did talk about administrative expenses -- they were well within standard parameters for the industry, and in some areas, markedly lower. He also assured us that the center’s leasing of cars was perfectly legal and above-board, but perhaps not politically correct in a time of layoffs. Questions about Steve’s position were turned aside by Richard’s pronouncement that the job of running the Center was so big that he could not hope to do it himself. We completely skirted the issue of Karma’s dismissal.
I began to see why it was called a retreat.
I also began to see how Richard and Donnie maintained their stranglehold on all the power. First-hand information from the budget, the ultimate means of control, was inaccessible to regular people. Richard and Donnie had the only map, and, wherever you wanted to go, they assured you that you couldn’t get there from here. They also seemed to be pretending that the budget was so complicated and boring that nobody really wanted to know anything about it anyway -- a little attempt at trance induction there, but it didn’t work on me. I wanted to know. I promised myself I’d sit down with that budget and learn how to understand it. Some day.
The day’s business ended at five. We all went out for drinks and, later, dinner at Doogers, a Cannon Beach seafood institution. Craig came along. After a drink or two he made some clumsy attempts to hit on Claire, Mary, and even me. None of us were particularly turned on by hearing how much money he had made in the Commodities Market.
After dinner a few of us lingered in the lounge. Richard and Claire huddled in a corner booth, drinking chardonnay, and engaging in deep conversation. Claire didn’t seem to be saying much, but she nodded a lot. Craig and Donnie had gone back to the hotel right after dinner. I thought Craig might want to catch a porno-flick on Spectra-Vision. I was sure it would be covered by his expense account. God knows what Donnie was going to do.
The rest of us sat around a big table in the middle of the room, sipping wine, talking and laughing about nothing in particular. All evening, I had been trying to get close to Steve, but he always seemed to be involved with someone else. I was beginning to feel like he was avoiding me on purpose. Inside, Leona paced like a caged tiger, charged with a frantic energy, born of alcohol and possible rejection. I had to do something, or she would.
Finally, Steve stood up, stretched, and said he was about ready to go back. Not wanting to be too obvious, I waited about ten seconds before I followed.
I pounced on him in the lobby.
“Hey, Dr. Kravitz, it’s still early. I was thinking of taking a walk on the beach. Want to come?”
“It’s pouring.”
“So? We run in harder rain than this. Besides,” I pulled at his parka. It was black with florescent green shoulder inserts, the top of Columbia Sportswear’s line. “This thing will keep you dry even in a flood.”
“I’m kind of tired, you know, and --”
“Steve, I get the distinct impression you’re trying to ignore me.”
“No, Rachel, it’s just that. Well . . .”
I waited a long time for him to finish the sentence. “Well what?” I said finally.
Steve sighed. “I guess we should talk. I’ll go down to the beach with you.”
A kiss off; I knew it.
But what could I expect? He was married. And my hair had frizzed up. My magical babe make-over was just plain over. I cursed myself for even hoping, as we walked in silence down to the sand.
The beach was dark and deserted. The rain came down so hard we had to shout at each other to be heard. It was hardly my idea of a romantic little walk. Haystack Rock floated before us, a darker darkness in the stormy night.
“Were you scared today?” Steve asked.
“Bored was more like it.”
He laughed. “Not at the retreat, I mean when the tide cut you off.” I didn’t even know he knew about that. I had told the story, but not to him. It pleased me that he would have been discussing me with somebody else.
“No, I wasn’t scared, just pissed off at myself.”
“But those waves are dangerous. People get pulled out to sea and drowned all the time.”
“I’ve never been afraid of the water. I’m a good swimmer, and I have been for as long as I can remember. Besides, I just got splashed. I wasn’t in any danger.”
“I’d have been scared to death.”
“No you wouldn’t. In situations like that you just do what you need to do and get scared later.”
“Maybe you do.” He kicked at a chunk of sand with the toe of his boot.
“I’d have been scared to death saying some of the things you said today at the retreat,” I said, “I have a hard time with confrontations. I always feel like throwing up.”
“I know.”
