by Bella Grant
And the nightmares. Those nightmares. I pictured it every night: walking back to my hotel from the financial district. I’d rented a room to get away from my fiancée—whom I was not cheating on, as much as she accused me of it. The mugger had grabbed me by the throat from behind. He was tall and bigger than me, and I am no shrimp. I’ve been muscular my entire life, but especially so since I’d been hitting the gym a lot recently. I wanted to avoid the weight gain that hits most people in their forties.
He had squeezed. “Here’s the deal. I have a gun, and you have a wallet. You go to the ATM, and the gun won’t go off. You fuck with me, and you’ll be poor and dead. Hear that, you son of a bitch?” he’d rasped into my ear.
Even through my fear, I had felt a spike of anger rush over me. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Didn’t he know ‘Billy the Billionaire,’ a self-made man from a lower-middle class family in Yonkers? Didn’t he know that I packed the punches in life, and people like him cleaned my damn shoes—for a very good price, of course, because I value labor. I respect hard work and the people who’ve earned their money. I had no respect for him, even in that moment.
But I had respect for my beating heart and my life. And, God, I admit it: I was scared shitless. I wanted to live. My life ran through my head, and all that jazz. The thought of not having it changed me in many ways. But this change was, by far, overshadowed by the knowledge that at any moment, another stranger could come out of the shadows and take it all away from me.
Back to the robbery, though. I’ve never seen so many people out on the street in my life. Yeah, it was nighttime, but it didn’t explain their sheer ignorance. None of them paid much attention to the situation. Some averted their eyes, and some stared. I had heard of the bystander effect in one of my undergraduate classes, but I never actually thought it existed. Unfortunately for me, I had to find out the hard way. It indeed existed, all the way to the ATM one block north.
He had put the gun to my head as I unloaded my money. When the machine wouldn’t dispense any more money—because there was no more—he was as confused as he was excited.
“That means you got more, don’t it?” he asked. I could tell from his voice that he must have been in his mid-twenties.
He lowered the gun as if in awe. I took this as my chance. As it turns out, the gun wasn’t loaded. It was all for show. Lucky for me, all he could do was use the gun to beat me over the head again and again. He turned me over, and by that point, I was nearly unconscious. He kept beating me until someone finally called the police.
In court, he told them that the rage and fury he had vented upon me was frustration—frustration from being homeless, from losing his job. I was the face of everything he had ever hated. I didn’t feel an ounce of pity for the man, and only regretted that they couldn’t put him away for longer. As his handcuffs shook, he looked at me, his eyes cold and empty. His was the face that could have been my demise. A face I haven’t been able to get out of my head since. Which is why I had finally made the appointment to see the therapist.
Well, that was the main reason. There were many, actually. I wasn’t entirely sure I would ever get over my ex-wife, Sophia, much to the chagrin of my fiancée, Fiona.
“You’re not over Sophia, are you?” Fiona had said to me on more than one occasion.
I’d spun around in my office chair. The day had gone by slowly, and I felt disconnected. “Huh?”
Fiona had found a large photo of Sophia under my bed wearing nothing but some very sexy lingerie. “You have to get rid of this right now!” Fiona cried.
I followed her to the kitchen. She handed me the picture and pointed to the garbage chute.
“Throw it away!” Fiona demanded. She watched as I reluctantly threw it in the trash.
I usually did as she asked; I think I care about her even though she’s a pain in my ass most of the time. She was the nosiest person I have ever known.
“And that kid of yours with his ‘collecting’ habit. I can’t do it anymore,” she’d wailed one night after discovering that Zach had started collecting skulls.
“Do you know that he calls me ‘Crow’?” Fiona asked, showing me an entry in his journal.
“You shouldn’t have been reading his journal,” I’d said dryly, returning to my morning paper.
“It’s not fair. He’s never going to like me! Ever. No matter what I do. I even tried making cookies,” Fiona replied, gesturing to the broken molten tragedies that she’d tried to bake. I nibbled on one, but I wasn’t able to make out what kind of a cookie it was supposed to be.
I cleared my throat and put my paper down, gazing knowingly at her. “I’ll take you shopping and make it all better.”
Her demeanor changed instantly. “You’re the best, baby! Can we go now? I’ll get my coat.”
Fiona had a shopping addiction. I, luckily, had the money to supply her habit, but I was quickly tiring of it.
Last time I checked, Sophia was dating some guy named Eric. Zach would say. “Eric took us out. It was nice of him.”
And I would answer: “He took you out and was nice to you? What a bastard.”
The first time Zach mentioned Sophia’s new boyfriend, I had choked. This was beginning to happen during my business meetings, too. Last meeting, I choked when someone challenged me. This weird feeling of dread came over me. The lights were distant, and I had a flashback. That feeling of powerlessness. A chokehold around my neck. Any tension morphed into that hold, and no action could stop the feeling.
I was snapped out of my reverie when someone walked into the office and looked around—a squirrely young guy. He slammed the door. I jumped.
“Is… is Katie Warren here?” he said to no one in particular.
I looked around the room, trying to figure out if he was talking to the receptionist or me. Her chair was empty. Go figure. I grunted and put the magazine up to my face, then even closer, trying to lose sight of him.
