I'll Be Here

  Mom would prefer for me to hang out with people that stage sit-ins or strap themselves to tree trunks in the face of bulldozers rather than the crowd that hits the mall on Saturday afternoons.

  Last year she dragged me nearly eighty miles to a bookstore to get a copy of a hardback book signed by a man that served sixty months in an Asian prison because he disrupted a government function by running across a room naked, waving a sign over his head. Mom thought he was “amazing,” but all I could think about was how shitty that time in prison must have been and whether or not he had to go to the bathroom in his cell. When I told Dustin about it, he shook his head and said that although he meant no offense, it was perverse that my mother was encouraging me to model after someone that had served hard time. In prison. I could see where he was coming from.

  “I know you’re disappointed Willow but give this some time to sink in and you’ll see that it’s really for the best.” She frowns. “He wasn’t the right boy for you.”

  I straighten my posture and cock my head to one side.

  “Oh really?” This is me being sarcastic.

  Mom sits back and scans my face. I hate when she does that—when she thinks that she can read my thoughts through my expression. It makes me want to scream.

  “Yes… really.” She sighs and then holds up her hand. “For one,” she lifts a finger, “Dustin is a Capricorn. A Capricorn.”

  Jesus. I don’t know why I even tried to talk to her about this. My mother and I clearly do not operate on the same wavelength. Or live on the same planet for that matter.

  I have only myself to blame. I should have expected this crap. The bottom line is that my mother doesn’t get me and that’s okay because I don’t get her. This conversation is just par for the course.

  With my head still angled to one side I give her what she calls the look. “So you’re telling me that I should base my love life on an astrological chart?”

  Her thin mouth tightens. “I didn’t say that exactly, but if we’re being honest, I’ll just point out that it couldn’t hurt. You need to find a good Libra or even an Aquarius. That boy that came by here with flowers—”

  “Who? Jason Knopp? That was when I was in the sixth grade!”

  She leans back. “Well, what about Alex? He’s—”

  “Not who we’re talking about!” We are so not going there. I’m depressed enough.

  Mom looks exasperated. “Honey, you didn’t even let me finish!”

  “The second reason,” she raises another finger, “is that you could never have been a part of Dustin’s family. His father—the venture capitalist,” she says this in a disgusted rush as if it’s a curse word, “donated money last year to Ned Miller’s campaign, and you remember perfectly well Jake telling us that Miller was deep in someone’s pockets and was ready to sell our sand to the highest bidder.”

  Yes. Selling sand is a real thing, and if you live on the coast and your mother is married to a marine biologist this is the kind of thing that gets discussed at the dinner table.

  “And the third?”

  She flicks her ring finger upright. “The third reason that I know that it never could have worked between you and Dustin Rant is because I’m your mother and I can see these things. You are just like me when I was your age. You can try to—”

  I don’t even wait for her to finish the thought before interrupting. I’m sure that it will be something like “you changed for him, blah, blah, blah,” or something along those lines. I don’t care. My mother used the five magical words that can effectively ruin any conversation between us. You. Are. Just. Like. Me.

  “God! Can you just stop with the judgment and be supportive for like five whole minutes? Is that really so hard? My boyfriend of two years just—as you so eloquently put it—dumped me—and I’m destroyed and all you can do is tell me what a bad match we made and throw politics at me? Why don’t you try out being my mom and stop pretending to be my psychiatrist?”

  She is quiet for a few beats and then says, “Willow, this is me being a mom. I know that you think that you were in love with—”

  “Mom, I don’t think I’m in love with Dustin. I am in love with him.”

  Love. My brain registers the present tense even as I’m speaking and my voice cracks on the word love. Fresh tears gloss my eyes. “And after all this time for you to act like I should just shrug it off is insulting.”

  We stare at each other. My cheeks are wet. My nose is full of sad.

  Finally, she sighs and her face relaxes. She says, “You’re right, Willow. You’re right.”

  And then she reaches across the table and pulls my hand to her breast. Her skin is warm and glossy like the outside of a lemon that’s been resting in the sun. Her fingernails brush the middle of my palms.

  “You are absolutely right and I’m sorry. It was unfair for me to say what I said. I know it hurts and I was trying to make it better by highlighting the negatives but I guess that was a failed strategy, huh?”

  I bite my lip and nod. “Definitely.”

  “Okay, so let’s start over.” She smiles crookedly as she sits back and studies me. “How do you feel about shock and sympathy?”

  “Hmmm… I think that shock and sympathy could work for me.”

  “Okay.” She lifts her thin arms theatrically. “Dustin broke up with you?! Say it isn’t so!”

  I sniffle and shake my head trying not to give into her attempt at humor. “I’m afraid it’s true.”

  She feigns horror and magnifies her southern accent to a slow drawl. “Oh Willow James, that’s just the most terrible news. Dustin Rant was such a wonderfully well-bred young man with so much potential and I was counting on him to marry you. Why, your eighteenth birthday is fast approaching and if we don’t get you married off to an appropriate suitor in the very near future, you’re sure to become an old maid.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Truly a promising candidate. He’s other-worldly intelligent—I would go as far as to say he can count all the way to one hundred—and with his in-depth knowledge of football and beer-guzzling he was sure to make a fabulous husband for you.”

