Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [27]
“Tell me why you’re here,” he said.
Again with the asking things they already knew the answers to. “It was a slow summer. I needed a change of pace.” I yawned and didn’t bother to hide it behind my hand. When was this going to end? A nap. That's what I needed. When were those scheduled? I stared at Trey, who examined the fingernails of his right hand.
He glanced up, still expressionless. “Do you always joke about serious issues in your life?”
I hated this guy. He had the personality of a bran flake, the warmth of an unlit match, and a lifetime supply of questions.
“Yes, but I’m very serious about the funny issues, so I figure it all balances out,” I replied.
To say that he was void of expression may somehow suggest he was capable of one. I did not have evidence to that effect. Trey could have been a mannequin temporarily bestowed with the ability to breathe. His sea-green eyes provided the only splash of color in his barren face. He did not speak. I remembered playing those staring games with my friends. The person who looked away first lost. I bet Trey never lost.
“Are we finished now?” I hoped he would send me on my way. To my nap. And a Nutty Buddy. Maybe two.
“Finished? I don’t think we’ve even started, do you?” He reached into his inside pocket again. Probably to fish out his pen to record my unwillingness to comply. No pen. Out came a Mickey Mouse Pez dispenser. With a swift click, he pinned back Mickey's ears. “Want one?”
Was this a new psychological profile? Would accepting or not accepting candy from a therapist offering a smiling Disney character provoke a Freudian response I might later regret?
“It's only a piece of candy, not a lifelong commitment. If you don’t want it, just say so.”
The apple juice syndrome. That intense confusion and struggle over something so trite and stupid had found me again. And I suspected, somehow, Trey could detect my ridiculous one-woman bargaining over a piece of candy.
“You just don’t seem to be the Pez type. Or maybe it's just seeing Mickey decapitated. Anyway, thanks, but no.” I pushed out my best saccharine smile and feigned a relaxed state, in a positive and expectant sort of way, to end this blather.
Mickey went back into the pocket, but this time out came the pen, poised over the still open folder. Trey peered at me over the reading glasses.
“So, let's try this again. Tell me how you came to be here. No jokes. No evasions.”
“Miller Lite. I drank way too much of it, way too many times. And that's not a joke. I wish it was. But it's not. Besides, don’t you know all this anyway? You have my chart.” My weary voice fell on the floor like wet clay. My resolve to model Trey's stoic demeanor waned in the tedium of answering a question that no longer seemed a mystery. Counting the ceiling tiles again seemed a riveting alternative to this boring inquisition.
“Leah,” Trey scratched the pen across the paper for a few lines, “we’ll be working together in family group therapy. I’ve read the chart. I’m not interested in the person on this paper.” He slid it into his backpack. “I want to hear your voice tell your story. I want you to hear you tell your story. Really, there aren’t that many new stories anyway. They’re all variations on a theme. It's the theme we’re going for here. You’re an English teacher. You’ll catch on.” He relinquished a crooked smile.
My Grams used to say babies weren’t really smiling; they just were delighted to have passed their little gas bubble. I was Trey's little gas bubble.
He shrugged on his backpack. “We’ll talk tomorrow afternoon during group. You should be on the schedule with everyone else.” He looked at his watch. “Cathryn will be here in a few minutes to walk you back to the floor.”
I didn’t have to wait long. When Trey opened the door, she stood on the other side. They exchanged polite greetings yet jockeyed past one another in the doorway as if afraid one might magnetize the other. Trey nodded in Cathryn's