Teach Me a Lesson (21 page)

“Yes. God, yes.” She sank her fingernails into his shoulder, the climax building, exploding, carrying her away. Red lights flashed before her eyes, bright spots of color, on, off, on, off.

Lord. The light on her phone was flashing. How had they used up half an hour? Her next client was here. And she was letting the principal make her come right here in her office as if nothing else mattered.

She’d lost her mind.

17

“JEANINE, WE SHOULD REALLY TALK.” IT WAS AFTER FIVE O’CLOCK,
and Charlotte was thankful Jeanine had at least answered her phone.

“I told you I can’t see you anymore, Dr. Moore.”

“That is your choice. But we need to discuss your husband’s mistaken impressions.” Charlotte couldn’t go to David Smith and tell him exactly what she’d told Jeanine, but she could ask Jeanine to do it. “He believes I encouraged you to”—she put her finger to her lips as if Jeanine could see—“hmm, I think the words were ‘to commit deviant acts.’” Yes, her sarcasm was showing. She should have curbed it, acted professionally. But even therapists got angry. “Why would he think that, Jeanine?”

Jeanine stuttered before she finally got her words out. “I don’t know, Dr. Moore. I didn’t tell him what you said, honestly.”

Charlotte wanted to beat her head against the desk. She hadn’t been able to call Jeanine until after her last appointment of the day. But that created a problem, too, because she couldn’t properly concentrate on her other clients between wondering what David Smith knew, what he planned to do, and the way Lance had made her come against her will. Okay, it wasn’t totally against her will, but she’d started out saying no. She just hadn’t stuck to it, dammit. The man could talk her into anything.

Note to self: You are losing control of the entire situation. Fix it.

The least she could do now was concentrate on Jeanine. “I’m sure it was a very difficult session with your husband after you two left the meeting. You might have said things you didn’t mean because he flustered you.” It was better than saying that Jeanine had lied. “So I suggest one last session where we can get all that off your chest. Or we could schedule something with you and your husband, clear the air and work toward straightening things out between you.”

Jeanine gave a strangled sound.
“Nooo.”

All right, she simply had to be blunt. “What did you tell your husband about our discussions?”

Jeanine stuttered again before finding her voice. “Just that I discussed his—I mean
our
sexual problems, and that you suggested fantasizing.”

There had to be more than that. “He seemed angrier than I’d expect if that’s all you said. He went to my principal.”

Jeanine sniffed. “I know. I’m so sorry. He just got all wound up about Eric and you being a sex surrogate and—”

“What?” She almost shrieked.

“A sex surrogate,” Jeanine said softly, a note of terror in her tone.

“I’m a sex
therapist
, not a
surrogate
. I do not have sex with my clients.”

“Oh, oh, yes, I mean sex
therapist
.”

“You need to make the distinction with your husband. I would like to talk to you both to work this out.”

“He won’t come,” Jeanine said bluntly. “He wouldn’t consider it before. Now he’s angry because I didn’t tell him and I went behind his back. So he’s not going to do any sort of counseling.”

Then how the hell was Charlotte supposed to fix this?

“Please, Dr. Moore. I’ll take care of it. I’ll talk to him. Please.”

I’ll take care of it.
That’s what Lance had said. She didn’t like it any better when Jeanine said it. “If I could talk to him—”

Jeanine cut her off with an even more forceful plea. “
Please
, Dr. Moore. I’ll do it.”

Her hands were tied, and not in a good way. She couldn’t talk to David Smith without Jeanine’s permission.

“All right, Jeanine. But I must insist you come in for one last session on Friday.”

“I can’t make it Friday.”

Charlotte flared her nostrils and narrowed her eyes. If looks could kill . . . But Jeanine couldn’t see her. That was a good thing. She was the psychologist after all and needed to maintain some decorum. “Then I’ll put you in at your regular time on Monday.”

She was pushing, sure, but if she let Jeanine go now, she’d be worse off than when she’d first come to Charlotte. And so would Charlotte.

How had she let things get so out of control?