  Just as I start to laugh Aaron walks into the kitchen in his favorite pajamas. Monkeys dressed like astronauts climb his arms and legs and the words SPACE MONKEY are emblazoned across his chest. Sleep crawls across his features. He stumbles.

  This is my little brother.

  He’s four and a half and somehow finds a way to be sticky ALL of the time. Aaron escaped the curse of a loony name because Jake (that’s my step-father), insisted on naming him after a favorite cousin that died as a teenager or something. I would have settled with being named after great-aunt Vera, who I am told was a royal pain in the ass but made a mean corn casserole. Instead I got stuck with the moniker Willow Josephina (yes, really) James. So basically, I was named after a tree. Mom says it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I like to think that she was delirious after a fifteen hour labor and that my dad went along with it because he was high (those were his pre-lawyering days). I haven’t been able to come up with another decent excuse for them.

  Occasionally it catches me off-guard how much my little brother looks like our mother—same exact pointy nose, over-large ears, and a mouth and chin combination so similar that if you take pictures of them at the same age and cover up the top half of their faces you can’t tell who is who. I remember the first time I saw Aaron in the hospital and he was bundled up in a pale blue blanket with only his swollen pink face and one tight-clenched fist sticking out. I just looked at Jake and we laughed because we couldn’t believe the similarities even then.

  It is way past Aaron’s bedtime but he must have heard us and now he is using the excuse of needing water to join the action. His soft blonde hair is pushed flat in the back from where his head was on the pillow and it sticks up near his face like a rooster’s crest. There’s dried toothpaste on the side of his mouth that he missed. He’s trying to bargain for a midnight snack when he spies the
glass of wine in front of me. His eyes open wide and his eyebrows disappear into his bangs.

  “Is that al-co-hol?” Aaron emphasizes the syllables slowly and deliberately like he’s speaking to a group of non English speakers.

  “Ah, yeah.” I say and raise my glass in an air toast.

  “Is that legal?” He asks.

  Mom and I both giggle and Aaron looks from her to me and back again insanely pleased with himself for making a joke that he doesn’t even understand.

  Mom tips forward, bracketing her arm against the table so that she won’t fall out of her chair. “We won’t tell if you won’t tell.” Kids love a good secret and my little brother is no exception.

  “My lips,” Aaron says dramatically wiping his fingers across his lips the way that he’s seen mom do it, “are sealed.”

  Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

  ~Mark Twain

  CHAPTER THREE

  No one wants to enter a shrink’s office.

  I learned that on day one of this job.

  On day two I learned to let them wrestle their demons in the hallway by themselves. It’s better that way.

  On day three I learned how to make a pot of coffee.

  That was more than a year ago and it never gets old. Well, the coffee-making does, but not the people.

  Today Mr. Blomberg has come in and out of the door five times at least. He is wearing a loose-fitted polo shirt that’s been through the wash too many times and still has the remnants of some old stain down the front. His pants are too short and when he sits down in the upholstered chair over by the east window jiggling his leg and mumbling things under his breath, the pant legs rise up to almost mid-calf exposing one blue sock and one grey sock. After about a minute of this he abruptly storms out of the office to the outer hallway where he paces back and forth for a minute or two. Then the cycle begins all over again.

  Poor Mr. Blomberg. Rough divorce. The wife cheated on him.

  I think about my own appearance and I’m starting to have a lot more sympathy for Mr. Blomberg and his weirdness.

  This morning I didn’t even bother trying. I’m wearing my glasses, which are a startlingly bright shade of purple. The outer corners tilt up in thick points like those old fashioned cat sunglasses you see on Rockabilly posters. They seemed like a good idea three years ago.

  Make-up: zero.

  Fashionable clothes: definitely not.

  Hair: I won’t even talk about it.

  With a heavy sigh I turn back to the referrals on my desk and tap the blue pen in my hand lightly against the pile.

  Office worker.

  Administrative Assistant.

  Those are my titles within these walls on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from three o’clock to six o’clock. And—like today—one Saturday morning a month for the people that can’t make a priority of their mental health during the week.

  The embossed black and gold plaque by the main door says “Dr. Patricia Snyder, Licensed Psychiatrist” in a thank-you-very-much cursive font. There are two robust desks near the entry and a small seating area kept well-stocked with generic magazines and crossword puzzles. And, to keep with the doctor’s office cliché, there’s a freshwater fish tank containing a variety of oversized goldfish against the far wall.

  Dr. Snyder (Patty) is a friend of Jake’s and she hired me last year to cover some of the overflow paperwork at her psychiatric practice. Business is booming.

  Smirna’s hair tickles my shoulder as she leans over me and rests her finger on the file splayed on my desk.

  “We’ll need to make a copy of this one and can you call over to that Pharmacy over by Brickel’s? I called in Mrs. Vaughn’s prescription an hour ago but she says that they are giving her the run around and I need to make sure she gets it before she leaves town to visit her daughter. You know how she is.”

  She rolls her eyes and chuckles. Ellen Vaughn is one of Patty’s more “delicate” patients.

