Those We Trust

by Victoria Ellis

  “I love the way you’ve decorated the place, it’s a vintage feel,” Mara says as she glances around the room. I can’t tell if that’s a dig or if she truly likes it. I assume the latter. My grandmother helped us buy our home. I would never admit this to Mara, but it was back when the neighborhood was first being built up and at the same time I was opening my practice. Because she lent us money, we felt obliged to let her have a say in the decorating, leading to a very “vintage” look. I am well aware that my house looks like a retirement home. I just don’t care enough to change it. Material things don’t impress me. Plus, I’d like to hold onto my grandmother for as long as I can now that she has passed away. Things like the decorations are my memories of her.

  We go back and forth with surface-level conversation for what feels like too long. She and James moved here because they were finally ready for a grown-up commitment together, which she’s already talked about, but she loves talking about her accomplishments so I let her. I’m used to being the listener and I don’t mind. Plus I can tune her out—I’m good at that too.

  I’m letting the time slowly pass as she rambles on about James and how wonderful he is, being excited to start this new venture, and how they’re thinking about trying for a baby. It isn’t until she mentions her family that I snap back to full attention. I’m hoping this will lead into her life growing up and tell me why she is the way she is.

  “My parents were great. The only thing I can complain about is I wish they were around more. They both worked so hard, we were a blue-collar family and we didn’t have the luxury of one of them staying home. I got into my fair share of trouble being alone so much. My older cousin did watch me after school but I’d hardly call that chaperoning.” Mara gives me a smile and asks me about my family as well. So she wants to dig up dirt on me, huh? Let her try.

  “It's similar to your story, actually. Both of my parents worked hard, they still do. My father has a very successful floral shop downtown, his father passed the shop down to him when he retired. My mother always felt pressured to be his right-hand lady there but she wanted to bring in an income of her own, separate from the shop. She became a teacher, first grade. The best part is that she teaches at an elementary school only three miles from the floral shop. My dad closes up shop for an hour every single day and they eat lunch together in her classroom. They are disgustingly cute together, even after fifty years of marriage.”

  Mara takes a sip of coffee and tells me she hopes she and James can last that long.

  What I leave out is that my mother and father experienced a bout of infidelity at my mother’s hand. She had a brief fling with another teacher when I was ten years old. I think my father eats lunch there with her to gauge her surroundings and make sure she doesn’t stray again. They truly are wonderful with each other though, even after that hard time they shared. I don’t know how he overcame it. He’s a better person than I’ll ever be.

  “This may be forward, but considering your last comment, are you and James okay?” I can dig up dirt on you too, Mara.

  “Of course, I didn’t mean anything much by that. I just sometimes wonder how two people can stay together for so long without getting bored of each other.” She rolls her eyes and gives me a little shrug. “I’ve always had a bit of a gypsy soul, an old soul too. Since my parents weren’t around that often, I never got to do the typical playdates and sleepovers. My parents weren’t available to chauffeur me around. On the weekends though, they had their friends over almost constantly. Game nights were a weekly routine. I was always around older people and I think that’s definitely attributed to how I feel now.” She looks happy reminiscing on those memories.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” a typical psychiatrist line that I don’t catch before it escapes my lips. “I feel a little before my time too. I wasn’t ever around many adults as a child like you, but after school my older sister would watch me. She was five years older than me, my parents had her in high school. I learned everything about boys, sex, and love from her all while watching 90210 and Saved by the Bell!” I laughed, thinking about those days I missed.

  “I loved those shows! I felt so adulty watching them with my cousin. We watched the reruns after we got home from school almost every single day.”

  Mara is likeable in this moment. We finally have some type of commonality. Who would have thought that it would come from TV shows we watched in our adolescent years?

