Crazy Little Thing (23 page)

Will The Real Doctor Please Stand Up?

Ten minutes later, Ollie and Claire sat patiently in
the antechamber waiting for the doctor when a door opened and a petite woman
smiled at Ollie and Claire. The woman’s hair was shellacked into a tight bun.
She wore no make-up and sensible shoes. “You must be Ollie,” she said, looking
at Claire. “And you must be Claire,” she said to Ollie.

“Um, no, I’m Ollie,” Ollie said.

“And I’m Claire.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” the woman said. “Why don’t
we get started?” She turned and walked back into the office.

Ollie and Claire exchanged a puzzled look and
followed. They sat in identical wing chairs as the woman took the chair behind
the same desk the Nazi doctor had sat in previously. She put her elbows on the
desk and tented her hands under her chin. “First let me apologize for missing
our appointment last week. I had an emergency. I donate time to the local
mental hospital and one of my more severe cases escaped. We were able to
apprehend her, but let me tell you, it was a lively chase.”

“Um… I don’t mean to be rude,” Ollie said, “but who
are you exactly?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Secaule.
I’m the doctor who will sign off on your divorce paperwork.”

“Then who was the doctor we met last week?”

“Last week? I wasn’t here last week,” Dr. Secaule
said.

“Yes, we know that,” Claire said. “We had a session
with another doctor. She said she was Dr. Secaule.”

“Are you certain?” Dr. Secaule asked.

“Yes, we’re certain,” Ollie said. “It would be kinda
hard to forget a Nazi dominatrix who damn near whipped us into submission.”

Dr. Secaule gasped. Her eyes bugged and she spun her
chair around, opened a drawer, shut it, opened another drawer, shut it. She
picked up her phone, replaced it in the cradle. “Alligator,” she said.

She spun the chair. “Aardvark.”

She spun around again. “Anteater.”

Ollie and Claire watched the strange goings-on in
alarmed silence.

“Alabama,” another spin of the chair.

“Doctor?” Claire asked. “Are you all right?”

“Ssshhhh,” Dr. Secaule said, “I’m counting.”

“Counting?”

She stopped spinning in the chair and leveled her
gaze at Claire. “I count everything. Words. Letters. Syllables. Pens. Pencils.
Lines on the pages. You name it, I count it.”

“That’s very interesting,” Ollie said for lack of
anything else to say.

Dr. Secaule interrupted, “Twenty letters.”

“Maybe we should come back later,” Claire said,
half-rising from her chair.

“Seven syllables,” Dr. Secaule said.

The office door opened. Ollie and Claire turned in
the seat to see the Nazi doctor glaring at Dr. Secaule through her magnified
monocle. “Aha! Zere you are!”

“Anchorage, Attila, Atmosphere,” Doctor Secaule said
as she spun in the chair. One revolution, two revolutions, three… spinning
faster and faster…

The Nazi doctor strode across the room in three
giant steps, stopped the spinning chair with one well-placed leather boot,
grabbed Dr. Secaule by the scruff of her neck and said, “You haf been a bad
girl. A wery bad girl, indeed. You know vat happens ven you run away from zee
hospital grounds and impersonate a doctor?”

Ollie jumped to her feet. “She’s not the doctor?”

The Nazi dragged the fake Dr. Secaule to the door,
saying, “
Nein
. Surely, you did not zink such a neencompoop as zis could
weally be a doctor? I shall return momentarily.” She pushed the fake Dr.
Secaule through the door and kicked it closed behind her, leaving the two alone
in the office.

Ollie and Claire took a full moment to digest what
had just happened. Ollie was the first to speak, “Nincompoop. Now there’s a
word you don’t hear every day.”

“Nine letters,” Claire said.

They laughed.

The door flew open. Ollie and Claire stopped
laughing. The real Doctor Secaule, the Nazi Doctor Secaule, took her seat
behind the desk, stuck the cigarette holder in one side of her mouth and smiled
with the other side of her mouth.

“Now,” Doctor Secaule said. “You vere to draw up a
list of vat you adored about the other,
ja
?”

“
Ja
,” Ollie said. “I mean, yes.” She held up
the index card she was holding.

Dr. Secaule squinted at Ollie. “You first. Read.”

