by Tom Bierdz
“You’d better not. There are consequences.”
“You can’t stop me, Megan.”
“If you leave I will report you for sexual abuse.”
“What! “A shiver snaked down my spine, the gravity of the situation clubbing me over the head.
“I was a patient of yours and you fucked me!”
“You were never a patient of mine. Your sister was the patient.”
“Tell it to the authorities. I don’t think they’ll see it that way.”
“You can’t be serious. I never took advantage of you. And, I stopped seeing you for therapy after Sasha died.”
“Is that so? She sneered, asserting a posture of superiority. “I seem to remember at least one office visit after her death that ended on your couch. Maybe there were more.”
Stunned, I flashed back to that interview when she appeared at her regular time after her sister had died. I protested, saying there was no reason to see her in therapy then ended the session having sex with her on the couch. “I didn’t record it.”
“You didn’t have to. There are the insurance records.”
“You didn’t?” I recalled the initial interview where she threw cash at me and declined to use her insurance. “You paid cash.”
Megan simply smiled.
“You bitch! You set me up.” I grabbed her shoulders, wanting to wring her neck when my neck and shoulders tightened sharply. I jerked my arms back.
“Careful Doctor Grant. I bruise easily.”
“Threaten me all you want, Megan, but that’s not going to keep me here. I decide what’s best for me.”
“We’ll see about that. My lawsuit will ruin your credibility. You’ll go broke.” She broke into a shit-ass grin. “But you have a nice personality. You might do well selling appliances, or maybe, vacuum cleaners.”
I gave her a hateful look and left, slamming the door. Then fought to steel myself against the vertigo as my vision momentarily darkened at the edges. I leaned against a corner wall of the house until the darkness passed and cleared. I jumped into the waiting taxicab and headed home.
33
A bitter wind and light fog made the trudge to work seem like an obstacle course. The cold mist felt like a slap in the face. I knew Megan was a formidable opponent but I didn’t think she could harness the wind. I pictured her sitting at home, holding a little boy doll and blowing in his face. I can get carried away sometimes with my imagination. I turned up my collar and pulled my trench coat tight around my throat. I wished I had a hat but never wore one when dressed professionally. I also wished I would have taken a cab, which I considered, but believed the walk would help get my juices flowing. I had to cut through some heavy sludge today.
On several occasions wind gusts had tried to twist my umbrella and finally succeeded just as I waved to Carrie on the porch. The umbrella snapped, bent backward, and flew into the parking lot when I gave up and released my grip. Muttering “The hell with it!” to myself I watched Carrie practically fall down laughing at me.
“Well, you didn’t think I was going to do a Dick Van Dyke, Mary Poppins kind of thing,” I said scurrying up the porch out of the rain.
“I’d have loved to see you in flight.”
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah.” She knew I was referring to the abortion aftermath. “Come see me when you get some free time.”
“I’ll be having a lot more of it.”
“Meaning?”
‘I’ll tell you later. Right now I have to go in and dry off my head.”
Bobby was sitting at his desk engrossed on his computer with some urgency as he hadn’t taken off his jacket, still wet with rain.
“Morning,” I said, giving a quick glance to the spindle where he kept my messages. There were none.
Bobby didn’t look up, just waved to acknowledge me. I hung my jacket on the coat rack, grabbed a towel from the bathroom and dried my head.
“Damn!” Bobby shouted.
“What?” I retreated to his area.
“My streak was broken. I play this baseball game, “Beat the Streak”. If I can beat Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-six game hitting streak, I win $5,000,000. Fucking Cano. He went hitless last night, broke my streak at sixteen.”
“Did you really expect Cano to beat DiMaggio’s streak?”
“No. I can pick anybody from any team, even double-down, picking two. As long as my picks get a hit, my streak continues. Cano went hitless last night.” He removed his jacket. “Now I have to start all over again. I could sure use the five million.”
“Maybe I should play. It’s Lindsey’s last session today, creating another hole in my schedule.” I poured myself a cup of coffee as the pot had stopped percolating. At least Bobby put the coffee on before hitting the computer.
Bobby scrunched his face. “Can I get an advance on my salary? My car insurance is due.”
“Sure. Bring in the checkbook later. I’ll see what I can do.” Insurance companies put the squeeze on young drivers with sports cars. If the amount wasn’t too great I’d pay for Bobby’s insurance since he drove me around. I always took care of the gas, but we put wear and tear on his car, and he never complained about the inconvenience of carting me around.
“Good coffee,” I said. “Bobby, bring me the insurance file,” and ambled to my desk.
Bobby dumped a pile of insurance forms on my desk that needed to be completed and sent in so I could get paid, a task that Grace efficiently handled with a few answers from me. Despite my harping to Bobby to process them sooner since I was still tapping into my reserves, the forms had stacked up, partly because Bobby resisted the paperwork, and partly because I didn’t follow-up as I should. Bobby entered the insurance information. I filled in the patient’s diagnosis and signed the forms.
