Trying to Throw my Arms Around the World

Smiling

Smile

“You walked away? Just like that?” Roz asked. She looked a bit frazzled, her hair kept covering her face and underneath the thick black rim of her glasses, just before she pushed them back up her nose, I made out dark shadows under her eyes.

“Yeah. Looks like this therapy’s working.” I was aiming for a half-smile − Roz wasn’t big on generous grins − but the shape of her lips remained rigid and she only used them to speak.

“It’s not the therapy, Lee. It’s you. You’re putting Claire behind you.”

“You mean, I’m growing as a person?”

“If you want to put it like that.” Roz peered out of the window but it was matted, to protect the privacy of her clients, and she couldn’t see anything. It was clear that her mind was elsewhere and I wasn’t her main focus. Because I was paying, I thought I had the right to ask.

“Are you all right? You seem preoccupied. We can reschedule, you know.” A deep sigh lifted her frail ribcage up into the air. She took off her glasses and rubbed her fingers over her eyes, when she removed them her face was moist.

“Yours is the only appointment I kept today because I thought you’d be in pieces after seeing Claire.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, I thought, but I had effectively grown enough as a person not to say it out loud, and to put Roz’s apparent grief before mine, even though it blurred the lines of our client-therapist relationship even more. “Richard left me this weekend.”

“What?” He must have gone insane to walk out on a woman like Roz. “But−”

“He’s been having an affair with his research assistant for ten months.” She rested her head in her cupped hands, slow tears seeping through them. “Ten goddamn months and I avoided all the clues. Bloody good expert at human behaviour that makes me.” I wished for Anna to walk into the office and take control of the situation, but our session had only just started fifteen minutes earlier. “She’s pregnant.” I handled it in the only way I knew how.

“Get your coat. We’re going for some stiff drinks.”

We walked to the pub in silence and I felt strangely flattered that Roz hadn’t cancelled our session, that she had chosen to be there for me instead of tending to her own needs. Maybe she figured I’d be an easy distraction with my inflated tales of dyke drama and abstinence. When I ordered the first bottle of wine, I felt the tiniest pang of fear shudder through me, fear for Joan’s revenge tomorrow when she found out I’d been drinking. For someone who hardly consumed any alcohol − Have you got any idea of what that does to your body? I don’t think so, Lee! − she sure could smell it on me easily. She’d make me sweat blood on the spin bike for the full two hours tomorrow, I was certain of that. But I couldn’t let Roz drink alone, even though, according to my personal drill sergeant, there are no valid excuses to drink and there definitely aren’t any not to go to the gym every day − you only have one body, treat it with the respect it deserves!

“That was a brave thing you did, Lee. Walking away from Claire like that. I’m proud of you.”

“Forget Claire. We’re not in session anymore.”

“Ten years of marriage down the drain. How do you cope with that?”

“You drink this bottle, and then you order another, and another, until it stops hurting for a little while.”

“Expert advice.”

“I didn’t go to school for it, but it’s what life itself has taught me.” The minute smile she shot me was clenched with sadness and disappointment, but at least she tried.

To be continued…