100 Days of Cake (33 page)

I
'm on my way downstairs to watch the
Golden Girls
block, when I notice V sitting up on her big frilly canopy bed, surrounded by thick fashion magazines.

After running away from home to our old home, V wasn't grounded for the rest of her natural life, but pretty darn close—three weeks. While half the kids at school have their phones confiscated as a form of punishment, Mom required V to essentially safety pin hers to her sleeve at all times. Plus, V had to get one of those Find My Phone apps. The big shocker? Even though V hemmed and hawed, you could tell she was pretty darn pleased that Mom was so concerned about her. The two of them are actually getting along way better than at any time I can remember.

V's bedroom door is open (she's also not supposed to
shut doors if there is any question about whether or not she's home), but I knock anyway, and she waves me in.

“Do you maybe wanna go downstairs and, you know, bond?” I ask.

“I'm in the middle of something here. Maybe in a little?”

Telling her sure, I turn, but she stops me. “Do you wanna take a look? It kind of involves you.”

For the first time I notice that she's not reading the articles about how to make your man crazy in bed or get killer abs in three minutes a day. Instead she's marking up the outfits in the fashion spreads, cutting images out, writing notes. Next to her is a chunky sketchpad where she's drawn her own designs in colored pencil. Slim skirts and long sleeveless tops, and these breezy but fitted dresses. Everything is classic and clean and perfect for Florida summers. The sketches themselves are really well done, and I wonder how I never realized we had that in common.

“Oh, they're so pretty,” I say. “I didn't know you could draw like that.”

“Well, I'm no Molly Byrne, but I get by.”

I tell her that I'm going to take Ms. Cromwell's advanced art class and that she should take it too.

“Two Byrne girls in the same CCH classroom? That might be fun, or the start of the apocalypse. I'll definitely think about it.”

Explaining that those weren't the sketches she wanted to show me, V flips back a few pages in her notebook, settles on some drawings of female figures in these fluffy-looking jackets with animal heads. Climbing onto the bed next to her, I get a better view.

“Ohmygod, are those . . .”

“They're the stuffed animal pelts that Jimmy made from the playroom tiger!”

“For serious?” They are honestly adorbs.

“Yeah, Jaclyn liked them so much, she said we could make prototypes to sell at the store.”

“That's amazing.”

“Here's the kicker. To help make them I was going to go to this dressmaker in Maxwell who sometimes does stuff for Jaclyn. But then Mom found out that the
Baker's Journey
woman has a sister who did
A Seamstress's Journey
.”

“Get out!”

“So yeah, when Mom finishes with the cakes, she's going to start that and try to figure out all the stuff in the sewing room. I told Jaclyn we might not have the prototypes for a while.”

Mom and V together, thick as thieves. After all my complaining about the cakes, there's a part of me that's a little jealous. Is that the problem with a group of three, that things almost always break down so there's an odd one out?

“Well,” I say. “There'll probably be a good amount of fingers stitched together at first, but after a month on that thing, she'll be ready to set the fashion world on fire.”

“Have you talked to her yet?” V's tone is weightier. “About all the Dad stuff?”

“Mom and I are fine.” This is true-ish. The second everything started going down with V disappearing, any active anger I had toward Mom instantly evaporated. Nothing like the thought of a new potential tragedy to foist togetherness onto everyone and make an old tragedy less tragic. Since then I've been perfectly polite. I've eaten a piece of each day's cake (that hasn't entirely been a hardship; Mom has gone full-on Duff Goldman) and answered any surface question she asks about my day. Like I told Elle, I know that whatever she did, she did it to protect me. But I still can't shake the feeling that she unilaterally took away Pluto.

“Really?” V arches a perfect eyebrow.

“Yes, really.”

As she is showing me more of her drawings, we talk about the looks she likes and how her dream is to design something for Jennifer Lawrence on Oscar night.

“Why haven't you ever stopped by Jaclyn's?” she asks. “Even after I told you they were selling my bracelets, you never came in.”

“I guess I thought you wouldn't want me there.” I shrug.
“That you'd be embarrassed to have the crazy girl who tanked the divisionals meet show up.”

“Whatever, Mol. You're my big sister.” V gives her signature eye roll. “And seriously, who besides Coach Hartley cares about some stupid swim meet from two years ago? You've got to get over that.”

Maybe she's right; maybe the rest of the world really doesn't view the world as BDF and ADF.

“Fine. I guess I'll have to come, then.”

Lowering her eyes, she says that Elle came into the store a while ago. “She told me that you weren't hooking up with your shrink . . . and then she gave me a forty-minute lecture about how my nail polish was going to render the planet uninhabitable in two years or something.

“That's Elle.”

V shrugs. “So, um, what was going on with you and him the night of the fish thing?”

A part of me wants to just tell her the whole story—like I know she wouldn't go all
Law & Order
the way Elle did. “It was just a misunderstanding,” I say.

She nods, even though her face is a portrait of utter disbelief. “Anyway, I told Alex you weren't sleeping with Dr. Brooks. I hope that's okay.”

Alex knows Dr. B. and I were never together, but he still hasn't reached out? I guess that speaks volumes. Maybe it's better that way.

“Thanks. That means a lot to me.” I know it's probably not fair to ask, but I do it anyway. “How is he? Alex. Do you see him much?”

“Chris said Alex went to one of his pool things last week—not that I was anywhere but here.” She closes her magazine and flips over onto her back. “You really did a number on him, Mol.”

