The Perfectionists

  “Sure. Pick me up?” Parker said huskily. “But I have to be done by six. I’m seeing Dr. Fielder then.”

  Julie shut her eyes and said a silent thank goodness. “Done. I’m leaving now.”

  Twenty minutes later, Julie and Parker were cruising the aisles of Tara’s Consignment, a secondhand boutique in Beacon whose owner had a thing for Gone with the Wind—there were posters of the movie all over the walls, famous quotes in the dressing rooms, and a Scarlett O’Hara doll behind the counter. It was Julie’s favorite store, partly because it was on a nondescript side street away from the main shops—meaning she could slip in without her friends seeing her and asking the obvious questions of why someone like her would shop consignment—and also because it was where the rich residents brought last year’s castoffs to make room for this season’s line. Tara’s was how Julie, who basically lived off her lifeguarding wages, could afford Joe’s Jeans, Diane von Furstenberg dresses, Joie blouses, and Elizabeth and James accessories.

  “How about this?” Julie asked, holding a canary-yellow dress up to Parker’s skinny frame.

  Parker made a face. “Have I ever worn yellow?”

  “Not in a while,” Julie said quietly. “I’m glad you’re seeing Dr. Fielder today. Are you nervous?”

  Parker shrugged and walked toward the shoe racks at the back of the store. Julie followed her, knowing she shouldn’t push.

  She thought of her own session with Elliot Fielder. Unlike a lot of things that were a stigma in Beacon Heights, having a shrink wasn’t one of them. Nyssa, who’d had eating issues, talked about hers all the time. There was even a rumor that Nolan had had a shrink, though Julie doubted it was true. The guy wasn’t human enough to need counseling.

  Call me Elliot, Dr. Fielder had said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. Julie had been surprised at how young he was when she opened the door to his small but cozy office.

  Elliot had made Julie feel so comfortable as she’d explained her family history to him. All her worries about her mom. I’m scared that I’m going to be like her, she’d said. She used to be so gorgeous, successful, perfect. But then . . . something changed.

  Long ago, her mother had looked just like her. Acted just like her, too, caring about her looks and her home. Caring about what people thought. Julie wasn’t sure when she’d started to slip, only that it had been bit by bit. If someone had told her ten years ago that they’d be evicted by the California health board because their house was unsafe to live in—because of her mother’s cats—Julie would have told them they were a big, fat liar. She hadn’t seen her mother’s condition coming. And now, she had no way of dealing with it except to breathe . . . and count . . . and hide.

  “Have you talked to anyone else about this?” Elliot had asked her.

  Julie lowered her eyes. Her secret was horrible. People had dropped her in California, made fun of her relentlessly, teasing her on the playground, writing gossip about her on the chalkboard when the class broke for lunch. They all assumed she was as dirty as the house she lived in. That last year felt like a prison—she’d had no friends. Her mom was a stranger now. She literally had no one.

  “Only my friend Parker. And now I just need to know if what happened to my mom will happen to me,” she said softly, gathering her courage.

  Elliot had been understanding and reassuring. “You know, from a clinical perspective, you don’t fit the mold of someone poised for a mental break,” he’d said. “You seem like a high-functioning, extremely smart teenager who is balancing a lot of really heavy problems.” In other words: You are not your mother.

  Julie paused in front of a photograph of Vivien Leigh standing in the doorway of Tara, a wistful expression on her face. If only she could adopt the Gone with the Wind mentality that tomorrow was another day. Another day without worries of Nolan or her dirty little secret.

  Julie cleared her throat and picked up a studded bracelet from a tray of jewelry on a table. “What do you think about this?”

  Parker frowned. “That looks like more me than you, don’t you think?”

  “Well then, I’ll buy it for you,” Julie said, marching up to the counter. She slid it across the table to the same college-age girl with green streaks in her hair who always worked there. “I’d like to get this for my friend,” she said, gesturing to Parker behind her.

  Something fluttered across the cashier’s face when she looked behind Julie at her friend. People could be so shallow. Julie clenched her fist.

