Exes and Ohs Read online

  She crossed her arms. “I have to go to the library.”

  I crossed my arms. “And I to the clinic.”

  And with that, the Dysfunctional Future Therapists of America meeting huffily adjourned.

  “Gwen?” Julie, the clinic receptionist, stuck her chignoned head into my office. “Your ten o’clock’s here.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I finished my first Diet Coke of the day, shuffled through the papers in my bag, and tried to focus on the task. Which was salvaging troubled young psyches. Not to be confused with obsessing over the petty nuances of my own love life. “I’ll be right out. Give me one second.”

  I scanned the information sheet the clinic director had left for me and tried to get into Work Mode.

  My newest patient was a four-year-old boy, L. St. James, who’d been referred by his preschool teacher. He was described as displaying irritability, negativism, and “attention problems.” Could be depression, which, in young children, often manifests as pouting, defiance, or chronic crankiness.

  Well, I’d have to see. I wouldn’t be meeting L. St. James himself for another week or so—today, I had asked to meet only with L.’s “primary caregiver,” who was listed only as “H.” St. James (nice record-keeping system we had going here), so that I could ask her about recent changes in her son’s behavior and get an idea of their home environment.

  Most moms of depressed kids are exhausted and absolutely at the end of their rope from trying to deal with their unruly children. So when I stepped into the toy-strewn waiting room, I was expecting to find a woman who looked like she’d been pulling her hair out between shots of bourbon. But I saw no one fitting that description. Only a little boy in a baseball cap and a young lady, barely out of adolescence, with a sandy-colored French braid and a placid, milkmaid face.

  The girl looked up at me expectantly. She looked far too young to have a four-year-old, but hey, this was life in the big city, right? The child didn’t look up from the toy truck he had overturned on the blue carpet. He turned the wheels round and round with the palm of his hand.

  “Ms. St. James?” I ventured.

  “Oh, no. I am not Ms. St. James.” The girl smiled. She had a lilting European accent I couldn’t quite place. Swiss? “I am her au pair. My name is Nell. This is Leo. Leo, say hello.”

  The little boy looked up at me. His face was nearly hidden by the brim of his red and blue cap, but his brown eyes were huge and serious. “Hello.”

  “Well, uh…” I stared at the information sheet in my hand, hoping for instructions on how to handle last-minute au pair insurgencies. “Where’s his mother? I’m supposed to be meeting with her today.”

  Nell turned her palms up helplessly. “She is at work. She asked me to come with Leo here, so I do.”

  I gave her my very best fair-but-firm smile. “Well, I appreciate your time and effort, but I really can’t start with Leo until I’ve had a chance to meet privately with his mother. It’s very important. So I’m afraid you’ll have to take him home now, and I’ll call Ms. St. James to set up a new appointment.”

  Nell looked worried. “But I don’t have a car. Ms. St. James dropped us off. She will pick us up in another hour.”

  I sighed. “I thought you said she was working.”

  “She has a break before lunch.” The au pair started to shred a stray magazine subscription card. Thin strips of paper fluttered to the floor. “Should we just stay here until she comes?”

  Grrr. Of all the days for my supervisor to be on vacation.

  I took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s start over.” I turned to the kid on the carpet. I couldn’t do any clinical work with him yet, but we might as well have a breezy little meet-and-greet. “Leo, how about you come with me? I’ve got some really fun toys in here.”

  “Okay.” He abandoned the truck and followed me without a backward glance at Nell.

  As we headed toward my office, I peered down at the head obscured by the red and blue baseball cap. Fringes of downy blond hair curled out over his T-shirt collar.

  “I like your hat, Leo. What’s that on the front?”

  “Fider-Man.” He pointed at the masked web slinger embroidered over the bill. “Everybody loves Fider-Man.”

  “What’s not to love?” I opened the door to my office. “So Leo, my name is Gwen and I’m—”

  “I know.” He nodded solemnly. “You’re a side-kick.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “A side-kick,” he repeated. “Like on TV. The lady that talks to kitties.”

  “Oh! You mean the pet psychic?”

