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“Oh, that. No, I haven’t found anyone, and the guys I owe are stepping up the pressure.”
“Like you did to me by sending over your thuggish friends?”
She heard an anguished sigh. “I didn’t send them over, Nicki. Not how you’re thinking, anyway. I told them you owed me money. I didn’t tell them to go over and collect it.”
“Then how’d they know where I live?” Silence. “Exactly.” Nicki gave up trying to find the record button. It was too hard to search, think and talk at the same time. “What you’re doing is not cool, Vince. And while I’m sorry you’ve gotten yourself into a predicament, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
“Not even with some of it—say, five thousand, or ten?”
“Why do you think I have that kind of money to loan out, or that I’d give it to you even if I did?”
“Because at one time you cared about me.”
That much was true, Nicki secretly admitted. She’d fallen hard and fast for the tall charmer. Theirs had been a brief romance, but it also had been a whirlwind of intense fun and loving. Before it wasn’t.
“Because even though I was a dog in the time that we hung out, my feelings for you were real. I wish I’d understood what a gift it was to have you in my life, but it took you leaving for me to find that out.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t hate you, and I can’t loan you money.”
“Is that guy the reason you won’t go out, the one with you at the show last night?”
“Look, Vince, I’ve got to go.”
“Just tell me. Is that your boyfriend? If so, I’ll leave you alone, for real this time.”
“You promise you won’t call again?”
“Not even as friends? I like you, okay?”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know what I like.”
“Yes. That was my boyfriend. He and I have been together a very long time.”
“How long?”
“More than five years.” Nicki realized her mistake at once.
“So I’m not the only cheater on the phone.”
“I didn’t cheat. We’d broken up when you and I got together, and you and I only dated a month. New York is full of good women. Find one of them and treat her the way you should have treated me and all of the women who’ve been hurt by your actions. Okay?”
“Okay. Bye, Nicki.”
Nicki hung up the phone, exhausted, depleted. Getting through that conversation without losing it had probably taken years off her life. What was that about? Declarations of love and sincere-sounding compliments?
She walked into her closet, mumbling, “Probably running the same kind of game that got me with him in the first place.”
Minutes later, earbuds firmly in place, Nicki pushed past the gate to her brownstone and hit the sidewalk running. She’d done way too little of it lately, none since what happened the other night. The conversation with Vince had been taxing, but in a way it had also freed her. He’d said he would leave her alone. She believed it.
Running in place, she looked around her. How she loved the borough called Brooklyn. Bright, bustling, colorful, diverse. Nicki knew Julian wanted her to move west. He hadn’t mentioned it on this trip but that didn’t matter. California was beautiful, true enough. But who would ever want to leave all this energy and feel like they were on vacation forever?
The light turned. Nicki jogged across the street, down the block and around the corner. She saw the bike, heard a scream and felt a pain sharper than she’d ever experienced. One more step and she was on the ground. As she fell she screamed again, realizing that the first guttural wail had been wrenched from her own throat.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop. Are you all right?” Nicki couldn’t speak past a jaw clenched against the pain shooting up from her right ankle. On her mind was a single thought—there’d be no dancing tonight.
* * *
Julian shook hands with his colleagues, tired but glad he’d agreed to the last-minute invite to join a San Francisco symposium on holistic alternatives to traditional remedies for mental illness. Most doctoral students couldn’t wait until school was over. But Julian relished the classroom and missed the sometimes passionate discussions around another’s point of view. He reached his car, slid inside and fired up the phone. After trying unsuccessfully to use it from several different locations inside during the day, he’d turned it off and placed it inside his briefcase. No hesitation in doing that. Julian lived a life that was consciously predictable. Which was why he was surprised to hear several pings as soon as his phone turned on that indicated missed calls.
He tapped and scrolled. Natalie? Couldn’t imagine what she wanted. He’d hired a capable assistant, a forty-seven-year-old single mother named Katie. At their luncheon he’d made it clear to Natalie that he was not in competition with her father, and that she’d provided the only assistance he would ever need from her. There was a call from Katie and one from his mother. The other was from Nicki. He clicked on her number and was surprised to see she’d called multiple times. As he started his car and rolled out of the parking lot, he tapped the steering wheel to engage her number. Ready to leave a message, surprised when she answered the phone.
Confused, he glanced at the dashboard and then at his watch. “Babe, why are you answering the phone? You should be...what’s wrong?”
It was after eight on the East Coast. She should be on stage. Something was definitely not right.
“Babe...”
