Confessions of a So-called Middle Child (2 page)

Here's Hoping—My Very Last Trip to the Shrink

Sadly, of course I knew where we were going. But as I am a glass-half-full type of gal, I saw this as the very likely
end
of my mental-health plan.

We headed south down the hill, took a right onto Sunset Boulevard, and passed the old guy waving his flag. He had his dog under his picnic chair, a yummy-looking iced Starbucks coffee drink, and a boom box. He was trying to get to San Francisco.

You know, I kinda envied that dude. Not only was he was in control of his destiny, he was wearing a seriously cool set of cowboy boots.

We got to the big block of buildings, scary buildings that smelled like white coats, alcohol, and really long needles. Man, did I hate these places. I could smell 'em a mile away.

Over the last three months, they'd been forcing me to come here once a week to discuss my feelings. I mean, how many feelings can a twelve-year-old girl have in a week? I had to make them up; I had to invent problems I didn't even have. But today, today was the end of summer, which had to mean the end of therapy! Hallelujah!

Mom knocked on the door, and it opened right away like Dr. Scales had nothing better to do. Let me warn you, the dude was ugly but in a friendly, old, grandpa, I-left-my-teeth-at-home sort of way. He wore his last remaining strands of hair in a comb-over and had huge teeth that made you think of Old Yeller. But he was one of the nicest dudes I've ever known. And he helped me, he did. Not that there was anything wrong with me
at all
, but I am a middle child, you know.

“Charlie.” He opened the door wide. “Hello.”

“Bam!” I pretended to kick him in the shins for old times' sake. When I first came, I was a completely different person. Put it this way: I was like the Hulk; now I'm more Bruce Banner.

He looked at my boots, my outfit. “Are you going as a Power Ranger this Halloween?”

“What!” How old did he think I was? Six? I was wearing a super cool leotard that happened to be yellow and white, a white skirt, and seriously swag black high-heel boots.

He laughed and tossed me a high five like he had swag. “I'm just messing with you, Charlie!”

“You're killing me, Doc.” I collapsed into the deep sofa.

Now Dr. Scales scooted forward. “So your new school starts tomorrow, huh, Charlie? How do you feel?”

I looked at them both. The more I studied their faces, the weirder Mom and Doc Scales looked. The doc had hairs everywhere, and Mom, well, lines were forming on her face. I sure hoped I didn't look like that when I got older. Old age blows. Anyway, I gave them the thumbs-up and announced with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, “I feel excited, Doc. I feel
ready
.”

“New school, new you.” He opened my file, which he always had on his desk whenever we had our sessions. Sometimes he'd lean over and jot something down; sometimes he'd give me a glance, a nudge, just to scare the crap out of me. “I feel like you're ready; really, really ready.”

I could barely speak. “I am, Doc, I so am!” Was this the moment I'd been longing for? The moment when he'd tell me I was done, that I'd never have to come here again and talk about my feelings?

He nodded like this was it. “You must be aware of your triggers.”

“My triggers?” What the heck?

“Popular girls.” He shook his head. “You're attracted to them, Charlie, because you crave acceptance. But your self-esteem”—he looked like a sad, old pound dog—“is low. So you get their attention by being bad.”

Like I hadn't heard that before. “But not anymore. I've been so good this summer, it's sickening.” I pointed to my mom, who was pretending to read. “Just ask my mom. Ask her.”

She looked up. “It's true.”

“And I've lost a few pounds”—I sucked it in—“or haven't you noticed?”

“All right,” he said, smiling, “I respect that. Let's talk about your last school, Charlie.”

Here we go again. “I've already talked about it until there's nothing left to talk about, Doc. I put some laxatives in the cafeteria food. The school had a massive cleanse, could have gone on that show
The Biggest Loser
.” I leaned back and waited for him to laugh. He didn't.

Mom stomped her feet on the floor. “Charlie, stop with the sarcasm!”