  Mara goes on to talk about her cousin whom she spent so much time with, Benjamin. I try and think back to high school and remember him. For some reason all I picture is a strange-looking guy I remember her walking around with sometimes. I remember it now. I always thought it was weird for such a beautiful young girl to be walking around with him. He had long black hair, piercings, and wore chains on his pants. I don’t remember much of him but I wonder if that was her cousin. Kids wear anything they want now; everyone is accepted for the most part and everything is normal. Back when we were younger though, if you dressed like that, you were labeled a “goth” and dubbed an outsider. It makes sense thinking about it, now. Would she have been friends with someone who looked like that had he not been related? I highly doubt it.

  I pick up on tiny clues she shares about her cousin. Her expressions switch rapidly between looking happy and seeming a bit sad as she speaks about him. I wonder if he isn’t in her life anymore. I have to remind myself that she’s not my patient and I need not diagnose her or give her advice. I’m not on the clock right now.

  I wait for her to bring up high school and the scandal she was intertwined in, but she doesn’t. Instead she starts asking me more questions. I’m not used to being on this side of the conversation.

  “So, how did you and Simon meet?” Mara asks, looking genuinely interested.

  “Totally by chance,” I say, smiling, thinking of our college class. “He sat behind me in one of our psychology classes. This was before he realized he didn’t have an empathetic bone in his body and it might not be the best profession for him.” I laugh, Mara does too.

  “We were getting ready for a big test and he looked like he was going to be sick. I later found out he had been going through some really difficult family issues and it was more so that than taking a test. I then went on to tutor him so he could play football, he was put on the bench for two of his grades. We made a really good team and he was a fast learner. The student became the teacher quickly. He taught me a lot too, during those years.” I enjoy thinking back on that time of our life. Despite the things he went through with his family, we had a really good few years.

  “Wow! That is a total shot in the dark. So many people just get set up or swipe right on Tinder anymore. Are things with his family better now, did stuff work out?”

  She’s trying to get me to say what happened, I think. “Things are a lot better, now. We aren’t as close to his family as mine but my family is much bigger and in a closer proximity to us, too.” I dance around her question purposely.

  “You win some and you lose some,” Mara says.

  We talk for another hour all about our homes, our likes and dislikes. I learn she and James have more of a physical connection than an emotional one, which I find strange due to her scandal. When it broke, she wrote a letter and made copies, hanging them up everywhere in our school before vanishing, a very Mara thing to do. She said something along the lines of finding boys our age foolish and she needed to experience the emotional connection only an older man could give her. She went on to say she never wanted him to touch her. I remember that so vividly because it was such a shock to everyone. I always assumed she switched schools, grew up a bit, and married an older man who could give her the things she saw in Mr. Kent. When she confides in me about James, I’m surprised. It’s so far from what I thought.

  I tell her, without thinking first, about Simon and I. How I think he might be a little bored with our intimacy and how we have a great emotional connection. Or, we have an emotional connection. We might be lacking the
re, too. Simon and I are incredibly different from James and Mara. We have the exact opposite issues in our marriages but it doesn’t seem too different when we talk about the problems out loud. I find comfort when I confide in her, something I didn’t expect would happen today. She listens intently, taking notes in her mind. Mara gives me nods of reassurance and really looks like she is taking in what I say, feeling for me and the things I’m confessing for the first time.

  We spend three hours together in total. First, at my dining room table, a formal spot. We then brewed a second pot of coffee and moved to the living area; it was much cozier there for both of us. We chatted long after the second pot was finished. When Mara said she had to go, I almost felt a little sad. I haven’t talked this much in years. I enjoyed this. I’m shocked, but Mara has a way about her. Something that makes me feel safe while divulging information.

  We exchange goodbyes and talk about the four of us getting together soon for dinner, and she’s out the door and heading to her own home. I watch her walk away, so sure of herself. She exudes confidence. I always thought I was self-assured and secure but she takes it to another level. Maybe becoming friends with Mara will give me back some of the nerve I let slowly slip away over the past few years.

