In the Unlikely Event... (17 page)

“Perfect. I appreciate you looking out for me.” She turned off the road and onto the county road. The transition was smooth, she noted.

Gitana stuck her arm out the window of the Land Rover and waved at them before she turned onto the county road and headed toward the nursery.

“Do you want me to read the particulars while we drive and then you can study the pictures after you drop me off?”

“By all means.”

Chase was standing in Dr. Robicheck’s office. “I mean how hard can it be to hang crepe paper and tape up decorations? The Coffee Klatch relegated me to dispensing tape. It was embarrassing.”

Dr. Robicheck stared at her. “Because you were doing what?”

“Did you redecorate again? You know how I feel about that.”

“Yes, now why did you feel inadequate to the task?”

“You painted and changed the pillows,” Chase said, feeling her heart pump faster.

“Is it because this is an activity you haven’t done before?”

“Is this sage green?” Chase said, pointing to the walls. Even the prints had changed from calla lilies and Southwestern scenes to reprints of forest paintings something along the lines of Emily Carr. Chase asked if the paintings were by artist Emily Carr.

Dr. Robicheck looked at the prints as if seeing them for the first time. Sometimes Chase swore her therapist was myopic.

“I seem to remember being told that. I hired an interior designer. I thought my office needed sprucing up. I gave her free rein. I rather like it.” She studied the room.

“You know I don’t like change.”

“I realize that change is unsettling for you. Now, why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk about this crepe paper business.”

Chase sat down. “I do like the rug. It accents the wall colors and ties into the pillows, and that vase is new too,” she said, pointing at the hand-blown glass vase sitting on the end table.

“Chase, focus. Tell me what happened at the decorating party.”

“It’s the road, really, more than the crepe paper.” She fingered one of the couch pillows.

“The road? What road?” Dr. Robicheck had opened an embossed green leather notepad.

“That looks new.” Chase was on the verge of a panic attack. She looked around the room searching for every new thing—there was the pen and pencil holder, the ink blotter and two books by Anthony Trollope,
The Eustace Diamonds
and
The Warden,
two of Chase’s favorites. “This is awful. When did you do all this?”

Chase quickly calculated. It had been six weeks since her last appointment. Dr. Robicheck had gone to a conference and Chase had been in New York with Eliza P. Newman planning a new detective series. Divine Vulva was supposedly working out a killer hook and had yet to do so. Commercial Endeavor was at least doing her part by creating character biographies and researching the locale for the novel. The combination of these events resulted in enough time for the remodel.

Chase recalled her first visit to Dr. Robicheck’s. The entire room was brown—it was like sitting inside a walnut with brown furniture and brown walls, and Dr. Robicheck wore a brown polyester get-up. Then Dr. Robicheck fell in love and all hell broke loose in the world of change. Dr. Robicheck got a new wardrobe and redecorated her office, and now she was doing it again—like the first time hadn’t been traumatic enough.

“What happened to this road you’re talking about?”

“How come you remodeled again? Do you have a new boyfriend?”

“I felt like a change—green is supposed to be a very soothing color.”

“Well, it’s not working for me,” Chase said, getting up to examine the print on the wall. It was nicely framed and thank God, Divine Vulva had given up coming to therapy or this artwork could be in danger.

“Evidently.”

“And before you ask, yes, I have been taking my meds.”

“That’s good, but I wasn’t going to inquire. Stress does this to you. Now, let’s talk about the cause of this episode,” she inquired, pen poised.

Chase studied the embossed signature on the lower right corner of the print. It was a reproduction of an Emily Carr. “Did you know about her?”

“About who?”

“Emily Carr.”

“Who’s Emily Carr?” Dr. Robicheck had that genuinely puzzled look that Chase, in her more passive-aggressive moments, found amusing. Confusing the therapist who was supposed to lead you out of your own personal confusion was surely a patient-therapist confidentiality achievement. Your mind was so confidential that even your therapist couldn’t breach it.

“She painted this,” Chase said, indicating the print.

“She’s not here, is she?”

“No, Emily Carr’s been dead for a long time,” Chase said.

“I figured that by the dates on the paintings.”

“Who are you talking about then?” Chase said.

“You know,” Dr. Robicheck said, cocking her head toward the paintings.

“No, I don’t know.” They were definitely not connecting today, Chase thought.

“Your muse, the one that throws artwork,” Dr. Robicheck said, looking around anxiously as if searching for tangible proof, and then she pointed at the framed reproduction of Emily Carr’s painting of a cedar forest.

“Oh, no. Divine Vulva had decided that therapy is not her thing,” Chase said, being diplomatic. What Divine Vulva had actually said was, “Therapy is fucking voodoo shit and you might as well piss your money down a hole.” Chase knew that each person’s profession was sacred to them. She didn’t want to offend Dr. Robicheck. “She’s been really busy working on her new series.”

“So basically she’s too busy to seek the professional care that she needs—that’s not healthy. I think I could really help her,” Dr. Robicheck said.

Chase stared at her in astonishment. Dr. Robicheck was never a promoter of her shrink skills. This was outright recruitment. It was Chase’s turn to glance around to make sure Divine Vulva hadn’t heard any of this.

Dr. Robicheck continued, “I would start with hypnosis and then move on to anger management.”

