by Jack Parker
Dr. Roden had a very small office, but that gave him the perfect opportunity to make it cozy. Since he had started seeing patients out of his own practice six years ago, he actually noticed an improvement in communication with those that had followed him from his last position. When he had worked for the state, his old quarters were all angles and stiffness. The fluorescent lights were glaring, the thirty-year-old fake leather chairs were a sickening shade of orange, and the walls were a dirty canary yellow that clashed with the ochre linoleum floor. Roden had never gotten used to it during the eleven years he met with patients there. State funding was very frugal; and his salary had been proof of that, as well.
Now, though, he had his dream office, or as close to it as he could ever have hoped for. The location was in a newly built medical practice building near the city hospital; and he got a smoking deal on the rent because the owners couldn't fill the available spaces. The waiting room barely fit the two dark wood chairs and small end table he picked up at Pottery Barn, and the front desk was so narrow that Roden couldn't squeeze behind it when Martha sat at her computer. The chart room was little more than a closet, and there was no room anywhere for a kitchenette, so Roden found an enclosed bookshelf for his office, where he hid a microwave and a mini-fridge.
Other furniture in his office consisted of a small mahogany desk with a chair that matched the two in the waiting room. Roden and Martha took their lunch at this desk, or occasionally ran to the noodle shop down the next street. The room also contained a camel color micro-fiber armchair for him to sit in while his patients took the matching couch. Chocolate brown curtains complimented the khaki green walls and the beaded suede throw pillows; and the overall décor had an Asian feel, because World Market was having a sale at the time he decorated this space. The final touch of comfort owed itself to the lighting, affected by several low watt lamps to give the space a warm glow. All in all, Roden felt very satisfied with his work.
Only three of the patients from his previous state funded practice were able to follow him to his new office, and that was because he gave two of them a hefty discount. The third one, he had become very close to, and didn't want to lose all the success they had worked to attain over the years. This particular patient, scheduled to show up in the office for their weekly meeting, was now six minutes late. Roden felt a bit bothered by this, as lateness was not a common characteristic of this individual.
Finally, his patient came into the room, but rather than his usual quiet entrance, the young man bounded through the door in an uncharacteristic semi-dramatic way. He didn't knock. He had no greeting. He simply came in with a rush, and collapsed on the couch, an action that peeked Roden's curiosity.
Instead of the young man's typically relaxed and controlled conversation, this time he began a hurried tirade regarding his agitation. His degree of restlessness concerned Roden, but not nearly as much as the developing subject that turned out to be the cause of it.
"You'll never guess what's happened," he stated half shouting, half whispering. "I saw her. I can't believe it." He paused for a few seconds, wheels turning in his head, before he continued, "You know, at some point in the last few years, I started to convince myself that maybe she was only a dream after all. I used to look for her everywhere I went, hoping I'd come across her face in a sea of strangers. Well, you know all that; but anyway – I gave up. I gave up, and then she appeared. I jus' - I still can't believe it!"
Roden forgot to restrain himself from displaying his shock and upset. He knew exactly who the subject of this rant was. He knew that he needed to calm the young man's high spirits; and he needed the details. "Max, you saw Esther? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Yes, at the gallery." Max replied, taking turns clasping and unclasping his hands or running his fingers through his tousled brown hair in his excitement. It had been five days since he first saw her, but he was bursting to tell his friend about this pivotal event.
The gallery? "Max, you never go to the galleries. You hate the galleries. What were you doing there?" That didn't sit right with Roden. The worst part of witnessing this disturbance became the knowledge that he was most likely the fault of it. He made a mistake, and now that he knew it, it was his job to make it right.
Max looked at him, and then rolled his eyes to the floor with a slight grimace that broke the animation on his face. Clearly, he still didn't like to visit the galleries. "Angoli wanted to meet me there to discuss purchasing my works. He said they were my best yet, and he wanted them badly. I knew they were my best, and I didn't want to part with them, but he threw me a hard bargain. Eighty thousand dollars. How could I possibly turn that down? Man, but I tried to." He paused again, thinking. A thin smile started to form.
"And as we stood there debating over it, Esther appeared, in the flesh; and she was much lovelier than I could ever have carved her in stone. I tried to imagine her as a grown up, – as a woman – but my art is obviously flawed. It just pales in comparison."
He looked up; his elated brown eyes meeting Roden's concerned blue eyes. "She was there. It was fate." Then he shrugged and broke eye contact. "I didn't need the statues anymore, so I gave in. I shook Angoli's hand and accepted the eighty thousand."
"Shit – I mean – wow, eighty thousand!?" Roden exclaimed. "That's incredible. That has to be more than you've made off of all your previous works combined. Congratulations!" Roden really was rather impressed by the news, and proudly thrust out his stout hand to shake the artist's skilled one.
"Yes, I know, that is good, very good. But, really, I'm more overwhelmed about seeing her."
