The Nearly Girl

by Lisa de Nikolits

“I can see that you couldn’t be you, the real you, in the real world, could you?” Dr. Carroll said and Gino nodded.

  Dr. Carroll studied his fingernails. Then he frowned and nodded. “We’ve done wonderful work today, Gina. Not that I think the methodology was sound, meaning the gun, etcetera, etcetera, but nevertheless, progress is progress and I applaud your bravery in being so forthcoming. Now, if you’ll let the others go, I will put the paperwork into action for getting you that sex change you want and we can go on our way until next week. What do you say to that?”

  Gino shook his head. “No. Nobody leaves until the paperwork is signed, sealed, and delivered to me here. Nobody leaves.”

  “But Gina,” Dr. Carroll objected and he sounded annoyed, “you know that’s not reasonable. These things take a long time.”

  “My point exactly. And I don’t have any more time and neither do you, Doctor.”

  “Hmm. I understand your point.” Dr. Carroll stared up at the ceiling. “Give me a moment, will you, Gina, to think about what to do. Can you do that? Can you give me a moment?”

  “Five minutes,” Gino said, looking at his watch.

  “I can help you,” Joanne said.

  “What do you mean?” Gino asked. “What can you do?”

  “I’m a lawyer, right? I can put your demands into legalese, and get the paperwork done for you. Trust me, I’m a much better legal negotiator then the doctor here.”

  “She’s right,” Dr. Carroll agreed. “If it’s airtight and legal you want, then Joanne’s the one for you. Not me. Joanne can make it happen pronto, meanwhile it could take years with me doing it, and I doubt we’d survive that, if we all have to stay in this room together for the duration.”

  Gino eyed Joanne. “How can I trust you?”

  She shrugged. “You do or you don’t, it’s up to you. I am offering you my expertise.”

  “Gina, I know it’s hard for you to accept the hand of friendship,” Dr. Carroll said. “But try, please, try.”

  Gino looked at Joanne. He was breathing hard. “What would you do?”

  Joanne raised her hands slowly. “I am going to reach for my briefcase and then I’m going to come over there, and we’ll draw up a contract of your demands and we will find a way to get it to the director of the hospital and get him to sign off on it. But first steps first, are you okay with me reaching for my bag and getting a notepad and pen?”

  Gino nodded. “But don’t come too close to me. Sit there,” he pointed with the gun.

  “Fine.” Joanne was reassuring and her movements were slow and steady.

  By this time, Amelia and Mike were practically glued to one another, from hip to ankle and he was rubbing her palm with his thumb and it was so astoundingly sensual that Amelia felt transported and dizzy. She was hardly aware of the drama going on around her. All she could feel was the silvery tingling of every nerve ending in her body and her eyelids drooped with pleasure.

  She half-noticed Joanne scooting over to Gino, sliding over on her bum, and sitting where he had directed her.

  “I need to pee,” she heard Persephone say and she looked up and tried to concentrate on what was happening.

  “Gina?” Dr. Carroll asked. “Can we please let Persephone out? She needs to use the toilet.”

  “No!” Gino shouted. “I am not stupid. Wet your pants for all I care.”

  “Fine, then I will,” Persephone yelled and Ainsley and Angelina, who were on either side of her, shifted as far away as they could.

  “Try to hold it in,” Dr. Carroll advised Persephone. “How’s it going over there?” he asked, turning to face Joanne.

  “Fine,” Joanne said, scribbling something. “Okay, Gino, Gina, sign here.”

  She shifted her weight towards him and Gino turned his attention to the piece of paper she had handed him. In one fluid movement, from her crouched position, Joanne rushed at Gino, and karate-chopped the gun upwards. She punched Gino soundly in jaw with her other hand as she did so. When he fell over sideways, she punched him in the gut for good measure, knocking the wind out of him, and then she kicked the gun, which skittered across the room, finally coming to a stop under one of the chairs.

  Joanne hastily got up, retrieved the gun and emptied the clip of bullets, then laid it carefully on the table.

