then gripped my elbow to help me off the table. I waited half a minute, used to the way the floor sometimes tilted at first when I’d just finished a treatment. It didn’t today, but I rested a moment longer than normal, anyway.
“Emm. You sure you’re all right?” Dr. Gupta is a tiny, dark-haired woman with big dark eyes. She reminds me of that old newspaper cartoon Dondi.
“Sure. Fine.” I gave her my brightest smile to convince her.
Dr. Gupta didn’t look convinced. She drew another cup of water from the cooler and handed it to me. “Drink that. You’re a little pale. I think next time we’ll concentrate on a super Ming Men instead of the Shen Men. We’ll do some energizing in addition to the tranquilizing.”
I’d been having acupuncture treatments for three years now, but that didn’t make me anything like an expert. In fact, I was more of the “I don’t need to know how it works” school of thought. I’d never studied the mechanics of it, or the philosophy.
“Sure,” I told her.
She laughed. “You have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s okay, so long as it works, yes?”
“Yes.” I drank the water, though by this point my back teeth were swimming.
She patted my shoulder again. “I’ll see you in a month, unless you have something you need taken care of before then.”
She left me to rearrange my clothes. Standing in the quiet room with the soft music playing, I should’ve been way more relaxed after a treatment. Instead, I felt electric. Buzzing. Not bad, exactly. And not the way I often felt after having a fugue, sort of fuzzy and disoriented for a few moments.
This feeling was more like an ache in my chest. An anticipation, not quite anxiety. No pain. There was never pain associated with any of this.
When I left the office, the smell of oranges once again assaulted me. I braced myself in the doorway, jaw clenched … until I saw the cleaning cart and the jug of citrus-scented cleaner, cap open, and the floor still gleaming from it. The woman at the cart saw me look and smiled apologetically.
“We spilled almost the whole jug,” she explained, holding up a mop. “But it’s okay, you can go past now.”
She couldn’t have had any idea about why I was laughing, but she laughed, too. I wanted to give her a high five as I passed her, but restrained myself. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face, though, as I stopped at the front desk to make my co-pay and book my next appointment.
“This is what I love about my job,” said Peta, the receptionist.
“Taking my money?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Seeing how people come in here full of pain and leave full of peace.”
I paused with my checkbook still in my hand. “That’s a great way of saying it.”
She dimpled. “Maybe I should put that on an inspirational poster, huh?”
“Maybe. But … it’s true, isn’t it?” I felt more at peace, certainly, once I’d learned the smell hadn’t been the harbinger of a fugue, after all.
“It really is. Take care, Emm, see you next month.”
I waved at her as I went out, my steps more springy and my heart lighter. Behind the wheel of my car I took a few more deep breaths to center myself out of habit. When you’ve had your license taken away because the authorities fear you might spaz out and cause an accident while you’re driving, you tend to better appreciate your ability to drive yourself when you are allowed. But as I pulled out of the parking lot, I realized the buzzing, churning tumble in my chest hadn’t really gone away, just faded.
Bad tacos for last night’s dinner, maybe. Too much coffee on an empty stomach. I gripped the wheel and checked my eyes in the rearview mirror. A little wide, but the pupils weren’t pinned or anything funky like that. My vision wasn’t blurry. I wasn’t smelling anything but my own cologne from where it had rubbed into my scarf.
Nevertheless, I drove slowly. Carefully. Taking no chances at yellow lights or intersections. By the time I got to my street, my fingers ached from gripping the wheel and my back hurt, too, from my too-tense posture.
“Motherfucker,” I muttered when I saw that someone had once again taken my spot. I really needed to get some lawn chairs and set them up when I left, the way my neighbors did.
I drove farther down the street and found an empty spot. The last time the plow had gone through, a thigh-deep pile of snow had been pushed into someone’s shoveled spot. The vehicle that usually parked there, a blue SUV, could no longer fit. I spotted it parked a block farther down and felt no guilt at squeezing my much smaller car into the space. I considered it karma.
The fact I’d once again parked in front of Johnny’s house was a nice little bonus, one that had me humming under my breath with glee and buzzing in an entirely different way. I paused after I’d closed my car door to study his house. When had I ever felt this way before?
The answer was, never. I’d had crushes before, plenty of them. In seventh grade I’d thought I would die unless a sophomore named Steve Houseman liked me back. I hadn’t died. And even then, when I’d gone to sleep every night wishing on every star I could see that he’d look at me like I was a real girl and not some junior high geek, I hadn’t ever felt like this.
The curb was icy, but the sidewalk in front of Johnny’s house was bare and well-salted. Unfortunately, his neighbors weren’t as conscientious. I was so busy trying to peek through his windows without making it obvious I was a pervert, I didn’t pay attention to where I put my feet. I hit a slick patch and slid, arms wheeling. I’d never been a gymnast, but I managed a pretty nice split that had me gasping in gratitude I was wearing a skirt, even though I tore my stockings.
So focused on keeping myself from totally wiping out and doing a face plant into the pile of filthy snow, I didn’t pay attention to the man who’d just crossed the street and stepped up onto the curb in front of me. I caught a flash of a black coat, a striped scarf. I had time to think, Oh, shit, it’s him, before I took another step and slid with that one, too.
We collided hard enough to snap my jaws together. I caught my tongue between my teeth and tasted blood. I looked into Johnny’s face, those green-brown eyes so close I could count his lashes. He had a mole at the corner of one eye I’d never noticed before. He grabbed my upper arms.
I smelled oranges.
I was falling.
Chapter 05
“Hey, foxy mama.”
The man in front of me gripped my upper arms to keep me from falling. I’d tripped on a loose piece of concrete in the sidewalk. I stared at it, thinking there was something wrong.
And then I knew.
Holy shit, it was summer. The man in front of me, Johnny. And he was … young.
“You okay? You having a bad trip or something?” He laughed and shook his hair out of his eyes. “Trip. Sorry.”
The moment Dorothy steps out of her
