Twelve

HER EYES CLOSED, Victoria took a deep breath and exhaled, listening to the sound of Dr. Metzel’s voice.

“The key is to breathe from your diaphragm,” he reminded her. “Try putting one hand on your chest and the other hand on your stomach, above your waist.”

As she had when they’d first started practicing these exercises during their last session, she felt a little silly and self-conscious, sitting in his office with her hands on her chest and stomach. But according to Dr. Metzel, “diaphragmatic breathing” was the core foundation for the relaxation techniques that would help with her tiny panic problem (she still refused to call it a disorder), so she went ahead and did it anyway.

“As you inhale, the hand on your chest should move less than the hand on your stomach,” he said. “Now exhale, allowing all of the tension in your neck, shoulders, and back to drain away. Good. Remember, this is something you can do anytime you find yourself in a stressful situation. Speaking of which . . . you’re getting homework this week. I’d like you to start facing the things that trigger your panicky feelings—like the subway.”

Nervous butterflies danced in her stomach. “Are you sure I’m ready for that?”

“We’ll start slow. Pick a time when you know the subway won’t be crowded. Ride it for two stops, get off, and ride it back. And while you’re riding, here’s what I want you to do.”

Dr. Metzel walked her through another exercise, one that involved relaxing different parts of her body while silently repeating a certain phrase. I feel quiet. The muscles in my forehead are relaxed and smooth. My shoulders are loose. My legs and feet feel warm and heavy.

She studiously tried to memorize every phrase. She liked this technique—for the first time, she felt like she had a weapon in her arsenal to fight back against the anxiety issues that had been plaguing her since the break-in.

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a handout that lays out all of this so you can practice on your own,” Dr. Metzel said. “If possible, I’d like you to spend fifteen minutes a day repeating this exercise.”

More homework? Good. That meant more progress. She mentally doubled the time to thirty minutes per day, thinking the faster she could whiz through these exercises, the faster she’d be back to her old footloose and panic-free self.

When they’d finished running through the exercise, she opened her eyes. “Well, that wasn’t so bad.”

Dr. Metzel smiled. “Glad to hear it.” He folded his hands on his notepad. “Now, with the time we have left, how would you feel about digging a little deeper into what might be behind these panic attacks of yours?”

Balls. She’d spoken too soon.

He must’ve seen the less-than-enthused look on her face. “It’s your choice, Victoria. But I really do think that exploring these issues would be helpful to your treatment.”

She considered this. The good doctor was smart, using her desire to be cured as fast as possible like a carrot on a stick that he dangled in front of her. So she agreed—reluctantly. “Okay.”

He appeared pleased with her decision. “I think a good place for us to start is with that first panic attack you had during the break-in. Take me back to that night, when you were hiding in the closet. I believe you said the 9-1-1 operator told you that help was on the way, and then you suddenly began to feel ‘off.’”

“That’s right.”

“What were you thinking about? Walk me through that moment.”

“Well, I heard a gunshot downstairs, and the guy who’d been raiding my closet ran out. Then I started to talk to the 9-1-1 operator, and . . . she said something that triggered a flashback.”

Dr. Metzel sat up in his chair, looking particularly interested in this new, unexpected information. “A flashback to what?”

So. Here they were.

Victoria had been hoping not to get sidetracked with things from her past that had been long since resolved—happily, she might add. But seeing how her only other choice was to lie to her therapist, she figured she’d just get it out there so they could move on to the business at hand. “To the 9-1-1 call I made when I found my mother after her suicide attempt.”

Clearly not having expected that, Dr. Metzel simply looked at her a moment. “Oh.”

Victoria pointed to the pen and notepad on his lap. “I’ll wait while you go to town with that one.”

*   *   *

HER PARENTS’ DIVORCE had started off like so many cases she’d handled over the years. Her father, an American Airlines pilot, had an affair with a flight attendant eleven years his junior, and had decided to leave Victoria’s mother when his mistress discovered she was pregnant. Worried about supporting two families at the same time, her father—to put it bluntly—had turned into a cheap son of a bitch during the divorce proceedings, challenging her mother and her mother’s less-than-stellar lawyer over everything. Suddenly, Renee Slade had found herself looking for a job for the first time in ten years, while simultaneously having to fight for every alimony and child support payment to which she was entitled.

Eventually, the fight had just left her.

Her mom had struggled with depression for years—Victoria could remember several occasions on which she’d come home from school to find her mother still in bed, with the shades drawn. The “bad times,” as Victoria had thought of them when she was a child, would last anywhere from a couple of days to a week or two, but then they’d go away, and things would be normal for a while.

She’d known that something was off leading up to That Day, six months after the divorce had been finalized, when she was ten years old. She’d noticed that her mom had started taking a lot of days off of work, had heard her crying in her bedroom when she thought Victoria was asleep, and had seen the bills piling up on the kitchen counter, along with the letters from the bank warning her mother that she was delinquent on her mortgage payments. She’d tried talking to her dad about it during their decreasingly frequent phone calls, but by then his second wife’s baby—also a daughter—had been born, and he always seemed preoccupied with his new family.

