Kaleidoscope (12 page)

The middle-aged man paced back and forth as he continued to relay information. “Please,
please
—I cannot stress this enough—include your name and phone number on the back of your canvasses so that we can return them to you after we're done displaying! I'm serious guys. I can't tell you how many unidentified paintings I've had to take home with me. I could start my own gallery!”

Our paintings had even attracted the attention of the rail-thin girl who sat on the opposite end of the table. Her name was Amber. She rarely spoke to either of us except to ask to borrow a color or a brush, so I was surprised when she loped towards us to take a look.

“Wow, those are really good!” she squeaked. “They're way better than mine. Did you guys like, plan that or something?”

I heard Mr. Pearson applauding various participants, gushing to each of them about the great job they'd done. I noted anxiously that in his supervision of the final products, Amber's praise of our discovery had caught his attention. He headed intently towards us, seemingly captivated by what he saw.

“My my, what do we have here!” he exclaimed. “Did the two of you plan a collaboration?”

“Nope, completely unintentional,” Austin informed him with just as much excitement. “Isn't that wild? It looks like we were kind of on the same page with this project—no pun intended.”

“Incredible,” the instructor said, leaning forward and adjusting his glasses. “The amount of detail in each of your pieces is just stellar. Especially for the time I gave you. And you're both so young—Austin, I've seen your work before and I know it's wonderful, but you, young lady—this is very impressive!”

I hunched down in my seat, making myself as small as possible to avoid looking like a favorite to other participants. I knew from high school that favoritism from a teacher was never looked on as a good thing—surely it didn't change among adults. He continued babbling a string of compliments that made me feel increasingly more singled-out and uncomfortable before he finally proclaimed, “I would really love to display these as a set in the lobby. It's as if they were made to go together. I simply can't take no for an answer. Good job you two!”

Austin grinned as he stood beside me, and I couldn't help but smile too as my anxiety dissipated in pride.
He wanted to display my art.
Austin was so close that our arms rested against each other. For just a split second as we stood together, I felt the euphoria of a hundred butterflies racing towards the sun.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

November 11

Maybe there is something to these “memory exercises” after all. I had another weird dream last night, as per my usual, but I had a sneaking feeling that maybe this one was something that really happened to me. Like I said before, a lot of what I remember feels like I'm watching a movie of someone else's life, and this is exactly what that was. Instead of
being
in my dream, I was watching myself. I just have this nagging pull telling me that it was real.

The pseudo-me was sitting in the darkened living room of our old house. It was a little bit bigger than the one we have now—I could recognize it from anywhere. And nearby, standing in the breakfast nook that opened out to the kitchen, was a man—a man that I felt I should recognize, but it was hard for me, especially in the dim house lit only by whatever was on the TV.

What I could gather from his silhouette is that he was tall and lanky, like his limbs were too long for his body. There was a flick, then a bright light that illuminated his face for only a second, and he lit a cigarette hanging from his mouth. His eyes were large and shallow-set, making them look bulgy, but they matched the rest of his face. For a man his age, he could've seemed attractive, but there was something about him—something dark. Something that told me I didn't like this person, whoever he was.

I also hated that he was smoking in the house! Mom gave up smoking years ago, and she abhorred the smell. Who did this loser think he was, just lighting one up right in front of me?

He looked right at me as he took a long drag, puffing out the smoke like a train and filling the house with that horrible smell. I was yelling to my pseudo-self to make him put it out! God, just say something. But I seemed petrified to do so...I glared at him as he smirked. Then he sauntered past me, like a tall wisp of grass with those absurd legs, and patted me on the head as he walked by with a casual “Goodnight.”

Me and my dream self both cringed under his touch. Who the hell
was
this guy?

Ugh, I could still smell the heavy, bitter scent of cigarette smoke as I remembered the dream. I strained to put a name, or a time period, or anything at all, to the devilish look in that man's eyes. And again, it was as if my brain had turned to mud, and the more I kept digging, the more impossible it became to get anywhere. I sighed, tilting my head back for a moment and closing my eyes to regain my composure. Then, I placed the new black journal (my little black book? Obnoxious pun, I know) on the nightstand to occupy the space where my first one had rested.