  “Yeah. On TV.”

  “No, I’m a psychologist. Not a psychic.” I ushered him into the room. “Psychics are people who can see the future and guess what other people are thinking. I can’t do that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.” Just ask Dr. Dennis Schell. “So this is where we’re going to play today.”

  He scrunched up his mouth as he surveyed the piles of paper on the windowsill, the children’s drawings on the wall, the big corduroy cushions piled in the corner. “It’s kind of messy.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is, but since we’re going to be playing, it doesn’t have to be totally neat. You can help me straighten up when we’re done, if you want. When your mom comes to pick you up.”

  He looked up at me with a glimmer of anxiety. “How long ’til she gets here?”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be here soon. Now, what do you want to do first? We could color, or play with Legos…I have some dolls and stuffed animals, too.”

  He mulled this over for a minute. “Color.”

  “Okay.” I broke out the paper and a plastic bin full of crayons. We settled down on the floor with our supplies and waited for inspiration to strike.

  His big brown eyes were shaded by his hat, but I could see that there was a lot going on in there. He was obviously an intense and watchful kid. Cute too. He had round, peachy cheeks and the kind of eyelashes that maiden aunts everywhere would describe as “wasted on a boy.” But the Precious Moments exterior didn’t fool me—I’d met a lot of preschoolers in my day, and this kid was macho and fearless as only a four-year-old male can be.

  He silently selected a red Crayola and drew a long, thin, continuous spiral on his white piece of paper.

  “Wow.” I nodded at his design. “That’s pretty cool.”

  He didn’t look up. “Mm-hmm.”

  “Want to talk about what you’re making?”

  Apparently, he didn’t. Still no eye contact. Another loop added to the coilings of red crayon.

  I tried again. Sometimes directives were a better way to go with young kids. “Tell me about what you’re drawing.”

  He sighed deeply, as if I had just interrupted progress on the Sistine Chapel. Shooting me a look of great condescension, he explained slowly, “It’s a snake.”

  Duh. “Oh. That’s a very long snake.”

  “Yes.” He seemed pleased. “The longest snake in the world. Thirty-two feet.”

  Because I was not a Freudian, I let this comment slide. But he was on a roll.

  “Snakes,” he announced, raising his index finger like a pint-size Confucius, “are very dangerous. Not all of them. Just some of them.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed.

  “That’s why I’m never going to the desert. Or the jungle. Or the woods. Or the ocean.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “The ocean?”

  “That’s where the sea snakes live.”

  “You certainly know a lot about snakes.”

  “Yes.” He paused to pick at a Band-Aid on his elbow. “I’m very smart.”

  Well, at least we knew he wasn’t suffering from low self-esteem. I hid my smile and started doodling with a gray crayon on a spare sheet of paper.

  Leo stopped progress on his serpentine scribbling and stared at my sketch. “Miss Gwen?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’re you drawing?”

  Bu
sted. I felt a warm blush creep into my face as I stared down at my Crayola creation. “It’s, uh, it’s a cell phone.”

  He wrinkled up his face. “A cell phone?”

  “Yeah. Because I got a new phone on Friday, so it’s on my mind.” I dug the item in question out of my bag and showed it to him. “See? Here it is.”

  “Oh.” He walked across the floor on his knees and hunched over the phone until his face was mere inches from the antenna. “Can I call my mom?”

  Uh-oh. “No, Leo, I’m sorry. But she’s going to be here soon.” I hoped. “Don’t worry.”

  “When is she going to be here?” he persisted.

  I consulted the wall clock. “In about half an hour.”

  “Okay.” And after a final look of longing at the cell phone, he resumed coloring. “I’m going to draw a picture of my dog. His name’s Jellybean. He died.”

  My ears pricked up. “I bet you felt pretty sad.”

  “Yeah.”

  I tried to continue the conversation, but the life and times of Jellybean were apparently not up for further discussion. For the next thirty minutes he acted quiet and placid, not the sort of demeanor you’d expect from a kid who’d been referred for treatment by his preschool.

