Clementine

chapter 47

47

There was to be no more contacting him. She was told to 'stay away'.

And as she was sitting in the neat and prim waiting room of Rio de Janeiro's top bilingual psychologist, she realized she was fingering the plant in the waiting room when the receptionist cleared her throat, looking at there from the top of her glasses.

"Sorry," Clementine muttered.

But her mind was wandering, a million miles away.

Where could he be?  She thought.

She also believed in the strong, invisible connection between things. You can call it energies. You can call it whatever you like, because all at once her phone buzzed in her hand, and she could feel her heart quicken when she saw his name.

She opened the message, her hands shaking. It was a picture of him and some other people she supposed, but they were traveling somewhere. He mentioned he was set to go on a trip. She did't know why, but it was outside a train window.

Before she had a chance to respond, or think whether she should, her name was called by that same receptionist signifying that it was her turn to go in.

She couldn't believe she was actually doing this, but figured she'd give it a try.

Her mother did her best to remind her how expensive and hard to get this Doctor was, and that she should feel lucky.

Clementine didn't feel much of anything except a slight disgust at her own self.

How was she supposed to act? What did 'crazy' really look like?

Her least favourite part about this was that by coming here, she conformed to the idea that there was some sort of norm. And that this psychologist was going to help her achieve it.

She was then sitting in front of a middle aged man, slightly older than middle aged. He had a goatee beard and glasses that meant to make him seem qualified to solve problems, especially those of a young woman.

Clementine looked around the room, mostly empty with no discernible decorations. There was the window looking out into the scenery and his desk and computer. A pad note of paper. Everything was meant to look neat and unassuming.

Not sure where ti put her bag, she placed it gently at her feet.

Then looking around, she realized he was just staring at her with a slight smile.

"So..." Clementine began, wondering if it could get any more awkward than this.

"So," he said, mirroring her, "what brings you here today?" He asked smiling, ready to take notes with pen in hand.

"Where do I start?" Clementine asked with a slight laugh, meaning to break the ice but realizing that sarcasm wasn't going to cut it, not here, with him.

"Where do you think you should start?" He retorted.

I see how this is going to be, she thought to herself.

Clementine's doubts as to whether he could actually help her or not, grew.

"I think," mostly to start saying something to fill the silence, "I think that's a really interesting questions. I'm going to have to think about that."

"We have time," he said, except that they didn't really. Every half hour carefully and generously billed to her mother's pocket book.

Clementine decided to try again.

"I guess, I'm not sure how to make my way out of a tough place," Clementine said, circling around the issue at hand.

"Try to explain, try to go further," he said, now diving right into it. Not messing around.

"I keep finding myself in-between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. Feeling like I'm constantly failing," Clementine said, keeping her eyes between the floor and the window.

"Well, you know you only live twice," he began and Clementine looked up to meet his eyes in question. "Once in your first life, and the second time when you realize how to transcend everything you carried into the first lifetime," he was dead serious.

Clementine wasn't expecting this. Did her mother send her to some hippie, spiritual shrink? That would have been so typical of her.

"That," he said poignantly, "will be our work together."