“All right, all right! I'm sorry. It was a mistake, I temporarily lost my mind, okay?” But really, you wanna know the truth? It was really Ashley's fault. If she hadn't moved here and set her sights on Roxy, my best—and, okay, fine—my only friend, and made a point of ditching me like a piece of you know what,
none
of this, and I repeat, none of this would have ever happened. But of course I could never say that to Dr. Scales, or he'd make me come twice a week.

 

 

“I'm going to get a coffee.” Mom got up, as usual. See, when you're a kid seeing a shrink, your mom or dad hang out for a few minutes and make small talk like it's a voluntary thing, like it's
fun
or something. Then they take off fast. “I'll see you in an hour.”

As soon as the door closed, Doc Scales went back to reading from my file. Crap! That file was thick. “But”—he turned the page—“you ended up letting yourself get caught, because you didn't want the kindergartners getting sick. Compassion, Charlie, the other side of the bully.”

“For the last time, I'm no bully.” I sat up straight. That word just pissed me off. “Have you ever seen bullies, Doc? Do they look like this?” I pointed to my gorgeous hair, my incredible leggings, my smile. “No, they don't. They look like huge monsters who wear cutoff denim shorts and vests, all right?”

“I was going to say, Children who are bullied often show remarkable compassion.” He paused like it hadn't sunk in already. “Like you did; you got caught because you were compassionate.”

I looked away. My God, did we have to rehash this whole thing? “A moment of weakness.”

“They clapped when you were forced to leave?” He looked at me with those deep eyes like he was testing me to see whether I was going to flip out. “How did that make you feel?”

“Uh, not great, Doc,” I said easily, but the truth was, the thought of it still made me sweat. I could still remember Ashley Stronza's first day. She wore black lipstick, had a fake nose piercing, and swore she played spin the bottle. I recognized her for the fraud she was. But no one else did. To put it mildly, her arrival at the end of fifth grade at Malibu Charter ruined everything.

Dr. Scales nodded and scanned the notes again. He kept flipping them and flipping them. Jeez, how many pages did he have on me? “At home you're the middle child. Your fourteen-year-old sister excels academically, has a million causes she fights for. Your seven-year-old brother—” Doc must have had a picture in that file, because his face got all soft and sappy when he said, “Boy, he really could be in one of those Gap ads, couldn't he?”

“You're killing me, Doc.”

“My point is, Charlie, at home you've made your mark by being bad. That's how you've always gotten attention.”

“Yeah, well, as you know, the other spots were taken.” I bit my nail.

“But that puts you in a very unique position,” he stated. “You know more than anyone what it feels like to be left behind, to be treated like yesterday's news. Ditched, dodged, abandoned at the lunch tables—”

“All right, all right!” Just the memory of it was making me get all hot.

“You've read my book,
Embrace Your Inner Middle Child
?”

I rolled my eyes. “Took me half of July.”

“So you recall the second-to-last chapter, ‘The Mark of the Middle'?”

Nope, I blocked it out. I blocked all of it out. You see, most of the time when I'm “reading,” my eyes are moving over the pages, but my mind is thinking about hacking computer codes and runway fashion. Baby, that's what makes my life worth living.

“You carry with you the mark of the middle child, and people know it.” He pointed at my heart. “They sense it. Kids most of all.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I'm saying stay away from the popular girls. Do not dive in and search out the best-dressed, most beautiful girls. Slow down; wait.”

“No worries, I got it,” I said. “I can wait.” In fact, I wanted to wait. Nope, no more rush, rush, rush for me. But seriously, now I had to go. “Thanks for everything, Doc.” I got up, clapped. “I'm excited, Doc. This is going to be great—a fresh start where no one knows my name. I will not blow this. I'll never forget you.” I was laying it on thick because I was just about to walk out that door and
never
, and I mean
never
, turn back.

Scales pointed to the chair. “Not done.” He made me sit back down and then, as adults always do, he kept going on and on, covering
no
new ground. “There's something you must do on your first day.”

“Sure, fine.” I tapped my foot anxiously.