Then Roden saw a bittersweet look in his patient's eyes. This didn't bode well. Roden knew this young man since he was the age of ten years, a little over one year after he had become a ward of the state. His file was stored in the chart room, along with all of Roden's other patients, but Roden never had it pulled. He didn't need it. Everything he needed to know about Max, he remembered. Max seemed almost like a little brother, or even a son; and he knew that he was Max's best friend.
Max had had a very difficult childhood, extremely difficult. During his early years, he never had any contact with the outside world, except for drug addicts who associated with his abusive prostitute of a mother. At least this had been the assumption Roden made from early sessions with the boy. No one had ever attempted to claim him after the police picked him up. He had no real name that he was aware of, so the guys at the police station just called him Max, and it stuck. He picked out his own last name later.
His rather limited language capabilities and unfamiliarity with the world made for quite a culture shock. Max was at least five or six years behind other children in his education, and he had no idea how to behave in society. He proved to be special, though, soaking up knowledge as if he was a dry sponge. By the time he became Roden's patient, only a year of schooling separated him from his peers, and he quickly gained on them. Two years later, by the time he turned twelve, he had the learning level of an average sixteen year old. Roden really felt quite proud when Max graduated high school at the age of fifteen, and started college at the state university on a scholarship. He double majored in Anthropology (his culture shock apparently turned into culture interest) and Engineering; but, oddly enough, his joy in life centered on his minor: Art. He never lived off of it, though. Until now, it proved never more than a hobby. Eighty thousand dollars! That had to be at least one and a half times more than the young man made in a year as an engineer at the small electronics design firm he worked for.
Truth be told, the real concern of Roden all these years was not Max's adjustment into the world; but his obsession with the person who bestow on him the first act of kindness he had ever known: Esther. Due to his mental and physical condition and lack of known family, Max was cared for in a state run facility rather than placed into foster care. The state employees treated him well enough, provided for him; but he rarely benefited from sincere kindness. This, Roden thought, made him cling all the more
to his image of "Esther the Kindhearted". To Max, she was the epitome of virtue and decency. Before her, he didn't know what it was to be treated humanely. When this girl showed him consideration, she introduced him to a euphoria of compassion. It worked like a drug for him, and he never forgot it.
He mentioned her a lot during his psychiatric sessions as he grew up. Only with much time and effort, did it seem that in the last several years her name hardly came into conversation. Of course, as his latest collection of works indicated, she still dwelt in his thoughts.
"When you saw her," Roden decided to test the field, "how did that make you feel?"
Max's wistfully nostalgic look suddenly changed into amused laughter. "How did that make me feel? Oh, Mike, come on. You're a psychiatrist, not a social worker. When you ask such silly questions, it makes me think that I should have gone into psychiatry myself. That would be an easy living, asking pointless open-ended questions! 'It's raining outside. How does that make you feel?' 'Your cat just died. How does that make you feel?' Mike, come on. I thought you knew me better than that."
This little speech made Roden a little bit perturbed, but he knew that Max enjoyed teasing him, and he wasn't about to rise to the bate. "Seriously, Max. You saw her. Obviously it stirred up some emotions. So . . . how did it make you feel?"
Max rolled his eyes at his doctor friend with a smile. "Fine. I'll play along." He sat back on the couch, thinking of his answer.
"Max," Roden said after a moment, "You shouldn't have to think that long about how you felt. Just say the first thing that comes to you."
Max sat up again, and his expression became stoic. Then, he began slowly, "It felt wonderful and painful all at once. After I finally convinced myself that she was really there, I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest; but I thought it might be breaking, too. I think it felt like that because it couldn't take the intense thrill." He smiled as if realizing it again for the first time. "She was there, and she was real. She is real." He became lost in his thoughts.
"Max, stay focused. How do you feel now? Now that your heart, I'm sure, has calmed down."
"I feel . . . I feel better than I ever have in my life. It must be endorphins or something. I've never felt so good." He thought a moment longer. "And it was just from looking at her; seeing her."
Wheels were turning in Max's head, Roden could tell. "What are you thinking, Max?"
Max's eyes flipped towards Roden as he ascended out of his reverie. "Nothing. I'm just . . . I just feel good." Roden studied his face a little bit longer, then Max suddenly decided to speak again. "It's fate, isn't it? It's a wonderful, incredible, perfect coincidence. I've thought about her for so long, and now she has come back into my life. It must be . . . destiny."
Roden became curious, and ever so slightly suspicious. "Did you talk to her?"
"No," answered Max, looking rather embarrassed. " I couldn't. I wanted to. I wanted to go up and – thank her. What she did for me has meant the world to me. She influenced me. She influenced my art. I wanted to thank her, and I wanted to – be close to her." He looked disgusted with himself, "But I couldn't do it. I was a chicken, you know? I had her on such a high pedestal in my mind that I just didn't feel good enough to even be in her presence."
"And now?" Roden prompted.
"And now, I regret it. I had the opportunity to re-introduce myself, and I blew it." Max's disappointment with himself was obvious. "But I have a theory. It was fate that she was there, that she happened to show up at the same place at the same time as me. Fate gave me a chance, and I screwed up. But now, I have an opportunity to make up for it."