“Uh, well, you know, Divine Vulva just really has her own gig going on.” Chase studied her thumbnail, thinking this was getting awkward. “I mean, anger management is probably a good idea.”

Dr. Robicheck chuckled, or at least that’s what it sounded like. Either that or she was aspirating.

Then Chase noticed her smiling.

“I’m kidding, Chase. Your muse views therapy as some sort of voodoo crap, correct?”

Chase furrowed her brow, and for half a second, she thought Dr. Robicheck had not only redecorated her office but had also taken a successful Continuing Education class in mind-reading.

“I don’t think kidding should be allowed in therapy. It’s disconcerting,” Chase said, going for a forefinger cuticle chew. Her left hand slapped her right hand in an automatic response.

“Nor should it be allowed that a patient, to use your lexicon, freak out over a therapist redecorating her office. It is my office, after all. So can we get back on task and talk roads and crepe paper?”

Chase nodded. She went to the water cooler to get a drink and noticed the new Dixie cup design but said nothing. She turned to see Dr. Robicheck watching her as if waiting for her to say something. “I didn’t say a word.” She gulped the water and sat down on the green corduroy couch with satin cording. “You know this isn’t going to wear as well as leather.”

Dr. Robicheck raised an eyebrow.

“I’m just sayin’.”

“Your opinion has been noted—the office furniture is a tax write-off.”

“Oh, I wasn’t aware of that.” Chase’s mind began turning. She despised paying taxes. “Do you think that rule would apply to my writing studio?”

“I suppose so if you renamed it for tax purposes as your office.”

Chase furrowed her brow. Why hadn’t anyone brought this up to her before?

“The road or crepe paper?” Dr. Robicheck prodded. “Whichever one came first or is of more importance.”

“The crepe paper incident really isn’t that important, but it is part of the larger picture of the problem at hand and thus I don’t think should be discounted because the crepe paper incident is linked to Bud’s sexuality.”

“Perhaps we better have another session next week. I don’t think we can get all this done in the next forty minutes.”

“You’re right. I’ll make another appointment.”

“So tell me about the crepe paper incident.”

Chase recounted the particulars for Dr. Robicheck—the dance, Bud’s choice of partner and the Coffee Klatch.

“Do these women intimidate you?” Dr. Robicheck inquired, her brow raised.

“No, I mean, not really, well perhaps just a little,” Chase said, avoiding her gaze. “All right, yes, they do—all except one who is more tormented than I am.”

“Then why do you associate with them if they make you feel this way?”

Chase thought for a moment. She’d gone to the Coffee Klatch in the beginning because Summer’s mom had asked her to, saying, “I’ll go if you go.” Chase was a sucker for that kind of thing—the need-to-be-needed phenomena, as Donna dubbed it. She told Chase that personal assistants are born of that need and, as she said, “Some of us turn it into very satisfying careers. For others it’s a curse.”

“Why is it a curse?” Chase had inquired.

“Because it’s about guilt and not altruism. Whereas in my case, I am using another person’s needs as a focus of my desire to serve.”

Chase brought herself back to the present. “It’s not like they’re bad people or that they’re mean and spiteful—it’s just that they’re so damned organized and confident and seem to have no known neurosis. They’re so normal.”

“I thought you were past this normal thing?” Dr. Robicheck said.

Chase looked at her. If she wasn’t imagining it, Dr. Robicheck was getting rather slangy. During their last session she’d said, “That’s a double burn on you.” Chase had heard Summer say that to Bud, who responded with something about physics and the actuality of such a proposal.

“I learn stuff about parenting, and because I am not normal I need to expose myself to other parents who are normal, so I know what normal looks like.”

Dr. Robicheck chuckled.

Now, Chase was completely disconcerted. Her therapist had kidded her, talked like a Valley girl and now she chuckled. “What’s happened to you?” Chase said, peering at her as if her piercing gaze might disintegrate the plastic mask to reveal the imposter pretending to be her therapist.

“Chase, people do change. They experience minor shifts in their behaviors. They, either by their own hand or the hand of providence, expose themselves to new experiences and it alters them.”

“What new experience has altered you?” Chase asked.

“Promise not to laugh.”

“Why would I laugh?” Chase said, thinking Dr. Robicheck had either lost her mind or was on drugs.

“Because it’s a new kind of therapy group I’m leading down at the Better Life Behavioral Center. Remember the conference I went to?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve continued my studies and and now I’m teaching a class, well, more of a focus group, with my fellow therapists about laugh therapy.”

Chase smirked. “Yeah, right.”

Dr. Robicheck looked affronted. “This is serious. It’s the cutting edge of therapy for patients suffering from depression.”

“Do you have any guinea pigs yet?”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to call patients guinea pigs.”

“You are experimenting on them.”

“Now, about the crepe paper incident,” Dr. Robicheck said, tapping her pen on her pad as if calling the session to order.

Chase waved her hands. “Oh, it really wasn’t that bad. I got tied up in it, and then I didn’t like how it draped from the ceiling and I kept redoing it until I got demoted to sticking up pumpkin heads and black cat placards on the walls. I overbought the crepe paper so I suppose I could practice at home for next year.”

“I don’t think it’s imperative, unless you intend to become a permanent part of the decorating committee.”