Ollie looked at the sweaty index card in her hand. 
She stared at it for a full thirty seconds.

“Read it aloud,” Dr. Secaule said.

“Oh,” Ollie said. She cleared her throat and read:
“Her cerulean blue eyes undressed me. Her smoky voice ran hot needles of anticipation
over my throbbing woman center. I trembled when her tongue darted between the
apex of my thighs –“

“Enough!” Dr. Secaule bellowed. She turned her glare
to Claire. “Now you. Read.”

Claire gulped and read aloud from her index card: “I
knew we were destined to be together from the very first moment we were trapped
in the cabin. We were snowed under for three whole months with only our bodies
to entertain us. That first night she saved me from freezing to death by
hugging her naked body close to mine. We survived on lust and stale crackers
for the next…”

“Enough!” Dr. Secaule yelled. “You zink I haf never
read lesbian fiction? Your vords are straight out of a romance novel!”

“What are you talking about?” Ollie said. She made
sure her pupils did not slide to the left. She had read somewhere once that
liars always looked to the left. She had to contort her face to achieve this.

Dr. Secaule leaned back in her chair with her hands
behind her head. She put her enormous feet on the desk and crossed her boots at
the ankle. “You know vat I am zinking?”

“Zinking?” Ollie asked.

“Zinking! Zinking!” Dr. Secaule yelled, rapping her
knuckles on top of her head.

“Oh. No, I don’t know what you’re zinking,” Ollie
said.

“I zink ve vill play a little game,” Dr. Secaule said.
“I zink ve vill play a vord association game.”

“Oh, goodie,” Claire said without enthusiasm.

“Ollie vill say a vord then Claire vill say a vord.
First vord that comes to mind, you vill say. You vill not edit. You vill only
talk,” Dr. Secaule said. “Ready. Set. Go!”

Ollie’s eyes widened. She was stuck.

“Talk! I vill mek you talk!” Dr. Secaule yelled,
pounding her fist on the desk.

“Nazi!” Ollie blurted.

“Dominitrix,” Claire blurted back.

Ollie was quiet. “Talk, talk!” Dr. Secaule prodded.
“No zinking! Faster, faster!”

“Um…Nose,” Ollie said.

“Plastic surgery,” Claire said. “Technically, that’s
two words, but it’s only one thought.”

“Continue! Faster!” Dr. Secaule urged.

“Scarlet,” Ollie said.

“Bitch.”

“Fiance.”

“Cumin,” Claire said.

Ollie looked at her. “How did you get cumin from
fiancé?”

Claire shrugged. “Scarlet, my fiancé, thinks cumin
made her poop her pants.”

“Talk, talk!” Dr. Secaule said.

“Um… Begonia,” Ollie said.

“G-Ray,” Claire answered.

“Love.”

“Marriage.”

“Me,” Claire said.

“You.”

“You,” Claire said.

“Love.”

“You,” Claire said.

“I love you,” Ollie said.

There was a pause. Ollie looked at Claire. “Sorry.
Erase that. I didn’t mean to say that. Can I have a do-over?”

Dr. Secaule stood up and clapped. “Zee game is over.
And, your session vif me is over.”

“Over?” Claire asked.

“Ka-poot,” Dr. Secaule said. She grabbed a pen and
signed a paper with a flourish. She handed the paper to Ollie. “Zere is my
signature. You are now fwee to pwesent this shit of paper to zee judge.”

“That’s it?” Ollie asked.

“That’s it,” Dr. Secaule said. “Congratulations. You
can now get diworced.”

“Wait a minute. I thought you were supposed to be
saving our marriage,” Ollie said.

“
Nein.
I cannot save your marriage. Only you
can do that. It is in your hands. You can get diworced or you can stay married.
It is your choice,” Doctor Secaule said. “You can have a happily ever after or
a happily
never
after. Simple,
ja
?”

“
Ja
,” Claire and Ollie said in unison.

Scarlet Makes A Move

Ollie, G-Ray, Begonia, and EZ were playing Old Maid
in the dining room when they heard the crash from upstairs. The chandelier over
the table swung back and forth from the force of the thud overhead.

“What was that?” G-Ray asked.

“It came from Claire’s room,” Ollie said. She raced
up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Without bothering to knock, she threw
open Claire’s bedroom door. “Claire? Are you all right?”