  Afterward, they stepped out onto the pavement, walked down the block, and turned onto the main shopping drag. There was a high-end jewelry store, a furnishings place with birdcage chandeliers and thousand-dollar cashmere blankets, a Madewell, a Coach store, a Williams-Sonoma, and several restaurants.

  “Julie?”

  “Oh, shit,” Parker mumbled.

  Julie whirled around. Nyssa stood at the corner, several shopping bags looped around her wrist. Natalie Houma was with her, cell phone in hand.

  “It is you!” Nyssa cried. She skipped up to her happily and took Julie’s hand. “You got off the phone earlier too quickly for me to ask, but we’re just about to meet some people at Judy’s Diner. You have to come. Carson is there. He’s been asking about you.” She winked.

  Julie blushed. She glanced at Parker, wondering if she’d come, too. But her friend was already gone. Typical.

  “Sure,” she said, lowering her shoulders. It might have seemed like she was ditching Parker, but she knew Parker didn’t want to be there. Julie resolved to catch up with her after the appointment. Maybe it would help. Maybe in time Parker would open herself back up to the world and let everyone else see the girl only Julie now knew.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AT SIX THAT NIGHT, PARKER pushed open the door of a nondescript office building in downtown Beacon Heights. The waiting room was empty, save for a few other chairs, a vase of flowers, and some dog-eared magazines. She looked at the second door that led into another hallway. ELLIOT FIELDER, MSW, it said in big letters at the top.

  The headshrinker. She so wasn’t looking forward to this, but she’d promised Julie. And now that Nolan’s death was being investigated, it was more important than ever that she learn to keep it together.

  The door opened, and a man appeared. He had tousled dark hair, and his eyes were slightly shadowed in a serious, brooding way. He had a lean, muscular runner’s frame. He blinked at her.

  “Um . . . ,” he said.

  Parker stood up, embarrassed by all the thoughts that had just rushed through her mind. “I’m Parker,” she said. “Parker Duvall. Julie’s friend?”

  His gaze remained on her. It wasn’t a gawk, though, just a half squint, as if he was trying to figure out something about her. Then he cleared his throat and took her clipboard. “Oh, right. Julie mentioned you’d be coming. Come on in and sit down.”

  She walked past him into the office. The overhead fluorescent light was off, but a few floor lamps gave off a gentle glow from the corners of the room. Outside the window, the sky was as flat and gray as her mood.

  She flopped down on the loveseat, throwing her legs up over one arm.

  Fielder shut the door and sat down on a desk chair, pulling it out to the middle of the room. For a few moments, he stared at her with an expression she couldn’t read. The wall clock ticked off the minutes of silence.

  “Why do you keep staring at me?” she finally snapped. “I realize I have scars. You don’t have to make me feel like more of a freak.”

  Fielder frowned. “Scars?”

  Parker scoffed. “Good party trick, doctor. But they’re right here.” She gestured to her face, half hidden under her hoodie. “I know my face looks like it went through a meat processor, okay?”

  “I don’t see any scars,” Fielder said defiantly. He licked his lips. “I’m sorry, Parker. It’s just that Julie has told me a little about you, and I have to admit I’m a little surprised you came today.”

  What had Julie said? Probably t
he same crap she said to Parker every day—It’s like you’ve just given up. If you’d just make an effort. Blah, blah, blah. “Julie’s my best friend, and she thinks she knows it all. But sometimes, she’s wrong.”

  He smiled a little. “Julie is worried about you, Parker.”

  She snorted. “Julie worries about everything. I can take care of myself. I mean, I’ve been through hell, and I’m still standing. That’s got to count for something, Dr. Fielder.”

  He nodded slowly, stroking his chin. “Please, call me Elliot. And I’m not actually a doctor. I’m a counselor, which means I’m more interested in listening to you than fixing you. Okay?”

  Parker frowned warily. Call me Elliot. I’m interested in listening. I don’t see any scars. This guy was full of lines.

