Ladies' Night (13 page)

Grace laughed despite herself. “Maybe you could do an exposé of the judge for your television station.”

“Maybe I will,” Camryn shot back. “Just as soon as I get my divorce from Dexter Nobles, I might just do that.”

The room was quiet then, with only the scratching sounds of their pens as they scrawled their thoughts across the cheap notebooks.

After she’d filled two pages of her journal, Grace looked at her watch. “It’s been thirty minutes. Where do you think Paula went?”

“Who cares?” Camryn said. “This whole thing is a charade.”

“I’m gonna go check on her,” Grace said. “I’ve had a long day. I just want to get out of here.”

She walked across the room, opened the door, and peeked out into the reception area. Paula Talbott-Sinclair was slumped down in the chair behind the reception desk, her chin resting on her chest. She was snoring softly.

Grace stood there for a moment, uncertain what her next move should be. Then she heard the front door behind her open.

A man stepped inside the reception area, looking uncertainly around the room.

He was tall and lanky, and sunburned. He was about Grace’s age, she guessed, and at first she thought he was completely bald, until a closer look revealed a fine dark stubble of hair covering his scalp. He was dressed like a workman, in baggy khaki cargo shorts, a grimy-looking faded khaki safari hat, and high-topped lace-up work boots. His eyes were dark, nearly black, with an astonishing fringe of thick, luxuriant lashes. And dimples. It was the dimples that reminded Grace that she’d seen this guy before, and recently.

“Hey,” Wyatt Keller said, scowling at her. “I’m looking for Dr. Talbott-Sinclair?”

Grace nodded in the direction of the slumbering therapist. “You just found her.”

12

“Is this a joke?” Wyatt asked, narrowing his eyes. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and reread the card the judge had forced him to take. Then he took a closer look at Grace.

“Didn’t we meet…” he hesitated. “In court?”

“That’s right,” Grace said.

“I’m supposed to be here for the, uh, divorce recovery group,” he said.

“Well, you’re late,” Grace snapped. “It started thirty minutes ago. Not that you missed much.”

“Damn,” Wyatt said. “The bridge was up. I’ve got a sick bird, and I had to run her to the vet’s office, and the asshole vet tech wouldn’t wait for me to get there, and the office was closed by the time I got there, and I had to stop at a drugstore and buy some meds…”

“Really?” Grace sniffed. “That’s the best you can do? The dog ate your homework?”

Wyatt bridled. “It’s true. Anyway, what do you care?”

Grace shrugged. “I don’t. I just care about getting out of here. Right now. I’ve had enough ‘sharing.’”

Wyatt nodded in the direction of Paula, who hadn’t stirred despite their odd conversation.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Grace said. “It’s eight o’clock. My time’s up.”

She marched over to the desk and shook the therapist’s shoulder. “Paula,” she said loudly. “Hey, Paula. Wake up.”

Nothing.

“Is she sick or something?” Wyatt asked, taking a step closer. He reached out and touched the side of her neck, looking for a pulse.

“Who’s that?” Paula’s eyes flew open and she swatted his hand away. She looked wildly around the room. “What’s happening?”

“You told us to write for fifteen minutes, but it’s now been more than thirty minutes,” Grace said. “I came out here to check on you, and found you dead asleep. Or passed out.”

“Ridiculous!” Paula said. She stood, fluffed her hair, and straightened her clothing, looking like Stevie Nicks after an epic bender. “I was meditating, waiting on the group to complete their visualization exercise.”

“Who are you?” she asked, looking Wyatt up and down.

“I’m Wyatt,” he said. “Judge Stackpole said I had to come see you. For divorce recovery group.”

He said the words with such distaste, that Grace almost laughed out loud.

“Didn’t the judge tell you our sessions start promptly at seven?”

“He told me,” Wyatt said. “But I had a family emergency. And the bridge was up. But I’m here. I’ve been here for…” he looked down at his watch, and then at Grace, his dark eyes pleading.

“Twenty minutes,” Grace volunteered. “We weren’t sure whether or not to wake you.”

Paula studied Grace’s face carefully. “Really?”

“It’s true,” Grace said, with a shrug. “You can ask the others. We were all waiting for you to come back and take a look at our journals, to see if we did what you asked.”

Paula waved her hand distractedly. “Never mind that. It’s late. I’ll read them next week.”