“Oh. I guess you do,” I said, remembering puking on his carpet and feeling about as glamorous as a washed up grapefruit rind.
We walked. Even over the rain and the surf I heard Steve take a deep breath. “Rachel --”
Again I waited.
“Rachel, sometimes I have a hard time being around you.”
“Am I that bad?”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. Well, what I mean is, I think I’m a little too attracted to you. I mean, after. . .you know.”
The kiss. I knew, but I pressed on anyway. “Steve, I don’t mind it at all that you’re attracted to me. To tell the truth, I like it.”
“But --”
“I know. I like it anyway. I’m attracted to you, too.”
“You know nothing could ever come of it.”
We had broached the subject! In the confines of my hood my heart was beating so loudly I couldn’t hear the rain or the surf. I spoke softly. “Nothing needs to come of it, Steve.”
“Good, because --”
“It’s okay, I just like being close to you.”
“I like being close to you, too.”
As he said it, he put his arm around me and drew me in for a hug. I followed through and turned it into a kiss. His beard was wet and cold on my face, but his tongue was hot. It burned my lips apart. Could it be he wanted this as much as I did? I pressed my body against him so tightly that we stumbled and almost fell.
I whooped with nervous laughter. “I’m such a klutz!”
“No you’re not.”
I took his hand and led him to the wooden seawall between the beach and the buildings where a slight overhang broke the force of the rain. I leaned back, giving my weight to the damp splintery surface and drew him in for another kiss. He responded strongly. Our mouths and bodies flattened against each other, pressing me closer to the wall. I opened my legs and ground against him. I felt his erection, already moving in time with me.
That was all Leona needed; she took matters into her own hands.
His zipper was buried under five or six layers of clothing, but it presented Leona with no problem at all. In a seamless series of movements that lasted about two seconds she had his penis in her hand and my jeans and panties pulled down around my knees. It seemed so natural to guide him in.
I trembled as he entered me. We pushed against each other, but we just couldn’t seem to line up.
“I can fix this,” he said, as he helped me out of my boot and slid down one leg of my jeans.
I wrapped my free leg around his hip to pull him closer, and deeper. It worked. He was inside me again. We moved slowly at first. Breathing long sighs of pleasure and relief.
I drew him in. At the same time I tried to push Leona to the back of my mind so I could have Steve all to myself.
His gasping breath burned my neck, as he grabbed my bottom with both hands and drove into me with so much force that my other foot actually left the ground. I felt like I was floating, supported only by his cock. I opened my heart to him, and shuddered with excitement at the swelling of an orgasm that could shake the world.
His hands made clutching motions against me as he began to come. I gave myself to him completely. Jerking and trembling, we fell together into the thundering, swirling cadence of the surf, then rose toward the burning heart of a star.
Even as our entwined spirits spun upward toward the night sky, our bodies hit the cold wet sand with a thump that knocked the wind out of both of us. What a rush!
We lay there gasping and panting, still joined. My contented body began to sink into the sand. Cold and rough as. . . As doubt.
“Omigod. Omigod. Omigod. Omigod.” Steve was talking softly under his breath. “Omigod.” I heard the word repeat, but I couldn’t quite comprehend.
Did I overdo it? Would he accept my unfettered affection, or would he fade back behind the terrible door that closes once and never opens again?
Oh. My. God. That’s what he was saying.
What did he mean? Was he hurt? Was he feeling guilty? Was he --
He silenced my thoughts with a passionate kiss, as he rolled his body over me to shield me from the rain. “That was the most incredible experience I’ve ever had.” He gasped the words out between kisses.
Oh my God! He liked it!

Chapter Twenty Four: A Cold Shower

Cannon Beach is the cutest little town on the Oregon Coast. Hills covered with evergreen trees end abruptly at a wide sandy beach, which is dominated by Haystack Rock, a two-hundred-thirty foot monolith that sits right in the breaking surf. Every view is a postcard waiting to happen. Clouds fall off the cliffs and into the ocean, leaving the beach bathed in soft mist that mutes the thunder of the sea.