* * *

ON THURSDAY MORNING, MELODY HAD SHUFFLED INTO
Charlotte’s office wearing the same shapeless brown hoodie, head down, hair lanky and hanging over her face. She’d flopped into the chair opposite and had immediately begun beating her fingernails on the armrests.

Charlotte had been patient. When she thanked Melody for coming in, the reply had been something surly about how she’d been forced. When Charlotte told her they had permission to discuss what happened in the one-on-one session with Melody’s parents on Tuesday, she got an eye roll.

Charlotte had trotted out the trite phrase
They only want to help you
, feeling it was necessary. She didn’t want to turn them into the villains in Melody’s eyes, especially since she intended to disagree with some of the things they’d done.

Yet nothing had much effect on Melody. Charlotte simply couldn’t engage her. After fifteen minutes, she’d gotten nowhere. Since it didn’t appear she had anything to lose—Melody was already alienated from everything and everyone—Charlotte went to the issue that bothered her the most.

“Your mother said she offered to pay for your surgery to have breast implants. How do you feel about that, Melody? Is it something you want to do?”

Melody’s lips pursed and Charlotte sensed she was gritting her teeth. Finally she said, “No,” her voice clipped, angry.

“Why not?”

Melody turned the question back on her. “Do you think I should do it?”

It was the first time Charlotte felt she’d truly engaged the girl. She wasn’t going to cop out by asking another question. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think breast implants solve the fundamental issue.”

“How would you know?” Melody pointed at Charlotte’s chest. “Obviously you’ve never had to worry about it. You never had kids make fun of you.”

True, her breasts had never been an issue for her. But funnily enough, they weren’t something Lance had gone gaga over. He was all about spanking her. And other things. At her age, breasts didn’t really matter anymore, except to worry about sagging.

“You’re right. That wasn’t one of my problems. But there’s always something you don’t like about yourself. If you have breast enlargements, that solves that. But then you’ll worry about your acne. And when your acne is gone—”

“What if it’s never gone?”

Charlotte gave her an earnest look. “It will go away. It just doesn’t feel like that now.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yes, it is. But the issue is that we’re worried about the outside, not the inside. If all we ever like about ourselves is what we look like on the outside instead of who we are on the inside, then we’re never satisfied.”

Melody shook her head. “That’s for sure.”

The fact that the girl sounded neither sullen nor combative gave Charlotte hope. “Women will always find something they don’t like about themselves. They look in the mirror and they hate this or they despise that.” She rolled her eyes. “And don’t even get me started about how we react when we start to age.” She tried to smooth out the wrinkles across her forehead. “No one told me not to frown when I was a kid.”

“Maybe you should try Botox.” Something glinted in Melody’s eyes, and Charlotte realized the teenager was looking at her, not hiding behind her hair. And that perhaps the girl had made a joke.

Charlotte smiled slightly. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not? My mom gets it.”

Yes, and Kathryn Wright wanted her daughter to get injections, too. But Charlotte gave Melody her most honest answer. “For a lot of reasons. First, it’s botulism, and I just have a problem with injecting deadly stuff into my forehead. Second, I’m the type of person that when I fix one thing, I’ll start wanting to fix something else. I’m not sure where it would stop. And what if I didn’t like the results?” She pointed at Melody. “But you’re young enough to remember not to wrinkle your forehead.”

“My mother tells me not to all the time. But that’s the least of my worries right now.” Melody put her hand to her forehead, stopped short of actually touching her skin which was marred by several pimples. “I don’t want to be like my mom,” she said softly.

“Then how would you describe your mom with that idea in mind, of not being like her?” Charlotte asked with equal softness.

“She’s all about food and counting every calorie and never gaining an ounce.” She pulled her sweatshirt away from her body. “That’s why I always wear baggy stuff, or she’ll start nagging me to have liposuction. She always tries the latest fad, every new wrinkle cream or whatever. Like that stuff that grows your eyelashes. I don’t know why she needs it all. I think she looks great for her age.”

For her age.
“She’s afraid of growing old, like we all are when we’re past thirty-five.”

“I
wanna
be old,” Melody said emphatically. “Then you don’t have to care what people think of you anymore.”