With a knocking heart, I rifled through the forms searching for Megan Wilshire. Thinking she paid in cash, I didn’t expect to find her form, but Megan’s threat hung heavy on my mind. Then, like an accusing legal affidavit, there it was, Megan’s insurance form. I yelled from my desk, “Bobby when did we begin billing Megan’s insurance?”
“Right from the beginning,” he said, stepping into my office, a coffee cup in his hand.
“Didn’t she ever pay cash?”
“I don’t think so.”
Bobby was not the most reliable person around unless it was something he was invested in.
“How about her initial session?”
“You got her form. Check the dates I entered.”
I did. We were billing the insurance company for that initial session. I could hardly forget her peeling off those Ben Franklins and flipping them on my coffee table. “Pull her card. We could get into some serious trouble double billing.”
The card showed only insurance transactions. No cash. “Bobby, she literally threw two hundreds at me in that first session, said she wasn’t going to use her insurance.”
“So she changed her mind.”
“Bobby, you didn’t...”
“Aw, Grant. How could you?”
I felt my face flush. “Sorry, Bobby, you didn’t deserve that.”
Hurt and angry, he turned and walked out of my office. I’d make it up to him. Still, when he went out for lunch I checked the bank deposits. I no longer suspected him but he might have thought I did if he saw me checking. I was searching for a simple error and found none.
Why did Megan made such a dramatic point of paying cash in that initial interview? Did she plan on using her insurance all along, or was it simply that she changed her mind as Bobby suggested? I checked the treatment dates, compared them with my date book. They were all there, even the last session when we screwed on my couch. If I signed these and turned them in, I’d be signing my own death warrant if she followed up on her threat. Could I hold them back? I didn’t know what to do. I had to see Carrie for some legal advice.
Could Megan have been so brazen, so conniving, to set me up right from the beginning? Was the cash a prop to throw me of
f? Make me think there were no official records of our interviews? Was it all a ruse? Everything? The attraction, the connection, the chemistry felt so real. I tore off my sport coat. My underarms were soaking wet. I had to consider that I was Megan’s alibi for Sasha’s murder as Detective Rollins suggested, giving credence to Sasha’s suicide. Emotionally, I refused to accept that I could be so manipulated. I could understand my falling for her. She is beautiful, sensual, desirable, the kind of woman most men dream about. But I couldn’t believe that everything that came afterward was faked. If so, she was the best actress ever, deserving of an academy award. By profession I was a student of human behavior, considered myself uniquely perceptive. That belief in myself had been well-grounded, reinforced by my training supervisors and by my patients. Yet, I may have been duped.
Although I still hadn’t conclusively accepted that Megan would actually sue me for sexual abuse, I
had to consider her threat real, especially now that there were insurance records. But that didn’t make a lot of sense. She had to love me, or at least see a future with me to want me to live with her. Then why threaten me? Even certain bloggers never listed life-altering threats as one of the ten ways to get your man. Her threat was plain vindictiveness. That mean streak. She would strike out if she didn’t get what she expected.
As confused and befuddled as I was, I knew one thing for certain: there was no way I was moving back in with her.
Due to scheduling conflicts Carrie and I didn’t get together until the end of the day when she strolled over to my office. Looking tired, she flashed me her most friendly smile, draped her coat on my couch and collapsed into it. “I hope you have a pick-me-up or I’m going to stretch and zonk out. This murder trial is killing me.”
“Coffee or single malt scotch?”
Grinning slowly, she said, “Single malt. I haven’t had single malt scotch since... She locked eyes, gave me a searching look and dropped the smile. “...since I can’t remember when.”
But her look told me she did remember. It was another lifetime ago when we were both kids working for her father, the night when we began a short but sweet affair. Although Carrie liked to tease me about having sex with her, we both knew it was a treasure to remain in the past, a fond memory like a first kiss or a first date.
I opened my desk drawer and removed the scotch. I had forgotten it was there, remembering only when digging out Gregory’s film. “If scotch aged in the bottle this would be more than fifteen years old.” I poured us each a glass. “How’s the trial coming?”
“Prosecution makes a pretty good case but it’s mostly circumstantial.” She sipped her scotch, made a face. “But I don’t want to talk about this now. I’ll be up half the night reviewing documents.”
“A good night sleep might serve you better.”
She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Doctor. Tell me about your situation.”
“I moved out of Megan’s. If I don’t move back in, she’s threatened to sue me for ethics violations, sleeping with a patient.”
“Hmm. You’re not that good a catch!”
I smirked.
“Seems we talked about this before. You rationalized that she wasn’t the patient, her sister was. It might stand up in a trial in which case you retain your license but tarnish your reputation. Then, again, it might not. You could lose everything. You don’t want this to go to trial.”
I wiped the perspiration from my forehead, gulped my drink. “What if I don’t submit her insurance forms?”
“Pretend you didn’t see her?”
“Or that I didn’t charge her? What you’d call pro bono.”
“You’re a licensed psychiatrist. You still have to play by the same rules if you charge for your services or not. You saw her in your place of business.” She crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt. “She can submit the insurance forms if you don’t. She can subpoena witnesses like Bobby.”