Sniffles and then, “I’m hurt.”
“What happened?”
In halting, pain-filled detail, she told him. “Tomorrow I’ll see a specialist who’ll determine exactly how long I’ll be down. I pray that it’s only a couple weeks. But it could be longer. Julian, I’m scared. If my ankle is broken, they’ll replace me. What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to be okay,” he replied quickly, his voice calm and firm. “No matter what happens. And you’ll come here, to Paradise Cove, so that I can make sure you get the very best care available. So that I can take care of you.”
Chapter 5 (#uf7749d6b-6c0a-5de6-ac17-0b093598fb45)
Julian had factored a good six months into getting his practice up and running with a stream of regular patients. Until that happened, he felt he’d have time on his hands. He’d hired an agent to book college talks and professional speaking engagements. Had set up a schedule with the Drake Community Center’s director to offer free counseling to the troubled youth it served. The first month was understandably slow. In August, following an article featuring him in a national medical magazine, he began getting referrals from medical doctors in neighboring towns. Some from as far away as Sacramento and San Jose.
Last week, a former patient of Dr. Johnson had walked into his office. He’d been treated for ten years and felt it wasn’t working. At first Julian refused outright, but after a thorough interview, he’d decided to treat the man. People regularly changed therapists. For the patient, the change proved beneficial. For Julian, it had been fateful. The satisfied patient had obviously been talking. Barely into September and a stream of Johnson’s patients had called for appointments. He turned most of them down, but agreed to see the ones he felt would benefit from his counsel. One was in his office now, engaging in a pattern most likely developed in childhood and perfected throughout her adult life.
He stole a glance at the clock on the wall behind where his patient Vanessa sat. Nicki’s plane would arrive in just over ninety minutes. To leave right now would be cutting it close, and Vanessa’s time would be up in sixty seconds. But she was in crisis. He could not in good conscience end the session before her emotions stabilized.
He watched her twist a tissue to shreds as she recounted an incident from her abusive childhood. Tears for moments she’d probably relived thousands of times. It was neither healthy nor productive, but he knew why she did it. Why millions of people relived the very situations they’d most like to forget. How one could at first hate and then—after depression became the new normal and sadness felt sane—relish the pain.
In psychology it was called destiny neurosis, a form of repetition compulsion. The term was coined by Sigmund Freud in 1914 and expanded after further research. As she had during each previous session, Vanessa lamented over the beatings endured at the hands of her parents, and later a foster mom after the parents lost custody, yet was despondent that a physically abusive third marriage was ending. In the past, a cocktail of antianxiety and antidepressant medication had been prescribed as the cure for her chronic depression. Masking the pain, not fixing the problem. Prescription drug abuse was an epidemic in America. Seventy percent of the country was on some type of prescribed drug. A quarter of them were like Vanessa—depressed, abused, hurting. It’s one of the reasons Julian had chosen psychology over psychiatry, to push himself toward holistic, drug-free healing and make prescribed medicine the absolute last resort.
“I just want to be loved without being beaten. You know?” She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all, Vanessa. Being beaten is not love. It is what you have come to associate with love, because the abuse you suffered was done by people who said they loved you, those who professed to care about you. Do you understand that?”
“What am I doing wrong, Doctor? How do I keep attracting the same type of man into my life?”
“By repeating the same thought patterns and the same actions that brought you to my office. But that’s why I’m here. To help you replace toxic thoughts and actions with positive, productive ones.” Julian looked at his watch and stood. “I have a couple things I’d like to give you.” He continued talking as he walked over to a wall unit. He pulled a card from a drawer beneath the shelving and a blank journal from a stack on one of the shelves. On the front was a message in large, bold letters: Focus on Good Thoughts and Good Things Will Happen.
He walked back to Vanessa, who had stood as well. “I want you to begin keeping a journal. Every day, write at least one page of what you are thinking. It can be anything, any thought that comes to mind. How you’re feeling. How you slept the night before. What you watched on TV or ate for dinner. Doesn’t matter. The point is to get in touch with yourself and become conscious of the storyline that’s playing in your head.”
He held up the five-by-seven card. “Here is a list of questions to help get you started. Your first journal entry can be answering these questions. There are no wrong answers. Just write how you feel.”
“But, Doctor—”
“No buts.” He took her arm and gently guided her toward the door. “You can do this, Vanessa. It’ll help you get better, okay? See you next week.”
