Speaking in Tongues

saw a counselor the commonwealth’s attorney wouldn’t press charges.
    “That’s true. But it’s not the answer.”
    She lifted an eyebrow.
    “The answer is that you’re here so that you can feel better.”
    Oh, please, Crazy Megan begins, rolling her crazy eyes.
    And, okay, it was totally stupid, his words themselves. But . . . but . . . there was something about the way Dr. Peters said them that, just for a second, less than a second, Megan believed that he really meant them. This guy’s in a different universe from Dr. Loser Elbow Patch Hanson.
    He opened his briefcase and took out a yellow pad. A brochure fell out onto the desk. She glanced at it. A picture of San Francisco was on the cover.
    “Oh, you’re going there?” she asked.
    “A conference,” he said, flipping through the brochure. He handed it to her.
    “Awesome.”
    “I love the city,” he continued. “I’m a former hippie. Tie-dyed-in-the-wool Deadhead and Jefferson Airplane fan . . . Whole nine yards. Course, that was before your time.”
    “No way. I’m totally into Janis Joplin and Hendrix.”
    “Yeah? You ever been to the Bay Area?”
    “Not yet. But I’m going someday. My mother doesn’t know it. But I am.”
    He squinted. “Hey, you know, there is a resemblance—you and Joplin. If you didn’t have your hair up it’d be the same as hers.”
    Megan now wished she hadn’t done the pert ’n’ perky ponytail.
    The doctor added, “You’re prettier, of course. And thinner. Can you belt out the blues?”
    “Like, I wish . . .”
    “But you don’t remember hippies.” He chuckled.
    “Time out!” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve seen Woodstock, like, eight times.”
    She also wished she’d kept the peace symbol.
    “So tell me, did you really try to kill yourself? Cross your heart.”
    “And hope to die?” she joked.
    He smiled.
    She said, “No.”
    “What happened?”
    “Oh, I was just drinking a little Southern Comfort. All right, maybe more than a little.”
    “Joplin’s drink,” he said. “Too fucking sweet for me.”
    Whoa, the F-word. Cool. She was almost—almost—beginning to like him.
    He glanced again at her hair—the fringes on her face. Then back to her eyes. It was like one of Josh’s caresses. Somewhere within her she felt a tiny ping—of reassurance and pleasure.
    Megan continued her story. “And somebody I was with said no way they’d climb up to the top and I said I would and I did. That’s it. Like a dare is all.”
    “All right, so you got nabbed by the cops on some bullshit charge.”
    “That’s about it.”
    “Not exactly the crime of the century.”
    “I didn’t think so either. But they were so . . . you know.”
    “I know,” he said. “Now tell me about yourself. Your secret history.”
    “Well, my parents are divorced. I live with Bett.She has this business? It’s really a decorating business but she says she’s an interior designer ’cause it sounds better. Tate’s got this farm in Prince William. He used to be this famous lawyer but now he just does people’s wills and sells houses and stuff. He hires people to run the farm for him. Sharecroppers. Sound like slaves, or whatever, but they’re just people he hires.”
    “And your relationship with the folks? Is the porridge too hot, too cold or just right?”
    “Just right.”
    He nodded, made a small notation on his pad though he might’ve been just doodling. Maybe she bored him. Maybe he was writing a grocery list.
    Things to buy after my appointment with Crazy Megan.
    She told him about growing up, about the deaths of her mother’s parents and her father’s dad. The only other relative she’d been close to was her aunt Susan—her mother’s twin sister. “She’s a nice lady but she’s had a rough time. She’s been sick all her life. And she really, really wanted kids but couldn’t have them.”
    “Ah,” he said.
    None of it felt important to her and she guessed it was even less important to him.
    “What about friends?”
    Count ’em on one hand, Crazy Megan says.
    Shhhh.
    “I hang with the goth crowd mostly,” she told the doctor.
    “As in ‘gothic’?”
    “Yeah. Only . . .” She decided she could tell him the truth. “What it is is I kinda stay by myself a lot. I meetpeople but I end up figuring, why bother? There’re a lot of losers out there.”
    “Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “That’s why my business is so good.”
    She blinked in surprise. Then smiled