The People in the Mirror (3 page)

  And then I thought, if they were ghosts, they maybe couldn’t see me anyway.

  “Are you all right?” Mom stood in the closet doorway with a worried expression.

  “Oh! Yeah. Jeez, I’m sorry. I just had to check on something.”

  “Check on something?” Mom’s face went from bemused to worried. “Check on what?”

  “Well, the mirror. You were talking about the mirrors being antique and I wanted to check mine out again. ’Cause I was thinking the other day, that there was something kinda funny looking about the mirror, and the idea of it being antique makes good sense, now that you mention it. Do you think it is, really?” I was fully aware of babbling.

  Mom’s worried look deepened. She reached out and felt my forehead. “You must be coming down with something, you’ve been acting awfully strange today.”

  “I’m okay – like you’d say, don’t be such a worry wart. Let’s go back to dinner.”

  We walked down the hall to the dining room. “I wonder if ghosts can see the present,” I mused.

  “There are no such things as ghosts.”

  “But have they been
empirically
disproven?”

  “That’s a question for your father, Nikki. But, please, not tonight.”

  “Okay, Mom. Not tonight. Tonight we’re all cheesecake and chatter.”

Chapter III

  The next day when I got home from school, Mom stopped playing the piano the minute I came through the door. She didn’t usually do that, she usually hammered on, smiling and holding her cheek out to be kissed. So I knew something was up when she left off right in the midst of the climatic frenzy of
The Hall of the Mountain King
, and sat, poised, ready to say something, as I walked into the room.

  “Da-da-da-da – da, da, da!
da-da-da, DA-DA-DA!
” I sang the next couple of bars. I was in a good mood. One look at Mom’s face, though, and I knew I soon would not be in as good a mood.

  She pointed to the coffee table. “There’s the note about your appointment with Dr. Carcionne. She comes highly recommended and we’re very fortunate that she had a cancellation tomorrow afternoon.”

  “We?” The smile fell off my face. “I guess Dr. Carcionne is a shrink.”

  “Family therapist specializing in teenagers.”

  “When will people give up and realize that there is no cure for the dreaded teenage disease? Except growing out of it. Or not make it through it.” I slumped onto the couch. Great, someone new poking at my mind, when I just wanted my mind to myself.

  “And it’s precisely that morbid sort of talk I want the doctor to address. Among other things.”

  “You’re mad at me.”

  Mom came over, sat on the sofa and put her arm around me. “Of course not, Nikki. I’m
worried
about you. And I’m not trained to fix you.”

  “But, Mom, I’m not broken. And besides, you’re a great advice giver and... stuff.”

  “Thanks, Nikki, but you’re still going to see Dr. Carcionne. You’ll feel better after you do.”

  “Which, when averaged with how lousy I feel
before
I go, comes out to about the same thing as not going at all, except not going costs less. Even if she
does
make me feel ‘better adjusted.’ Eugh-ick. Don’t forget Dr. Jean, Mom.”

  “Let’s not bring him up. That’s in the past. He was a sick man, which is why I worked so hard all day to find a highly reputable woman.”

  “Ignoring the past is not growth, Mom. And ignoring the fact that I had to have a year of therapy just
because
of a shrink doesn’t seem....”

  “Enough arguing, Nikki. You’re going to see Dr. Carcionne, at least once. Our insurance covers it eighty percent.”

  “Whoopee!” I went to my room and closed the door. Mom seemed so different from who she used to be. I threw my books on the bed. Maybe it
is
me. Then I threw myself on the bed. Maybe I’m just all kinds of a misfit. 

  I remembered when Mom and I had sort of grown apart. I was eleven. It was a really rough time. First, that awful Dr. Jean, then Dad had been sent to England for three months and Mom lost the baby who was to be my longed-for little brother. That’s the first time Mom decided I had to be in therapy, even though a couple therapists dismissed me after one or two visits, just like the kind therapist who let me have my Grammy back, in my mind. I had learned enough, though, from the shrinking sessions to wonder if Mom wasn’t “ projecting” her problems onto me.

