Family Affair (27 page)

Addison grabbed her hand. "Then take control and stop it."

The older woman sitting across from them now looked confused. Perhaps she thought Chase was mentally disabled and Addison was her midget caretaker.

"I can help you."

"How?" Chase looked longingly at her pinky which still had potential. Now that she was about to lose the habit, she craved it more.

"One finger at a time. We'll start with your thumb because those are the hardest. Here give it to me." Addison dug through her pack until she found a black permanent marker. Taking Chase's right thumb she drew a line around it. "Okay, this one is off limits. You can assault the other nine, which in your case since you're down three already, leaves you six. We'll do one finger a week."

"Wow, this is going to be a lengthy process."

"How long have you done it?" Addison asked, putting the black marker back into the pack.

"All my life."

"I don't think ten weeks to unlearn a lifelong habit is excessive."

"You've got a point there," Chase admitted.

Luckily, she was spared further analytical ruminations by Gitana who returned to the waiting area positively beaming.

"Everything okay?" Chase asked.

Gitana handed her a note from the doctor—a synopsis of her current condition. Chase read it quickly. The note mosdy pertained to keeping up the prenatal vitamins, avoid heavy lifting and that Gitana's pregnancy was progressing satisfactorily. "How much longer is he going to be angry with me?" Chase said. "And don't you think his note is a little vague? What does progressing satisfactorily mean exacdy?"

Ignoring her questions, Gitana said, "Dr. Bertine gave you this." She handed her the Lamaze class video.

"Great," Chase said, turning it over and reading the back cover.

"Let me guess, she got thrown out of Lamaze class as well," Addison said.

"You guessed right," Gitana said.

"That guy was a total homophobe. You couldn't expect me not to stick up for 'our' people."

"I'm thinking a twelve-step anger management program might not be a bad idea," Addison said as they exited the waiting room and headed to the parking lot.

"Twelve steps?" Gitana asked.

"Addison has me on a ten-step program for my cuticle biting," Chase said, holding up her thumb with the black line around it.

"You're a good influence on her," Gitana said.

"I'll talk to Robicheck about my problem with my angry mouth."

They parted ways. Addison and Gitana were headed for the Albuquerque Art Museum and Chase was off to Dr. Robicheck's office.

Dr. Robicheck's office was five minutes from Dr. Bertine's office. Seeing as she still had fifteen minutes to spare, she hit the Starbucks on the way.

"Hey there," Chase said, as she picked up her Chai. Lacey and Jasmine were sitting at a table by the window in a secluded corner.

"Hi," Lacey said. "Sit down. Jasmine and I were just catching up on old news." She said this quickly and patted the seat next to her equally quickly like she was afraid of slipping up, so that if she got the preliminaries over quickly all would be well.

"I can't. I've got to see the shrink in ten minutes."

"How is that working out?" Jasmine asked.

"Okay, I guess." Chase sipped her Chai and stared at them. This wasn't a polite lie. She honestly couldn't decide if she was a saner person. It hadn't been that long. Maybe sanity was like a twelve-step program.

"I think you're much better," Lacey said.

"Thanks for the endorsement."

"And you are more user-friendly." Lacey held her arms out for a hug.

Chase obliged. It was painful in front of a crowd, but she did it.

"Just testing," Lacey said, releasing her.

"Right, well, off to crazy-land. See you at group, Jasmine."

"I won't make you hug me," Jasmine said. She did touch Chase's hand.

As Chase made her way to the door she caught the reflection of Jasmine and Lacey at their table. Jasmine was playing footsy with Lacey who didn't appear to mind.

Chase wondered if she was already in crazy-land. Why had her life taken this sudden rollercoaster ride once she decided that she could change?

Sitting on Dr. Robicheck's couch, Chase shifted positions several times.

"You seem a little agitated," Dr. Robicheck said, making an annotation on her yellow legal pad.

Chase had noticed when she went to OfficeMax to pick up her composition books that she had developed an aversion to yellow legal pads.

"Me? I'm fine."

