Zoe Letting Go (6 page)

That’s when the next step came to me.

Did someone win the lottery?
Was there a pot of gold in the attic that I didn’t know about? A chest of treasure buried beneath the basement floor? I ask because, personally, I’ve never encountered even a hint of wealth downstairs in the laundry room of our building. Just cockroaches, dust bunnies, and lonesome socks. But someone is paying for me to be at Twin Birch, and last time I checked, my mother’s job as a museum curator didn’t exactly make it rain on her bank account.

After the panic of last night, I’m starting to calm down and ask practical questions. Sensible, reasonable questions, beginning with this one: How is my mother paying for me to be here?

Let us review the facts of my family’s financial situation.

Fact: We live in a rent-controlled apartment the size of a shoebox.

Fact: I’ve never been allowed to order any drink but water when we go out to restaurants. (Which is rare.)

Fact: I’ve taken fewer than five taxi cabs in my life.

Fact: When I think of home, I don’t think of Broadway shows, sushi dinners, and SoHo strolls. I think of crazy people on the D train, grease-sodden pizza, and sprinting to get on line for discount museum exhibits.

Given these figures, it is somewhat odd to find myself secreted away at an estate lifted directly from a Grimm fairy tale, gilded scrollwork and all. I have to concentrate hard to convince myself that such a place as this exists. I bend down when nobody’s looking and run a finger along the parquet floor; I touch the glass of the French doors in the dining room, leaving smudged fingerprints as proof of my being. I am like Hansel and Gretel scattering a trail of bread crumbs behind me, just in case I get lost in this cavernous place.

This is not to say I plan on staying here for long. That would be unthinkable. I am not like the other girls here—not in need of help, not a danger to myself. The only items I’ve unpacked from my suitcase so far are a pair of leggings (to sleep in last night), a photograph of me and Elise, and my toothbrush. Everything else remains folded and zipped away. If necessary, I can be ready to leave Twin Birch in five minutes.

Therapy.
The word sounds like the name of a Greek goddess—the patron goddess of whiners, perhaps. There could be a yearly festival in honor of Therapy, if the idea catches on. A date upon which
individuals cry, flop around on modular leather sofas, and burn finger-paintings of their parents in effigy.

I read that the high cost of therapy is actually a part of the therapy itself. It works like this: If you pay a lot of money to spend an hour on a stranger’s couch, then you will, in theory, place a high value on that hour and make the best possible use out of it. It makes sense, but it also makes me feel dreary about the human condition to think that we’re so simple.

Alexandra is not the average therapist. Most shrinks are frumpy—defiantly frumpy. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they think that patients will respect the fact that they’ve disavowed superficial embellishments. The therapist at school is a spherical woman given to pairing animal-print turtlenecks with denim jumpers. I took one look at her on the first day and thought,
This is not someone I should ever take advice from.

But Alexandra is different. I was following Caroline to breakfast this morning when Angela intercepted my trajectory. She skipped the small talk. “I’ve set down your first session with Alexandra for eight thirty a.m. today. Do you remember where her office is?”

I did.

“After today,” Angela continued, “we’ll schedule a regular time slot in the afternoon.”

I nodded.

“You haven’t eaten breakfast,” she said.

I didn’t answer.

“We’ll make an exception for you to eat during your appointment with Alexandra,” Angela decided.

“I’m not hungry.”

Angela ignored me. “I’ll bring something down in a moment.”

She click-clacked away before I could protest, igniting a flare of irritation in my chest. Deep breath. I needed to speak with my mother, since she was the only person who could sort this out and bring me back home where I belonged. She must have been confused when she brought me here. She’d be able to tell Angela and Alexandra that this was all a mistake, and that she’d be coming to pick me up ASAP—yes, that was the solution. I’d be in the car like lightning, slamming the door and discarding the memory of Twin Birch like an old Band-Aid plastered to a skinned knee. Rip it off and throw it out. Now was not the time for hysterics.