Traffic was light, and the gods were kind. Forty-five minutes at mostly ninety miles an hour helped him reach the airport within minutes of Nicki’s arrival. Jennifer had suggested he send a car service. Much too impersonal for his queen, and for someone who’d experienced a career-threatening injury less than a week ago. He wanted to get her himself.
He parked the car and went inside, hoping she’d take his advice and use a wheelchair instead of trying to navigate the busy airport on crutches. So independent, his private dancer. A trait that over the years had often put them at odds. It had taken less coaxing than expected for her agreement to recuperate in Paradise Cove. And while he’d not promised that the specialist he’d lined up could cut her recovery from six weeks to four, it was a carrot he’d gladly dangled to bring her home.
Once inside he looked at the monitor for her flight number. The plane had landed. Most likely, she was on her way down. He checked his phone. There was a text from his mom.
Dinner with Nicki? Private room @ the club?
He quickly responded. Thanks, Mom. Not tonight.
Sunday brunch?
We’ll see.
He looked up just as a set of elevator doors opened. A heavily wrapped ankle supported by an Aircast was the first body part through the doors. It was Nicki, busily texting while the wheelchair assistant pushed her toward baggage claim. Just as she looked up, his phone dinged.
He walked to her, smiling. “Is that a message telling me you’ve arrived?”
“Yep.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off a twenty and tipped the assistant. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll take it from here.”
“It’s okay,” Nicki protested. “I can walk.”
“Perhaps. But what you will do is accept the generous offer to be ferried in your silver chariot from this building to my car.” He leaned down and kissed her scowling lips. “You’re welcome. How was the flight?”
“Fine, since I slept through most of it. Doctor gave me pain meds. Can’t feel the throbbing ache in my ankle, which is great. But I end up not feeling much of anything else, either.” She pointed out a large piece of hard plastic luggage with a colorful strip of material wrapped around the handle. “That’s mine.”
Julian retrieved it. “How many more?”
“That’s it.”
“You packed clothes for a four-to six-week stay in one suitcase?”
“You said I’d be treated by the best...what did you call him?”
“An orthopedic specialist.”
“Yeah, him.”
“Even the most gifted doctor cannot make the body heal faster. Here, you roll the suitcase and I’ll roll you.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
Julian quickly got Nicki settled into the front seat, and less than an hour from when he’d arrived at Oakland International Airport, they were headed back to PC. With rush-hour traffic waning, he set the cruise control to a law-abiding seventy miles per hour.
“You were supposed to call me last night.”
Nicki spoke through a yawn. “Forgot.”
“That was disobedient. When we get home, I’m going to have to spank you.”
“Lucky me.”
Said so sincerely and with such deadpan disinterest that Julian burst out laughing.
“So...what’s the official verdict? Broken?”
“Technically, no, and did you know that an actual break or full tear of the ligament and tendons would have been better than the partial tears that I have?”
“I’d heard that before.”
“I hadn’t. Doesn’t make sense that a more serious break would heal faster.”
“Life doesn’t always make sense.”
Nicki fell silent. When they were together, she was usually the more talkative of the two. It was one of her traits that made them such a perfect couple. People didn’t recognize how quiet Julian was when he and Nicki were together. The rare occasions when she was quieter than Julian were very obvious. Like now, when the only sound was the neo-soul on Julian’s playlist.
He looked over. “You okay?”
She didn’t answer right away. While staring out the window she finally replied, “Not really.”
“I understand.”
Nicki made a skeptical snort. “Please.”
“I do, babe.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through.” Nicki’s piercing look was only matched by the ever-increasing volume of her delivery. “How could you? You’re not a dancer! You haven’t been working toward a dream for well over ten years and then right when you are just about there, so close you can throw a rock and hit it, and thirty years old, something happens that takes it all away. Unless that exact thing has happened to you, there is no way you can relate.”
Julian became silent, subconsciously and without thought interpreting the behavior from a professional perspective. Hurt. Fear. Disappointment. Misplaced anger. Nicki had lashed out at him, but her anger was actually toward the situation and the man on the bike who’d instigated it. Fear of the unknown and the unproductive projecting of a worst-case scenario upon an unpredictable situation. Understandable, considering the fickle nature of entertainment. In one day and out the next. That’s why he knew better than to comment. There was no right answer for this type of reaction.
The silence lasted through two more songs.
Nicki repositioned her leg. “I hate when you do that.”
“What?”
“Psychoanalyze me—and don’t deny it. Over there all calm and quiet. I know what you’re doing.”
“Okay.” Said low and drawn out, as if testing the word to see if any repercussions would come along with it.