  At 10:05, Julie rapped on my door and ushered in Leo’s mother, who was, hands down, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen outside the pages of Vogue.

  I noticed the contrasts first. The waist-length black hair streaked with gold in the front. The simple sleeveless white dress accented with a black leather belt and strappy high heels. Her diminutive stature and the way her ripe, almost cartoonish curves managed to fit into some ridiculous, nonexistent clothing size like zero. Scratch that. This chick could wear a negative two.

  The tawny tones of her cheeks and forehead set off startling, ice blue eyes. And yeah, she was wearing too much makeup, but so what? This was the kind of woman who had a heavy metal ballad written for her. The kind of woman a man might leave his fiancée for. She looked, I realized with a flash of raw red déjà vu, the way I’d always been afraid Lisa looked.

  Thus, I wanted to hate her on sight. But I couldn’t. She just seemed so delicate and, well…vulnerable. Charisma oozed from her every perfect pore.

  “Mama!” Leo looked relieved to see her but did not, I noted, run over to her.

  “Hi, pookie.” She tilted her head and smiled down at him. Her teeth were perfect, dazzlingly white and evenly spaced. “Were you good for Dr. Traynor?”

  His eyes widened for a second. Since I had introduced myself only as Gwen, he had no idea who this Dr. Traynor character was. But he decided to hedge his bets. “Yes.”

  She turned to me. “I am so, so sorry I’m late. The receptionist already yelled at me.”

  “Well, no one should yell at you. It’s just that, for an initial interview, I really need—”

  “To talk to me, I know, I know.” She ducked her head with a naughty-kitten grin. “But I was running late this morning, because I couldn’t find anything black or white to wear, and my spiritual adviser says I should only wear black and white for the next lunar phase.”

  I tried to remain poker-faced.

  She ran her hands through her artfully tousled tresses. “And then I just couldn’t get the director to rearrange my shooting schedule this morning, but I thought I’d at least send Nell and Leo.”

  Oh, Lord. “Your shooting schedule?”

  “Yeah.” She stopped and shook her head. “Oh, of course, I’m sorry! I work in television. That’s why I’m wearing way too much makeup way too early in the morning.” She laughed. “You probably haven’t seen my show—you don’t exactly look like the type to watch daytime dramas.”

  Had I just been complimented or insulted?

  “I work on Twilight’s Tempest.” She struck a pose and offered up a dainty, French-manicured hand. “Harmony St. James.”

  “Okay, okay, there’s no need to shriek.” Cesca switched on her turn signal and ruthlessly cut off the minivan behind us.

  “No need to shriek?” I shrieked. “Did you hear what I just said? Her name is Harmony St. James and she looks like a digitally enhanced Carmen Electra.”

  “I hear you loud and clear.” She flinched and stomped on the brake as traffic slowed to a crawl. She yanked open the Civic’s glove compartment and threw a roll of Sweetarts my way. “Have some candy. Good God, woman.”

  I popped a Sweetart in my mouth, washed it down with my customary late-afternoon can of Diet Coke, and grimaced as the sugary tang seeped into my mouth. The 405 Freeway was rapidly turning into a parking lot, as it did every day at the stroke of five o’clock. Much like Cinderella with the pumpkin, except with insane auto insurance rates and horrible gas mileage.

  I blinked at the sunlight glinting off the bumper of the Volvo in front of us and tried not to hyperventilate. “I don’t think you comprehend the gravity of this situation. You did not see this woman, so you could not possibly understand, but she could have her own swimsuit calendar. She probably does have her own swimsuit calendar.”

  “Don’t you think you’re losing perspective a little here?” Cesca patted my arm. “You have no idea if this is the same woman Alex was talking about—”

  “How many soap opera actresses named Harmony do you think there are out there?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know! Maybe in soap opera world, ‘Harmony’ is the equivalent of ‘Sarah’ or ‘Jennifer.’”

  “That is such bull—”

  She put a hand up. “All I’m saying is, we don’t know. So until we do, stop screaming the house down.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to compete with Carmen Electra?”