Right. When you become invisible. Charlotte didn’t say that. “That’s the thing, though. If you’re all about appearance, you’ll always care what people think of you. You’ll never be able to stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself without wanting to change it all.” She didn’t know if this was the right time to say it. Maybe it was too soon and she’d drive Melody away. But Charlotte took a chance. “You have to like yourself, flat chest, pimples, and all. Or you’ll end up like your mom.”

“But how do I like
me
when I’m like this?” Melody whispered, tears suddenly brimming in her eyes.

Charlotte tipped her head, considering. “Tell me something you like about yourself.”

“Nothing.”

“Well, for one thing, you’re pretty smart.”

“I guess so.”

“I saw your middle school transcripts. Almost all A’s. Especially in math and science.”

“Yeah.”

“Give me another thing that’s good.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged.

Charlotte took another chance. “Tell me something that Eric likes about you.”

Melody’s head snapped up. “Eric? He hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t. You two used to be best friends.”

“We’re not best friends anymore.” Charlotte detected a note of sadness in the girl’s voice.

“All right. Then tell me why he
used
to like you.”

Melody didn’t say anything. Charlotte let the silence hang between them, waiting her out.

“He used to say I was funny. That I made him laugh.”

“Did you make other people laugh, too? They probably liked you for it.”

Melody nodded her head.

“Maybe you used to be able to laugh at yourself. Like when you did something silly. And you and Eric laughed about it.”

“Yeah. There was this time we were flying kites, and I was running and running. And I ran right into him, knocked us both down, and lost my kite. My dad was really mad because the kite cost a lot of money, but Eric and I just laughed and laughed ’cause I was so stupid.” A smile curved her lips, and Charlotte noted how it changed her face. She was pretty despite the acne.

She let Melody sit with the memory a moment, then asked, “Do you feel stupid about it now?”

Melody shook her head. “No, it was just funny.”

“I bet if we asked Eric, there’d be other things he likes about you besides being funny.”

Melody shrugged, suddenly shy.

“Our time’s almost up. But I’ve got some homework for you. I want you to think of some other things that you like about yourself. Because I know there’s more.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Melody said, her tone once again sullen, as if she was suddenly aware that she’d given away too much of her inner self in the meeting and needed to hold it close again.

They had so much to work on, but Melody had opened up for a very short time. Charlotte decided to count that as progress.

* * *

LANCE HADN’T CALLED HER LAST NIGHT, NOT TO CHECK UP ON HER
session with Melody, not for phone sex. Nothing. Charlotte told herself not to be disappointed.

Besides, she had clients today. Friday was usually a busy day until midafternoon, then her appointments trailed off. With the weekend coming up, people didn’t want to get into a bunch of messy emotions. She’d been told this by a couple of clients. So with some free time, she was updating file notes.

Hearing a noise out in the waiting room, she glanced up. She’d left the connecting door open since she was alone.

“Hello?” she called, pausing with her fingers on the keyboard.

“Miss Moore?” Eric Collins stopped in the office doorway.

She gaped. “Eric, what on earth are you doing here?”

“I looked you up on the Internet. It has your address and phone number and everything.” He was neat, as usual, wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket. She hadn’t realized they’d come back in style, at least not for teenagers.

“Well, I’m glad my website comes up in the search engines,” she said noncommittally.

He took one tentative step inside, though she hadn’t invited him. “My mom and stepdad were looking at it last night.”

Her stomach sank. That couldn’t be good. “That’s interesting. Was there a specific reason they were doing that?”

“Something about wanting to know exactly what you did. They shut it down, though, as soon as they saw me.” He shifted from foot to foot.

Definitely not good. But worse was Eric showing up at her office. “You shouldn’t be here without your parents’ permission.”

“I know, but please, I need to talk to you.” He was such an earnest kid. All he wanted to do was help Melody.

Charlotte knew she was on thin ice, but she desperately wanted to help them both. Though it might prove to be the wrong decision, she relented. She had to do whatever she could for these kids. “Sit down.” She indicated a chair. “Pull it over here.”