I caught my cursing sister up on Eric and Josh and the whole murder investigation. With the kids in the car, however, I had to spell out a lot of the story to avoid having Walker scream “dead body” or “sexy kisser” in front of my parents.
When we reached my car, I’d finished feeding Heather most of the story. With an exasperated look, she warned, “We’re not done talking about this. I don’t like the idea of you hanging out with this Josh character.” Heather’s bad attitude and the two orange parking tickets on my car couldn’t kill my giddy mood. I started the engine and followed Heather to Newton.
Heather and I had grown up in a white Spanish-style house on Farlow Road. Both of my parents, Bethany and Jack Carter, were professional landscapers and had created an incredible outdoor utopia with raised garden beds, cobbled pathways, and stucco walls. Vegetables, flowers, shrubs, and berry bushes and vines left little room for a lawn, and each year the few patches of grass that remained became smaller and smaller, overtaken by new plantings. My parents had published a successful series of books for the home gardener and spent much of their time testing out new ideas in their own yard.
Heather pulled out her key and let us all in the front door. Heather and I had been out of the house for so many years that our bedrooms had been taken over and turned into greenhouses. The outside of my parents’ house was a shrine to taste and style, but the inside was a ghastly display of my mother’s obsession with hideous craft projects.
“Lord, what has she done now?” Heather wondered aloud as we entered the living room. “Well, Chloe, at least we know where you got your warped decorating sense.”
A series of wreaths made of yarn and silk flowers adorned the main wall. I stared at a particularly garish wreath constructed entirely of fake sunflowers. “Why couldn’t Mom have discovered a less obtrusive hobby, like jewelry making or scrapbooking? Why has she become obsessed with objects that have to be displayed?”
“Just be happy she hadn’t discovered wreaths when we lived here. Could you imagine bringing your friends over to see this garbage?”
“There are my babies!” Mom shrieked as she ran into the room, followed by our father, who was busy rolling his eyes and pointing to the new wall hangings. “I’ve missed my girls so much!” Tanned and fresh looking from their vacation in Acadia National Park, my parents showered us with hugs and kisses and immediately whipped out presents for the two kids.
In typical sister-ratting-out-sister style, Heather proceeded to announce, “Guess what Chloe’s done? She’s going out with the man suspected of murdering the blind date she had last week!”
“Jesus!” Walker said.
“Thank you, Heather,” I said. “And Walker.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Mom said.
How many times am I going to have to retell this? Can’t we all just focus on the news that I may have just met my future husband?
“Heather left out a few details. Josh, the guy I’m going out with, is a very unlikely suspect,” I said.
After I had yet again given the short version of the date-and-murder debacle, my father asked, “So the food stinks? Bethany, cancel the reservations we made at Essence for next week with the Morrisons.”
“Definitely,” my mother agreed. “But you’re going to Magellan on Friday?”
“I know! Can you believe it?” I squealed.
“Have you all lost it?” Heather said. “This Josh person shouldn’t be at the top of Chloe’s dating list right now. He shouldn’t be on it at all. He could be a murderer!”
“Oh, please, Heather. You’re so paranoid. Chloe wouldn’t go out with a murderer—she has excellent judgment. Besides, chefs hack up food, not people,” Mom said. “And you’re the one who sent her on this Back Bay Dates date with this poor Eric. You’re the one who started the ball rolling.”
Heather defended herself. “Are we all supposed to ignore the fact that Chloe has been through a traumatic event? She saw a dead body, for Pete’s sake. All bloody. And now she’s behaving irrationally, eating food cooked by a murder suspect!”
“She looks fine to me. In fact,” Mom continued, smiling at me, “I think she looks happy and excited about this boy. And he sounds better than that Daniel. I didn’t like the sound of him when I thought he was a platonic friend of yours, Chloe, and then Heather called him your ‘fun buddy.’ Do I have that right? What a horrible expression.”
Even though Daniel had refused to come to my aid by fooling around with me in front of my building during the Noah crisis, I felt some loyalty to him. Mostly, though, I was furious at Heather for passing on private information about me to our parents.
I hoped to God that my mother was right about Josh and that Heather was wrong. “Finding Eric was upsetting,” I admitted. “So was his murder. It was awful, but I’m dealing with it. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but I’d just met Eric, so there’s a limit to how devastated I’m going to be, okay? But fortunately for me, Josh is alive and well, and I want to go out with him.”
“Not alone, I hope,” Heather said. “I don’t think it’s one bit safe for you to be alone with him.”
I sighed. “Adrianna and Owen are coming with me.” They hadn’t yet accepted the invitation I’d left on Adrianna’s voice mail, but I didn’t say so.
“Why don’t we all go?” Dad piped in. “I’d love to eat at Magellan.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Mom said, delighted. “The whole family will go!”
“No!” I said incredulously. “The whole family will not go. I’m not into sicko family group dates. I will be fine with Ade and Owen.”