Maybe mist is too poetic a word. Rain.
To enjoy the Oregon coast you have to love rain. And change. In April the winds can rise suddenly, blowing away the clouds and shifting the whole scene from black and white to color so fast you’d think you were watching MTV. One minute everything is grey, and the next the ocean turns bright shades of green, and the sand glows beige with wisps of steam twirling in the wind and rising to a turquoise sky, already full of kites.
I skipped my pre-dawn swim so I could drive to the retreat by myself, and walk on the beach before things started at nine. The traffic was light, so I arrived at about seven-thirty in the middle of a pouring rain that didn’t look like it had any intentions of disappearing. I parked my car in the lot of the Windjammer, dashed across the street, and bought a triple latte to carry down to the beach. Warm coffee, salt mist, and the ocean pounding like the heartbeat of the planet. Peace. Maybe the lull before the storm.
Good Gore-Tex raingear can still get you some solitude, even at the most popular places on the Oregon coast. The beach was deserted and the tide was out, so I walked down to Haystack Rock to see the day-glo orange starfish and chartreuse sea anemones living in the tidal pools.
Closer to the breakers, the pools are deeper and more full of life. I climbed over sharp rocks to get out to my favorite spot, where I could sit on a ledge, drinking my coffee and watching tiny fish and crabs darting and dancing on a field of anemones below a wall of starfish hanging three-deep on the rock.
I wanted to clear my mind, to be ready for whatever would happen at the retreat. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I had never been to one before, but the idea seemed reasonable -- to get stuff out in the open so that we could settle some things. Therapy for the Center.
Back in Vancouver, at program directors’ meetings, there always seemed to be crises to deal with, so we never had time to discuss bigger questions. I had a few on my agenda -- like, how could the center pay for expensive French wine and Japanese cars when we couldn’t afford desks? And why was there so much talk about laying people off, when we had more work than ever? And why was Steve getting most of the crap for decisions that were obviously made by Donnie and Richard? And why was Richard trying to screw me over?
My heart began pounding louder than the surf and my stomach began to wobble. It was one thing to talk about these issues behind closed doors with other staff members and quite another to bring them up directly with Richard and Donnie. What was I going to say? “Why do you lie about everything?” or “How long have you two gonifs been skimming money off the top to buy yourselves expensive cars?” I believed what Steve had said, that they weren’t doing anything illegal -- just immoral, self-serving and downright shitty. I wondered how I could say that in a socially acceptable way. I kept reminding Leona that she wasn’t invited. I was actually feeling proud of myself for thinking ahead and planning, instead of shooting from the hip.
Steve.
I tried to stick to business, but my thoughts kept drifting back to him. Could I get him out on the beach for a midnight walk? Would he wear his cowboy boots? Would he kiss me again? I took a few deep breaths and made my mind into a deep, clear, still lake. Later.
I relaxed myself and found my center.
What I didn’t do was watch the tide. As I sat, it had come in to the point that there was no dry land for twenty yards between me and the beach. Even when the surf pulled back, only the tops of rocks showed above the water. There were plenty of them, I could climb and jump from one to the other without too much trouble. The problem was sneaker waves, unpredictable and three times as high as regular waves, that could come at any time and wash over the tops of the rocks. If one hit me, I wouldn’t drown or anything, but I’d be in for a cold soaking. The worst part of it all was that I had done the kind of thing a tourist from Kansas might do. I grew up around the ocean, and knew better than to turn my back on it.
I traced a route in my mind, and, when the next wave pulled out, started jumping rock to rock in a mad dash for shore. About halfway, there was a big rock I could hold onto to catch my breath -- if I didn’t get washed away before I got to it.
I was doing great, writing a new chapter in the annals of dance. I landed on the big rock in a flying leap that would have done the real Pavlova proud.
I was still congratulating myself when the sneaker hit.
A wall of water. The rough, barnacle-covered stone offered plenty of purchase for my hands and feet, so I wasn’t swept away. I lay flat against the barnacles and hung on like a starfish. The first rush pushed me flat against the rock. I took a deep breath and hung on, because I knew my greatest danger would be when the wave receded.
