Tuesday Night Miracles (32 page)

“The slap is one thing,” Jane says slowly, not caring if anyone else hears. “But the other things—well, Grace, we will have to talk about that later.”

Then Jane pauses as if she were waiting for a phone call that was about to come through, or for someone to bring her a vodka and tonic that she ordered ten minutes ago.

“Dr. Bayer won’t know, Grace, but we
will
talk. Yes, we will. And it will just be the two of us. Alone.”

Kit has heard every word, and a cold shiver moves up her spine. What in God’s name is going on? She can’t even remember what Grace said after the slap. The assault and what followed seemed to erase everything but the slap. And didn’t they all talk like normal women in the hospital emergency room?

Now what?

Grace mutters a thank-you, asks Queen Jane if she would like some more coffee, and then walks into the kitchen looking even paler than she did when she arrived.

Kit squeezes her hand as she walks past and tries to reassure herself that the evening is only going to get better and that Jane has to do what she has to do and Grace has to do what she has to do. But Jane has obviously set up a rather large roadblock. Kit believes that roadblocks, especially ones set up in her own living room, were made for climbing over.

Leah seems oblivious and pours herself a glass of water, then she walks into the living room and sits down right next to Jane. The two of them start to talk, which is a good sign, and Kit exhales.

And then, wonder of wonders, the doorbell finally rings again and there is Dr. Bayer, looking as if she just rolled out of bed and forgot that it was Tuesday night. Her coat isn’t buttoned; she’s carrying files in her right hand that could have been tucked inside the briefcase she carries in her left hand, and she doesn’t have on clogs!

Dr. Bayer is wearing a dark brown pair of UGG boots. Kit is trying desperately not to look at them. Dr. Bayer looks pretty normal, kind of like a sweet, nutty professor, until you get to the boots. The boots make her seem out of proportion, as if she’d grabbed the wrong ones, the bigger ones that belong to someone else, and is now about to fall over.

The good doctor can see Kit trying hard not to look at the boots, and also trying hard not to laugh. Olivia has moved inside the house so that everyone can see her and her boots. Everyone now wants to laugh.

“They look ridiculous,” Dr. Bayer agrees, knowing what they’re all thinking. “It took me months before I could wear them the first time. My dog thought I had brought a new puppy into the house. But I have to tell you, I’d attack anyone who took them from me. My feet have never been warmer.”

Everyone laughs, and then, to their amazement, Dr. Bayer slips off the boots, props them up against the wall as if they are delicate statutes, and pulls a pair of black slippers from her purse.

“An old family custom and a sign of respect,” she says, and immediately everyone else is ashamed because none of them thought to remove their shoes.

Dr. Bayer is so real. Kit has a sudden urge to hug her and ask if she wants to spend the night and have popcorn and beer later. She’s been so busy worrying about her own problems that she hasn’t really focused on this kind, gentle woman who has put up with their messes for how many weeks now?

Grace, Leah, and even Jane are thinking along the same lines. Dr. Bayer surely has had a life of stories they would love to hear. Slightly and way beyond slightly crazy clients. Angry and vicious men and women. She’s old enough to have fought like crazy herself to get to where she is right this moment. There were probably less than a handful of female students in her classes when she went to graduate school. Her postgraduate training? Well, Dr. Bayer looks as if she’s somewhere in her sixties, so that meant the world was still clearly a man’s domain and she probably had to fight like hell to get where she is today.

But before that—before school and work and patients—who was Olivia Bayer?

Maybe it’s because the women are all meeting at a house and not in an institutional setting, but they’re suddenly so curious about Dr. Bayer that their feet are twitching. Well, they know she has a dog and that someone who cares about her feet getting cold bought her an ugly but very warm pair of boots. They know she loves cotton and comfortable shoes that many women her age still refuse to stop wearing. They know she can be kind and that she’s very smart, and that none of them can get away with make-believe in this class. And, most important, they know that she has the remote-control device that will either keep them right where they are or set them free so they can have a second chance.