“So … we can go now?” Grace asked. “All of us?”

“Didn’t I just say that?” Paula asked.

She went into the inner office and clapped her hands for attention. “All right. That’s the session for tonight. I’ll see everybody next Wednesday, at seven o’clock. Remember to bring your journals.”

She turned and handed Wyatt a notebook. “And next week, please be on time.”

Camryn and Ashleigh stood quickly and headed for the door, while Suzanne was still jotting in her notebook. “Ladies,” Paula said, gesturing toward the newcomer. “Before you go? This is Wyatt. He’ll be a part of group for the next few weeks. I’d like you to welcome him to our little circle of healing. Wyatt, this is Ashleigh, Camryn, and Suzanne. And you already met Grace.”

Suzanne looked distressed. “Uh, Paula, no offense to him, but I thought this was just a women’s group? Nobody said anything about men being part of it.”

“We welcome anybody with an open, willing heart to group, Suzanne,” Paula said.

“Hey,” Wyatt mumbled, blushing slightly as the women carefully looked him over.

“Hmm,” Ashleigh purred.

“What’s your story?” Camryn wanted to know. “Did Stackpole sentence you, too? I thought he only hated women.”

“Never mind that,” Paula said. She grabbed her camera and snapped a picture of the startled Wyatt. When the photo had developed, she handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked, gazing down at the picture. It was not what you’d call a flattering image. The harsh overhead lights cast his face in deep shadows. He needed a shave, he noted, and there was a distinct sweat ring around the collar of his shirt. Also? There was a tell-tale white dribble on the shoulder of the shirt. Parrot poop, from Cookie, who’d insisted on riding on his shoulder the whole way to the vet’s office.

“That’s your before picture,” Paula told him. “Staple it in the book. And the journal is your homework assignment. I want you to write in it at least once a day, every day, more often if you can. Tonight’s assignment is to write about how you feel about where you are in your emotional journey.”

“Ohh-kay,” Wyatt said slowly.

“And Wyatt? As the ladies can tell you, the one thing I insist upon in group, besides punctuality, is absolute honesty. No whitewashing. No lies. Understand?”

Camryn snorted. “He’s a man. They’re genetically programmed to lie.”

“Telling a man not to lie is like asking him to pee sitting down,” Ashleigh agreed.

“Ladies?” Paula said wearily.

Wyatt had had more than enough. He could feel the hostility radiating out of every woman in this room. Man-hating ball busters, every one of them.

“Also?” Paula held out her hand. “Your counseling fees must be paid in full, in advance of each session. Did your attorney explain my fee structure? You understand I don’t accept personal checks? Credit cards, although no American Express, or a cashier’s check.”

“She told me,” Wyatt said. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a tightly rolled bundle of money. The bills were faded and creased, and as he counted off each of the six fifty-dollar bills he thought of what that money should be going to. Groceries. New tennis shoes for Bo, and, now, payment on his ever-growing vet bill.

He pressed the money into Paula’s hand.

“Cash?” She looked down at the bills as though he’d just handed her one of Cookie’s bird turds.

“Yeah,” he said. “Can I get a receipt for that? My lawyer told me to make sure and get one. To prove to the judge that I was here.”

*   *   *

When he finally got outside the therapist’s office, he took a deep breath of the hot, humid night air. May, and it was already sweltering. Well, that was Florida. Anyway, it felt good to be outside. It had been freezing in that damned office. And all those women, staring at him, like he was some kind of spawn of Satan.

Just because he was a man. Betsy had warned him it would probably be like this. “It’s a divorce recovery group, honey,” she’d said. “A bunch of sad, mad, depressed, repressed women. All of ’em blaming all their problems on some man who done them wrong. Just sit there and take it, and with any luck, six weeks from now, Judge Stackpole will sign off on your divorce and you and Bo can get back to living your lives.”

He’d parked at the far end of the parking lot, mostly because he didn’t want anybody riding by to know he was going to see a shrink. As he approached the truck now, he saw a woman standing beside it, bending down, looking in the open window.

It was that woman from group. What was her name? Grace, yeah. Grace.

He quickened his step until he was right beside her.

“Is there a problem?” he asked gruffly.

She looked up, puzzled. She had nice eyes, Wyatt thought, when she wasn’t pissed off.