The water pulled back, trying to suck me out to sea, but I held fast to the rock until the wave passed. Icy water, full of sand, dribbled out of every opening in my rain gear. Safe but stupid.
I made it back to shore without further catastrophe, though my inner calm had long since churned out toward the open sea. Feeling like a real rube and looking like a drowned rat, I dashed back to the hotel. Maybe there would be an empty room where I could take a warm shower.
I had bought a new casual outfit for this retreat -- a sweater, blouse and nicely fitting jeans. They rubbed against my skin like cold wet sandpaper. I had to waddle spread-legged, because my sandy underpants were giving me the wedgie from hell. I knew I looked like a pile of flotsam that had washed up on the beach. Hair was plastered to my forehead, and there was probably seaweed hanging out my nose.
No rooms were available, because, as the desk clerk reminded me, check-in time wasn’t until three o’clock. Her name was Darci, and she said I could use the outdoor showers to wash off the sand, and, she supposed, I could change in the ladies’ room next to the lobby. Bitch. She gave me a few towels and went back to the Cosmo she had been reading.
The outdoor shower had only cold water.
The worst thing about changing in a public restroom is that there’s no out of the way place to do it, and no dry spot to put down your clothes. I was toweling off right in the middle of the floor, buck naked and shivering, with my clothes draped all over the stalls when Mary and Claire came in.
“What happened to you?” Claire asked. It was to her credit that she didn’t laugh out loud. Why was she always there when I was doing something embarrassing in the bathroom?
“I was out by the tidal pools and I got hit by a sneaker wave.”
“Are you okay?” Mary asked.
“Yeah, my self-esteem got drowned, but I made it through all right.”
“You’re shivering,” Claire said. She picked up one of the towels and began rubbing my back. Mary dug around in my suitcase for some dry clothes. She didn’t say it, bless her heart, but her efficient manner suggested she had done this sort of thing with her children many times before.
Finally I finished dressing. I still had twenty minutes until the retreat began. I reached for my compact.
“Wait a minute,” Claire said. She cocked her head and looked at me with an appraising eye. “We can’t let you out of here looking like this. I’ve got some shampoo and stuff in the car.” She looked at her watch. “What would you say to a fifteen-minute make over?”
“I’m okay,” I said, “You don’t have to --”
“No, it’ll be fun!” Claire said as she dashed out the door.
Mary was already adjusting the temperature of the water in the sink. “Rinse!” she said. It was a tight fit under the spigot, but the water did feel warm and soothing against my scalp.
Claire came back in with a makeup case only slightly smaller than the cosmetics department at Nordstrom. The two of them went to work immediately. Mary shampooed, conditioned, and towel-dried my hair. Then Claire came in with a dryer and curling iron. Her face was as intent as a surgeon’s, as she moved with the economical grace of a person who knew exactly what she was doing. “Good haircut,” she muttered as she worked. “Give me the mousse,” she said to Mary, who had already arranged all the equipment on the top of the sink.
As soon as my hair was done, Mary handed Claire an open palette of makeup. Claire stared at it for a second, then at my face. “Uh huh,” she said to herself. “This’ll work. Close your eyes.”
With closed eyes I felt the soft touch of brushes, pads and pencils. Claire moved so rapidly I could hear swooshing in the air next to my face. “Okay, I think that’ll do,” she said, “You can put on the lipstick yourself.” She handed me a tube. Earth-toned. “You like Oscar De La Renta, don’t you?” she asked, as she reached back into the makeup case for some perfume.
I got up from the suitcase where I was sitting and went to the mirror to do my lips. I gasped involuntarily when I saw myself.
“Is something wrong?” Claire asked.
“No, no,” I said, “It looks great. I just didn’t recognize myself, is all.” I stared at my reflection in wonder with the tube of lipstick hovering in the air a few inches away from my mouth. My hair was perfect; the makeup subtly enhanced the color and contours of my face, and my eyes were huge beacons of blue light. I was a babe.