  “And you’re right,” he continued. “You’re obviously a tough girl, Parker. A fighter. But that doesn’t mean that you have to deal with all this alone.”

  She looked away, down her long, slender legs in their scuffed motorcycle boots.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?” Elliot’s voice was soft, gentle.

  She gave a dismissive shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “You sure about that?”

  She looked at him again. A hollow ache pulsed in her sternum. It’d been a long time since anyone but Julie had treated her like a human being.

  She cleared her throat. “So my dad used to hit me. No biggie.”

  Elliot’s eyes widened. “It seems like a big deal to me.”

  A bark of laughter fought out of her throat. “I deserved it. That’s what my mom always told me—I antagonized him. I was always messing up. He’d overhear me talking about some party on the phone, or he’d catch me coming out of school with my skirt hitched up higher than was allowed. There was always one reason or another.” She kept her eyes down, away from the therapist, twisting a lock of hair around one finger.

  Elliot crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s never right for someone to hurt you. No matter what you do. You know that, right?”

  Parker scoffed. “Well, apparently the cops thought the same thing. Because he’s in prison now. Problem solved, right?”

  Elliot scratched his nose. “Julie mentioned an attack.”

  Of course Julie would sell her out like that. “Yep. The turning point. The night the cops came and took him away.”

  “Can you describe that night?”

  She shrugged. “He snapped. Went berserk. And this happened.” She gestured to her face and then tried to laugh, like it didn’t matter, but of course it did. Of course it mattered that her once perfect face now looked like this.

  She remembered the party, remembered Julie finding her in Nolan’s bedroom, bombed out of her mind. That was the night he’d slipped her an Oxy—she’d never done that drug before. “Come on, I’m taking you home,” Julie had said.

  Parker had begged her not to. “What if my dad is up? Can’t I just stay at your place?”

  Julie had bit her lip; it was before she’d told Parker her secret. “He won’t be up. You’ve snuck in before. Just be really quiet and sleep it off.”

  She remembered getting out of Julie’s car and walking shakily toward her house. But she actually didn’t remember much of what happened once she got inside. Still, she’d seen her dad angry enough times to fill in the blanks.

  “It was awful, wasn’t it?” Elliot said gently.

  Parker stared at her hands in her lap.

  “And what happened after that? You were in the hospital, right?”

  Jesus, had Julie told him everything?

  “And then your dad was in prison, I believe? How did you feel about that?”

  Parker snorted. “What do you think?” Then her gaze shifted to the window. “My mom hates me for it. She thinks that night was my fault. Maybe it was. But it was his fault, too.”

  “Your dad’s?”

  “No.” Her voice caught. “M-my friend’s.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Parker shut her eyes. Nolan’s face swam in her mind. She considered not saying anything, but she’d come so far already. “I had another best friend besides Julie. That night, the night of the attack, he gave me Oxy, even though he knew my dad would kill me if he ever caught me high.”

  Elliot frowned. “Why would your friend do that?”

  Parker’s shoulders shot up and then down. “That’s Nolan for you. Sometimes he played God just for the hell of it.”

  Elliot squinted. “Nolan . . . Hotchkiss?”

  Parker stared at him, her heart rate picking up. “Did you know him?”

  Elliot shook his head. “Just what I’ve read in the papers. How have you been holding up?”

  Parker leaned back in the chair and hugged one of the jacquard pillows to her chest. “I didn’t exactly love the guy.”

  Elliot frowned slightly. “So you weren’t friends at the end?”

  “No way. He wouldn’t even look at me after everything happened.”

  “Did you go to the funeral?”

  Parker shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not like I wanted him to get hurt. But am I ready to, like, hold a candlelight vigil? Not so much.” A shudder ran up her spine. “All the crying and histrionics. It’s been . . . bringing back bad memories.”

  Elliot nodded slowly. “That’s not unusual.”

  “It’s not?”

  Elliot looked down at his notepad. “Julie mentioned once that you have spells. Headaches. Panic attacks. How often are you having those?”