“If you can complete this task”—he gave me the hairy-eyebrow wiggle—“you won't have to come here anymore.”

“Done.” I pounced.

“Your task is”—his eyes popped out, just like a French bulldog, his crooked fingers were all entwined, he leaned so close I could smell his hair—“to find the most bullied girl in your class and be her friend. Yes, Charlie, befriend her.” He let out a deep breath.

“What?” I glared. “Excuse me? Come again?
Sprechen sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous français?
Speak English?”

He narrowed his eyes. You could barely see them under all that hair. “I think you heard me.”

“But, but that's like the kiss of death, Doc. I'll be ruined, ruined before I even begin. Do you know the work I've done this summer? The outfits I've put together? I'm ready to go, Doc, to have a fresh start, and there's no way on this earth I can start my new life by hanging out with the lowest of the low.”

Dr. Scales came around from his desk and lifted my chin. “I know you think I'm doing you a great disservice, but believe me when I tell you I want you to succeed, Ms. Charlie Cooper, I want you to succeed more than you can ever know. But you must stand on your own two feet and succeed as a human being first.”

I could barely get up, such was my despair. “I don't want to be a human being! I just want to have friends, Doc, and lots of them.” I walked to the door. What was left to say? Oh, there was one thing left. “You know what it's like being the only one
not
getting the evite, Doc? It's horrible. It's like a knife in the heart over and over. And if I do what you ask, I'll be putting the knife in my own heart!”

“Does your sister have lots and lots of friends?”

I looked away. He knew the answer.

“It's because she doesn't care about popularity, Charlie. She cares about bigger things, more important things. You make your mark by being kind to those no one is kind to, and everyone will want to be friends with you.”

Blah, blah, blah—just kill me now.

He touched my arm. “Trust me.”

“Blackmailer.” I closed my eyes. I felt deflated and horrible. Not only was this
not
my last session, he was basically branding me a total
loser
before I even had a chance to wow everyone with my fashion sense, my wit, my undeniable charm.

“Time's up.” He got up, walked to the door. “By next week I'm sure you'll have found the girl whose life you'll change.”

“And what if there isn't one, huh?” I felt one last surge of hope. “What if they're all like happy little Smurfs, huh? What if it's a bully-free school, what then, Doc?”

“I've never known one.” He smiled. “And I'll trust you to be honest,” he said. “Or the sessions will continue until you are honest, Charlie.”

I wanted to kick him in the shins more than I wanted to breathe. “Great.”

Mom was filling a cup with water from the water cooler when I came through. She looked up, hopeful. “So how'd it go?”

I felt like puking. “Horrible. I'm his slave, his slave for life.”

Mom looked at Scales. “Not done?”

“Not quite,” he said softly. “See you next week, Charlie.” Then he closed the door before I could give him a dirty look.

On the drive home, Mom reached over and touched my knee. “Hey, Charlie, what happened in there? You seem really upset.”

I looked out the window, watching all the grown-ups go by and wishing I could do what I wanted, just like them. “He's blackmailing me.”

Mom laughed. “What?”

“He's telling me that I have to pretend to befriend the biggest loser in my class.”

Mom thought long and hard and then said, “Huh.”

“Huh?” I wanted to explode. “Is that all you can say?”

“Huh, as in: There's probably a good reason why he's doing it.” She checked the mirror and tried to merge into the lane going up into the canyons, but no one would let us in. “Jeez, these jerks won't let me merge.”

“It's called revenge.” He was trying to make my life miserable, that's what he was doing.

Mom rolled down the window on the old Volvo with peeling Clinton-Gore stickers and yelled, “Where's the love, man? Show me some love.” The cars stopped. I tried to hide under the seat so no one would see me. Mom waved like she wasn't totally embarrassing me, thankful and with a renewed sense of love for all mankind. “Dr. Scales cares about you. I think you need to trust him.”

“He's mean, and I hate him.”

We chugged up the canyon. Mom said, “He's giving you the responsibility of standing for something. He's making you a better person, Charlie, even if you don't want to be.”