  Part of me wants to keep this morning to myself, to not tell Simon anything about it. Another part of me wants to call him and shout, “I have a friend!” It seems rather silly, but it feels really nice.

  I rinse our coffee cups and think about how terrible I was to Simon about her the other day. How insecure that must have made me look in his eyes. The rift she caused the first time we met has long dissipated and I’m so happy to have found a confidant in her.

  I spend the rest of the day in an abnormal bliss.

  Chapter Ten

  Mara

  I leave Abbey and Simon’s house with exactly what I came for: knowledge and an insider’s point of view. Poor Abbey, I think I really grew on her during those three long and drawn out hours. I feel a stab of guilt, which isn’t in my nature, but it leaves as quickly as it comes on. I don’t think she has anyone to talk to. I don’t know much about her work, she didn’t talk in length about that aspect of her life, but I assume she has grown accustomed to being the patient listener.

  Does she not have friends? It’s probably because she is in her mid-thirties with no children. Most women her age have mommy coffee dates or play time conversations where they can vent about all of their issues, but she doesn’t have that luxury. Instead, she listens to psychos tell her about their problems all day. Whining and not taking ownership, thinking therapy will save them. Poor bastards.

  Abbey’s worried about the state of her relationship. She didn’t come right out and say those exact words, but she’s definitely feeling insecure. A small part of me hopes it’s because I’ve arrived. I kind of love making her squirm, wondering how her husband feels about me. She doesn’t have to speak the words for me to know it’s true. I have made her question everything about her relationship and it’s all over her face.

  When she first let me in, I could tell she didn’t want me there. Her movements were rigid and forced. So, me being me, I turned on the charm and made her almost as infatuated as her husband is by me. I made up a sob story about how I never got to play with children my age—this is true, but I don’t give a shit—because my hardworking parents were never home. Surely they would have been able to take me to a sleepover or a play date on the weekends, I was just never invited. The girls didn’t like me because they weren’t me; it wasn’t a secret.

  My cousin really did watch me. My cousin did a lot to me, but I was young and thought it was normal. I never watched 90210 or Saved by the Bell. Benjamin and I watched Jerry Springer, so I thought it was normal for him to put his hands down my pants and I assumed it was what other families did, too. He told me it was our secret, something we could share together and would be only ours to know. I believed that for so long, up until my father found us together in my bed. This was years into Benjamin being with me every single day.

  My father blamed himself. He wasn’t home enough; he didn’t see the signs. He had found my drawing tablet months earlier. I drew a lot of sexually promiscuous images. Naked men and women, a girl giving oral sex to a man, things Benjamin taught me through internet videos and movie rentals. My father thought I was being curious. I was at an age where I should have long had the talk with my mother but she refused to do such a thing. She relied on my schooling to teach me things she should have told me about herself. I received the knowledge, just not by who she expected.

  By the time my father found the two of us together, it was too late. I loved Benjamin and didn’t think anything was wrong. I was so angry at my parents for separating us. I ran away for a short time and lived with an aunt on my mother’s side of the family. After a short time, I was back home. My parents had me read Invisible Girls by Dr. Patti Feuereisen. They read it, too. I think it helped us to all understand what I had been through but the damage had been done.

  I would have never told Abbey any of this, though. I told her only what I wanted her to know, bits and pieces of what has made me who I am. I wasn’t going to let the psychiatrist in her pick me apart. I was far too smart for the mind games and tricks she learned in college while getting her bullshit degree.

  I’m a bit frustrated she didn’t give up what happened in Simon’s family. I tried coaxing it out of her but I had no luck. I’ll get it from her though; it’ll just take some time and a whole lot more coffee and sucking up to her.