As I mulled about, getting dressed and putting on makeup in autopilot mode, I thought to myself that the man must have been someone Mom knew, and that perhaps I'd ask her about it when she got home from work. She's always had a history of sketchy men waltzing in and out of her life, and it wouldn't be any surprise to me if she'd dated this loser.

I sighed wistfully at the thought. My mother was certainly the type to try to see the good in everyone, and she offered so much of herself to those in her life—myself included. Unfortunately, this led to a habit of spreading herself too thin in an attempt to overlook the obvious flaws many of her love interests had. She picked men who weren't at all what she deserved or who would make for a good, long-lasting relationship. Her biggest tendency was to find men who didn't really want to settle down or be saddled with a kid that didn't belong to them. She hoped she could convert them into the perfect family man by showing them just how amazing it was to have someone in their lives that cared so much about them. On more than one occasion, she'd offered for them to live with us if the relationship made it past a certain period. The success of mom's relationships was measured in how long it survived, not in how happy she was.

On all of those occasions, they'd left after a couple months, leaving Mom completely devastated and wondering what was wrong with her. The father of her child didn't want anything to do with either of us, none of her relationships ever panned out—but she refused to see that the problem was her tendency to choose people exactly like my father, the entire time. I caught on to that very early on when I spoke with a few of the live-in boyfriends.

I sighed. She'd had the sense to stay single for a while, accomplishing this by burying herself in work as an alternative to feeling the shame and confusion she was sure would accompany her next relationship endeavor. It was a sad cycle that I was helpless to break, and one that had turned me off to men almost completely—until I met Austin, of course.

Austin was different, though. He was young like me, for one—too young to be completely set in his ways, right? And he was kind and understanding. Furthermore, he had father issues of his own and lived in a house full of females that made the consequences of abandonment all too obvious and upsetting. I don't think a man who had experienced that sort of paternal defection so early on could put another woman through what he and his mother and sisters had gone through.

But what did I know—I wasn't the therapist, Ms. Orowitz was.

I threw on a blue t-shirt to match a pair of torn skinny jeans. The store called them “distressed” in the juniors section, but let's face it—they were ripped on purpose. It was hard to find anything else these days. Today however, it was alright because the weather had warmed and the sun had come out to fleetingly greet the world, taking with it some of the frosty white that had been covering the ground now for the entire beginning of the month. It would make the walk to Ms. Orowitz's office far more pleasant.

I slipped on my boots, ready to head downstairs and get a light morning snack before I headed in that direction.

Today was the day
, I reminded myself. Today, my therapist would have had an entire week to go over the short excerpt of the memories she'd asked me to write down. It was Veteran's Day, but Ms. Orowitz never rescheduled her patients for holidays, except for ones like Christmas of course, unless they asked. There was no doubt in my mind that today there would be a lot of questions and a lot of critical thinking on my part. There would be questions I didn't have any answers to and a lot of psychobabble that was supposed to help me “gain insight” into what, how, and why I remembered the things I did.

It was all too familiar, yet I couldn't help but be a little anxious, and maybe even slightly interested, to see how today's session would go.

***

“Well hello there Jade!” Ms. Orowitz greeted me cheerfully. “It's a beautiful day outside, isn't it?”

“Sure is,” I agreed, taking my seat. I didn't say much else. Idle small talk was definitely not something I was good at or even something I enjoyed, especially when it was just being used as a polite way to not jump to the subject of a more pressing matter. Crossing my ankles and resting my boots on the ground, I twiddled with my fingers. I preferred to just get on with things.

“So, I take it you had a chance to read my thing?” I asked her. I tried to sound nonchalant.

Ms. Orowitz pushed away a lock of her frizz-filled hair, which she had attempted to coax into a hair clip today, and clasped her small hands together. “I certainly did,” she said quietly... approvingly. “It was just as delightful to read as I thought it would be after you first gave it to me. You're a very insightful writer, and it makes my job a lot easier!”

I'd hoped to prevent her laughter at all costs, but the drowning bird trapped in her throat sounded once again. I waited it out, watching her thumb move along the outsides of the small journal before she opened it to its first page.

“Since you brought up the memory exercises so quickly, I assume that you're willing to talk with me a little bit about it today?”

I simply nodded.