"Chase, these sessions do not prove useful if you don't relay what is going on in your life. My asking you how you are is not a polite convention." She crossed her legs and stared hard at Chase.

"A complete waste of my co-pay." Chase crossed her legs at the ankles and leaned back trying to appear comfortable.

"Was there a lot of carnage?" she asked, referring to Chase's habit of burying roadkill.

"Only one prairie dog."

"And?"

"I think Lacey might be gay and dating one of my writing group friends who now has a lesbian character in her novel," Chase blurted.

The doctor did not change expression, not even a raised eyebrow. "And you find this disconcerting?"

"Yes." Chase abandoned her ruse of relaxation and sat upright.

"Do you feel that you are changing?"

"A little." Chase uncrossed her legs. Her foot had fallen asleep. The good doctor had purchased a new print of a white calla lily. It was almost erotic.

"Isn't it possible that your friends might do the same thing?"

Dr. Robicheck wore a white linen suit with a light green shirt. Chase stared at it.

"How come you're not wearing brown?"

"Excuse me?" She looked down at her outfit as if seeing it for the first time.

"You always wear brown—all brown, today you have white on and you have a new print and two new books on your bookcase and you're using a different pen." Chase's voice had gotten high and squeaky, like she was on the verge of a panic attack.

"Are you taking your medication?" Dr. Robicheck looked alarmed.

"Religiously." Chase stood up and got a cup of water from the watercooler. At least that was in the same place in the corner. "Next thing you'll be rearranging the furniture."

"Chase, calm down. Change is inevitable."

Chase sat back down. She studied the Dixie cup. The pattern was different. It was a leaf motif. Last week it had been multicolored stars.

Dr. Robicheck noticed. "Yes, they're a different pattern. It's fine. Did it occur to you that you're suddenly noticing that things change when in actuality things change all the time?"

"I don't like change. It makes me nervous. I thought my medication was supposed to make me sane."

"It's not a miracle drug. It won't make you a perfect human being, but it will keep you from having episodes."

"Like the one I just had?" Chase said anxiously.

"Perhaps we should up the dose."

"That might be a good idea."

After the horrid session, Chase managed to locate Gitana and Addison in the gift shop of the museum.

"How'd it go?" Gitana asked.

Addison was leafing through a book on Frida Kahlo.

"Robicheck is increasing my dosage." Chase didn't look at her. Instead, she picked up a boxed set of postcards of Georgia O'Keeffe's flower series. Chase preferred these to the bone series which she thought morbid.

"Why?"

"I had a little episode in her office. I think I scared her."

"What happened?" Gitana calmly took the postcards away and set them back on the shelf.

"She changed some of the things in her office and her clothes were a different color. It upset me."

"Maybe it upset you because we're going through so many changes," Gitana said, pointing to her stomach.

"I don't know, but you'd think a shrink would know better than to go modifying things without informing her patients."

"You're right. She should have sent out cards or a memo or something."

"It would show good manners," Chase said.

Addison came over with her purchases. It still freaked Chase out that a nine-year-old had a debit card and was so proficient at using it. She herself had trouble with the keypad at the grocery store checkout counter. It seemed they were endlessly moving the "enter" key.

"What'd you get?" Gitana asked.

"A Frida Kahlo book. Look at all the creepy paintings. I love it." Addison showed them a particularly gruesome one titled Self Portrait 1940.

"Look at the detail," Gitana said, pointing to the crown of thorns around her neck.

"I just like the blood part," Addison replied.

"Her paintings give me nightmares," Chase said.

"Wuss. And then I got this print of Edvard Munch to put over my bed."

"That's interesting," Gitana said.

"Don't you think The Scream is an odd choice for a bedroom?" Chase said.

"No. I feel like that a lot. It's a manifestation of my inner self," Addison replied.

"Of course," Chase said. She contemplated what her manifestation of her inner self would be—probably a Salvador Dali, either The Persistence of Memory or the Metamorphosis of Narcissus.

"Can we go to the Atomic Museum?"

"Sure," Chase said.