  Dr. Carroll had grabbed his bag and pulled out a walkie-talkie. An alarm sounded throughout the hospital.

  Code White on Level Eight! Code White on Level Eight!

  “That’s for us,” Dr. Carroll said. “Everybody stay calm. Security will be here now.”

  Gino was lying on the ground in a fetal position, trying to catch his breath.

  “That was so impressive,” Whitney said to Joanne, who shrugged.

  “Black belt,” she said. “I haven’t been to a class in years but it came back to me when I needed it.”

  “And the way you handled the gun too,” Whitney’s eyes were shining.

  “My dad was a cop.” Joanne was nonchalant as she pulled out one of the stacked chairs, sat down and crossed her long legs.

  David got up and started reorganizing the chairs and then he helped Angelina to her feet and got her seated.

  Two security guards rushed into the room and Dr. Carroll pointed to Gino who was still writhing on the floor. “Him. Take him to psych and lock him up. And please take this ugly gun too and put it somewhere safe. Call the police, but I’ll only be able to talk to them in an hour. I must debrief my group first.”

  The security guards hauled Gino to his feet and led him out of the room.

  The rest of the group straggled back into their chairs and Amelia, feeling stoned and post-orgasmic, sank down into her seat, unable to look at Mike who was staring at her with unrestrained longing.

  Persephone had rushed out to use the washroom and by the time she returned, things had somewhat normalized.

  “So,” Dr. Carroll asked, “how is everybody?”

  “You are a terrible therapist,” David said. “I don’t know if I want to come back and I don’t care if I owe you any money after today.”

  “Now, now,” Dr. Carroll admonished. “You are, as always, seeing things quite back to front. Gino was close to the edge from the start. That was plain to see. And this was an enormous breakthrough. Now that I am aware of what his true issues are, I can give him some real help, one-on-one, and we can monitor him as an in-patient. Generally speaking, it’s very good when a patient acts out like that because it signifies a turning point in their healing. How are you, David? How has your week been?”

  “I told you already. You see, you never listen!”

  “I do listen,” Dr. Carroll said, tiredly. “Today’s session hasn’t exactly been without some surprising and distracting elements.”

  “I don’t care about me,” David said. “But what about Angelina? You have to do something to help her, other than tell her to burn down her house.”

  “And I will. Angelina, do you want help with your hoarding or not?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking troubled. “I guess I’d just like other people to be okay with it.”

  “Sounds like a health hazard,” Joanne said. “And a fire hazard.”

  “Let me think about it,” Angelina said. “I’ll tell you next week if I think I can cope with changing the situation. Right now, I don’t know if I can. You’re right, Dr. Carroll. I did want a magic sentence to make everything all right. I wanted the magic sentence to be a way to make everybody else all right with it, the way it is. I didn’t want it to be a way for me to have to change. I don’t think I do want to change and right now, after today, the only thing I want is to be safely back home, surrounded by the comfort of my things and my bunnies.”

  “That’s very honest of you, Angelina, and I thank you,” Dr. Carroll said, and Angelina beamed.

  “We should try to be as ho
nest as we can, with ourselves,” Dr. Carroll said, and he seemed to be talking mostly to himself. “Let’s have a quick go around and see how everybody is doing and then we can reconvene next week. David, let’s start with you, how are you, right now? How are you feeling?”

  “Fine. But I lied. Things aren’t good. I didn’t take anybody out for dinner. I said that things were better but they aren’t. I get into work and my staff begin to arrive and I feel the first grip of fear seize my gut. It’s like a hand dips down my throat, reaches into my gut and holds my intestines in its fist. My thoughts go like this: I will not do a good job. I will lose my temper. I will cry. I will walk out. I will humiliate myself in front of everybody. I will ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to build. I will make costly mistakes. I will be revealed for being a fraud. And never mind my thoughts, my body hurts from head to toe. I have tension in my jaw. My shoulders are as stiff as boards and my gut is gripped by that giant fist. Then I think to myself that this will all end badly. I will lose concentration. I will lose control. Everything will end badly. I’d better not leave my desk or answer the phone because if I do, all hell will break loose.”