Claire sat on her bed crying. Her laptop lay on the
floor with a cracked screen.

“What happened?” Ollie said.

Claire had her face buried in her hands. Between
sobs, Claire managed to say, “Scarlet… is… having… affair.”

Ollie knelt before Claire and put one hand on her
knee. She asked softly, “How do you know? Did someone call and tell you? And
then you dropped your computer?” Ollie’s mind raced with the possibilities. She
didn’t even have time to gloat. This should have been wonderful news for her
but the pain it caused Claire made it a hollow victory.

Claire
sobbed and scratched her butt at the same time. “I read the… emails. I didn’t
even know we had a Gmail account until it popped up. She…was emailing… the
woman the entire time…she was here.”

“And
then you threw your computer.”

Claire
nodded, her face contorted with misery.

“Oh,
sweetie,” Ollie said, sitting on the bed and wrapping her arms around Claire.
Claire cried into her shoulder.

“How
could she do this?” Claire said.

“A
better question would be why,” Ollie said. Was the woman nuts? Could this fling
thing be worth it? What was Scarlet thinking, cheating at this point in the
game? Or had she always cheated and Claire just hadn’t found out about it? This
was definitely a WTF moment.

“Ollie,
what am I going to do?” Claire said.

“What
are you going to do? You’re going to tell Scarlet to piss off. What do you mean
do
? There’s nothing to be done. She cheated. It’s over. You can’t
possibly allow this,” Ollie said, she was worked up now, indignant beyond
words. “Tell her to go fuck herself that’s what you’re going to do.”

“But
what about the wedding? Invitations have been sent. We’re already registered at
Neiman Marcus. What will people think?” Claire was off the bed and picking up
her computer. The screen had several cracks running through it, but the
computer itself seemed to be working fine. “I have to talk to her. Get her side
of the story.”

“Why?”
Ollie asked.

“Because
no one is guilty until proven so. Maybe there is some misunderstanding.” Claire
said. She clicked on the Skype icon.

“Claire,
there’s no misunderstanding unless Scarlet was now writing lesbian fiction with
hot sex scenes sprinkled in,” Ollie said.

“No,
they weren’t like that. They were like little messages, like I had a wonderful
time last night, I can’t stop thinking about you,” Claire said.

“Especially
when you had your hand down my pants,” Ollie finished.

“There
might be an explanation,” Claire said.

Ollie
was furious. Her face was red and she wanted to kill Scarlet and now she was
totally disgusted with Claire. “You’re really going to let her explain? Claire,
that’s crazy. She’ll lie to you, that’s what cheaters do.”

Downstairs
the doorbell rang. Someone answered it. There was a brief exchange and EZ
called up the stairs. Her cumin bath must have woken her up. “Claire, there’s a
delivery for you. You want me to bring it up?”

“Bet
money, it’s flowers,” Ollie said, savagely.

“Okay,”
Claire called out, her face clouded with uncertainty.

EZ
came up with an enormous vase that must have held three-dozen red roses. Claire
stared at them.

“She
must have fucked her,” Ollie said, standing. “If you go back to her I’m never
speaking to you again. I mean it. You won’t be the woman I fell in love with.”
She stomped to the door.

“Ollie,
wait,” Claire said.

Ollie
turned. “No, either you end it or I’m out of here. I may have emptied a
swimming pool but I never cheated on you. If she’s what you want, go for it.”

“Ollie,
please stay and I’ll talk to her. I want you to listen so I’ll know for sure.
Please, I need you right now,” Claire said.

Claire
pleading was a difficult sight to behold. She looked so forlorn and yet
beautiful at the same time. Ollie wanted to scoop her up and kiss away her
tears and make everything better by flaying Scarlet alive. “So you want a
tribunal?”

“Can
we film it?” EZ asked.

“Yes,
and yes,” Claire answered.

EZ
stared at Ollie. “Let’s see what she has to say,” EZ said. “She’s either got a
good excuse or she’s going to hang herself, right?”

“Is
everything all right up there?” G-Ray called up.

“Yes,
we’re going to do an interview with Scarlet,” EZ yelled back. “Claire’s going
to ask her if she’s a cheating whore.”

“Sweet,”
G-Ray said. “I’ll be right up.”