She

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

chapter seven

  FIRED

  SHE STRETCHES OUT on the couch, her head lying awkwardly on the feather-filled red-and-green striped throw pillow, too weary to care. She’d woken up happy, hopeful, memories of yesterday’s sessions with the three therapists having sunk in during the night. Something can be done; life will resume. But now, in this time after breakfast, as she digests her cereal and orange juice, fatigue claims its moment, and she’s once again on the couch. She studies the candelabra tree visible through the front window and observes the sleet falling from the sky as if it’s happening on another planet, in another moment. Her eyelids droop.

  The phone rings.

  Its electronic cadence rings through her head, springs her eyes open, tightens her muscles. The phone rings again. She eases up and sits for a moment on the edge of the couch. The phone rings for the third time, propelling her up and toward it before it goes to voice mail. She picks it up just in time and puffs, “Hello?

  “This is Mr. Quickley’s assistant, please hold the line.”

  She looks at the handset quizzically: what’s with these important men who can’t make their own calls? They’re too special to wait for her to answer or to leave a message, but it’s okay to make her wait? Who —

  “Mr. Quickley here.”

  “Hello?”

  “I’m calling about your test results from Dr. Oldenbeck, the neuropsychologist. We sent you to see him last month.”

  “Yes?”

  “I got his oral report today.”

  “Yes?”

  “The test results indicate no diminishment of your faculties. In fact, you have a superior memory,” Did she detect some detestation in his tone? “And your IQ is at one hundred and twenty, which is not only above average but indicates no problems. For this reason, we are not asking him for a written report, which will cost you more, and we don’t want to increase your expenses unnecessarily. So effective immediately, we will be terminating our services. We will be writing to Dr. Dering as to why he felt it necessary to diagnose you with complete Akaesman syndrome when these tests indicate otherwise, particularly your above-average IQ score, which indicates no loss of energy or power in your brain or loss of function overall. You will be receiving a letter in the mail from us to formally terminate our relationship. I ask that you sign it and return it to us immediately.”

  He hangs up.

  She stands, staring at the wall behind the desk, stunned. Has this almost year-long ordeal been all in her head? But what about Dr. Jones and his test results or what about what the three therapists said? Or Dr. Dering? He’s supposed to be top in his field. Isn’t he? How will she get better if the Shadow Court doesn’t pay her rising treatment costs? The therapies are draining their bank account, and Jim is getting more and more pissy about it. Her small trust fund income is not enough. They’ll have to dip into their RRSPs, the only savings they have, if she can’t get compensation soon. The government will want its share of course — after all they’ll want those taxes they avoided paying by putting some of their income into those RRSPs — but better that than nothing at all. Even with OHIP paying for TARC, it’s still too much. And now who will represent her?

  The dial tone buzzing in her ears finally penetrates her consciousness. She puts the handset back on the cradle as she continues to stare at the wall, questions giving way to a big open space in her mind, going nowhere.

  Two loud knocks bring her to her red door two days later. A courier is standing there. He hands her a large cardboard envelope with the courier name all over it and then an electronic device to sign her name. She signs and hands it back.

  “Have a nice day,” he says before bounding down the stairs back to his truck.

  She closes the door with her foot and pulls at the thread to open the envelope, puzzled as to who sent it. She extracts another envelope, pulls out a letter from it, and standing there near her front door with the weak March sun spilling in through the windows on either side and lighting up the bright white paper embedded with pitch black ink, she reads:

  My office received a telephone call today from Dr. Merc Oldenbeck.

  Who? What did she read? Who’s Dr. Oldenbeck? She looks at her stereo in annoyance — no wonder she can’t focus — and walks into the living room to flip off Sinéad O’Connor singing No Man’s Woman. She reads the first sentence again and reflects a moment on the words. Suddenly she remembers he’s the guy that the lawyer had said had done the test or phoned him or something.

  Dr. Oldenbeck has now had an opportunity to review his raw test data.

  She reads the sentence again as the words have sunk out of view of her mind. Finally they stay, and she understands what he’s saying: this Dr. Oldenbeck looked at her test results.

  He will not be writing us a report.

  She remembers that that’s what Mr. Quickley had said, that he had decided to nix the written report.

  Dr. Oldenbeck indicated that none of your scores demonstrated any abnormality. In fact, your memory scores indicated a very superior memory, and your I.Q., at 120, was way above average.

  She stops reading, for only the fact of her IQ has stayed in her head. Is it really that high? It doesn’t feel like it. Days go by when she feels like she’s falling into moron status. She’d better read that again.

  Dr. Oldenbeck indicated that none of your scores demonstrated any abnormality.

  No abnormality? How can that be? Everyone else — her therapists and Dr. Dering and Dr. Jones before him, even the Akaesman patrol — said something had happened. She’d told that tester, that skinny man, that many of those memory tests were familiar, but she wasn’t believed … or maybe she didn’t tell him … she’s not sure now. Maybe it doesn’t matter. This letter makes no sense.

  She starts at the top of the paragraph again and continues down to the last sentence, which she reads three times before, at last, the language penetrates into comprehension.

  In fact, your memory scores indicated a very superior memory, and your I.Q., at 120, was way above average.

  That’s rather emotional language for a legal letter. Guess his IQ ain’t that high. Lawyers seem to really hate it when Jane Blows are smarter than them, if this jackass is anything to go by. Screw him. She continues in the same painstaking three-times-the-charm reading method.

  As I indicated to you previously, unless we are able to demonstrate that you have sustained complete Akaesman syndrome as a result of your trip through the forest where the Shadow Court reported that he was last sighted, but not confirmed, the changes you claim to have sustained are unlikely to pass the test required under the prevailing Bill P-1000 Shadow Court legislation. As you know, the syndrome must constitute a ‘significant and permanent impairment of important physical, mental or psychological functioning.’