While Olivia pulls on her slippers and rearranges herself, the four women study her every move. The way she bends low and doesn’t use her back improperly; how she pushes her hair behind her ears and it immediately falls back toward her face; the way she crinkles up her eyes as if she’s thinking, thinking, thinking all the time; the waving arms for balance; and the strong aura of expectation and confidence that surrounds her like a moving escort.

If Dr. Bayer notices the way Leah, Kit, Grace, and Jane are looking at her, she doesn’t acknowledge it. If she realizes that the women are reaching out, exploring new emotions, embracing the humanity of her, she doesn’t show that, either.

Instead, she thanks Kit for the use of the house, decides that she will have a cup of coffee even if it is late in the day and the caffeine may keep her up a bit longer, and then settles in on the one chair that is all by itself. It’s a tall, green-backed, wooden-armed antique that a director might use during rehearsal.

That is how Olivia sees herself this evening. She is a director, and it’s time to dive into the final rehearsal frame of mind. As a therapist she can prod and pull and suggest and offer, but it is the client’s duty to accept and deliver, to move forward or stay in the same place. It is time to simply cut to the chase.

The women are surprised when Dr. Bayer doesn’t hash over last week’s events. There is no “How is everyone?” or a check on Jane’s physical well-being. She doesn’t tell them again what a wonderful job they did or how remarkable it was that none of them got hurt. No touchy-feely Kumbaya. So much for the popcorn and beer idea. Dr. Olivia Bayer is not sitting in the antique chair from Kit’s long-dead uncle Jerome to knit socks.

“Let’s get going right away tonight,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Kit, thanks for the house and the drinks. I trust everyone was very busy this week getting on with their lives and completing all the assignments. We have a lot of work to do tonight.”

The women nod. The spell has been broken.

“Let’s start out with a general question and then move on from there.”

There’s no asking this week, just telling. There is, however, uneasy movement by all four of the women, who shift in their seats, put down drinks, clear their throats, and prepare for the question. They are thinking of themselves. Each one of the women could be in the room with just the good doctor.

“Does anyone have anything they want to share about the assignments, their own lives, anything at all that might be good to talk about?”

“Good” probably means “happy.” That’s what all four of them are thinking, and although they each have more than a few things to share, it’s taking them a while to start their engines.

Leah speaks up first. Dr. Bayer is all business, and she wants to get on with business as well.

“Just little things for me, like worrying about classes I might not be able to get at the university because … well, because I’m in this class, which takes priority,” she says. “But I’m learning to put things in perspective. I’m alive. The kids are doing great. It was actually a pretty wonderful week. And it was because I refused to have it any other way.”

“Good for you, Leah. Anyone else?” Dr. Bayer has raised her eyebrows and is looking hopeful.

But Jane, Grace, and Kit can’t get past the classes Leah mentioned. What classes? It’s as if someone threw something shiny in the middle of the room and they can’t take their eyes off it. There is so much they don’t know about Leah, and here she is showing them up with her positive attitude.

“No one else?”

“Um, I was terribly busy, which is a good thing for me, I guess,” Grace adds quietly. “Nothing too major. Lots of thinking in the few quiet moments I had about mistakes I’ve made along the way and how I don’t want to go back there anymore. It’s like I’m a new person, almost.”

Grace takes a quick glimpse at Jane, hoping she gets what the word “almost” is all about.

“No dwelling back there too long, I hope.” Dr. Bayer says this partly as a question, wishing Grace could be more specific.

Grace shakes her head, smiles because she doesn’t have to lie, and decides to keep talking—which is almost as stunning to her as it is to everyone else.

She doesn’t know where the energy comes from to speak, or why she has suddenly decided to open up in a way that she has not opened up in a very long time—and she really doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about Jane’s alleged power over her or what Kit or Leah or even Dr. Bayer will think. Grace speaks for herself in order to empty her well of soot, so that she can see the bottom of her own heart, or close to it.

“This has been the strangest and most wonderful week, and I’m not sure why,” she admits. “Maybe it’s because the puzzle pieces of this interesting class are all fitting together or because I’m tired of struggling against the ropes of my own life or because I finally realize that I have so damn much to lose.”

