100 Days of Cake (13 page)

This one song, “Black,” is so sad and beautiful that I get a little choked up listening to it. Eddie Vedder warbles in this deep back-of-the-throat way about how he has all these spinning thoughts in his head and all his pictures have been washed in black. Then there's this part about how he goes for a walk and hears the kids laughing, but it just sears him. I know that he's probably talking about some ex-girlfriend or something, but it's like the song was written for me.

When it ends, I have Dr. B. play it again.

Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head

I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning

“Good stuff, huh?” Dr. B. asks when it's done. I hadn't realized I'd closed my eyes, and now I'm all embarrassed.

“It's okay, I guess,” I say, and then smile, because we both know I'm in love with it.

“Maybe it's just that they were big when I was so young and impressionable.” Dr. B. winks at me. “But early Pearl Jam gets me every time. To this day, when I hear ‘Daughter,' I can still smell the ramen my roommate was always cooking freshman year.”

“Oh.” The glow from the music immediately ends, and
I'm back in this world where everyone is obsessed with college.

Deep down I guess I knew that Dr. B.
had
to have gone to school somewhere to be a psychologist. But Dr. B. is, like, the only person in all of Coral Cove who isn't constantly nagging me about this stuff, so I never really think about it much.

“Where did you go?” I ask, because it's polite, not because I want to talk about college anymore with anyone ever.

He points to the two diplomas framed and mounted on the wall behind the desk. Clearly I'm not the most observant girl in the world, because I've been coming here for a year, and this is the first time I've ever noticed them. Squinting, I can just make out the regal font and the years. University of Pennsylvania.

An anvil drops in the pit of my stomach. So Dr. B. has an ivy-coated education. He's not just
one
of all those people fixated on college; he's kind of the king of college. And it makes me wonder about all our sessions, if he's been humoring me when he makes me feel smart or special. Maybe it's just some shrink tactic to keep me from getting hysterical?

Also noted: unless Dr. B. is some Doogie Howser prodigy who graduated at twelve, he's only, like, three years younger than my mom. When I'm twenty-five, he'll be forty-seven.

“So Penn for both undergrad and grad school?” I ask.

“Yup.”

“So you're, like, super-smart?”

“Eh.” He shrugs. “I was good at taking standardized tests, and my parents both went there, so I was a legacy. They give you points for that.”

“My mom went to some cosmetology school in Boca,” I say flatly.

“And your dad?”

“He went to Miami University.” This is true; I wasn't lying to Gina and Tina. But I'm not even sure if he actually graduated or if he liked it or what his major had been. Mom talks about Dad in these safe, sweet little sound bites—how he ran to three different stores to get her the specific variety of mac and cheese she wanted when she was pregnant with V, how he once spent hours trying to solder the leg back onto my plastic horse figure after he accidentally stepped on it—but she rarely talks about who he was or what he did. For the nine millionth time, I consider how different my life might be if Dad were around.

“Where you go to college isn't the be-all and end-all,” Dr. B. is saying. “If I had to do it all over again, I would probably take some time off, travel or do something daring you can only do when you're young. At the very least I would have gotten out of Philly.”

“Is that where you're from? Philadelphia?”

“Born and raised.”

“So how did you end up here? You don't moonlight at
J&J, do you?” I ask, happy that college isn't the be-all and end-all.

“Love, of course.” He puts his hands over his heart in this mock romantic gesture. “My fiancée got a gig hosting
Coral Cove Today
, and the next thing you know, everything we own is in a U-Haul and we're driving down South.”

“Oh, I've seen that show a few times. Local cable, right?” It's this grainy series on Channel 1 where they mainly just talk about the guy from the
Murder Island
movie and interview the J&J brothers. I've never seen the woman from the photo on Dr. B.'s desk on it.

“Yeah, but Whitney was only there a few months before she got hired by Fox 9 in Miami.”

“You didn't want to go with her?”

“I did. I do, but her gig was only temporary at first, and I'd already started a practice here, yada, yada, yada.”

“Bummer.”

“Well, we'll work it out once we finally get married.” He seems to remember that I'm there. “It's all for the best, though. If I had gone right to Miami, I might never have met you, Molly Byrne.”

Feeling myself blush, I look down. “Thanks,” I mumble.

“So tell me about how your week is going.”

We talk about why I find Mrs. Peck so frustrating. And he seems to understand, even if he did go to Penn.

When I'm getting ready to leave, he reaches into the
black messenger bag by the side of his desk and pulls out a DVD. “I almost forgot your homework.”

On the front of the box there's a picture of a dark-haired woman and the guy from
Hot Tub Time Machine
looking about a million years younger.

“Maybe we should watch it together,” I suggest. “You know, so you can make sure I get all the cultural references.”

“Oh, I think you'll be able to figure it out on your own.”

“I don't know. Will there be mix tapes? Come on.”

“Well.” Flipping up his wrist, he checks his watch. “My next appointment isn't for forty-five minutes, if you want to start it.”

I nod, and Dr. Brooks turns the oversize computer monitor on his desk around so that the screen is facing the little couch where I'm sitting, and he slides in the DVD. I'm wondering if he's going to try to turn his chair around so we're both facing the screen, but he just plunks down on the couch, Pickles's crabitat and three feet of space between us. I say a silent prayer that I don't smell putrid from biking.