Looking hurt, Dad said, “If that’s what you want. But we expect a full report on your meal. Okay, now come help us taste-test the tomatoes.”
It was that time of year again. When all my father’s tomato plants had produced their bounty, he whipped up a chart, and as a family, we meticulously rated each variety according to overall appearance, skin thickness, flavor, texture, color—a tomato beauty pageant, if you will, only without the obligatory swimsuit competition.
Baby Lucy had the good sense to sleep through most of the tomato tasting, which lasted an hour. At the end, Dad’s chart was filled in, with a yellow pear variety deemed this year’s winner. Walker’s face and hands were stained with tomato juice, and Heather sent him off to play in the sprinkler while I told my parents about the exciting world of social work and workplace harassment.
“Sounds boring,” Dad declared. “On a happier note, I’d like to announce the official end of this season’s Soft Shell Crabfest.” Each year my father set himself the goal of eating one hundred soft shell crabs during crab season, and Fresh Pond Seafood was so thrilled with his attempts that they created a chart for him, hung it on the store’s wall, and x-ed off one box for each of his purchases. They also gave him the last three crabs for free. Yesterday, when he’d bought his hundredth crab of the year, the shop’s owners had framed his crabfest chart and presented it to him.
Dad proudly raised the trophy above his head, declaring, “I am the crab king!”
“The fact that you’ve eaten a hundred crabs over the past few months is revolting. You should be embarrassed,” Heather scolded.
“Heather, leave him alone,” I said. “I think it’s admirable. I love soft shell crabs, but I can only eat a few a season. But Dad has really proven himself.”
“Yeah, proven himself to have a few loose screws,” Heather said, but went over and hugged Dad.
“Okay, family,” I said. “I’m goin’ home. I’ve got about a zillion pages of reading for school.”
“Lock your doors when you get home,” instructed Heather.
I nodded in mock seriousness, kissed her kids, and headed home—with every intention of locking my doors.
ELEVEN
I spent Monday and Tuesday incarcerated in the horrible Boston Organization Against Sexual and Other Harassment in the Workplace. Naomi had left me a note to remind me that she was attending a two-d
ay rally for some worthy cause outside the State House and that I should familiarize myself with the monstrous folder she’d left out for me. I was welcome to come find her later that afternoon.
If she thought I was going to sit in this room reading from nine to five, she was nuts. After two hours of trying to digest harassment facts, I decided to start on a social work school assignment I’d been putting off. Our General Practice professor had assigned us the task of detailing our field placement experiences in a journal in which we were free to write about whatever we wanted.
“Day 1,” I wrote. “Am forced to read lurid stories of workplace harassment while confined to poorly decorated minioffice. Management has opted not to include windows in decor so as to keep staff (me and Naomi) diligently focused on work at hand. Have avoided answering calls all morning since cannot recall exact name of organization. Every time the phone rings I must pretend to be so engrossed in literature that have not even heard incessant ringing. Naomi has encouraged me to take on projects on my own and am considering painting office and creating new filing and storage space. (May not be traditional social work per se, but would contribute to staff morale and psychological well-being). Will order tons of stuff from Hold Everything catalogue and write off for tax deduction. Will discuss with Naomi next week. Am pleased that am not forced to work in community mental health center or hospital psych ward, like some peers, and do not have to deal with those with schizophrenia or other pathological disorders. Although, may go cuckoo in this office come May. Naomi seems to be a hands-off supervisor since is not here today or tomorrow—very nice. Looking forward to stimulating field placement this year.”
I left at two on Monday. On Tuesday I left at one, having written Naomi a note to say that on the previous day, I’d looked everywhere for her in front of the State House and that although I hadn’t found her, I’d still stood with other women chanting and holding a sign that read No More! I had, in fact, only passed through the crowd on my way to the T and, unable to determine exactly what the group was protesting, had chosen to participate in a protest of my own by objecting to being stuck in a dimly lit office on a sunny September day.
That afternoon I finally reached Adrianna on the phone. “You found a date at Eric’s funeral!” she screamed with delight. “That’s the Chloe I know and love!” After a short rendition of “Back in the Saddle,” she wanted every detail about Josh. “He sounds amazing. And a chef! Oh my God! I can’t believe we’re going to Magellan. This is going to be unbelievable!”
Now that’s a best friend. No irritating questions about guilt or innocence—she knew that the only concern here was what the hell I was going to wear.
“So,” I begged, “will you come over on Friday and help me get ready? And can I borrow something to wear? The nicest thing I have is the blue dress you made me, but it seems sort of disrespectful to wear it again since that’s what I had on when I, uh, went out with Eric.”
“I’ll be there at four, okay? Um, make it three o’clock. Miraculously, I’m off for the weekend after eleven, so I’ll come over early. Will you be done with classes by then?” she asked.
