Page 25 of That Birthday in Barbados
I smile and nod. “Thank you.” He pulls his phone out of the storage compartment, taps the screen and says, “May I have your number in case we need to touch base?”
I give it to him, and as we find our spots on the Sea-Doo and head back up the coast, I’m still thinking about that kiss.
Chapter Nine
“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.”
?Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Nicole
DR. BAKER’S OFFICE is on the fifth floor of a high-rise in West Palm Beach. This is only the third time she’s had an appointment with him, and her stomach drops as she steps out of the elevator, apprehension popping a fine sheen of sweat across her forehead and the back of her neck.
She knows that the job of a psychiatrist isn’t to judge his patient, but she can’t talk to him about her life and the choices she’s made without waiting for that look of disbelief to cross his face.You did that?
And so she arrives at each appointment with a sense of dread that hangs over her like a heavy grey curtain.
She wipes a hand across her forehead and opens the office door, stepping inside and walking over to the check-in window. The receptionist is moderately cheerful, as if she knows patients are there for serious reasons and it would be inappropriate to look too happy to see them.
Nicole gives her name. The woman checks her insurance card and her contact info, then asks her to take a seat in the waiting room. She’s the only one here, which is a good thing as far as she’s concerned. She hates making eye contact with other patients because there’s always some reluctant acknowledgment that each of them would pretty much rather be anywhere else.
She flips through a couple of magazines,uninterested in the lives displayed on the pages, perfectly dressed people with flawless complexions getting out of Ferrari’s in Hollywood. She used to look at such pictures with envy. Those people had the world by the tail. They were the chosen ones. Tragedy never touched them. Everything they wanted appeared as if by magic at their fingertips.
She’s old enough and far enough down the road of life to know this isn’t true. Those people have affairs. Over-invest. Gain weight. Lose weight. Betray. Are betrayed. Get married. Get divorced. They experience all the same highs and lows as the rest of the world. But maybe people like to buy into the fantasy, that somewhere, for someone, life is perfect. Like a novel with a pink bow happy ending, suspension of disbelief required.
The door at the corner of the waiting room opens. A nurse steps out. “Miss Camilleri?”
Nicole glances up, puts the magazine on the end table and follows the woman in white down a hallway to Dr. Baker’s office. She opens the door, waves Nicole inside.
Dr. Baker looks up and smiles a smile she would have ordinarily found contagious. But somehow, here, she is suspicious of such gestures. “Hello, Nicole,” he says. “How are you today?”
She takes the chair across from his desk, puts her purse on the floor and clasps her hands in her lap. “I’m good. How are you?”
“Fine, fine.”
He studies her for a moment, and she remembers what she dislikes about these sessions. She feels as if she is under a microscope, resists the urge to squirm under the scrutiny.
“Where did we leave off last time?” he asks softly.
“Um. We were talking about my sister’s birthday.”
“Ah, yes. It was-”
“Today, actually.”
He leans back, makes a teepee of his fingers, lets a few beats of silence drop between them. “And did you get in touch with her?”
“I decided you were right. I sent her an email wishing her a happy birthday.”
“And has she responded?”
“No,” Nicole says quickly. “But I didn’t expect her to.”
“Did you say anything else in the email?”
“Just that I hope she’ll forgive me someday.”
“Good. And do you think she will?”