Am I crab-blocking you?
Pickles seems to be asking. I'd tell Pickles to stop being ridiculous, that Dr. B. is engaged and my doctor and Mom's age, but Pickles is a crab and all.

The movie is okay.
Of course
it's about high school graduation, which flips on my panic button. And
of course
the girl in the film is the ridiculously beautiful valedictorian—because that's
so
relatable. But the
Hot Tub Time Machine
guy's character doesn't really have much of a life plan, which is cool. Every time someone gives him shit about his future, I fall in love with him a little.

Still it's kinda hard to concentrate. He might be Mom's age, but Dr. B. smells sooo amazing—like the woods with a dash of cucumber.

When he notices me peeking over at him, he smiles, all excited in a way that makes him seem much, much younger than my mom. “It's good, right?” he asks.

I nod, a little dizzy from his smell. Life is so unfair.

A knock.

Initially I think it's part of the film, but then I realize it's coming from outside the office. Hesitantly the door opens a crack, and a young woman, maybe early twenties, pokes her head in.

“I'm sorry, Dr. Brooks,” she says, looking from him to me, to the screen where the gorgeous valedictorian is trying to break up with the
Hot Tub Time Machine
guy by giving him a pen. “I was just wondering if we're still on for our appointment?”

I jump off the couch as if this girl knows exactly what I was thinking.

“Oh, of course, Jenny.” Dr. B. is on his feet, turning off the movie. “I'm so sorry; time just got away from us.”

A
few days after Alex joined the mile-long parade of people telling me that my lack of ambition is an affront to all humanity, we're back at FishTopia. Pickles watches from his crabitat as Alex and I toss the smiley face stress ball back and forth and discuss which type of fish each of the Golden Girls characters would be.

It feels sort of normal, but Alex is bending over backward to avoid mentioning any subjects with even the most tangential connection to the future.

“Blanche would be one of the idol fish,” Alex says. “Flashy and just a little high-maintenance.”

“Yeah, and it's already wearing mascara.”

“Exactly. Dorothy would be . . .” Alex pauses for dramatic effect. “A brown clown goby.”

This makes me laugh. “Why?”

“Because it's a good, reliable fish and gets along well with everyone.” He nods with authority. “It's the first fish you get for the tank, the one you know you can always count on.”

It's dumb, but something about this makes me giddy happy.

We're both standing there, still grinning these goofy grins, when there's a pounding at the window. On the other side of the glass, Elle is flailing her arms wildly and shouting something.

Alex curls his hand in a
Come on in
gesture, but Elle shakes her head.

“She, um, can't come in; Elle believes FishTopia is a jail for fish.” Damn, it sounds even dumber when I have to say it out loud. “It's some kind of animal-rights thing.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “I have a friend like that.”

Still practically vibrating with excitement, Elle presses a blue brochure for something up to the window. Since there's no one in the store (as always), Alex and I head out to get the 411. The second we're through the door, Elle grabs my arm and starts pulling me toward the side of the strip mall.

“Sorry, Alex, but I have to borrow your princess for a few minutes,” she says, giving him a wave.

“Whatever's clever,” he says, but it seems like he's a little miffed. I guess the two of us were having an honest-to-goodness moment and it wasn't all in my head.

“Elle, we were in the middle of some—” I start, but she swats my objections away with her palm.

“I know. I'm sorry and all of that, but look!” She holds up the blue brochure, which it turns out is from Columbia University.

For pretty much ever Elle has been talking about how she wants to go there, but even if she got in, there's no way her mom could afford to send her anywhere out of state, and her dad can be a jerk about paying for stuff. So unless Columbia is having a clearance sale, I'm not entirely sure what all the commotion is about.

“Guess what!” Elle is literally bouncing up and down.

“You got a new brochure?”

“My mom and dad had an actual conversation—like, without almost strangling each other—and they figured out that if they each pay half the tuition and I get a job to cover books and living expenses, it's doable for me to go to Columbia!”

“That's great,” I say, but I feel kind of like this time in seventh-grade gym class when Elle and I weren't paying attention during a dodgeball game and I got socked right in the gut with a red kickball.

“I know, right?” Elle is still gushing. “My mom is even setting up a trip to New York so we can check out the school in the fall. College tour, interview, the whole works.”

I'm telling her that I'm happy for her, and I am. This is
what she's wanted for so, so long, and it's amazeballs that her parents—who haven't agreed on a single thing since the first
Jurassic Park
movie—were able to work together on it. But even as I'm congratulating her, I realize I'm crying. Pretty soon it's so bad that, even though Elle and I have been best friends since kindergarten, she can't understand any of what I'm saying.

“Oh, Mollybean.” It's been centuries since she's called me that. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I don't know. You're sad.” Folding me into her arms, she smells like sweat and organic lotion and excitement. “Please don't be sad.”

“No, I'm totally psyched for you.” Garbled by sobs, it doesn't sound all that convincing. “On BFF law, I swear. I'll just miss you.”

“You'll come with me,” Elle says with sudden decisiveness—trying to fix another problem for me like she's always done, since sharing her crayons back in kindergarten. “There'll be so many cute boys in New York, and they all recycle and eat locally sourced food. . . .”

I'm nodding and telling her that it will be epic, because this is a big deal for her and she's so happy.

“. . . And we can go on double dates, and it will be just like
Sex and the City
and
Girls
only more eco-conscious and with fewer gender stereotypes.”