Grace can’t stop herself. She talks about the weight of the world that she has gently shifted off her shoulders, and about assumptions she has made about the people closest to her, including her two daughters, and about how maybe it was necessary for her to go through all of this—even the dreaded incident that brought her to class—so that she could feel again.

Feel again, as in feel the possibilities and not the bad stuff that leaks into everyone’s life. Feel again, as in opening new doors and closing ones that should have been closed a long time ago. Feel again, as in forgiving herself and others, maybe even her mother, maybe … if she can stretch that far.

“I’m guessing we all know women like me,” she continues, looking past Dr. Bayer, who does not want Grace to stop talking. “Women who focus on something like a marriage gone bad and then keep hanging on to it as if the rope is something they need to keep breathing. I think it’s all fear, you know—fear of change and of finding new parts of yourself—and that’s not always easy, is it? But I mean really, at some point we all need to shut the hell up and let go of the rope and move forward. I was divorced years ago, and I can’t believe I’m still talking about it.”

And one more thing, or maybe more than one thing. Grace shares that writing down things that are good is so much better than writing down things that are bad. It forces you to go to a place that is far better than the other place—you know, the place that probably brought them all to this very room to begin with.

Suddenly Grace isn’t sure she can stop. But she can’t bring up her relationship with her mother, her true feelings for Evan, or her daughter’s sexuality. Enough, Grace! Is there something in the coffee? She forces herself to be quiet, takes a sip of coffee to steady herself, and then dares to make eye contact with Dr. Bayer.

“Sorry,” she concludes.

Sorry? Dr. Bayer has to restrain herself from jumping up and kissing Grace. What’s happened? What’s next?

“Thank you, Grace,” Dr. Bayer says, shifting her weight and deciding to forgo what she thought was going to be a harsh lecture on moving forward. “Some people hate to write their thoughts down, even the good ones, but sometimes it’s a way to help move you in the right direction.”

Keep at it, she tells them, keep writing and perhaps at the end of class they can talk some more about that process. Dr. Bayer is dying to look at their journals again.

Grace feels as if she just shed fifty pounds. The other three women are obviously thinking about what Grace has just shared and, hopefully what they haven’t, and to give them time to recover Dr. Bayer decides to do a general review focusing on anger management. She spends a great deal of those twenty minutes re-explaining the way thoughts control feelings and how being in control means that you can also always be in control of your anger and your happiness.

Dr. Bayer, always the mistress of actions, is watching them all with her ever-knowing eyes. They are listening, but are they listening? Perhaps they’re lost thinking about what Grace said.

One part of her wants to scoop them all up and set them on her lap and let them know that she cares so much that she doesn’t sleep, has broken her whiskey rule, and has had more than one drink two nights in a row—and that she has great hope for all of them.

The other half wants to rise up, shake them, and get them all to speak up. Little by little, Olivia. One at a time is better than none at a time. She knows that something happened last week when Jane fled the county building and that eventually—before, during, or after they all head out into the sunset—she will find out what it was.

Last night Olivia spent two hours going through her class notes. She wants to make certain she hands these women the tools they need to deal with their life issues. She has to do this part of her job. What they do with the tools is supposed to be their business.

If only it were that simple.

“Okay, ladies, any questions?” she asks, folding up the notes she used during her lecture.

Nothing.

“This is wonderful. We are making progress, then. That’s what this is all about.”

Olivia stops to take a sip of her coffee. She doesn’t want the damn coffee, but it’s the only way she can focus. She has been told on numerous occasions, by people who care about her very much, that at least eighty percent of her body is made of marshmallows and raspberry jelly. The simple sip of coffee will keep her from running around and kissing everyone. She does like these women—even Jane, who has been behaving appropriately so far but looks as if she’s lost in a very long thought.

“Now, let’s move on to one of the assignments. We never did get to discuss what you might have in common beyond this class and the activities that brought you here. I’d like to start out with that first and then move on to the things you admire about yourself.”