  I saw my closet door standing open. Mom must have been putting away clean clothes. I could see the mirror from where I’d flung myself on the bed, and, even across the bedroom and through the closet, I was certain I saw movement. Sort of scared, but also, wanting to solve the mystery, I got up and flipped on the closet light. Nothing. Just my own reflection.

  I felt irritated. In fact, everything seemed pretty gritty-annoying. Another shrink. Just completely
ick
. I wasn’t adjusted to the apartment or school, or anything, I didn’t want to have to adjust to having my interior self poked at, too.

  In addition, and what was
particularly
irritating, I hadn’t ever seen the gorgeous boy again since the first time. But, quite frankly, the
last straw
was this creepy-weird something about my mirror.

  I went to the hall linen closet, pulled out a dark blue sheet, brought it back into my room and hung it over the mirror.

  I stepped back and looked at it. Okay. The mirror was covered. Contemplating the sheet over the mirror I thought, you know Nikki, there really is something not-quite-right with you. It’s weird to put a sheet over a mirror.

  So I decided that maybe this new shrink could be helpful, if she’d just not be too
nosy
. If I didn’t want to talk about something, I wouldn’t. I had no intention of giving up my very private stuff to just any old body.

*   *

  The next day, Mom insisted on taking me to Dr. Carcionne’s office, when I could have, and would have preferred to, take the bus. It wasn’t that far from school, and I was not nine years old. I carried on this argument in my head as Mom drove me to the appointment. It went something like: I’m sixteen. I can certainly take a bus to an appointment. In some cultures I’d be married and have a kid by now.

  Well, I didn’t want to be married with a kid. But I
did
feel I’d be okay without the humiliation of her picking me up after school and hauling me off to the shrink. However, when we got there – with hardly a word between us the whole way – she at least had the decency to stay in the waiting room.

  When Dr. Carcionne’s personal assistant ushered me into her office, I sat in a straight-backed chair. I avoided the two beautiful and comfortable-looking wing-back chairs, thinking my chair choice would give a clear message that I did
not
want to be here.

  Dr. Carcionne sat across from me, a plain, trim woman, with black hair pulled back in a tight knot, big glasses, almost no make-up, and wearing a plain brown suit.

  “Hi, Dominique,” she said. I could feel her studying me studying her office.

  “ Nikki, please.” No sandbox – good. No little kids books, no puppets, good, good. In fact, the office wasn’t bad at all. Some books, some really interesting art, pale brick-colored walls, an interesting flower arrangement with big orangeish, exotic-looking flowers that I didn’t know what they were.

  So! It looked like an office for adults, not a kid’s therapist’s office. All good.

  “Your mother gave me a list of your previous therapists – I got a couple of faxes today from Dr. Smith and Dr. Candy.”

  I giggled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Oh, Dr. Candy. Mom thought that with a name like that he’d be a good child psychologist, but he was so lousy. He didn’t have the least clue how people work. In fact, he quit being a therapist while I was seeing him.”

  “Because of you?”

  I thought she was making a joke and expected to see her crack a smile. But she didn’t.

  “No,” I answered, realizing the session had started, and even if she had’t put pen to paper, she was already taking mental notes – “delusions of grandeur.” “Not because of me. That would be weird. It was, like I said, he didn’t know how people worked, and I guess he finally realized it. Then I got Dr. Smith. I suppose Dr. Smith had the ex-Dr. Candy’s records, since they were in the same office.”

  “Um-hum,” Dr. Carcionne said, studying the file she’d started on me. “Your mother mentioned you’ve not been happy with moving to Seattle.”

  “I’m adjusting.”

  “And that you’ve been talking about ghosts.”

  “Hypothetically.”

  “Hypothetically. What are your hypothetical thoughts about ghosts?”

  “I don’t know. All I said to Mom is that they haven’t been empirically disproved. Next thing I know, I’m being hauled into your office.” I had just decided I didn’t like Dr. Carcionne and I was not about to get into anything private with her.

  She put down the file and gave me her undivided attention. “I feel we’re not off to a good start.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I thought talking about your discussion of ghosts with your mother and seeing if there’s an objective reason for you to bring up that subject with her might be a good jumping off point. I’m kind of wondering now, though, if your bringing up ghosts with your mother wasn’t a bid for attention.”

