Sliding On The Edge (17 page)

“
Right.” Kay heaved a sigh.
“So you washed the truck, I see.”

Kenny had driven the truck up to the
front of the house, trailing drips of water down the driveway. It
didn’t shine, but the dust was gone and the windshield glinted in
the late afternoon sun.

“
It’ll get you there and
back. It’s got gas and the keys are in it.” Kenny walked down the
steps then stopped and looked at her. “Try smiling when you pick
her up. You’re not taking her to her hanging, you know.”

No. Not to
hers
, Kay thought,
but maybe to mine
, as she walked to
the truck and climbed in.

Shawna kept her promise. She was
waiting on the curb when Kay drove up. She climbed in and pulled
the door closed. “Wow! Who did the number on Mr. Bumpy,
here?”

Kay’s sour answer was out of her mouth
before she could stop it. She wished that just once she could say
what she wanted to say. Exactly who was pushing whom away in this
relationship? “Kenny did his best to make it look good.” She
attempted to sound positive, but the words came out
flat.

That was as close to opening a
conversation as she could manage. Then Shawna said nothing more,
and Kay was too nervous to think about anything except the
appointment they were about to keep.

“
Seat belt.”

The trip to Sacramento seemed to take
hours. Kay worried that she’d never make it on time, even though
she was traveling against the commuter traffic. Why did everyone in
California suddenly decide this hot-as-hell-in-the-summer place was
the only one to live in? Every time she drove this freeway, more
earth disappeared and more mini-malls sprang up.

She took the T-Street turnoff and
followed the directions from the therapist’s secretary. After a few
quick turns, she pulled into the underground parking with her heart
racing.

She stepped from the truck, followed
the arrows to the elevator, and pressed the button. Her hand
shook.

“
You okay?” Shawna
asked.

“
No. I’m not.” How could she
be okay? How could anybody be okay when they were about to meet a
stranger, tell her all their secrets, and reveal the failure behind
the bad decisions made over a lifetime.

Stop, Kay. You’re not
revealing anything. You’re offering up your last child in the hopes
that you can undo a few of those bad decisions, while there’s still
time.

They stepped into the elevator, and it
took them to the sixth floor without the stop that Kay kept hoping
for. Delay was on her mind, postponement in her heart.

But the receptionist had other ideas.
“Dr. Lubell asked that you come right in.” She led them to a double
oak door, knocked, and ushered them inside. “Mrs. Stone and Shawna
Stone,” she said, before closing the door softly behind
her.

Chapter 32

Shawna

By Wednesday, Casey is avoiding me as
much as I’m avoiding him. Good.

He’s coming down the hall now. I stare
straight ahead, walking directly toward my locker. As we pass, he’s
talking with somebody, too busy to look in my direction. Good
again. I’m still lame, so I don’t need him laughing at me, the
idiot who kicks posts. I don’t need any more of his preachy,
“tucked–under-my heart” crap. Besides, I’ve got to think over how
I’m going to handle that appointment with the shrink.

I should have rehearsed in
front of the mirror to get my face to match my answers.
My grandmother is a wonderful woman. I’m just a
little upset about my mom, but I’m managing, coping, recovering.
Hmm. Maybe adjusting. That’s a good shrink word. I really don’t
know why Mr. Green thinks I have a problem. I’m getting used to . .
. adjusted . . . to a very different way of living, you
know?

“
Hi, Shawna!”

Arrrg.
Marta is right behind me.

“
Did you ask your
grandmother about the sleepover?”

“
Umm, not yet.” I twirl my
lock and pop the door open.

“
You’re not even thinking
about asking her, right?”

“
What’s with you? Why do you
think you can read my mind?” I slam my locker and face her. “What
time should I be there?”

“
You’re coming?”

“
Not unless you tell me when
to show up. I don’t read minds like you do.”

“
It’s Saturday at seven.
Mom’s getting us something to eat, like pizza, I guess. So far,
there’re just four of us.”