“I know.” I let my head fall back against one of the pillows. “What is wrong with me?”

“You're a cock tease?”

“Shut up!” I throw one of the model-home pillows at her.

“Too soon?” She smiles all innocent-like and bats her eyelashes.

“Yes, too soon! A hundred years from now will still be too soon.”

“Sorry.”

“So, what about you?” I ask.

“What about me, what?”

“Like, Chris seemed pretty freaking worried when his poor little Ronnie was out in the cold Florida night. . . .”

“It's really none of your business.” She smiles again, devilish this time. “But if you're asking if V is still in the V club, yes, I am a card-carrying member. . . .”

This is sort of surprising, but it makes me happy. Not because V hasn't been getting her sexy on, but because she sounds more like my sister.

“But,” she continues, “I'm definitely the girl to call if you need a hand . . . job.” She throws the pillow back at me. “Or at least I used to be, before Mom put me on lockdown.”

It's not quite how I imagined V and me sharing this stuff, but it's pretty darn close.

And it feels good.

D
r. Frankel is a dead ringer for Dorothy from
Golden Girls
!

Unfortunately, we don't have the witty back-and-forth banter Dorothy has with Rose and Blanche. I'm ruler-rigid in one of the two chairs in her office. It was the only seating option; there aren't any couches or chaise longues like Dr. B. had. I remember my first sessions at Dr. B.'s, when I gave one-word answers and twisted up into myself, unclear on what I was supposed to say, until he finally got me talking about music. Probably not gonna happen that way here; there isn't a stereo or any DVDs. If it weren't for the diplomas on the wall (LSU, Tulane; and graduation dates showing she's old enough to be Mom's mom), it would pretty much be the police investigation room on any cop drama.

“So, how do you know Dr. B.—uh, Dr. Brooks?” I ask. Doesn't really seem like they'd be traveling in the same
circles or, you know, on the same planet.

“Glen Brooks and I have worked together with several patients. As a psychiatrist, I can prescribe medication, so sometimes he'll send someone to me if he feels they could benefit from that.”

“But you do this, the talking part, too?”

“Yes. I believe that is a crucial part of any therapy; I wouldn't prescribe a drug for a patient who wasn't in some type of psychotherapy too.”

“Good to know.”

“Should we start with that, then?” She smiles. It's a good smile, a million times warmer than anything else in the room, and I relax the tiniest bit. She asks who has been writing the scripts for my meds, and when I tell her it's my pediatrician and that he's had me on the same stuff I've been on since ADF, she smiles the warm smile again. “It might be time to review that, figure out what's working and what isn't.”

“But . . .” I explain about Dr. B. telling me that meds weren't really recommended for people under twenty-one.

“The drugs are tools. They're helpful for some people; other people don't need them. And your needs can and do change. It's about finding the right balance for the individual. Some people find it useful to think of it like cooking. Have you ever made a cake, Molly?”

Is she shitting me? “Um, yeah.”

“You know how some recipes call for a little more of one ingredient, some a little less? Sometimes you discover it's best to bake the cake on a lower temperature for longer; other times you'll want to use a higher temperature for less time. The basic ingredients might always be the same, but it's about tweaking until you find out what works.”

I nod; I still can't believe she used a cake metaphor.

“With your permission, I'd like to have your pediatric records faxed over so I can take a look. If you'd like, you can also have Dr. Brooks's notes sent to me so we can try picking up where you left off with him.”

What would be in Dr. B.'s notes? All the stuff about my dad I made up? That he suspected I had a thing for him? That he maybe had a thing for me, too?

“But sometimes,” she continues, “I find it's best to begin anew with a different therapist, to make a fresh start.”

“I think I'd like that,” I tell her. “A fresh start.”

The nuclear fusion smile again, and she asks me to explain what brought me to therapy in the first place. So I start with the end of sophomore year, how I stopped caring about everything and how Mom and I went to the counselor's office and Mom got so upset when the counselor suggested I was depressed . . . which all makes so much more sense now than it did at the time. Half the kids at school are on some type of meds, half of Mom's clients and
their
kids are depressed, so I couldn't figure out why Mom was code-red alert about it. But of course it was because of Dad. Dr. B. was right about one thing; therapy
is
easier when you have all the information.

“I actually recently found out that my father killed himself,” I tell Dr. Frankel. “My mom had always told my sister and me that it was a car accident, but it turns out the car crash was intentional.”

“That's a very big revelation. How did that make you feel?”

“A lot of stuff. Mad that no one had ever told me, kind of betrayed because I'd thought one thing forever and it wasn't true,” I say, and then I admit the thing that I haven't been able to say since V hurled the truth at me in the kitchen. “And honestly kind of scared.”

Dr. Frankel asks me to go on.

So I tell her how even when I've been at my worst, I've never thought about killing myself in any real way. “But knowing about Dad makes me wonder, like, is that the next phase of this? Is it that kind of progression? I graduate from running away from swim meets to running in front of trains?”

“No, Molly, it doesn't mean you're going to commit suicide too.” She explains that while there are some genetic links to mental health conditions, Dad and I are two separate people. “If your father had been an Olympic sprinter, he might have passed on some natural talent, but obviously
that wouldn't mean you'd have the same career, not even if you tried to do everything the exact way that he did.”

Deep down I guess I knew this, but it's still a relief to hear it.

“And that's one of the reasons why you and I are working together,” Dr. Frankel continues. “We want to make sure that nothing like that ever happens to you.”