Still, despite it all, Victoria had been in a good mood when she’d arrived home from school on that particular afternoon. She’d been invited to her first slumber party, at Denise Russo’s house, and had raced excitedly into her mother’s bedroom to tell her the news. At first, finding the shades drawn, she’d just assumed her mother was sleeping again.

But when she’d seen the empty bottle of sleeping pills tipped over on the nightstand, she knew instantly that something was very wrong.

Hang in there, Victoria. Help is coming, I promise.

The voice, from all those years ago, faded away as she looked at Dr. Metzel, feeling the need to set the record straight.

“Before we go down some unnecessary path, you should know that I had a lot of therapy after my mother swallowed those pills. Two years of it, in fact. So I think I’m good there. A-OK on that front.”

“Yet you just had a flashback to that day a little over a month ago, triggering your first panic attack.”

Well, that. “That’s just because of the similarity in the 9-1-1 calls. It’s not like I’m thinking about my mother’s suicide attempt when these other panic issues have popped up on the subway or during my exercise class.”

He considered that. “Okay, what are you thinking about during those moments, then?”

“Mostly that I don’t want to faint or have another episode in public.”

“We touched on that before. Your concern about what other people might think if you had a panic attack in front of them. To not look ‘weird,’ as you put it. Is that something you’ve always been focused on?”

She considered this. “I suppose it’s something I’ve paid attention to for a while.”

“Where do you think that comes from?”

She had a sneaking suspicion where he was going with this and decided to cut to the chase. “Are you asking if it’s something that started after my mother’s suicide attempt?”

“I think it’s possible there’s a connection. But I’d like to know what you think.”

She sighed. So much for not going down this path. “Suicide is unsettling. It’s morbid. People don’t know what to do or say when they hear about something like that. And believe me, everyone knew what had happened with my mom: the neighbors, all the kids and teachers at school, even the parents. Some kids teased me, others went out of their way to be extra nice, and some just looked at me weird and ignored me. But no one simply acted normal. So I acted normal, hoping that, eventually, everyone else would do the same.”

“And now, as an adult? Why do you think you still feel that same desire to appear ‘normal,’ as you put it?”

She shrugged. “I like the way people see me. They see a strong, confident person. What’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing. But there’s a difference between wanting people to perceive you as a strong, confident person, and being fixated on it to the point that it manifests itself in a panic disorder.”

Victoria fell quiet, not quite sure what to say in response.

“Maybe we should switch gears for a moment,” Dr. Metzel said after a pause, likely sensing her unease. “Let’s talk about your personal relationships.”

Any topic of conversation that didn’t involve the words fixate or manifest or disorder was just fine with her. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“Do you date?”

“Sure.” She was a single woman in her thirties, living in a fun, vibrant city. Of course she dated.

“When’s the last time you were in a serious relationship?”

“Define serious.”

“It’s hard to quantify, but let’s say a relationship that lasted more than three months.”

Victoria thought about it. “Marc Joyner.”

Dr. Metzel readied his pen. “And why did things end between you and Marc?”

She laughed, not seeing how this was even remotely relevant. “It wasn’t like it was some big, tragic breakup or anything. He was heading off to UCLA, while I was going to Duke, and we both realized a long-distance relationship wouldn’t work.”

Dr. Metzel did a little scrunchy thing with his eyebrows. “Are you saying that your most recent relationship to last three months was in high school?”

She shifted in her chair. “Well, if we’re getting technical . . . it carried a couple weeks into the summer after high school.”

Man, did the good doctor ever have a field day scribbling away in his notepad after that one.

*   *   *

VICTORIA LEFT HER session with Dr. Metzel convinced she was the most screwed-up person in the world.

She caught a cab outside his office, gave the driver her address, and took a deep breath as the car began moving. All right, fine. So she had some issues about marriage and long-term commitment. If it wasn’t enough that the demise of her parents’ marriage had literally nearly killed her mother, every day at work she was reminded of just how sad and painful it could be when two people had to untangle themselves from the life they’d made together.

Marriage was a gamble. And so far, she hadn’t seen anything that made her want to put her own chips on the table and give that big old roulette wheel a whirl.

As for these panic issues . . . So what if the idea of losing her shit in public bothered her more than it might bother others? They didn’t have her history; they hadn’t grown up seeing how people had stared at her mom in the grocery store, or at parent night at school, like they’d expected her to have a nervous breakdown right there. She’d grown up in a relatively small community, and people had whispered about her mother for years after the suicide attempt—the “crazy” lady who’d once freaked out and tried to kill herself. Her daughter is the one who found her, you know. Can you imagine? That poor kid.

Even though the sympathy had been well meant in many cases, it had only made Victoria feel worse. Stop looking at me and my mom, we’re fine! she’d wanted to scream when she was younger. So now, the good doctor would have to excuse her if she was a tad more sensitive, perhaps, to the idea of losing control in a public place and having everyone once again staring at her and wondering what the hell was wrong.