  She shrugged. “A few times a week. The headaches come and go. The panic attacks . . . those happen when something startles me. Loud noises, sudden movements. Cars backfiring. That kind of thing. And sometimes it’s hard for me to remember things. There are huge gaps. . . .”

  “That sounds a lot like post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Which shouldn’t be surprising, given all you’ve been through.”

  She glanced up at him. “Isn’t that what vets have when they come back from war?”

  “That’s where we see it a lot, it’s true. But PTSD can happen to anybody who’s been through a severe trauma. Your body gets stuck reacting to what it perceives as threats, even if those threats aren’t valid. But the good news is it’s totally treatable.”

  Parker sat up, putting her feet flat on the ground and turning to face him. Her head was swimming. She’d come here to placate Julie, sure that nothing—no one—could put her back together. But the way Elliot was talking, maybe he could help her. Maybe she wasn’t a lost cause.

  It’d been a long time since she’d felt that way.

  “Here’s the thing, Parker.” Elliot’s voice was gentle. She wiped her eyes and looked at him. “This doesn’t mean you’re damaged. It just means your mind has adapted to feelings of being unsafe. It’s a coping mechanism.”

  “That sounds a lot like damage to me,” she said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Great. I’m doubly damaged. Face and mind.”

  He clucked his tongue. “Parker, all of us are damaged in our own ways. It’s just that most people call it ‘experience.’ And you’ve had a lot of experience. With your father. With your mother. And with Nolan.”

  She nodded.

  Suddenly she felt his hand on hers. It was warm and slightly calloused near the tips, as if he played an instrument in his spare time. He gave her hand a quick squeeze, and then let go.

  “Parker, you have all the reasons in the world not to trust anyone,” he murmured. “No one can blame you for being cautious. But you have nothing to be afraid of. I promise you, if you give me just a little trust . . . if you can take a leap of faith . . . I will do my best to help you.”

  “How?” Parker blurted, sure her cheeks were red.

  “We can work through things together. The first step of any therapy is a little self-awareness. I want you to think about the ways your habits, your belief systems, your personality quirks have been developed to help you and protect you.
Then ask yourself if they are truly working or if they’re hurting you. For instance, when you feel a headache coming on, focus on something in front of you. Something real, like your hand, to keep you in the moment. It sounds small, but it helps, I promise.”

  She searched his face. He looked so sincere. She wanted more than anything to believe him. To believe that things didn’t always have to be so desperate, so painful. To believe she didn’t always have to be alone. To believe that maybe, just maybe, one day, everything would be okay.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THAT SAME NIGHT, AFTER A few hours of practicing the material in the Juilliard audition packet, Mac parked at the curb at Blake’s house. He lived in a neighborhood of old Victorians near the Beacon Heights library; she used to come here all the time and play on his trampoline in the backyard. They’d held competitions to see who could jump the highest and who could do the best flip. Had Claire ever joined them? Mac wondered. She couldn’t remember.

  She slammed the door to her car and took a deep, resolved breath. Okay. It’s just band practice. And that kiss? Never happened. And it’s never going to happen again. Besides, the whole band would be here this time. Blake wouldn’t kiss her in front of all those people.

  She grabbed her cello case from the trunk and walked briskly up the front path to the door. Blake’s doorbell was the same as always, deep chimes playing the first few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The door flung open, and Blake stood in his socks, a pair of dark jeans, and a forest-green T-shirt. His smile was cagey and shy.

  “Hello,” Mac said coolly.

  “Hey.” Blake was just as breezy and cavalier. He opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

  See? Mac thought as she followed him, her cello case bumping against her knees. Blake did want to forget. This was going to go easier than she thought. And as she passed a line of pictures in the hallway, she spied one of Blake and Claire on the trip the orchestra had taken to Disneyland last year—Blake had quit orchestra by then, but he’d begged his parents to buy him a ticket anyway. He wore Mickey Mouse ears and was making a devil’s sign to the camera. Claire was kissing his cheek, her face pink.