Ariel Gore - Santa Fe Noir

But if people are spilling out onto the front patio, if half the barstools are taken, if someone ordered pizzas, fuzzy-faced denizens will be rooting for the wrong team on the TV, and I just keep driving.

“I told you about Edward, who helped me study for my CPA exam,” said Karen, my client who most needs to take a turn in a movie about moms behaving badly.

I nodded. She’d been guiltily titillated by his math-nerd passion, how nice he smelled, his penchant for suits and ties in this denim land.

“When my daughter needed a math tutor, I thought of Edward. And part of it was that I wanted to see him again. You know, I’m happy with my husband.”

I’d been a therapist long enough to know that didn’t matter.

“I knew he was good, and I’d vetted him myself.”

“Your daughter’s...” I looked down at my file.

“Fifteen. Her grades did go up.” Her eyes welled with tears. She hesitated. “I read in the paper this morning that he was arrested because he’d been having sex with not one, but two different fourteen-year-old girls.”

I handed her the tissue box.

“How could I not know? How could I have felt so safe with him? How could I have liked him? I thought I was a good judge of character.”

“Is your daughter—”

“Fine. Nothing happened. I think she might be a little insulted that he didn’t put the moves on her.” She barked a laugh. “I told her that she was too old for him.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Ancient,” she said. “I primped for him. He must have looked at me and seen Minnie Pearl.”

“But you were around the same age. What upsets you about it the most?”

“She formed a relationship, however innocent, with Edward, because of me. I don’t trust myself anymore.”

The female platypus holds her incubating eggs against her body with her tail.

I glanced at the clock. Delphine was my next client. Time for my summing-up bromide.

“The thing that stands out to me, apart from this sordid business, is how the infatuation with Edward used to make you feel. Where else can you find that in your life?”

Delphine breezed in, smelling of lily of the valley.

“Last time you were here, you mentioned that Jacob got even with you somehow. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Oh, that,” Delphine said. “I don’t know.”

“Let’s try.”

She kicked off her red crushed-velvet ballet flats and tucked her feet beneath her. Her hair fell across her cheek, shielding her eyes. I saw her take a steadying breath, as if she were waiting in the wings to perform. The late-morning light slipped through the heavy wooden blinds, casting stripes across her white boatneck sweater.

Then she cried out in pain.

“What’s wrong?”

“Leg cramp.” She bent over her knees. “ Leg cramp. Help me.”

She tried to pull her feet out from under her.

I grasped her calf, and gently unbent her knee. She wiggled her hips to release the other ankle, grunting softly.

“Punch it,” she said.

“What?”

“My calf muscle. To stop the cramping. I can’t...”

I formed a fist, tapped her spasming muscle.

“No, goddamnit, hard. ” She arched her back. “It’s going up my leg!”

I lifted her foot to my shoulder and whacked her calf muscle once, twice.

Delphine went soft with relief, her leg sliding down the front of me. She sat up, smoothed her hair. “I should go,” she said.

“Stay,” I said. I sat down and crossed my legs, which released a surprising, silent peal of pleasure. “That was one of the most intense cases of resistance I’ve ever noticed in a client. You were about to tell me about Jacob.”

She rolled her eyes, paused. “When we were in high school, Jacob and I bumped into each other. He seemed friendly. I hadn’t seen him in years — we went to different schools — but I had just passed my road test. My friends couldn’t celebrate with me until that night. I was itching for something to do. He invited me over. I thought his parents would be home, or his sister, but the house was empty. He offered me a beer and I accepted it. We went out to the back patio. He pulled out two pills.

“ Valium? he asked. They looked different, but he told me one was generic. I popped it. When the pill hit, I felt a delicious calm descend. We just stared at the clouds. Then a ladybug landed on my wrist and it tickled. When I tried to raise my arm, I couldn’t. So I tried to wiggle my toes. I could do that, just a little bit.

“ Have more beer , Jacob said, holding up the can. I tried to raise my other hand. I couldn’t move that either. He smiled and made a sound — ding — like a kitchen timer going off. And he stood over me, taking off my clothes while I watched, straining against my stilled body. I told him to stop. He just kept going. When he was raping me, he said, You want me to leave you alone now? And I told him yes, and he said, Say it. That’s when he came, when I said it.”

She raked the tissue across her eyes with trembling fingers. “I can’t help thinking that if I’d said no to the pill, which had to be an animal tranquilizer, I would have been okay.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Delphine.”

“I was so fucking stupid. I had no reason to trust him.”

“We often learn these lessons the hard way. That doesn’t make you stupid.”

“And now...” She bent over, her shoulders convulsing.

I wanted so badly to place my hand on her arm, to soothe her. Some therapists did, some didn’t. But after our innocent yet intense physical interaction earlier, it seemed innocuous enough.

I placed my hand on her shoulder.

She looked at me, tears streaming. “He just moved in next door to my parents’ house! I have to move. Either out of Eldorado or back to Europe.”

Her words licked through me like a flame. I would miss her so.

“What’s holding you here?”

“You.” She smiled crookedly.

A plume of warmth filled my aching chest.

“I want to get over this. I’ve never told anyone about Jacob before. I have only told the sandbox story.”

“The sandbox story shows how tenacious you are. You’re still that strong and determined.”

She looked up at me through damp eyelashes. “A friend of mine wants me to take over his lease, because he can’t afford the rent. But I have to do it tomorrow. My parents won’t be home then. I’ve never told them what happened, and they would just blame me if I did.”

“So it’s always been a secret between you.”

“Yeah, I left pretty quickly after that to go to Simon’s Rock, at Bard, where you can start college as a high school student.”

“Didn’t they find that to be odd?”

“My mother went there, so not really. I thought I could always come home again. But I never felt comfortable here after that. So when my best friend from college’s father fell in love with me, I traveled the world with him. When we broke up a few years later, one of his clients picked me up. It’s been like that ever since. Except it appears I’m aging out of this line of work. And I’m tired of it. I want to fall in love with someone real. Is it too late?”

“No,” I said vehemently.

She nodded. “But I need your help.”

“My help?” To fall in love? My heart juddered.

“I know this is ridiculous, you’re my therapist, but I don’t know who else to ask. My friend has to work. Will you rent a U-Haul truck for me? I can give you all of the money. I just don’t have a license. I can hire laborers, my friend knows some.”

“That’s a tough one, Delphine. You’re asking me to cross a therapist/client boundary.”