I stared transfixed.
“Get a move on, Dr. Reed,” Mary said, “We’re already five minutes late.”

Chapter Twenty Three: Boundary Issues

Loud knocking at my door startled me. They’re coming for me already!
They weren’t. It was Steve. He too looked pale, and seemed to be straining hard to keep from hyperventilating. “Can I talk to you?” he gasped, as he came in and closed the door, without waiting for a response. He was already inside before he saw Paul sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had anybody with you. Do you want me to --”
“No, it’s okay. Isn’t it, Paul?” Paul lifted his head a little and nodded.
Steve glanced in Paul’s direction and then at me. “I guess you already know.”
I picked up the paper from my desk and waved it in the air. “Paul got this layoff notice with my name on it, but nobody ever said word one about it to me.” I paused a second, narrowing my eyes. “I suspect we both know why.”
“We do?” Steve said, and began to pace. “Honestly, I didn’t know anything about this.” Steve was speaking so rapidly he sounded like he was in fast forward. “I knew that Richard and Donnie were looking over the budget to find some money for furniture for the grant people. Somehow, we’ve managed to land a grant that really should have gone to a research institute rather than a working mental health center, because most of the money has nothing to do with direct services. I kept telling Richard that when we were applying, and he just kept saying ‘Get the money first, then we’ll negotiate with the department about how we use it’. You heard him, he must have said it a hundred times.” Steve gasped for another breath, and continued. “Well, this money is from NIMH, and they have much tougher auditors than the state does. Also, the King County centers, that Richard beat out for this grant, are mad about it -- they’re really set up better to do this kind of stuff. They’re raising hell with the department, pressuring them, to see to it that the contract is carried out to the letter. Anyway, what we thought was a nice little chunk of change, that we could pretty much do what we wanted with, actually has some pretty rigorous conditions attached to it, and --”
“I know all about ‘The Grant that devoured Evergreen’, but does that really have anything to do with what happened to Paul? Or the stupid dual-diagnosis group that Claire told me you wanted me to run?”
“Huh? What does that group have to do with anything? Anyway, it was Richard’s idea.”
“I knew it!” I said, hoping that Steve was beginning to catch on.
“Somebody has to do the group or we’ll be out of compliance,” he said.
“Yes, but why me? And why is the situation set up so it looks like I’m firing the guy I used to live with?”
“I’m trying to explain!” Steve snapped. Then he thought better of it. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m just so tangled up in this mess I can hardly see straight. I had no right to use that tone of voice.” He half sat on the edge of my desk and took a few deep breaths trying to calm himself, making a conscious effort to blow all the air out before he took in more. We all teach our clients this technique, but, until then, I don’t believe I had actually seen a therapist using it. “Okay, I’ve got a grip,” he said, “But there are still some things I have to tell you about.”
I began to wonder if he and I were on the same page. “Go ahead,” I said, “You’re the boss.”
Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. Steve’s reaction was a peculiar high-pitched giggle, followed by a few more deep breaths, fully exhaled. “You really think so?” he said.
Finally he composed himself enough to get back on track. As soon as he started talking, he popped off the desk and began pacing again. I rolled my chair aside to give him room.
“Anyway,” he said, “Richard told Donnie to look closely at the budget to find ways to save money. One of the things Donnie found was that your program is over-staffed.”
“Over-staffed? I beg to differ --”
“No, I just mean in a budget sense!” Steve was making what were supposed to be ‘calm down’ motions with his open hands, but he was so hyper that he looked like he was drying his nails, or perhaps trying to fly, using only wrist movements. I felt a breeze. “What I mean is, you guys are costing more than the money we get from the state for running the commitment program. You’ve got an extra person, which we did on purpose -- everybody knows you handle crises for all the other programs, besides the commitment stuff. Anyway, Donnie just went in there and ‘plugged the leaks’ without asking anybody about it. He initiated a spending freeze all on his own, and he wrote that memo about Paul. Putting your name on it was his idea of going through channels. Richard is really pissed.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. Were either of them planning to say anything to me?”