"What do you mean?" Roden's suspicions grew.
Max looked guilty, but Roden was his psychiatrist and his friend, so after a hesitant pause, he answered him. "I followed her."
Roden's face betrayed his shock, and it made Max blush all the more with guilt. When he finally regained himself, Roden replied, "Max, you know that is a very bad sign. That is a very bad reaction." He took a deep breath and let it out. "You know that sounds a lot like obsession."
"I know." Max groaned. "I know that that's what it sounds like. Believe me, I'm aware of how my actions must seem. But it was fate, and I screwed it up. I just wanted a chance to fix it." He tried too hard to hide the shame from his face, making it all the more obvious.
Roden had started to feel a little guilty himself when Max first mentioned the words 'destiny' and 'fate', and he knew he needed to clear this up.
"I need to say something to you," Roden began. "I want to make some things clearer to you. You said it was fate that brought you two to the same time and place for a second time. Well, it was more of a coincidence that was enhanced by me." Roden looked at Max and saw confusion slowly working into his features.
He continued, "I happened to be dining at Benlevi's when I overheard a conversation. It was Esther speaking about a lemonade stand she had once, and a little boy in rags who she gave lemonade to." Max's eyes perked up at this. "I recognized the story, and decided to mention to her that I knew that boy, and he happened to be an artist with a collection of works dedicated to her."
"You spoke to her?" Max interrupted. Roden could read envy and a hint of jealousy in his voice, but it disappeared a moment later. "So, I have you to thank?"
"To answer your first question, yes, obviously I did speak to her," Roden answered, "I thought she might be interested in the collection; and, to be quite honest, since you hate being anywhere near the galleries where your works are being displayed, I thought she wouldn't have the awkwardness of bumping into you if she didn't want to." This information surprised and irritated Max.
"What would be wrong with bumping into me?" He retorted. "I've wanted to find her again my whole life. You know I used to drive all the neighborhoods in the city just trying to find her home again." His anger slowly grew. "Why would you keep such a thing as finding Esther from me?"
"That," Roden countered, "is exactly why I wasn't about to let you know that I'd met her. Listen to yourself. You're as obsessive about her as you ever were."
"I am not obsessed!" Now Max's rising anger returned to shame. "Why can't I have a chance to show her my thanks? I remember her, and I am grateful to her. And I'm not the only one who remembers, either. She remembers me. You heard her yourself."
Roden was stunned at this realization. He kept messing up. First he confronted the woman to tell her he recognized her childhood story and to recommend Max's artwork, then he told Max that she remembered their previous encounter. He was doing a very bad job at being a psychiatrist right then, and he never felt so disloyal to his profession. He needed to smooth it over.
"Max, listen to me. I had no right to meddle, and – quite stupidly – I thought that telling her about the statues you sculpted of her would be a nice gesture without interfering with your life. Now I see that I was wrong. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry you interfered? This could be the most important thing that ever happened to me, and you're sorry that you made it happen? And here I thought we were friends."
Roden looked at his patient, and saw the disappointment on the younger man's face. "The coincidence of overhearing her was one thing, I should not have acted on it. I should have left it alone. It was none of my business and against my occupational ethics." Then, trying to divert the topic, he suggested, "Maybe we should discuss the obsessive feelings a little further."
"Like hell," Max's response came with quick disgust. "I'm done with this discussion." He rose from the couch and headed for the door. "After all these years," he turned around before heading out of the office, "I can't believe you'd think that of me."
The door slammed shut. Roden just sat in his armchair staring at the void where his friend and patient had been only seconds before. After a moment, the door slowly reopened a crack and Martha popped her head in. "Is everything okay, Doc?"
"Ah," Roden came out of his stupor, a headache starting to form in the back of his head. "Yeah, Martha, just fine. We
just had a very emotional session, that's all."
Martha looked a bit puzzled and disbelieving, but she started to close the door. "Martha," Roden spoke up just then, "Could you get me Max Esther's charts? I think I want to review them."
"Certainly."
CHAPTER FIVE
Two weeks after the naked art horror, Ess walked out of the McKnight Building on 51st street and Jackson, where her job practically incarcerated her for ten hours a day, five days a week. It was Friday afternoon, and she strode with a feeling of exhilaration coursing through her veins and tickling her nerve endings. This exuberance seemed a strange sensation, and it made her laugh. She hadn't felt so giddy to start the weekend since college.
Not that she had any plans for the weekend, but she had felt out of sorts for a while, and needed the free time to really unwind. She had a few neglected books piling up on her coffee table that were making her feel guilty; and there was supposed to be a documentary on Saturday evening on the Peloponnesian Peninsula. After the Greek history class she had taken in college – which felt like forever ago now – she developed a keen interest in the ancient country, and was determined that she would visit someday. Of course, unless she could convince Jill or tolerate Manda to go with her, she would have to find a more suitable, and preferably male, companion to accompany her. Until then, she had to content herself with documentaries.