  “Ah. I see. No, actually, I meant about today. The gun incident, how are you feeling about that?”

  “Oh, fine,” David sighed. “Don’t worry, Doc. I’ll be here next week. I know Rome wasn’t built in a day even though it burned down pretty damn quick. Goes to show you how quickly things can fall apart. See what I mean? Look how long it took them to build Rome and then what, three days and it was gone? That’s like my life. Took me all this time to build it and it can be destroyed in a day.”

  “I hear you,” Dr. Carroll said quietly. “I hear you, David. But your Rome will not burn down. Trust me. Believe in me. I know it’s hard but keep doing your exercises. Keep trying to do D.T.O.T. and things will get better. And now, Alexei, how are you?”

  “I am all right. I feel stupid for not being the one to get the gun from him. He took me by surprise. I never thought such a worried little man would do such a thing.” Alexei cast a glance at Whitney. “I should have knocked him to the ground.”

  “You feel emasculated,” Dr. Carroll mused. “It happened so fast. Mike, David, do you feel like you should have been the ones to tackle Gino instead of a woman?”

  Mike shook his head. “No way, I don’t care. Joanne was great.”

  David also shook his head. “She’s got skills I don’t have. I don’t care either way. I’m not a fighting man.”

  “But I am a fighting man,” Alexei was upset. “And then, when it counted, I sat here and did nothing.”

  “It was an unusual situation,” Dr. Carroll said. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Alexei.”

  Alexei looked over at Whitney but she was looking at Joanne.

  “So, then…” Dr. Carroll seemed unsure how to continue. “You’re all good then? Good to go? Shannon, how are you?”

  She smiled broadly. “It was quite exciting.”

  “Okay. Ainsley?”

  “I don’t give a shit. The only thing I want to do is go home and tell my fiancé that I’m sorry I broke up with him. I hope he’ll take me back and if he doesn’t, I will never forgive you.”

  “Okay. And Persephone?”

  “I’m pretty freaked,” Persephone said. She was shaking and quivering. “There was this guy, one time, he was homeless, and I was in charge of a homeless shelter and he waved a gun at me. Turned out to be a fake gun but I didn’t know.”

  Her shaking increased until her whole body was shuddering and she fell forward, sobbing loudly.

  “I’ll have to attend to this,” Dr. Carroll said with a sigh to the rest of the group. “If anyone else needs seeing to, please wait behind. Anyone who’s okay, off you go, and toodle-loo. I’ll see you next week.”

  Amelia took him at his word and she ran. She chose the opposite direction to the route she and Mike had taken the previous week, and she ran like the wind.

  Once she was outside, Amelia walked the perimeter of the hospital and then she spotted Mike coming out the front door. She hugged herself close to the wall, and made sure she was hidden. She held her hand to her crotch and she was sure she could still feel the heat radiating.

  She sank down on her haunches for a moment, her hand between her legs, holding tight, and she thought about the crazy group. Angelina with her hoarding, Gino-Gina and the gun, Persephone and her meltdown, but most of all she thought about Mike.

  She rushed home.

  The house was quiet and Nana was napping. Before she could forget again, she sent her mother a text message: Nana is sleeping too much. Dad says you must take her to the doc.

  Then she lay back on her bed with her eyes closed, unzipped her jeans and slid her hand inside.

  11. GROUP THERAPY: SESSION FOUR

  AMELIA WAS LATE FOR THE NEXT MEETING. She had taken the right bus but she missed her stop and had to wait for the return bus, which took fifteen minutes.

  When she arrived, she was happy to see Mike wedged in between Joanne and David so she sat down in between Ainsley and Angelina.

  “How are you?” Ainsley asked happily as she turned toward Amelia and flashed her enormous engagement ring. “We got back together! Now I am living in fear of being mugged and having my ring stolen. I am convinced someone is going to try to steal it. I went into a McDonald’s the other day and I swear, this group of kids was looking at me, figuring out how to jump me and steal it.”

