Turn up the Heat

And then, why don’t you call Owen? It sounds like you need to be with him now.” I prayed that Owen wasn’t locked up in some smelly prison cell downtown. “Yeah,” she nodded and wiped her eyes. “I do.”
    After we’d packed a few more boxes, I loaded my car with Ade’s clothes and a few things I’d taken from her reject box: picture frames, a half-dead plant I was determined to revive, a hurricane candleholder from Pier 1, and a ceramic serving platter in the shape of a chicken.
    She eyed the chicken. “Birthday gift from my crazy cousin. It’s all yours," she said as I headed out the door.
    “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” I hugged her good-bye. “Hey, Chloe?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thank you. I don’t know how I’d do this without you.”
    “Hey.” I smiled at her. “You’d do the same for me. I love you.” I waved and left for home.

EIGHT

    WHY would anyone schedule a review class for eight o’clock in the morning? Was I never going to get any sleep? At 7:59 a.m. on Thursday, at least twenty-five other graduate students and I were crammed into a small meeting room on campus, all of us desperately clutching coffee cups that held our only hope of wakefulness. At least I wasn’t the only one who’d been up late the night before. Doug, however, looked as if he’d slept enough for all of us. He was more bright-eyed than I’d ever want to be at this hour. I knew that he’d been up since five and had already jogged three miles.
    “Everyone, let’s get started. We have a lot to cover this morning if you want to pass your final exam in Mental Disorders and Diagnostic Skills. I’ve seen the test, and I want to suggest that you be overprepared. There are fifty multiple-choice questions, fifteen short-answer questions, and four essays. At least two of the essays are clinical descriptions of hypothetical clients. You will determine the appropriate diagnosis, back up your reasoning, and provide a treatment plan.” He gave us his best stern teaching-assistant look. Oh, crap.
    We reviewed paranoid, antisocial, and borderline personality disorders. Then we moved on to dissociative fugues, social phobias, posttraumatic stress disorder, conversion disorders, impulse-control disorders, and psychotic disorders; and to the complicated system we were supposed to use to categorize and label clients according to the rules of the DSM. At eleven thirty, we’d had only one fifteen-minute break, and my mind was wandering. I was going to see Josh tonight, and if I managed to stay awake after we’d gone out with his chef friends, I might actually get some quality alone time with him. The prospect of quality time occupied me for the next twenty minutes, at the end of which time I was beginning to think that I had a sexual compulsion: instead of memorizing the DSM categories, I was obsessing about getting naked and sweaty under the covers with my boyfriend.
    Finally, Doug began to wrap things up. “Everyone, listen up!” he shouted over our restless chattering. “Something you may find helpful in remembering these diagnoses is to associate various disorders with specific clients you’ve worked with at your field placements, or even with characters from books and films. Do whatever you have to do to remember the symptoms, treatments, and prognoses for what we’ve talked about today.” I briefly wondered whether the DSM could offer a way to identify a murderer, but I decided to ponder the question later. “Good luck. You’ll all need it.” Doug looked at me and winked.
    We walked out together. “So, my friend, Doug. You’ve seen the test, have you?” I nudged him conspiratorially. “I’m sure you have some helpful advice to pass on to your favorite student, right?”
    “Not a word,” he grinned. “You’ll do fine, though, I’m sure.”
    “Hey, I’m not asking for a copy of the exam, but you’re going to tell me there are no benefits to having befriended a TA?” Actually, Doug was the one who’d befriended me, but I didn’t say so, and neither did he.
    “You’ve gained access to my charming sense of humor, my loyalty, my handsome face, my—”
    I cut him off. “None of that is going to help me!” I pretended to pout. “I’ll just have to lock myself at home and remain in isolation until next week.”
    “All right. One hint. Pay extra attention to anxiety disorders and personality disorders. And don’t worry too much about the code numbers. There’s only one question on