“Excellent!” Ms. Orowitz fixed her gaze on me, and her red-stained lips turning into a small, formal smile. “Well, the first thing I wanted to talk with you about are the first things you wrote about. They kind of feel like a 'warm-up' to getting down to real business, which is fantastic! I admire that you took the initiative to write down a memory first that you could easily remember, to set the pace.”

The therapist referred to a clipboard hanging off the edge of her desk, well within her reach.  I'm sure it contained some notes she'd taken to help pick my brain for today's session. “Hmmm, now let's see...ah yes! You mentioned that your clearest memories are from the time you were eleven years old, and all times previously.”

“Yeah,” I said, nonplussed. “But I told you that when I first started seeing you.”

“Oh I'm well aware,” she said with that irritating, wise smile. “The first few things you wrote about were clearly from this time period, but I'm fascinated and excited to see that, after your initial start to these exercises, you seem to approach it like a puzzle. The way that you were able to connect the sign in your dream to a sign that you'd seen in real life, for example, upon actually seeing the store sign, is an amazing testament to the brain's ability to restore memories.

And, for the record, I was touched by the story you wrote about the gnome,” Ms. Orowitz continued, grinning soundly.

I couldn't help but give a small smile too as I thought of Phillip the gnome figurine. He still sat on my windowsill, reminding me every morning of my small victory and urging me to go forward. I mentioned this to Ms. Orowitz, who wrote it down, in red ink as always, on the clipboard as a footnote.

“I also love that particular entry because you said you were around fourteen when it happened, which seems to be right in the time period where you have the most issues with your memory.” Her nasal voice treaded as if I were a deer laying in the sage that she didn't want to frighten.

“Of course, pleasant memories are always the first to come back to us. It's an adaptive measure to help people retain a positive outlook on life, and the fact that the majority of your memories thus far usually have a positive outcome should be very reassuring to you that you'll continue making progress.”

Even I had to admit that this was good news—maybe there was hope for me yet.

“Good. I don't think I'd mind if I could just remember everything good about my life,” I commented.

“Oh, I hope they'll eventually
all
come back to you,” Ms. Orowitz replied. “But I'm glad your first ones on this journey have been mild and pleasant. I don't think you would have wanted to continue if negative life events were the first to resurface, yes?”

I thought about this for a moment, remembering the uneasy feeling I had about the man in my dream. “No, I guess not,” I agreed. It made me wonder if future endeavors into my mind would result in chaos and negativity. There had to be more positive things in my life though that I had yet to discover, right? There just had to be more.

“--and of course,” she continued. It sounded like she had been talking for a while longer, but I couldn't help that she was so easy to tune out. “It goes without saying that I highly, highly advise you to continue writing. You can give your entries to me to look at whenever you'd like, but I also don't want you to be afraid to tell me about something before then if you want to talk about it or need some guidance. I'm always here to talk...after all, I'm not a teacher grading assignments! I'm more of a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on.”

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
“Sure, thanks Ms. Orowitz.”

The clock's ticking magnified in my ear again, and I glanced over to see we were only halfway through the hour-long therapy session. I sighed with fatigue—opening up to her about things for once was an exhausting form of communication, and I knew she was only getting started. While I'd anticipated a heavier session when I left the house, it did nothing to prepare me, and therapy was as draining as ever.

“On another topic, how is your friend Austin doing?” she asked, smiling again in a nonchalant fashion that was clearly hiding intense interest.

My ears sharpened, and I perked up. Of all of the things to bring up...

I couldn't help but smile, however. At least I enjoyed talking about Austin. “Uh, he's...doing well, I guess. I saw him on Thursday at our class.” Referring to the painting courses as “our” class made me feel proud that w'd become close enough to share something together.

“Excellent! I'll get to that in a moment as well, since you'd told me last week that Thursday was, let's see...the last day of a longer painting project? But for now, I'd like to know a little bit more about this young man. What's he like?”

“What do you mean, what's he like?”

Ugh, were we actually going to do this gossipy thing in a
therapy
session?
I shifted uncomfortably. What if she didn't like my description, or worse, what if I said something that Ms. Orowitz would latch onto and turn into something else? I knew she did that sometimes; I guess it's all part of the job. And yet if I refused to play into her query, she would just keep asking until I gave her
something.
Who knows how long we'd play that out?

“I mean, what is his personality like? What about his background? Anything you'd be willing to tell me, I'd love to hear.”