“Richard asked me to come and apologize to you. And to Paul.”
“Well, thank them for the apology, but where does that leave Paul?”
“It’s a mistake,” Steve said, “The letter doesn’t mean anything. You can tear it up. Since Paul was the last hire -- before you, I mean -- Donnie just laid him off. To him one clinician is pretty much like another. But he can’t really do that.”
“Asshole,” I said. Steve and Paul both nodded.
“What can you expect from a guy who got his management training on his uncle’s cotton farm?” Steve said as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Not Donnie. Richard. I can’t believe for a minute that Donnie would do anything without Richard telling him to. Richard uses situations to go after the people he doesn’t like, and then he pretends he had nothing to do with it. Now he’s going after me through Paul, and pretending it was Donnie. He sets you up too -- like when he fired Karma.”
The comment did nothing to ease Steve’s anxiety. He made a face, with his brows lowered over those intense brown eyes. I guess it was supposed to frighten me into shutting up, but I thought he looked kind of cute. Sue me.
“Yes, I told,” I said, “You knew I would, didn’t you? Don’t you think it’s time that some straight information gets out around here?”
“Rachel --” Steve blew all his air out again. This time it sounded more like exasperation than a relaxation technique.
“Here, Paul.” I handed back his layoff notice. “Dr. Kravitz says you can tear this up. I’m not sure this is over, but it looks like you’re safe for now. Mazel tov.” Paul tore up the notice and threw it in my garbage can, then he attempted one of his beautiful Nordic smiles. The effect was diminished by a slight quiver in his lower lip. “Thanks,” he said as he went out the door. A babe going back into the woods.
Steve and I looked at each other for a few seconds. We both had things to say, but I guess we were wondering whether it would be wise to say them to each other. He stood there, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again. His anxiety brought out the nurturer in me, even in the midst of my anger at Richard. I felt like asking Steve to come over and sit in my lap. I’d smooth his hair, kiss his cheek and hold those restless little hands against my heart until they finally settled down. Next I’d be imagining feeding him a bottle.
“So, do you think I’m being paranoid?” I asked, trying to shift my attention back to the subject at hand.
“Maybe a little. I know what it looks like, but I think you have to chalk up the Paul thing to Donnie’s overzealousness, rather than some nefarious plan of Richard’s. They’re both upset, because they can’t finagle their way out of this bind the way they usually do. They keep casting about, looking for a way to move some money around, but they haven’t found it yet.”
“The gonif squad is on the case; I can’t tell you how reassured that makes me feel.
“Give me a break; they’re not that bad.”
“Sorry -- the creative accounting squad. It does my heart good to see you have so much faith in rehabilitating the Axis II impaired.”
Steve began to laugh. Not one of those tight nervous giggles, but a real laugh. His body relaxed and his eyes began to sparkle with merriment. The old Steve. He came over and put a hand on my shoulder. “I guess you’re destined to keep us all honest, aren’t you. Sometimes I wish you wouldn’t stick your neck out so far, but I sort of admire you for it too.”
I raised my chin. “And such a beautiful neck too.”
He blushed. Then shook his head. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” I said, and we both laughed. I knew I was acting stupid, but I savored every minute of it.
“This budget stuff is so involved,” Steve said as he sat back down on the edge of my desk. “In two weeks, when we go to Cannon Beach for the retreat, Richard’s going to try to make the issues clearer. He knows people are upset, but he also thinks they don’t understand why these things are happening. Donnie is going to make a presentation about how the budget works.”
“Be still, oh my heart.”
He didn’t laugh. “You can ask all your questions then, and maybe even get some answers.”
“Did you ever notice that the budget seems to be the answer to every embarrassing question people ask around here?”
Steve smiled a little. He must have thought I was still joking. “It is complicated.”
“Not that complicated. Where I used to work each department had its own budget and everybody knew in advance what was there, and how much money they had to spend. Here, Donnie and Richard are the only ones who even get to see the goddamn thing. They treat it like it was a priceless manuscript or something.”
