CHAPTER FIVE
Worth
I was beginning to feel more like a babysitter than a psychologist. Throughout my education and while interning, patients had generally fallen into a few categories: they were poor, their life was shitty or they were trying to overcome an addiction to their escapism drug of choice.
These patients, however, were completely normal, albeit eccentric, and they manufactured paltry neurosis based on boredom and the chic adornment of “being in therapy.” These were the spoiled wealthy — the least contributive to the socialization of the country. They created pretend lives with self-imposed drama as a means to avoid slitting their liposuctioned necks. It sickened me. It was the world I was born into. These were my people.
My next patient arrived and the blinking yellow light on my desk was beginning to give me a Pavlovian response of nausea. I opened the door and found a young woman of moderate height and build, mahogany-colored hair that hung like a shiny curtain to her waist and a peaches and cream complexion with a few subtle freckles on the tip of her nose. She stood with the grace of an athlete and said abruptly, “You’re not Jervis.”
“I’m not?” I challenged her with a mocking smile.
“Mother would have never chosen someone like you. He’s old and I suspect has a beard. A fuddy-duddy who would be bowled over by her beauty and ready to tell her anything she wanted to hear.”
“I suppose I should take that as flattery?” I asked.
“Take it however you like, but you’re not Jervis,” she muttered as she pushed past me into my consultation room. “So, where is the tactical seat?” She stood with her jean-clad legs spread in a defiant stance, and I was so overwhelmed with her self-assured, sardonic view of the world, I felt my heart actually beginning to race. She was like a two-year-old Thoroughbred. Slender and long-legged, her mane of hair emanating youthful good health. She was also restless, untrusting, and ready to bolt at any moment.
“Take whichever tactical seat you prefer,” I offered, extending my arm to sweep the room. She took mine. This made me smile, and I chose to outplay her and took the seat behind my desk, leaving the expanse of glass between us. This forced her to rotate in her chosen chair in order to see me, but she stared straight ahead, leaving me her profile to contemplate.
I picked up my tablet. “So, Miss Elizabeth Langford…” I began.
“No.”
“No?”
“Auggie.”
“Auggie,” I repeated, feeling as though we were playing some game.
“My name is Auggie, after my Aunt Augusta. Not Elizabeth, or Lizzie, or Betsy or Liz or any other perverted deviation you think you can use to get in my pants.”
My eyebrows rose at this. This game sounded familiar; very, very personally familiar. “Very well, Miss Elizabeth, Lizzie, Betsy, Liz, Augusta…” I mocked her.
“Stop it! Auggie or don’t call me by name.” She turned to look at me briefly and I could see coltish fire in her green eyes. Jesus, but she turns me on!
“Auggie, it is. What brings you here today?”
“Mother didn’t leave any instructions?” she asked pertly. “Mother must be slipping. She never forgets details when it comes to managing my life. She may as well pin a note to my blouse like when I was in kindergarten.”
So, it was to be a smothering mother thing, but somehow I didn’t think so. I felt like she was playing with me.
“Why do you think you’re here?” I tried.
She lifted a shoulder. “Not really here for any reason. Caught my intended fiancé in a compromising position with someone else and refused his resulting proposal. Mother doesn’t know the truth but seems to think this means I’m disturbed.” She made air quotations around the word as she uttered it.
“Okay, well, is it possible he was having one last fling before committing to you?” I tried to mitigate the damage.
“If you call one last fling a muck jockey with a cock bigger than his,” she spat back and crossed one leg over the other.
I almost choked on the saliva she was creating in my mouth. “I see,” I finally managed. “Hmmm… and you don’t think he swings both ways, I take it?”
She looked at me straight on and asked in a sing-song voice typical for an eight-year-old girl who got kicked out of the cool kid’s club. “Would you settle for being half of both ways?”
I could see her point. God, but I wanted her. “It isn’t important what I think,” I gave the standard response.
“Oh, really? Well, if I don’t care and you don’t think, what the hell am I doing in this chair spending Mother’s carefully planted money?” She was defiance in raging glory.
“Our conversation is privileged,” I pointed out.
“Really? She didn’t pick Jervis by accident, I can tell you that.”
“I’m not Jervis,” I answered succinctly.
She scowled at me. “No, you’re not. So just who the hell are you, anyway?”
I couldn’t resist. “You must have wandered in here by accident. I’m a gynecologist, Dr. LaViere.”
Three precious seconds passed as my words sank in and she considered if what I said could possibly be true. Then, the glow of recognition, the dawning as she realized I was putting her on. “Screw you!” she spat, leapt to her feet and stalked out, slamming doors as she left.
It seemed the day wasn’t a total waste, after all. I was craving something and looked toward the closet bar, but bourbon wasn’t it. I was craving the colt who had just bolted.