  “You can’t.” She shrugged. “You don’t. Alex doesn’t want her, he wants you.”

  I tipped my head back and let loose with the bitterest laugh in the world. “Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. My ex-fiancé.”

  “You have some real trust issues, you know that?” Keeping one eye on the road, she dug a Tootsie Pop out of her purse and unwrapped it.

  “You and your damn candy,” I muttered.

  She batted her eyelashes at the BMW convertible next to us until the gray-suited yuppie in the driver’s seat let us pull in front of him. Then she readjusted the lavender Lycra sports bra she’d donned for the gym. “If I didn’t eat candy, I wouldn’t need to go work out, and then I wouldn’t get to feast my eyes on Polo, the Pilates instructor.”

  I banged the back of my head against the seat. “Oh my God. You dragged my ass out into five o’clock freeway traffic to go mack on some guy named Polo? What the hell kind of name is Polo?”

  “I think he’s Brazilian or something.” She grinned. “Besides, if anyone ever needed to work off some stress, it’s you. You’ll thank me for this later.”

  “This isn’t even our regular gym,” I pointed out. We could have walked to the UCLA fitness center, our usual routine, but this week she’d suddenly gotten a bee in her bonnet about wanting to try a Pilates class in Marina Del Rey. Now the truth was out. “Polo. Unbelievable. Polo and Harmony. They should hook up. Hippie children, unite.”

  “If you can’t say something nice…”

  “Bite me.” I slouched into my seat and cranked up the air conditioner.

  Cesca turned on the radio. The upbeat female announcer informed us that there was “a bit of a delay” on the 405 southbound. I glanced at the car’s speedometer. Sure enough, we were still going 0 mph.

  “So? Have you heard from your main rebound man today?” she asked.

  “Who? Alex? President of the Twilight’s Tempest fan club? No, I have not. And I probably never will, since apparently he only dates pneumatic bimbos who look like they’ve starred in movies called Vixen Sorority Girls Unchained.”

  She pulled down her sunglasses and gave me a look. “Are you sure you don’t want to go audition for a soap opera?”

  And then radio station Star 98.7 FM shut us up and proved my point. I winced as I recognized the mellow openin
g chords of Sting’s “Fields of Gold.”

  “Sorry.” She punched at the buttons. Beyoncé wailed through the stereo speakers, but the damage was already done. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you didn’t hear that?”

  I didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Just listened to the upbeat pop now ping-ponging around the car and rained silent curses upon Sting and his damnable sappy love songs.

  You’ll remember me when the west wind moves…

  I remembered him all the time. And I hated it. I hated that the wounds Dennis left could be ripped freshly open even in the sealed safety of Cesca’s car. I hated that radios were still allowed to play the song that we were supposed to dance to at our wedding.

  He didn’t even have to be present to hurt me. Star 98.7 could smite me in his stead.

  I sighed. “What do I have to do to get that song banned worldwide? Can we start a petition or something?”

  My roommate had the trapped, frozen look that I had grown accustomed to seeing on the faces of my family and friends over the last semester. The I-don’t-know-what-to-say-please-don’t-freak-out look.

  “Oh, relax,” I told her. “I’m not going to bust out crying.”

  She removed the Tootsie Pop from her mouth. “I think I might cry. I’m so sorry, Gwen.”

  I snorted. “Why are you sorry? You’re not the one who got engaged to a mind-changing toadass.”

  “I know, but…Jesus, you know?” She really did look a little weepy. “I mean, this time last year you were asking me to find a reading for the ceremony and now…”

  “Cesca. Seriously. Stop with these Steel Magnolia lines. You’re killing me.” I took a moment to compose myself. “I’m good. I’m over it.”

  “That’s what you keep saying.”

  “And it’s true!” I insisted. “I admit, I had some temporary setbacks. But it’s all for the best. I’m moving on. I’ve found a new man who’s way better than Dennis. Even though he hasn’t called yet. Now pass the Sweetarts and let’s go do some Pilates. A fie on exes everywhere.”

  She suddenly became fascinated with the exit sign for the 10 Freeway. “Speaking of exes…”