“So I should submit the insurance forms.”
“Have you submitted any of your interviews?
“No, I thought she was paying cash. And with Grace gone...”
“Good, then hold off. That will buy us some time. Hopefully, you’ll be able to resolve things in the meantime.”
“I don’t think it’s resolvable.”
“I don’t understand how she thinks her tactics are going to get you back.” She glanced at the wall clock. “Look, I got to go.” She stood, put on her wrap, gave me a hug. “You know I got your back. Keep me in the loop.”
34
Bobby called me at home to say he was sick and not coming into work. He had a fever and had been vomiting. He claimed it had nothing to do with the few beers he had last night. I believed him. He sounded bad and he had dragged himself to work in the past when he’d been hung over. I did have a speck of doubt, however, wondering if his failure to push himself was due to my accusing him of taking the two-hundred dollars. I did say I was sorry, and planned to give him a more meaningful apology, but yesterday did not provide the occasion to do so. I took him at his word. He made the effort to call me early so I could make the necessary arrangements.
A steady, light rain fell but without the prior day’s wind. Fortunately, a Mariners golf umbrella I had ordered arrived so I could try it out and walk to work. One gets used to the rain living in this area. Still, there are days I tire of it, and days I resent it when it interferes with my plans. Then there are days like today when I welcome and appreciate it for its cleansing and nourishing properties; it seems to wash away the filth and grime, both realistically and metaphorically, and enliven the surrounding scenic landscapes. Perhaps, I felt a little energized because I hadn’t heard from Megan nor tried to reach her.
Was this the lull before the storm? I tried not to think about it.
Carrie wasn’t on the porch to greet me. I assumed the murder trial demanded her presence.
I unlocked the office doors, flipped on the lights, hung my coat and laid my opened umbrella in the corner of my office to dry. Since I hadn’t made my own coffee for such a long time I had to read the directions on the can. And when it was done, it didn’t taste as good as Bobby’s coffee. I made a sign that I put in the window by the receptionist’s desk that asked patients for their patience and said that Bobby was sick, that I was in conference, and would come out and get them at the appointed time.
With Bobby gone I didn’t want to rely on the taxi service to visit Greg, so I called Carlos and asked him to give Gregory the taxi money to come here and that I would reimburse him.
Greg showed up early for his appointment and I took him in right away as my previous appointment had cancelled. He liked taking a cab right from school as he was sure student were curious as to where he was going–one student in particular. He seemed in an especially good mood, dropped his backpack on the floor and his body onto the couch.
“You see girls in therapy too?”
“Yeah. Except for small children, I see anyone who wants to see me. Why?”
Greg bent his head down, keeping the grin on his face. He studied his foot as he moved it back and forth, as if it was going to do something magically, then looked at me. “How do you know when a girl likes you?”
She doesn’t threaten you with a lawsuit. How ironic he would ask me when I’d been wondering the same thing, albeit on a different level. “I take it that you like someone and wonder if she likes you.”
He nodded, his face aglow.
“Well, why don’t you describe for me signals you think she may be giving you and I’ll respond?”
“She walks with me to class a couple of times during the day.”
“With you alone or as part of a group?”
“Both, but usually with me alone.”
“Are you in any classes together?”
“Yeah. Just one, photography.”
I was surprised photography was even offered. “Then you have to be one of the most knowledgeable in the class.”
“Yeah, the teacher calls on me a lot. E
mily comes to me for help.”
I smiled. “Her name is Emily?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Does she smile and laugh with you, play with her hair, touch you?”
“All of the above.”
“Seems to me she likes you. Does that feel good to you?”
“Yeah, but—“ His face sunk. “She’s got a cell phone, an iPod, has friends on Facebook. I don’t have any of that. I use the computer at the group home, but I have to share it with the other guys.
”You’re feeling a little out of her league?”
“Yeah.”
I could hear Kevin asking for those things, saying everyone has them. We got them for Kevin. I could appreciate Gregory feeling disconnected. “Those are things, Greg. They’re important in some ways, but they don’t make who you are. From what you said, it doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal to Emily that you don’t have those things.”
“Maybe not now.”
“Well, Greg, you can choose to worry about something that may never happen, or you can choose to enjoy Emily now and see where it goes. If it turns out she’s over-concerned about material things you’re better off without her.”
“I guess.”
His expression told me that didn’t resonate with him emotionally, even if it needed to be said.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
He fidgeted, doing that thing with his foot on the carpet again. “A lot of kids my age are having sex...”
My stomach rumbled. I didn’t know how I felt about kids Greg’s age having sex. There would have been no question in my recent past that sex was special and should be reserved for that special someone, and that most kids, Greg’s age, were not emotionally capable to handle the ramifications. But that was before Kevin killed himself. I had wondered if he ever had sex. I thought it a shame if he hadn’t had the pleasure before he ended his life.
“...and I’m.” He hesitated, embarrassed. “And, I’m not.”