unpredictability and unaccountability were speed bumps on our path through life together. I was working at adjusting, not only understanding the demands of his profession, but honoring them. I took deep breaths and made a heartfelt New Year’s resolution to stop resenting Mackenzie’s job.
I instantly resented the need to make such a vow.
“Had enough parade for a while?” I asked Karen, who looked groggy. “Ready for the glories of Gladwyne?”
She regarded me blankly. We’d finished our soup and bread and topped it with ice cream and Oreos. Perhaps too many, her glazed expression suggested.
“Home. Yours. How ’bout it?”
She nodded. She was a big girl, not a baby like her brother, she was fond of reminding us. But she’d been on the town for twenty-four hours, slept in a strange bed in a former warehouse, seen a parade and a murder, and she was tired and homesick, although, like her mother, too polite to say so outright.
*
Even now, at the frozen nadir of winter, Beth’s suburb maintained a green lushness, although I don’t know how. Trees lose their leaves even on the Main Line, and climbing vines freeze. The residual greenness must be further proof of how money colors everything. I sighed and rang her bell.
Beth had a visitor, a slender woman with hair the color of pink grapefruit juice and features sharp enough to slice paper. As we unwrapped Karen, who had been packed off to my place wearing enough to survive a month of snow camping, we were introduced.
“This is my friend, Quentin Reed,” Beth said.
I’d already met women friends of Beth’s named Sidney, Michael, and Claude. Perhaps she collected the ambiguously named, but what to make of a day spent watching men dressed in sequins, feathers, lace, and satin, and an evening with a woman named Quentin? Perhaps we were headed for androgyny at long last, but was it a good thing?
“My parents really, really wanted a boy,” Quentin-the-girl said with an engaging grin.
True equality will be had when I meet a man named Rosabelle or Tiffany who says, “My parents really, really wanted a girl.”
“Quentin’s a therapist,” Beth said in an overly calm voice, after Karen had run upstairs followed by the household’s galumph of a dog, Horse. “You’ve probably heard her.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. That’s why you sounded familiar.”
“Good day,” she’d say on the radio. “This is Dr. Reed On the Air.” I had come to think of Dr. as her first name and Air her last. But as I’d drive wherever, listening to her ripe, fruity voice giving urgent advice and telling her “true stories”—nasty-funny case studies of neurotics she’d known—I’d imagined her fuller, older, much more subdued looking.
“The radio doctor.”
She smiled. “Among other things, yes.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I was, even though I’m leery of the sound-bite solution, of keeping therapy zippy enough to maintain ratings.
“I felt it would be good to have someone at the ready if Karen needs to ventilate,” Beth said.
Ventilation seemed the concern of steamfitters. Besides, was it wise to hire a shrink before there was any sign of emotional problems, like purifying drinking water just in case? Or did it instead insure that there would be problems?
“I agreed,” Quentin Reed off-the-air said, not surprisingly. “Given the dimensions of the child’s trauma. To be an eyewitness to such a dreadful event. The death, in essence, of a beloved icon, a clown.” She looked devastated herself.
“Not a clown,” I began. But that was irrelevant and arguable. “More to the point, we weren’t precisely eyewitnesses to the crime, only its results. I suspect that nobody actually saw it happen. After all, there were thousands of people watching, and not a peep until he collapsed, so it couldn’t have been too obvious when he was shot. Mostly, this is going to be a gigantic headache for the police.” And create more nights alone for
I instantly resented the need to make such a vow.
“Had enough parade for a while?” I asked Karen, who looked groggy. “Ready for the glories of Gladwyne?”
She regarded me blankly. We’d finished our soup and bread and topped it with ice cream and Oreos. Perhaps too many, her glazed expression suggested.
“Home. Yours. How ’bout it?”
She nodded. She was a big girl, not a baby like her brother, she was fond of reminding us. But she’d been on the town for twenty-four hours, slept in a strange bed in a former warehouse, seen a parade and a murder, and she was tired and homesick, although, like her mother, too polite to say so outright.
*
Even now, at the frozen nadir of winter, Beth’s suburb maintained a green lushness, although I don’t know how. Trees lose their leaves even on the Main Line, and climbing vines freeze. The residual greenness must be further proof of how money colors everything. I sighed and rang her bell.
Beth had a visitor, a slender woman with hair the color of pink grapefruit juice and features sharp enough to slice paper. As we unwrapped Karen, who had been packed off to my place wearing enough to survive a month of snow camping, we were introduced.
“This is my friend, Quentin Reed,” Beth said.
I’d already met women friends of Beth’s named Sidney, Michael, and Claude. Perhaps she collected the ambiguously named, but what to make of a day spent watching men dressed in sequins, feathers, lace, and satin, and an evening with a woman named Quentin? Perhaps we were headed for androgyny at long last, but was it a good thing?
“My parents really, really wanted a boy,” Quentin-the-girl said with an engaging grin.
True equality will be had when I meet a man named Rosabelle or Tiffany who says, “My parents really, really wanted a girl.”
“Quentin’s a therapist,” Beth said in an overly calm voice, after Karen had run upstairs followed by the household’s galumph of a dog, Horse. “You’ve probably heard her.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. That’s why you sounded familiar.”
“Good day,” she’d say on the radio. “This is Dr. Reed On the Air.” I had come to think of Dr. as her first name and Air her last. But as I’d drive wherever, listening to her ripe, fruity voice giving urgent advice and telling her “true stories”—nasty-funny case studies of neurotics she’d known—I’d imagined her fuller, older, much more subdued looking.
“The radio doctor.”
She smiled. “Among other things, yes.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I was, even though I’m leery of the sound-bite solution, of keeping therapy zippy enough to maintain ratings.
“I felt it would be good to have someone at the ready if Karen needs to ventilate,” Beth said.
Ventilation seemed the concern of steamfitters. Besides, was it wise to hire a shrink before there was any sign of emotional problems, like purifying drinking water just in case? Or did it instead insure that there would be problems?
“I agreed,” Quentin Reed off-the-air said, not surprisingly. “Given the dimensions of the child’s trauma. To be an eyewitness to such a dreadful event. The death, in essence, of a beloved icon, a clown.” She looked devastated herself.
“Not a clown,” I began. But that was irrelevant and arguable. “More to the point, we weren’t precisely eyewitnesses to the crime, only its results. I suspect that nobody actually saw it happen. After all, there were thousands of people watching, and not a peep until he collapsed, so it couldn’t have been too obvious when he was shot. Mostly, this is going to be a gigantic headache for the police.” And create more nights alone for
Similar Books
Breaking Clear (Full Hearts Series Book 3)
Mj Summers
Forgiving Lies
Molly McAdams
Support and Defend
Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney
Imperial Assassin
Mark Robson
From the Top
Michael Perry
Pan's Revenge
Anna Katmore
Bloodtraitor
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Lockdown
Walter Dean Myers