  “I don’t need to ‘bid’ for my mother’s attention.” I turned and looked out the window. I saw trees and had the thought that that’s one thing you missed when you lived on the seventh floor. You didn’t look out the window and see trees unless you went over to the window and looked down on them. Or like, if there was an apartment building in the redwood forest I could live on the seventh floor and see trees out the window. “I’m an only child, I get
all
her attention. If I can ‘place a bid,’ I’d like to bid for
less
attention. Sometimes I think she drags me to people like you because something’s bother
her
.” There. I said it. I didn’t know if it made me feel better, but it was my truth.

  Dr. Carcionne nodded. She picked up the file and started writing again.

  “Well,” I said, “now we’re getting somewhere!” But in fact, the rest of the hour went from boring, to more boring, to dreadful.

  That night at the dinner table there was an endless discussion between Mom and Dad about “Nikki’s condition.” Finally I could stand it no longer.

  “You know, I’m
sitting right here
. I’m not, like a chair or something. And I’m not nine or ten anymore, either. I mean, it hurts my feelings to have you talk about me like, ‘oh, the seafood tastes a little off tonight,’ or something.”

  Dad looked at me with apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Nikki. You’re absolutely right.
Absolutely
. Go you your room so we can talk about you behind your back.”

  My mouth fell open, then I saw the twinkle in his eye. He leaned over and patted my hand. “Just teasing, Pumpkin Patch. She’s right, Clarice, she’s not a little kid anymore.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, too,” Mom said. “But I don’t know what to say to her when she’s accused me of projecting. I was so embarrassed.”

  I involuntarily shuddered at the memory of Mom coming into the last half of the session when Dr. Carcionne brought up the possibility that Mom was putting her worries onto me so she wouldn’t have to face them herself. I got angry and felt betrayed when Dr. Carcionne stated my observation directly to Mom. And then I felt bad to see Mom so embarrassed. Even if Mom’s reaction
did
seem to prove my point.

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t like Dr. C. and she doesn’t like me. You’re wasting your money, or the company’s money, or somebody’s money. Excuse me, please.”

  I gathered my dishes, took them into the kitchen, rinsed them and stuck them in the dish washer. I could hear Dad telling Mom that she was over-reacting. Then Mom really over-reacted by telling Dad he wasn’t around enough to know what was going on. Silence fell between them, and they didn’t even say good-night to me when I went to my bedroom.

  I closed my door quietly. Some part of me wanted to fling down on the bed and cry until I had no more tears, but some other part of me said that would be a waste of energy.

  “This whole thing got started because of that stupid mirror! It’s enough, already. I don’t believe in ghosts and I don’t believe in the people in the mirror.”

  I went into the closet and whipped the sheet off the mirror.

  Well, I thought, it was a good night for arguing. Because there in the smoky mirror a man and a woman were furiously facing one another.

Chapter IV

  Between a rock and a hard place – that’s how I felt last night when I’d seen the people in the mirror again. Mom and Dad arguing about me at the dining table, and the woman and the man in the mirror, stomping off in different directions right after I unveiled them so I couldn’t show my folks the reason for my weirdness. I could only cover the mirror up again and close the door to the closet. Then I’d spent a lousy night of not being able to sleep.

  When I woke up in the morning I was not relishing encountering the stony silence between Mom and Dad. I stayed in my room until the last minute.

  “Hey, sleepy head, come on – it’s getting late!” Dad called cheerily. Well, maybe that was a good sign, at least Dad seemed happy. Sometimes, though, it just meant Dad was over it and Mom wasn’t. In which case, his good mood irritated her all the more.

  “Coming!” I gathered my books and purse and hurried to the breakfast nook. Mom wasn’t up yet.

  “Good morning, Twinkle Toes,” Dad said. “Sit down, I’ve got something to say. Your mom made the point I don’t spend enough time with the two of you lately. Well, before we moved I was all preoccupied with getting moved, and
since
we moved I’ve had to put in extra hours at the new job to get up to speed. I had it in my mind that in six months I’d have more time for my family.”