looks at me. Her eyes are reflecting more light. Not sparkling, just shinier.
“No, Mel. I’m not laughing. These charts, they’re very special.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“No, I mean it. This is wonderful. Truly. Thank you.”
“Uh, you’re welcome? For what? It’s not a Mother’s Day card.”
“I understand this was difficult for you to share. I’m very glad you did. It’s remarkable. And it’s something we can really talk about. When we’re not talking about the weather.”
I relax and sit back.
“Dr. Jordan sounds like a smart guy,” she says. “If you’re keeping your diagnosis secret, how did you come to tell him?”
“He told me. Well, he told Grandma Cece, then she told my mom. It’s in the family—my aunt Joan and my brother—and he said it was a dead giveaway when I talked to him for twenty minutes in one long rambling sentence.”
“Pressured speech.”
“Yeah. There are boring names for everything.”
“There certainly are. These charts are much more interesting.”
“Do they help you? So you can tell me … I don’t know … how to get better?”
“Is that what you’ve been waiting for? For me to tell you what to do?”
Not exactly. I was mostly trying to run out the clock. But now …
“I only need prescription refills every month or two. Why else do I need to come every week?”
“To give you a safe place to talk.” She waves at her diplomas. “I went to school to study how to prescribe medication, but also to learn good questions to ask, questions you might not think to ask yourself. But only you can answer them.”
I slump. “Why can’t you be like psychiatrists in the movies? You know, confront me with truths I don’t want to face, explain the hidden root of my problems, tell me how to fix everything if I were brave enough?”
“I thought you didn’t like Dr. Fletcher’s approach.”
“Oh, when you put it that way …”
“Do you wish your life were like a movie?”
“Only if it’s a good movie. Doesn’t everyone?”
“What you think is all that matters here. What do you want?”
I think a moment. “Maybe a nice musical.”
Dr. Oswald smiles.
Something else occurs to me. “Actually, I want to tell Dr. Jordan to invite you over for poker night.”
Dr. Oswald laughs. “I have a bad poker face?”
I grin. Comfortable for the first time in any doctor’s office.
Except now I’m worried about what I might tell her next week.
It’s Saturday and Annie’s up in Napa Valley with her family. I want to hang out with Zumi and Connor but I’ve never called them directly before. In the few weeks since we met, Annie’s been the center of everything. I hope that’s not part of the deal. She’s not standoffish exactly … well, sometimes … but it often seems like she wishes she were with other people. I mostly just don’t want Zumi to think I only want to be friends with Annie, not when it’s really Zumi and Connor I like, but I can’t bring myself to pick up the phone—
Zumi texts me:
Awake?
I exhale.
Yep. You? Ha ha.
Can I come over?
Sure. Where’s Connor?
Probably home. C u soon.
While I wait in the living room for Zumi to pedal over, Mom leaves to go buy the weekly groceries. Not long after, I hear a squeal from the front of the house—tires on the driveway from someone braking too hard. Must be Aunt Joan rolling in from wherever she spent the night.
Six feet tall, stick thin, ginger, pasty, spotted, graceful as a giraffe walking backward, that’s Mom’s little sister, HJ—short for Hurricane Joan. She calls herself the redheaded stepchild but my own freckles prove the genes are in our family tree. The door opens hard enough to bounce off the wall, possibly adding another dent; keys jangle, she kicks the entry table, brushes the pedal of my bike, drops what sounds like her work binders, or her cavernous purse, or both, and mutters “Shit!” three or four times.
Her Saturday moods depend on when she comes home from being out Friday night. This morning she seems pretty upbeat and starts rooting around in the fridge, so wherever she was didn’t include breakfast but didn’t leave her in a sour mood.
A minute later, Zumi pounds on the front door. I know it’s her because she uses the side of her fist instead of knuckles. It’s new to HJ, though.
“What the hell? Jehovah’s Witnesses getting more aggressive?”
“No, it’s—” I crack my shin on the coffee table trying to run around it. “Ow, shit!”
“It’s okay, I’ll get it. I’m in the mood for a fun argument.” HJ opens the door.
“Oh,” she says. “You don’t look like you’re here to talk about Jesus. Unless you’re hiding a Bible behind your back. You here for Mel?”
“Yeah,” Zumi says. “You’re not her. Unless you got taller and older since yesterday.”
“Older?” HJ raises her eyebrows. “How old do you think I am?”
“No, Zumi, don’t!” I say, rubbing my throbbing shin.
Zumi squints. “Twenty-nine?”
HJ squints back. “Honest answer?”
Zumi winces. “Not really?”
HJ sighs and steps aside for Zumi to come in. “What kind of name is Zumi anyway? Sounds Aztec or Mayan.”