As I made my way down the staircase to the office that Angela had pointed out yesterday, I floated on this plan and thought of calm images to set my mood right. Babies cooing, soufflés rising, sea horses floating at the bottom of the sea. If I were going to meet the therapist, I might as well make a good impression. A sane impression. The noises of the dining hall receded as I reached the ground floor, and I began to ponder my strategy. It all depended on what sort of therapist Alexandra was. I’ve found, over the course of my comparatively short but relatively overstuffed life, that therapists are like teachers: Variations among individuals are great, but certain mannerisms are consistent across the board. For example, all therapists will start a session with a question. A standard entry query. It will be the same every time: “How are you feeling today?” or “How are you?” or “How are things going for you?” The query itself differs among therapists, but it’s always the same when you walk in the door. People, like dogs, are comforted by consistency.

Alexandra’s door was closed when I got there. How inviting.

I looked at the chair propped outside her door, as well as the adjoining wicker table. The arrangement suggested that I sit down and wait, but I was in no mood to twiddle my fingers. What to do? The red box sitting atop the table gleamed impossibly brightly, as though it had been polished again since the day before. Curious, I tugged on the box’s lid to see what was inside—candy? Kleenex? Mints? The lid wouldn’t budge. Sealed shut. Only a narrow slit on top of the box provided a window to its contents, but as I bent to peek inside the slit, the door swung open.

“Hello,” said Alexandra.

I snapped up like a cartoon rake. “Hi.”

“Come on in.”

I blinked. This person did not conform to my expectations. Nor did the room behind her.

Stepping inside, I was nearly blinded by the pale office light. I scanned with feeble eyes. Where were the usual signs of a therapist’s habitat? The well-traveled Oriental rugs? The house plants? The Navajo wall hangings? This place looked like a cross between an art gallery and a doctor’s office: a white cube of a room with minimal furnishings and no smell whatsoever. A sterile zone. A chemist’s laboratory. At one end of the space lay a chrome desk and a chest. At the other end, two white leather chairs, a small white leather sofa, and a glass coffee table with nothing on it completed the room. It was as though the entire office had been erased of human sediment. Except for a single box of tissues, it was the emptiest room I’d ever seen. Alexandra herself was
dressed head to toe in white. She resembled a Q-tip floating in a giant glass of milk.

“Take a seat wherever you like,” she said, folding herself into an Eames chair. I peered at her, taking mental notes for later documentation. Alexandra is a slender woman about the same age as Angela and with the same dark hair, though in Alexandra’s case it is chopped into a severe bob that barely skims her chin. The bob contrasted starkly with its snowy backdrop.

I sat down on the sofa. It was surprisingly comfortable. A knock at the door announced Angela, who entered with a covered plate. “Breakfast for Zoe,” she said officiously, setting the plate on the coffee table. “They’re having whole-grain waffles upstairs, but Devon thought this might be less messy to eat in the office. I’m afraid I didn’t have enough hands to bring coffee.”

“That’s all right,” I said, though I wanted coffee.

Angela brushed invisible crumbs from her skirt. “Oatmeal-raisin bread and fruit compote. Hopefully it’s still warm.”

She left, clicking the door shut as the smell of the bread scented the room. “Smells good,” Alexandra commented. A tuft of steam warmed my face as I lifted the napkin to reveal a slab of brown bread, a bowl of purplish fruit, and a spoon. Was I supposed to eat this? Fat chance. The portion was big enough for a lumberjack. I gingerly replaced the napkin and sat back on the sofa.

Alexandra crossed her legs.“It’s nice to meet you, Zoe.”

“Likewise,” I said, not making eye contact. My eyes were distracted by an object that glittered on her hand. A flare of color, sparkling like stained glass.

She noticed my look and held out her left hand, where a bulky cocktail ring bedecked the index finger. “It’s a sea turtle,” she explained, revolving the ring. “Sometimes it catches the light and creates a glare. Let me know if it gets in your eyes.”

I stared at the object. It was costume jewelry, but it looked expensive, somehow. Like one of those antique baubles that rich ladies wear because their real jewels are too valuable to go anywhere except into a locked bank vault. Alexandra’s did, it seemed, depict a sea turtle. The ring had four legs, a shell, and a head with diamond-like eyes. Suddenly my mind was fuzzy from the competing sensations of food, glare, whiteness, and sea turtle.