“Richard always says he wishes the program directors would take the time to understand it better.”
“Richard is full of shit. That budget is his control. He’s not about to share it with anybody -- except Donnie.”
“He’s explained it to me. At least the clinical parts.”
“What about the rest of it?”
“It’s leases, phones, office equipment, clerical stuff -- I have a copy of it. It’s not a secret.”
“Have you read it?”
Steve smiled and shrugged. “I’ve tried, but it’s just page after page of figures. I guess it’s beyond me.”
“Steve Kravitz, you have a Ph.D. And you are one of the brightest people I’ve ever met. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that there’s something Donnie Lewis can understand that you can’t?”
“He’s had accounting --”
“Still, how hard could it be? We’re talking about the Birdman of Evergreen here. He’s got an average IQ, if that. They don’t give extra points for meanness.”
“I guess I should understand it better, but --”
“What about the party? You said yourself that those hundred dollar bottles of wine were coming out of the Center budget. How the hell can they get away with that?”
“There are administrative expenses associated with every program, and then there’s a separate center administration budget. We have to use that money for administrative expenses; we can’t pull it out and use it for anything else.”
“So we can buy fancy wine, but we can’t buy desks? Or use the money to keep a valuable clinician?”
“It’s not that simple, but I guess you’re right, in principle.”
“In principle, huh? Somehow that doesn’t seem like the word I’d use when Richard and Donnie are involved.”
“Come on, Rachel --”
“Don’t you ‘come on, Rachel’ me. You know those guys are crooks. I bet they’re raking expense money right off the top, and putting it in their own pockets.”
“They can’t do that. The budget gets audited all the time.”
“Okay, okay. You’re probably right. Still, I bet there’s all kinds of stuff in those ‘administrative expenses’ that nobody knows about.”
“You mean Richard’s car?”
“What! The Center is paying for that overpriced Infiniti pimpmobile that he’s always stroking out in the parking lot?”
“Not paying for it; leasing it. The Center leases Donnie’s car too. And mine.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me!”
“No, I thought you knew about it, and that was why you brought up the administrative expenses thing.”
“How would I know that? If people knew about that, they’d tar and feather Richard. They’d lynch him! They’d -- I don’t know -- cut his balls off and nail them to the front door!”
“Interesting fantasy life, Dr. Reed,” Steve said as he crossed his legs. “But they wouldn’t. The Center isn’t actually paying for the leases. I mean, it is, but the money is from our salaries. It goes on the books as a benefit, so we don’t have to pay taxes on it. All three of us have to use our cars on Center business all the time. The board approved it. There really isn’t a problem. Or at least there wasn’t, until Richard got the Infiniti. The payments are a lot higher, and the board thought they had to set some limits, so they made Richard pay some of it out of his own pocket. It was all in the minutes of the last board meeting, so I thought you knew about it.”
“What makes you think I get to see the board minutes?”
Steve looked blank for a second. “I get them in my mailbox; I thought everybody did,” he said, “They’re a public document. Like the budget.” He stopped and looked at me. “Uh, I’m beginning to see what you mean -- but none of it is a secret.”
“Sure, Steve, it’s just that nobody knows about it.”
“They could if they wanted to.”
“Do you have copies of those board minutes?”
“Yeah, somewhere. What are you planning to do with them?”
“Read them, to start with.”
“Then?”
“You said they weren’t a secret.”
Steve thought about it for a few seconds. “Okay, I’ll get them for you,” he said. Then he leaned over to my chair, put both hands on my shoulders and looked deeply into my eyes. My heart began to clatter like a Geiger counter at ground zero. I tried to get up, to stand eye to eye, but his hands made me overbalance. I crashed down heavily into my chair and almost fell over backwards. “Oops,” Steve said. He bent over and gave me a little hug.