  Under the circumstances, I have no alternative but to request that you provide me with your instructions to discontinue all actions commenced on your behalf, and to close out my file.

  To date, our unbilled time amounts to $11,666 and our unbilled disbursements amount to $1,000.66, for a total of $12,666.66. Under the circumstances, I will not be submitting an account for our time, provided that you give me your written instructions to discontinue all actions, now, on a without cost basis.

  What the fuck does that mean? Without cost basis? Can’t lawyers use normal words? They use puffed-up jargon crap to make the rest of us think they’re smarter than we are. Well, I’m smarter than him, and he’s pissed about it. Heh heh. She continues reading.

  I will be submitting a final account for disbursements once I have Dr. Oldenbeck’s account for the time expended by him and his psychometrist.

  Who is this Dr. Oldenbeck anyway? She doesn’t remember meeting a doctor, only some acne-scarred guy she saw in an empty house, probably his parents’ suburban home. Well, they all seem a bit ticked about her IQ, so they must all be dumber than her. And anyway, if she’s so smart, why can’t she understand their jargon? Why does it take her — she looks at her
watch — a full hour to read this stupid letter? Some smart person she is. She exhales air out her nostrils and continues reading.

  Would you please therefore sign the enclosed duplicate copy of this letter where indicated on page 2, and return it to me immediately in the stamped reply envelope provided for your convenience.

  How thoughtful of them. They’re even paying for the stamp and envelope to make it easier to deep-six my life, she thinks.

  I will then contact the (numerous) …

  “Boy, really rub it in, what a bane on all them lawyers I’ve been,” she grouses to herself.

  … Akaesman counsel involved and ask them to agree to go out of the action, now, without costs. Thereafter, I will submit a final account for disbursements and close out my file.

  Needless to say, if you wish to discuss the matter with me, please do not hesitate to telephone me at the number above.

  I do require your instructions as quickly as possible, and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Etc. Etc.

  She reads through the whole letter again and then stands there perplexed. That last paragraph, does it mean what she thinks it means? She’s not sure. She understands that the lawyer doesn’t want her as a client, but is he really asking her to give up her claim? That doesn’t make sense. Why would he do that? He doesn’t want another lawyer taking over her case? That’s … weird. She must be reading it wrong. She’ll ask Jim to read it.

  “Yes, he’s asking you to give up your claim,” Jim says as he hands her the letter back. He’d read it after they’d eaten dinner.

  “Why?” She leaves unsaid the rest of the sentence: why would he want her to give up the claim?

  “What does it matter? He does, that’s all. You’re going to have to decide whether to get a new lawyer or not.” He scrapes back his chair.

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know. You have to decide. It’s your life. You need to stop depending on me. You’re too dependent.” He walks out of the room, Smokey following him, the traitor. She hears the television burst on, his feet thud on the coffee table in front of the couch. She looks at their tomato-smeared plates, his crumpled paper napkin lying on the table. She sighs. She has no idea what to do.

  She gets herself up from the table and goes over to the phone. She tries Nance first, but reaches her machine instead. She doesn’t leave a message; she has no idea what to say. She sits there wondering whether to try calling Charlie or Belinda. Maybe she just needs some chat time to take her mind off this. She feels like a lead cloak has been draped over her, like cotton wool has been wrapped around her eyes. She wants nothing more than to forget this weight.

  “Hey,” Belinda chirps when she answers.

  “Hey Belinda,” she replies with her gruffer, slower voice.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. I got a letter from my lawyer,” she says dispassionately.

  “What’s he say? Is he going to get you tons of money?”

  “No, I don’t think anyone gets tons of money from this.”

  “That’s too bad. What’s the point, eh?”

  “I don’t know. Get better I guess.”

  “Oh, you’re fine. You’ll be fine. You’re strong.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I don’t f-f-feel too, too strong right now.”

  “Hey, speaking of strength, I saw that hunk in the gym again, the guy with the ripped muscles.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. And I spoke to him! He …”

  Her eyes rest on the desktop with its scatter of papers, as she focuses in and out on Belinda’s story, told in one long stream of words, saying uh-huh in the appropriate moments, or at least she hopes they’re the appropriate moments. Belinda doesn’t notice that she isn’t following her, but then most people don’t notice that she barely takes in what they’re saying. So much for her high IQ. Or maybe it is her high IQ that makes her able to fool people so easily.

  “… we’re going to meet up tomorrow. Isn’t that great?”

  “Uh … yeah.”

  “Well, I gotta go. Don’t worry about that lawyer —”

  “Yeah, well, he f-f-fired me.”

  “He did? That was rude.”

  “Yeah. He says, he says my IQ’s too high. He wants me to drop the claim.”

  “But then that’s a good thing, right, having a high IQ? That proves you’re fine. It’s not like you’re really injured like those people in wheelchairs and all.”

  “But I’m not fine!” Fury rises in her.

  “Sure you are! You look the same as ever babe. You need to get on with your life, move forward. That’s all you need. All this talk about Akaesmans and syndromes and Shadow Courts, it’s all silly. Look at you, you’re fine. You’re not like those people who can’t talk or walk or,” her voice drops to a whisper, “have trouble remembering stuff.” She speaks emphatically, “You don’t have memory problems. And you’ve been reading, like, forever. How can you have trouble reading! Don’t believe those doctors. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “And the lawyer does?” she retorts.

  “Hey, he said what we’re all thinking, eh? It’s time to stop wasting your energy on this stuff. That’s why you’re tired all the time. If you got on with your life you’d be fine. Gotta go babe. Talk to you later.”

  She’s listening to a dial tone once again.

  ~~~*~~~