  After two more walk-ins and walk-outs, Mr. Blomberg has made it into Patty’s interior office. Smirna rustles around on her desk and comes up with an oversized zippered pouch. She positively hates when patients pay in cash and informs me that Susan Ferris paid for her earlier session with two crisp one hundred dollar bills.

  Smirna grimaces and repeats what she always says about it making her feel nervous to have that much money sitting around the office. She asks me if I want her to get me anything while she runs across the street to the bank to make the deposit before they close at noon. She reiterates the fact that she also doesn’t like ATM machines. And she says this like she’s actually been offended by an ATM machine in the past.

  I laugh but I shake my head and wave her away. Smirna frowns and gives me a long and overly sympathetic look which sort of confirms what I’d already guessed. Either Jake or mom must have called the office early this morning to inform Smirna and Patty of my break-up with Dustin. Just perfect.

  Smirna is Indian—as in from India, not Native American—and even though she moved here when she was very young, she still retains a slight accent. I love it. I love the way that it shapes her rrrr’s and softens her vowels. I love her straight dark hair and her burnt caramel skin and her black eyes that slant in towards her nose. I love the way she smells—warm and nutty.

  The bell at the door jingles.

  “Be right with you!” I call out and straighten from my crouched position.

  I am in the back where the copy machine is kept. It’s a closet really, lined with wire racks for holding file boxes and office supplies. As I move to the front office, I bring the warm copies to my face and breathe them in. This is a weird habit of mine—sniffing copies. I do the same thing when I get a new book. What can I say? I have a paper sniffing problem. Things could be worse.

  “Is there something I can do…” The question dies on my tongue. It falls to the floor and rolls under the desk which is exactly where I’d like to crawl and hide. The air around me wobbles like the entire office has taken a deep breath.

  Clear blue eyes pin me to where I am.

  They take me in from head to toe lingering on my stupid purple glasses and red-rimmed eyes. My whole body is tense verging on frozen. All but my heart. It’s enlarged and beats out a dire warning against my ribs. Danger! Danger!

  His mouth is parted but I’m not sure if that’s surprise to see me standing here at the heart of crazy or what. There’s a softness to his eyes almost like happiness, but my brain is on overdrive and I’m just not sure what to make of anything. I’m guessing that my own expression is simply put: priceless.

  I look down at my trembling hands and then back up at his face—at the square line of his jaw and the way his lip curves up on one side. His hair is shorter and scruffier looking than I’ve seen before and he’s gotten his eyebrow pierced with a small silver hoop sometime recently. Damn.

  When he chuckles I realize that my mouth has flopped open and I snap it shut and sink into my chair knowing that if I don’t sit down I will most assuredly fall over. I blink and breathe deeply in an attempt to assume an air of composure. Yeah right.

  He shifts his weight casually on one foot and slips his hand into the front pocket of his jeans.

  “Happy to see me?” He raises his eyebrows suggestively and I almost choke on my tongue.

  When I stammer something completely incoherent Alex smiles broadly and saves me from having to answer his question.

  “So… Willow, what are you doing here?”

  “Huh?” I shake my head trying to clear the fuzziness that seems to have enveloped my brain. “I—I work here. Um… what are you doing here Alex?”

  I glance quickly to my computer where the appointment calendar fills the screen. How could I have missed his name? “Are you here to see Dr. Snyder?”

  “Yes,” he says and then thinks better of it, closing his eyes—those eyes—and shaking his head emphatically. “I mean NO. I’m not a patient.”

  Another
pause.

  Deep breath.

  Blink.

  “I’ve got some papers for her to sign.” He must read my confusion because he clarifies. “She’s buying a house from my mom.”

  Ahhh. That explains it.

  Alex’s mother Brooke is a realtor and Patty mentioned awhile back that she was looking for an investment property. Duh. They probably know each other through Jake and my mom.

  As I take the clipped-together papers from him I sternly tell myself not to stare at the way his biceps pull gently against the fabric of his dark grey t-shirt. And I’m definitely not going to stare at those clear blue eyes or that thin silver ring glinting in his eyebrow. I. Will. Not. Stare. IwillnotstareIwillnotstareIwillnotstare.

  Crap.

  I’m staring.

  I mean, I am staring and it’s like I can’t even help it.

  Alex looks right back at me and his smile—the one that starts out shy and widens until it dominates his whole face—causes my heart to malfunction.

  His blue eyes crinkle in the corners like he knows what he does to me and he leans slightly forward, his upper body angled over my desk to point out three places where he says that Patty needs to sign. I catch his scent. It’s a mixture of soap and mint and something very male.

  Brooke has clearly highlighted and tagged the spots that Patty needs to sign but Alex looks so serious that I nod and try to look like I’m paying attention. Pulling away, the tip of his index finger grazes mine and I yank my hand back like I’ve been zinged by an electrical outlet. Alex’s eyes go round and his face changes—the smile he is wearing replaced by a half-frown.

  What. The. Hell.

  Why is he looking at me like that?

  And why exactly is Alex Faber standing here in front of me instead of being safely stowed away at college where he belongs?