“It’s a miraculous animal,” Alexandra said. “Do you know that baby sea turtles can swim at birth?”

I did not know that.

“It’s true,” she said, her diction crisper than rye toast. “Imagine, by comparison, if human babies could walk at birth. Imagine if they could sit up, brush themselves off, stroll right out of the delivery room, and fetch a candy bar for themselves from the hospital vending machine.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to this, either.

Alexandra’s eyes returned to her cocktail ring. “It’s wonderful to think about sea turtles swimming at birth,” she said, tapping the turtle’s shell with a fingernail. “Knowing that such an animal exists makes me intrigued about the world’s possibilities.”

In the back of my mind, I made another mental note to scout out a similar piece of jewelry on eBay. For Elise’s seventeenth birthday, perhaps. Even though I still have four months to find a gift, I know she’d love it. My mind was wandering.

“Can I get you any water? Tea?” Alexandra asked.

“No, thank you,” I said. Given that the room contained no glasses, mugs, pitchers, or boxes of tea, I wondered where the drink would come from. My breakfast sat untouched on the coffee table. It smelled as heavy as it looked. I would not be eating it, obviously. The sight of the covered plate alone was making me ill.

But where else could I look? Alexandra sat neutrally, her expression empty but vaguely unnerving. She looked familiar. Had I seen her somewhere—? No, my mind was doing weird things, seeking to draw connections where none existed. I waited for Alexandra to ask an opening question, but she sat motionless and in silence. It occurred to me that the offer of water or tea might have been her opening question, in which case, she was waiting for me to open my mouth.

Well, screw that. Instead I decided to reinspect my oatmeal-raisin bread. I picked it up from the plate, rotated it until I found a corner without too many nuts, sniffed, and put it back down. It was studded with all sorts of suspicious-looking whole grains and looked less like bread than a pile of trail mix formed into a loaf shape. I wiped both hands on the napkin. Now what?

Alexandra spoke. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re thinking about?”

I pointed to the slab on my plate. “I was thinking that ‘bread’ is an awfully liberal description for this thing.”

“Ah.”

“Why do you ask?” I asked.

“You seemed to go AWOL for a moment. I was wondering where you went.”

“Oh. I spaced out.”

“What do you think about when you space out?”

I rolled my eyes. “Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Do you space out often?”

(What was she getting at?)

“Everyone spaces out,” I said. “Some people do it more than others. If you’re asking whether I zone out during Latin American history class, the answer is yes. If you’re asking whether I zone out twenty-four hours a day, the answer is no. Obviously. There’s a term for that. The term is ‘insanity.’

“Look,” I continued. “I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you of anything. Insanity is a zero-sum game—either you’re crazy or you’re sane, but you can’t be both. And I’m not insane.”

“I wasn’t accusing you of insanity, Zoe. We all create little worlds of our own. We do it on a daily basis.”

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t calling me crazy.

“Tell me more about when you space out,” Alexandra said. “Have you always been able to disconnect?”

“Not always.”

“When did it start?”

“I have this one memory,” I said. “I was eight years old. My mom has always been strict about letting us watch television, especially when I was little. Cartoons on Saturday was about it. But one night, for whatever reason, she let us eat dinner in front of the TV. Which was a big deal. Major excitement. My brother had control of the remote, which could have been disastrous, except that we instantly agreed on a show to watch. It was about women with extreme plastic surgery. There was one lady who looked
exactly like a duck and another who looked as though her face had been assembled from spare celebrity parts. You could actually piece together the individual elements: Angelina Jolie’s lips, Halle Berry’s nose, Julia Roberts’s chin, Jennifer Aniston’s hair. The sum total should have been pretty, but it wasn’t. It was horrifying.

“Anyhow, at one point I smelled sesame oil and soy sauce in the air.
Mom’s making stir-fry again
, I thought. We ate a lot of stir-fry. I could hear the pan sizzling as we finished the plastic surgery show and moved on to a new one about heroic dogs. My stomach grumbled. The entire room smelled like garlic and seared chicken, and I was starving. After forty-five minutes of watching canine reenactments, I got up to go into the kitchen, where I found my mom loading the dishwasher. ‘When’s dinner?’ I asked.