  “Is it insured?” Amelia asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t want my finger cut off!”

  “They won’t cut your finger off,” Angelina said, dismissively. “That’s just stupid and unrealistic.”

  Amelia wondered why Angelina was being so aggressive and she also wondered where Dr. Carroll was.

  “Like it’s realistic that you’ll die if you get rid of the crap that fills up your house? People in glass houses and all that,” Ainsley snapped back.

  “We’re here because we have issues,” Mike said, standing up. “We all know that. Attacking each other isn’t helpful.” He looked at Angelina and as if by a pre-arranged signal, she got up and they switched seats. “You can’t avoid me,” Mike whispered quietly to Amelia.

  “You’ve got a girlfriend,” she hissed at him. “But that didn’t stop you from doing what you did, did it?”

  “I can’t seem to help myself when I’m around you,” he said.

  “Did you tell your girlfriend about me?”

  Mike blushed. “No, I didn’t. I need to know if you think there’s anything between us before I do that. I love her. We’ve been together since high school and—”

  “High school sweethearts, yeah, we know the story.” Amelia said, bitterly. “I’m no competition for such a pure and true love.”

  “Amelia! What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing. You think you know me? You think I’m nice and sweet and compliant? You think I’m going to sigh with happiness that you want me and that I’ll fall into your arms and be the perfect girlfriend? Is that what you want me to tell you, before you break up with your girlfriend? Well, I can’t say it. I have never been, nor will I ever be, the perfect girlfriend. I couldn’t be that way, even if I wanted to and believe me, there are times when I’d like nothing more.”

  “You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,” Mike said and he took her hand. His hand felt so huge and warm and strong, and she wanted to cry because it felt so good. His skin was rougher than hers and she gripped his fingers, never wanting to let go.

  “You see what’s between us!” Mike said, grinning, his fine facial hair scraggly and rough and she wanted to mash that soft mouth, and kiss the fine hair that would tickle her lips.

  “I see what?”

  “That we’ve got chemistry! We’re dynamite!”

  “A solid basis for a stable relationship,” Amelia observ
ed wryly.

  “You want stable? Seriously? I thought you’d want something exciting, something new every day.”

  “No, you’re wrong. I want passion, yes, and I want to be able to show you my world. I’ve got keys to the doors of worlds that no one else knows exists. I want to show you that and I want to know that I can trust you, and then the world will magically revolve around us like a carousel but I want you and me to be—”

  “…The fixed centre of gravity.” He finished her thought.

  “Yes. But even as I say that, I don’t know if I can do it. I want to do it but I don’t know if I can. I can’t promise you anything.”

  “Except the possibility of you being the best damn thing that ever happened to me,” he replied.

  They were whispering, lost in their own world, unaware of the dynamic in the room around them, when David’s loud voice jolted them back to reality.

  “Where’s the doc, eh? He’s twenty minutes late. That’s not kosher.”

  “Are you Jewish?” Shannon asked.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” David was aggressive.

  “Nothing. I’m Jewish so I just wondered.”

  “Ah. Well, yeah, I am.”

  “Fucking Jews ruined my country,” Alexei growled, stretching his long legs out in front of him and cracking his knuckles.

  “Don’t blame the Jews because the shiksa goddess is doing the karate champion in the washroom this week instead of you,” David countered.

  Amelia and Mike sat up in shock. “What’s going on?” Mike asked.

  “Whitney is more turned on by lawyer-by-day, Angelina Jolie-by-night than she is by big bad Alexei,” Ainsley explained.

  Alexei flushed red and he flicked his hair back from his forehead. “She was a useless fuck,” he said. “Who cares?”

  “You do,” Shannon said. “But she’s not the only woman in this room, you know.”

  “You?” David piped up. “You’d like to get one thrown into you by the Russian mafia bad boy?”

  “Since we’re here in therapy, baring our deepest secrets, I’d say yeah, he could put his shoes under my bed any time,” Shannon said.