“You really do have a bird in your truck,” she said, wonderingly.

“That’s what I tried to tell you,” Wyatt said. “What? You think every man is a liar?”

She ignored that, concentrating on Cookie, who was roosting on the steering wheel, her head tucked under her wing, eyes closed.

“It’s a parrot, right? What kind?”

“African gray.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll fly away, leaving the window open like that?”

Wyatt laughed. “Cookie? Nah.”

“You said he’s sick? What’s wrong with him?”

“She. Same old thing,” Wyatt said. “Cookie will eat any damned thing she can get her beak around. One of the kids at the park fed her something today. A gummy worm, probably. It, uh, didn’t agree with her digestive system.”

Grace looked closer at the slumbering bird. “Looks like she pooped all over your steering wheel.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said with a sigh. “She’s bad to do that.”

She turned and pointed at his right shoulder. “I think she got your shirt, too.”

“I would make a joke about getting shit on by everybody, but I wouldn’t want you to think I’m bitter,” Wyatt said.

Grace straightened. “Are you?”

“Oh yeah,” he said easily. “Isn’t everybody bitter about something?”

She thought about it. “I’d hate to think so, but yeah, it seems that way to me these days. Although maybe my mom isn’t. God knows why, but I really think she doesn’t have a bitter bone in her body.”

“I’ve got enough bitter for both of us,” Wyatt said.

Grace was looking at Cookie again. “You said something about a park. Do you work for the city or the county?”

“Hell, no,” he said emphatically. “I work for myself. At Jungle Jerry’s.”

Her face lit up. “Jungle Jerry’s,” she said delightedly. “I remember that place! We used to go there every year on field trips for school. I used to love the parrots and the little Key deer. They were so adorable. Do you still have the parrot show? Where they ride the little toy bike on the high wire?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said, feeling himself thaw a little. “Cookie here is the star of the show. When she isn’t eating Popsicle sticks and Happy Meal toys.”

“Jungle Jerry’s,” Grace said wistfully. “I haven’t been there in years and years. In fact, I didn’t even know it was still there.”

“You and everybody else in Florida,” Wyatt said. “But we are definitely still there, right where we’ve always been.

He hesitated, then reached in the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a bright orange card. “That’s a free pass. If you’re not doing anything some day, you get in free with that. Bring your kids, if you want. It’s good for the whole family.”

“No kids,” Grace said lightly. “Just me.”

“Guess that’s just as well,” Wyatt said. “Since you’re getting a divorce, right?”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “Just as well. Since he turned out to be a scumbag.”

Her mouth hardened and her eyes narrowed, and she looked like she had earlier in the evening, when he’d first walked into the therapist’s office. Wyatt found himself missing her smile already, and wishing he could do something to bring it back.

“Guess I’d better go,” he said, unlocking the truck.

“Me too,” Grace said. “Gotta go home and write in my divorce journal.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt opened the driver’s door and slid onto the seat. “Hey, uh, thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“Covering for me with the therapist,” Wyatt said. “I can’t afford to get crossways with her, or that damned judge.”

“It’s okay,” Grace said. “Sounds like we’re all in the same boat. Divorce-wise,” she added.

“Yeah, divorce-wise.”

She gestured at Cookie, who was awake now, and hopping up and down on the steering wheel.

“Will your parrot be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Wyatt said. “I’m gonna pick up some Pepto-Bismol at the Seven-Eleven, and see if that settles her down any.”

“Hey. Does she talk?”

He laughed. “When she wants. If she likes you.”

Grace leaned into the car, and Wyatt caught the scent of her, faintly soft and sweet, like the flowers in the park after a spring rain. She held her hand out, and Cookie happily stepped onto her outstretched index finger.

“Ohhh,” Grace breathed. “Is this okay? She won’t bite, will she?”

“Not usually,” he said.

“Hi, Cookie,” she said.

The bird cocked her head and blinked. “Wassup?”

Grace giggled just like one of the kids at Jungle Jerry’s. “Cookie want a cookie?” She looked over at Wyatt. “Dumb, right?”

The parrot inched her way up Grace’s forearm, until she was perched on the crook of her elbow.

Now Grace was getting nervous. “She won’t try to fly away, will she?”

“No such luck,” Wyatt said. “She knows where her bread is buttered. Literally.”