I said I would, and she promised to bring over an assortment of outfits for me to choose from. Owen would pick us up and drive us to Magellan so we could both drink. At the very least, I’d need some wine to calm my jitters.
Josh had left me a message on Monday to make sure we were still coming. So far, I’d replayed it about forty times, just loving the sound of his voice. When I told Adrianna about the message, she squealed, “Oh, I want to hear it!” I gave her my voice mail password and hung up. A minute later she called back. “He sounds totally dreamy. I can’t wait for Friday.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed. We said good-bye, and I went back to reading the Social Work Code of Ethics for class on Wednesday. I had Group Therapy first and General Practice after that.
Group Therapy met at eight in the morning, which I thought totally went against the social work code of respecting all individuals (and allowing them to sleep late). But on Wednesday, I managed to show up on time and found an empty seat between two women, one about my age and one who was probably in her forties. I’d noticed that approximately half my classmates were middle-aged, and last week when we were all forced to introduce ourselves in each class, learned that a lot of people were making drastic midlife career changes by coming to social work school. The woman next to me was in another of my classes, and I remembered her telling my Research Methods class last week that she had left her job as a CPA and had a field placement at a homeless shelter.
Professor Buckley entered the room and instructed the class to move their chairs into a large circle, a ploy I hated, a transparent technique meant to encourage participation. So now I couldn’t hide in the back and watch the minutes tick by. Professor Buckley pulled his own chair into the circle and sat back. We all waited for him to start lecturing or leading or doing something. Anything. But he just sat there, expressionless, looking around at his students. We all looked around at each other, wondering if perhaps our professor was having some sort of amnesic episode. Uncle Alan was paying for this?
After another few minutes, the change-of-career student next to me spoke up. “Should we be doing something?” she asked expectantly.
“This is it,” our professor said. “We are doing it.”
Students looked at one another in confusion. Oh, shit. I wasn’t confused. On the contrary, I knew what was going on here. This was supposed to be some sort of self-analytic group where we all “processed” what was happening in the “here and now.” I’d read about this crap in college psych. We were in for a long two hours.
Students began trying to get the professor to elaborate, but his only responses were things like “This is the group,” and “There is no agenda,” statements that did little to appease his annoyed class. I decided that I could sit there and listen to the squabbling or I could do something to make time fly by faster.
“Okay, I know what this is,” I announced with unusual boldness. The class stopped talking and looked at me. “This is some sort of Gestalt therapy thing where we discuss what’s happening right now, the dynamics of the present, and lots of other abstract stuff. How we’re relating to each other, blah, blah, blah.” I was barraged with questions and could only reply that since this was a course on group therapy, we were apparently expected to partake in our own group therapy process right here. Groans and whispers followed. The professor smirked and nodded his head slightly.
“So what are we supposed to talk about?” demanded a man from the other side of the room.
I said, “Anything we want. I think that we determine how to use our two hours.”
We all sat there quietly, waiting for someone to come up with a topic.
“All right,” I started. “How about this,” and I launched into the story of Eric’s murder. I omitted the details of my kissing bonanza with Josh, and in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, I changed everyone’s name to protect privacy, even though in reporting the murder, the media had used real names. In a flash of genius, I dubbed Eric “Mr. Dough.” Faced with this audience of students, all glued to my every word, I realized that I did need impartial advice. Maybe this group could help absolve Josh of any wrongdoing in Eric’s murder. After I finished, I sat back and waited.
“I heard about this on the news,” someone said. “And they still don’t know who did it, right?”
I nodded.
A tall brown-haired woman spoke next. “I’m Gretchen, and I’m a first-year student here.” Continuing slowly and emphatically, she said, “As a social worker, my first concern would be to address your feelings of loss and find out whether you’re having any symptoms of post-traumatic stress.” Although she seemed like a caricature of the touchyfeely social worker, her sincerity was apparent. She continued. “Death is hard on all of us.”
The rest of the class nodded in sanctimonious agreement, thus tempting me
to rebel by arguing the opposite, namely, that death was easy on all of us if we were survivors who hadn’t known or cared about the deceased. Or had outright hated the deceased. Exactly how hard was death on the murderers who caused it? What if they weren’t remorseful at all, but were thrilled with the consequences of their deeds?
Gretchen went on. “And I think that one of the ways we cope is through denial. Denying the grief that we’re experiencing deep down. I wonder if maybe you’ve been so caught up in pleasing Mr. Dough’s parents and everyone else that you’ve failed to take the time to process how this experience has affected you?”
Oops. While I’d been summoning examples to counter the death-is-hard platitude, I’d become the group’s client. Abandoning my silent rebellion, determined not to flunk out of social work school, I fought platitudes with platitudes. “Actually,” I said, “I feel as though I have done a lot of introspective thinking about the impact that finding the body may have had on me. I’ve talked at length with family and friends, who’ve all been terrific. And I feel that I have tapped into the painful reality of man’s inhumanity to man.”
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