“I’m out of my medicine!” he cried loudly. Tears streamed down his face.
I grunted again, nearly licking the magazine now.
The receptionist scuttled over to the desk.
“Mr. William Carson?” she called out of the booth. I got up quickly, grateful to escape into the office. “You can go on in. First door on your left,” she said.
As I gripped my briefcase and opened the door, I heard the receptionist say, “The psychiatrist isn’t in, and Katie has a client. Can we help you?”
“Fuck,” the man shouted in response.
When I walked into the consulting room, a woman had her back turned to the door as she fumbled behind her desk.
“That guy out there. The crazy one. He one of your patients or something?” I mumbled. “He’s got a foul mouth, but at least he uses the right words.” I chuckled.
“I can’t share that kind of information with you, sir,” she said in a matter-of-fact kind of voice. She spun her chair around.
I’d always heard of people saying that ’their jaw dropped’ when they saw a person, but mine actually did. Sitting there—all five-foot-three-inches of her, or thereabouts—was a woman who was the spitting image of my Sophia. A young Sophia. The same sharp cheekbones. Full, soft lips. Big, brown, expressive eyes. The kind that saw through your shit. She had short hair, curly and thick. Though she hid most of her face with big black glasses, there was no mistaking that she was Sophia’s doppelganger.
I took a seat, trying to steady my legs.
“So you’re...” She paused, squinting at my name.
“William Carson.”
She left her desk and came to sit down across from me on one of her pleather chairs. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
I furrowed my eyebrows and said, “You mean to tell me you don’t know who I am?”
Her face must have been made of stone. She had absolutely no reaction, just a pleasant demeanor. It stunned me. I could usually see the darkest shades in the most classic of creatures.
“You know. Billy the Bil
lionaire?” I said, my voice faltering in a way I did not approve of. Get yourself together, Billy. You gonna let this nobody tell you you’re not a somebody?
I stood and straightened. I towered over her, especially while she was sitting on her chair. “Why would I trust a shrink who can’t even use Google?”
“Please, Mr. Carson, sit down. I do not Google my clients before I meet them,” she explained calmly.
She certainly didn’t have Sophia’s personality. I raked my hands through my hair and took a seat.
“Why’s that? Don’t you wanna know about your competition?”
She tilted her head. “Competition?”
“Yeah. You’re in a business, right? I’m your client, but I might as well be the competition. If you can’t crack this egg, you’re not going to get paid,” I said slyly. I had regained my power.
“I’m in the business of helping. As such, there will be no egg cracking,” she replied with a warm, bright smile. Sophia’s smile. I tried not to melt. I was uncomfortable. I couldn’t meet her eyes. The lights were brighter now. I felt the familiar sensation of panic start to wash over me.
“Are you all right?” she asked in her soft voice.
Her voice brought me back down to earth. I shifted in my chair. “Yeah. I just need some water.”
She fetched me some water in a paper cup. As her hand brushed mine, electricity jolted through me. I glanced up at her. Our eyes met, and she quickly averted hers. She took her seat across from me, her voice far more professional than before.
“So, what brings you in today?” she asked, back to calm and collected.
“Well, first, let me give you some background, considering you haven’t Googled me.”
“All right.”
“I’m a self-made man. None of that grew-up-rich shit. I’m a business god, have four cars, each more expensive than the last, and I can do anything I want,” I said smugly. Yeah, I can do anything. Including you.
She either missed my point or ignored it and moved on.
“Any family? Significant others?”
“Yeah, uh… my son, Zach. My fiancée, Fiona.”
“So you’re divorced?”
My chest tightened. “Yes.”
“You wrote on your intake questionnaire that you recently experienced a robbery,” she said gently. Her face showed genuine concern—concern that disarmed me. She must be good at faking it, because no human could be that concerned this quickly. “I’m sure that was difficult for you.”
“Not really,” I lied. “I was able to recover most of my finances.”
“I didn’t mean financially difficult. I meant emotionally difficult,” she said. An uncomfortable silence filled the room. I took a long sip of my water. She moved on. “Does your son live at home?”
“Yes, half the week. The other half is with my ex-wife, Sophia.”
She crossed her legs in her chair. I took notice of them—thin yet shapely, clothed in black nylon. I wondered what they looked like bare. I looked her over intently. I’d paid for a hooker before, but I’d pay a lot of money for just a minute with her legs.
Her face was red with embarrassment. She’d noticed my staring. The familiar surge of power welled up in me, but it wasn’t the kind of power I wanted to feel around her.
“Do you have any existing health issues? You didn’t fill it out.”
“Besides having pain from being beaten over the head with a gun? No, not really. I’m as healthy as an ox,” I replied, smiling grimly.
“Okay.” She wrote this down. “How are you sleeping?”
“Like shit. But I can’t deny that my nights are action-packed. They could write screenplays based on my nightmares, I swear.”
“Are you currently taking any medication?” she asked.
Yes. Xanax for panic attacks. But I would never admit that to anyone. I had always put people down for taking meds, but I had turned to them when I couldn’t handle losing sleep anymore. I told myself it was just for now, but I wasn’t too sure.