Victoria slammed the cab door a little harder than necessary when she climbed out, then turned and gave the driver a sheepish wave. Sorry, my bad. Got a shrink up my ass and it’s making me a little peevish. You know how it is.

She brushed her hair out of her face and took a deep breath.

Probably, this would be a good time to practice those “calming” exercises Dr. Metzel had been so jonesed about.

Fortunately, she was in a better mood by the time Rachel showed up at her place a few hours later.

“Is that what I think it is?” She pointed excitedly to the garment bag her friend held.

“Yep. It just arrived today.” Rachel stepped inside and pulled the red vintage-style shirtdress out of the bag with a flourish. “It’ll go perfect with those red heels you have that tie at the ankle.”

Twenty minutes later, Victoria, her new red dress, and Rachel made their way to the elevator. They planned to take a cab to RM Champagne Salon, where they were meeting Audrey for dinner and drinks. As they walked down the hallway, Rachel talked about the date she’d gone on the night before.

“I liked him. Really liked him,” she said.

Of course she did. Whenever Rachel liked a guy, she really liked him. Always so hopeful, her friend was. “Look at you smiling. Tell me everything,” Victoria said, as they stepped into the elevator.

“Hold the elevator,” called a voice from down the hallway.

“Oh!” Rachel, who was closest, hovered her finger over the buttons, looking for the door-open button.

The elevator doors began to close, but then a man’s hand reached in, blocking them. When they slid back open, Victoria found herself face-to-face with Ford.

“Ms. Slade. Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

Speaking of things that made her peevish.

“Ford.” She nodded in greeting as he stepped into the elevator and stood next to her.

“Sorry about the doors,” Rachel told him. “I couldn’t find the button.”

Victoria made quick introductions. “This is my friend Rachel. Rachel—Ford.”

“Victoria and I share a bedroom wall,” he explained, in a mischievous tone that made this sound illicit.

“So I’ve heard,” Rachel said.

Victoria shot her a pointed look, but it was too late.

“You’ve been talking about me to your friends?” Ford looked up at the floor indicator, his mouth curved. “Interesting.”

Refusing to take the bait, Victoria stepped out when the elevator reached the ground floor and gestured to the building’s main entrance. “Are you grabbing a cab?”

He pointed in the opposite direction. “Driving. I’m hanging out with this girl tonight, at her place.”

Oh.

Well, of course. That’s what single men often did on Saturday nights.

“Really cute,” he continued. “She has these big brown eyes. Adorable smile. Although she does tend to cry a lot when she wants attention, and the last time I saw her, she spit up all over my couch. So it could be an interesting evening.”

Victoria grinned. “Zoe.”

Ford shrugged. “I thought my sister could use a night out with her friends, so I offered to babysit.”

Hearing that, something inside her softened.

That was a sweet thing to do for his sister. Really sweet.

“Now, seeing how you like to keep track of my Saturday-night comings and goings, I should warn you that it’s probably going to be a late night,” he said. “I’d hate for you to wait needlessly for me for hours, smooshed against your sliding glass door.”

And . . . so much for that moment.

*   *   *

“SO WE’VE ESTABLISHED that he’s single, right?” Audrey asked at the restaurant after they had sat down at their table and Rachel had told her about the elevator encounter with Ford.

“He’s single.” Victoria took a sip of her sparkling rosé, then felt the need to clarify something. “Not that it matters.”

“Please. I was there, Vic. There was definitely something in the air between you,” Rachel said.

“Sure. Aggravation . . . irritation . . .”

“Flirtation . . .” Rachel added.

Victoria rolled her eyes. Flirtation. Please. “I hesitate to tell you guys this, out fear of adding more fuel to the fire, but Ford and I are sort of working together on this legal matter for his sister.”

“How did that happen?” Audrey asked.

“Long story. The point is, his sister is now my client,” Victoria emphasized.

Both Audrey and Rachel waited for more.

“And . . . so? There’s no rule that says you can’t hook up with the brother of a client, is there?” Audrey said.

Well, wasn’t everyone suddenly a legal expert? “Fine. He’s also my neighbor. Very bad idea, hooking up with a neighbor.”

“Technically, he’s only your neighbor for the summer,” Rachel noted.

“And think of the upside,” Audrey said. “You could knock on his door, have great sex with a gorgeous man, and be home in less time than it takes to get a mani-pedi.”

Victoria opened her mouth to scoff at that, but then paused.

Well, when you put it that way . . .

Then she shook off the thought and refocused. “Look, I get that he’s good-looking. But he has this way of getting under my skin, and on top of that he’s . . .” She searched for the right word.

“He’s what?” Rachel beckoned with her hand. “Come on, let’s hear it. I’d like to know what snarky comment even you could possibly make about the good-looking man who gives you smoking-hot looks across a bar, makes you smile—yes, I saw that when you two were standing outside the elevator—and who babysits his niece on a Saturday night so that his sister can go out with her friends.”

Victoria thought about that for a moment, and then finally answered. “He’s named after a car.” There. She nodded. Take that.

Rachel smiled. “Sweetie, if that’s the best you’ve got, you’re in serious trouble.”