  Now that I know for sure that I wasn’t wrong—Abbey doesn’t give it up to Simon—I can devise a plan for my next move with him. A man deprived of sex, stripped of his desires, and left quite literally to his own hand, is a man who can be easily swayed with the right type of woman. I am that woman, Simon’s woman. I know that something deep inside of me has clicked back into place. I feel a darkness washing over me that I can’t control, similar to all those years ago. The passion is strong and burns inside of me like a wildfire growing, spreading to each of my limbs and organs, igniting me. Lighting me up. I like it

  ~

  James arrives home from playing chef all day and I tell him about my morning with Abbey. I gloat about how she pushed back appointments to spend time with me. I told him how well we connected and that I see a great friendship growing with her already. It scares me a little, how great I am at bending the truth. I tell him all of the things I don’t believe, that remain untrue, but he’s happy with my story. I know that if Simon and James ever talk, my intentions will be covered because I’m sure Abbey is raving about me to him right now, too. I should have taken up drama classes and acting.

  James is so busy rambling on about some vegetable recall that I slip away, unbeknownst to him. Read a book, James. Get a hobby, James. Watch something other than Top Chef and Cake Wars for once in your damn life. The more I want Simon, the less James does for me. The small things that annoy me about James are more recognizable now, closer to the surface.

  I make my way to my safe space. I can see Simon and Abbey from my office window. It brings me back all those years ago to my time spent watching Ryan and his sad wife. Simon sits on the sofa, reading a magazine or some type of light literature that I can’t make out. Abbey is kicked back in the recliner, in professional attire but sprawled out like a man watching a Nascar race that’s scratching his stomach and eating Velveeta cheese from the box. I thought maybe after our discussion she would try a bit harder to please her husband, but it looks like she hasn’t figured it out yet. Maybe she just doesn’t have it in her.

  I pull a book from my shelf, one of my favorites, The Great Gatsby. I look down at Francis Cugat’s painting, Celestial Eyes. I always judge a book by its cover. Her eyes are sad but only one tear falls. The show goes on around her, flashy lights brighten up the city, but fancy things only keep you happy for so long.

  I have a strong love for the classics and I enjoy how Fitzgerald weaves multiple characters’ story
lines and themes into his novel. I run my hands over the seam of the book; it’s so delicate now and worn from innumerable readings. I open it to the car crash scene. It all happens so fast. You’ve been careless with Simon’s love, Abbey. I will be Daisy, and you will be Myrtle. You won’t even see what’s coming until it’s too late.

  Abbey is just as starved as Simon; she made that clear this morning. I can give them each what they want. To Simon, I can give my body. My lips, my tongue, my hands. I can do things to him that he hungers for, that his wife has deprived him of for too long.

  To Abbey, I can give my mind, an emotional connection she’s been devoid of until now. She needs a friend and I can play the part, even if only to get closer to her husband.

  Chapter Eleven

  Abbey

  “What is it about her that you think is so enticing to you?”

  I ask him this to try and figure out where this obsession he has with her stems from.

  “She really is perfect. I want to grab a fistful of her long, dark hair and yank her back toward me as I follow her in and out of shops downtown. She reminds me so much of my first girlfriend, the one they took away from me so long ago.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, I think, assuring him as I nod and take notes on my iPad. He stalls by sipping from his camouflage canteen. He smells of perspiration and dirt. I’ve been seeing him for quite some time now and his hygiene gets worse with each visit. I’m afraid he is slipping further and further away, getting lost in this obsession, especially with the woman he’s talking about today. He looks down at his yellow Carhartt work boots as he carries on, endlessly describing his infatuation.

  “She’s moved three times in three years you know, and I’ve followed her each time. She was in a studio in River North off of Kinzie Street. It was a tiny studio, too. I know it’s typical of those types of apartments but my god. I couldn’t hardly move in there.” His face looks like it’s getting warm and he knows he probably should have left that part out. “Don’t worry, doc. I only went in when she wasn’t home. I never crossed any lines, you know.” I continue to nod. No, Patient X, I do not know. I feel entering any apartment that isn’t yours without the owner or renter knowing is definitely crossing a line. I consider reporting him to the authorities, making a mental note to come back to this later.