“I hate how shrinks have a book. All of you have one,” I commented, noticing a shelf in the office.
“You’ve seen a shrink before?” she asked.
“Yeah. Once, with Sophia. We wanted it to help. It didn’t, obviously. But I hated every minute of it.”
“I wonder if you hated therapy or if you just couldn’t stand feeling vulnerable,” she said.
The button was pushed. “What the fuck would you know about being vulnerable? I mean, I know women need to carry pepper spray and all that, but you couldn’t possibly know what life is like. What are you, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-nine,” she corrected me.
“Exactly,” I scolded.
“Listen,” she replied softly. “I apologize. I’m not trying to push you, but I’d rather get down to it. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who needs the run-around.”
“All right,” I responded, feeling a tad bit better. “You’re a negotiator. I can do that.”
“Something terrible happened to you. I get that. If we’re going to proceed, you need to know that this place is safe. It’s okay here. You can be and feel safe here.”
I wondered if all shrinks were trained in the art of hypnosis. Her voice was sleep-inducing, calming. I pulled out a cigar, forgetting the office was nonsmoking. It provided an escape that I desperately wanted. My palms were beginning to sweat. I looked pale as hell, according to the mirror near the window.
“I need a smoke. Same time next week, Doc?” I muttered.
She stood up. “Yes.”
I followed her, extending my hand. “Billy the Billionaire. Pleased to meet you,” I said. I grasped her hand, feeling the jolt again.
She inhaled softly and quickly let go of my hand. She pointed to her badge. “Just to let you know, I don’t have my doctorate yet. I am a licensed professional counselor at the Master’s level.”
I shrugged. “All good with me, Doc.”
“You can call me Katie. Most people do,” she said warmly.
She showed me out. I couldn’t help but notice that she shut the door harder than I expected. She wasn’t just a negotiator, I could see. She was a fighter, too. I was definitely in for a run for my money, if that was even humanly possible.
The session, I reluctantly had to admit, had more of an impact than I anticipated. I knew nothing about therapy, but I knew you weren’t supposed to want to bone your therapist after the first session. Even so, as I waited for my driver to pick me up, a part of me wanted to go back to the office. Darkness was descending quickly, and I wanted to feel warm.
My home, no matter what I did, could never feel warm. It was big, cold, and immaculate. I liked it, in a sense, because it created a kind of distance between me and everyone around me. Each room was separate from the others because the rooms themselves were huge. If you were to stand in one corner of the room, you could safely do a whole gymnastics routine from one end to the other.
Fiona had our bedroom, but she also had her own ‘girl room,’ stuffed with clothes and shoes. Next was my son’s room. He’d had the same one since he was a kid, the smallest room in the house. Never once did he ask for a bigger one, even when I pressed about how a young, growing man needed a bachelor pad.
“He doesn’t want to leave the room because it reminds him of his old life with your ex,” Fiona said one day, seething.
I doubted that was true, but if it was, he did a good job of hiding it. Never once did he reminisce about our old life together. He was a practical kid. Definitely got that from me. He wouldn’t have seen the point in complaining.
“To the villa, Mr. Carson?” my driver, Gretta, asked.
“Promptly, dear cabby,” I said, joking around. I’d known Gretta for most of Zach’s life. She was burly and cheerful, and a more loyal driver could not be found. I originally met her on the way back from Brooklyn. At the time, she worked for a backyard, shady taxi business that wouldn’t give her benefits. I had to catch a train
to New Jersey, and we’d hit traffic due to roadwork. She got out of the taxi and shuffled over to the road worker. Pointed to the car. Traffic moved as though she was a magician. I never knew what she said to him, but it sealed her fate with me. She would be my driver.
That summer of ’98, it had been raining. She’d dropped me off at a meeting.
“This, dear,” I said, handing her some papers, “is an employment contract. Full-time, one hundred thousand a year, benefits included.”
Her eyes had welled up. I hated when women cried. My weakness.
“Why?”
“Cause they don’t make them like you very often,” was my simple reply.
That night, she picked me up in her own car with a signed contract. We never looked back.
Her son, Gabriel, had been friends with Zach ever since. They lived not far away in an upper-crust neighborhood. Zach was probably there now, actually.
“I swear, that kid has a never-ending appetite,” Gretta teased. “I made pork chops and had to put in some pizza poppers. Don’t know where he puts the food. He takes after you.”
“I told him to be home for dinner. Fiona is going to flip,” I said, exasperated. “I swear, no matter how hard she tries...”
Gretta looked at me in the mirror and down sadly. I got the feeling, sometimes, that Zach confided in her more than me. She was a bit standoffish around Fiona—everyone was, though. I don’t know why.
Fiona is a good woman. Her heart is big, and she is genuinely grateful for everything I give her. I can’t deny, though, her desire for more and more. One month, a vacation to the coast would be okay, but the next month, she wanted Jamaica. But boy, oh boy, is she good in bed.
The house always looked great. She’d stock the fridge with my favorite food and booze. What I liked the most about her was that, like everyone else, she was in total awe of my wealth. That therapist, though... I tried not to let myself linger on her for too long.