Long after he left I could feel the roughness of his beard against my face and smell his aftershave. This retreat might prove interesting.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Chapter Twenty Two: A Regular Joan of Arc

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO,
A REGULAR JOAN OF ARC
"We should call it ‘The Grant that Devoured Evergreen’ because it’s eating us alive," I said. I was at my weekly team meeting, catching the Mind Police up on the rumors that served for news at the Center. "All of a sudden, there are a lot of things the grant doesn’t cover -- like furniture and office equipment. Mary and Claire have hired eight new people, and they’ve got no place to put them. Right now they’re sharing desks and climbing all over each other."
"Sharing desks is like sharing a lover," Ira said, "You start out trying to be so civilized. But then the old limbic system kicks in, and it’s welcome to the jungle."
"And you know this from personal experience?" Glenda asked, "Which did you share, a desk or a lover?"
"I have shared both in my time," Ira said, "All and all, I think sharing a desk is more of an emotional strain."
Greg broke in, "Now wait a minute, you and I used to share a desk in the old building, and I thought we got along pretty well."
"Greg, I’ve never told you this, but it wasn’t as good for me as it was for you."
"I’m crushed," Greg said, "I thought we had the ideal deskmate relationship." Ira put his hand on Greg’s shoulder. "Please understand I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m telling you this as a friend, who only wants to help." He took a huge breath. "You have a serious praying problem, and I think you need treatment."
Greg tried hard to keep a straight face. "And I thought I hid it so well."
Ira looked at the rest of us. "That’s what they all say, isn’t it? I feel you all must know the truth. This man spent so much time on his knees, he wore out the carpet in front of the desk. And he could not end a phone conversation without saying ‘In Jesus name, Amen.’ But the worst thing was, he would shout ‘Praise The Lord’ every time he thought about having an orgasm. He’s such a goy! I just couldn’t take it. When I spent time around him I’d always have to go into the bathroom to make sure I was still circumcised."
Greg shook with laughter and tears were running down his face. "So that’s what all the moaning was about. I thought --"
"I had to check it to see if it still worked!"
Glenda stopped laughing long enough to pick up a ruler from my desk. "Boys, you are both disgusting. Put out your hands!"
Greg put out his hand and looked at her sheepishly. "If I’m really bad, can I have it on my bare bottom -- like last time?"
Ira came over and put an arm around Greg. Both of them were laughing so hard they couldn’t catch their breath. I looked over at Paul. He was smiling but his arms were folded and his legs were crossed. He was leaning so far away from Greg and Ira that it looked like he might fall off the end of the couch.
Still hugging Greg, Ira turned to face Glenda. He held out his hand to her, knuckles first. "The purest of freedoms is choosing to suffer. We embrace our punishment gladly. Strike and set us free!"
Glenda looked at him for a minute and then shook her head. "I don’t know which of you guys is the most perverted," she said.
I figured it was time to get back on task. "Sister Glenda, may I please have my ruler?" When she gave it to me I used it as a gavel. "This meeting will come to order!" The Mind Police immediately sat at attention. Such respect for authority. I figured I had about fifteen seconds.
"But seriously folks, there’s an even bigger problem with the grant," I said. "Each new person we’ve hired has brought about a person-and-a-half’s worth of work. Most of the grant money is for demonstration projects that require an incredible amount of paperwork for monitoring and evaluation. The new people have so many evaluation responsibilities that they hardly have any time for seeing clients, so the rest of us will have to take on bigger caseloads and do more paperwork, just to handle our obligations to the grant."
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," Greg muttered under his breath.
"See, he’s doing it again!" Ira said.
I continued. "It’s already happening to the full time people in both Mary’s and Kar -- I mean Claire’s -- programs. They’re also having to do a lot of their own typing and filing, because the grant didn’t have any provisions for increased clerical time. It did provide for new bookkeepers and computers in Donnie’s department, and a half-time executive assistant for Richard."
I paused to let the information sink in.
"Didn’t Richard say he wasn’t going to hire anybody to fill that position?" Glenda asked.
"Yeah," I said, "But His Highness is using Jeannie so much that she doesn’t have any time left to be clerical administrator. He’s always calling her into his office to do his personal filing and dictation. Jeannie is the original Ms. Subassertive, so she’s working late just about every night to get everyth