I hadn’t thought about the possibility
that other girls would be at her house. I’m not sure I can handle
two more girls in that one room of hers. Besides, I don’t like
sleeping in front of people I don’t know. “Who else?”

“
You met them once, but you
don’t really know them. I don’t think you do, anyway.” Marta
laughs. “See, I can’t read minds. Anyway, they want to know what
Las Vegas is like. What you’re like.”

Marta chatters on and on,
and I’m like, thinking,
What the hell. I’m
out of here soon anyway, so why not? This is probably gonna be the
first and last sleepover of my life, so it doesn’t really matter.
“I’ll ask Kay to drive me to town. I’ll come if she’ll bring
me.”

“
That’s super!”

Suddenly Marta is a grateful Golden
Retriever. What have I done?

“
I’ve got class,” I say.
“Gotta go.” But I’m not getting away. She’s in lock step with me
down the hall to Chemistry. I’ve got a buddy, a pal. Just what I’ve
always wanted. Sit. Stay. Roll over.

I promised to meet Kay at the curb at
exactly three o’clock, so when Chemistry class ends, I’m doing my
best to be on time, but Marta’s not helping me get out of
there.

“
My mom’s letting us have
the whole place to ourselves. She’s really excited you’re coming
too because . . . well, she’s just excited. Bring your sleeping
bag, and if you’ve got CDs, I just got this really
cool—”

“
Okay, Marta. I got the
idea. I’ll be there. But I gotta go meet Kay right now.”

Finally she gets the message and I
drag myself out the door and down the steps with two minutes to
spare.

When the truck rattles to a stop in
front of me, I glance at my watch. Three o’clock. I shake my head.
How can she always be exactly on time?

I climb in. I want to whistle because
she looks totally cool. Instead I look at the truck and say, “Wow!
Who did the number on Mr. Bumpy here?” Kay looks so grim that I
think a little humor might make the trip easier.

But she doesn’t smile. “It wasn’t me.”
She looks at me and I get the feeling she wants to start over from
when I first got in the truck. “Kenny washed it,” she says with
what sounds like a sigh. “Seat belt.”

Once. Just once, I wish she’d forget
the friggin’ seat belt.

It’s the usual silent
running. Kay should have been a submarine captain. But I can tell
from the way she grips the steering wheel, that she’s a total
wreck.
Hey, I want to say. It’s my head
they’re examining, so what’re you all twisted about?

We pull into the parking garage, and
without waiting for me to close the truck door, she’s loping off
across the garage to the elevator. What’s with her,
anyway

“
You okay?” I ask, knowing
from the way her hand’s shaking, that she’s not.

“
No. I’m not,” she
snaps.

“
I didn’t think
so.”

I think,
Then why in hell did you do this? I don’t need a shrink. I
don’t want a shrink. I may get down sometimes, but who doesn’t?
Even horses, right?

And now I’m thinking about
Magic. How he talks to me. How he knows me better than any shrink
ever could. He even knows me better than that creep,
Monster.
Easy, girl. You want the shrink
to hear you talking with Magic or Monster? Let those items slip,
and you’ll be in a padded cell seeing major shrinks every
day.

In the elevator, Kay’s eyes are
closed. Is she praying? We stop at the sixth floor. Kay heaves one
shaky sigh, then she’s out the door.

Okay, Ms. Shrink. Here’s
comes Shawna and The Stone.

Chapter 33

Kay

When the receptionist announced them
and shut the door, Dr. Lubell rose from behind her desk and held
out her hand. “Welcome. Please sit down.”

Kay took a seat on the couch as the
therapist indicated. Her armpits felt damp, just the way they did
that first day when Shawna arrived at the bus depot. Kay wanted in
the worst way to lift her hair up from the back of her neck. If she
hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn her hot flashes had
returned.

“
Do you want to begin by
talking about what brought you here to see me?” Dr. Lubell
asked.

What has brought me
here?
Kay suddenly wondered.
Was it really Shawna’s problems, or were they
mine that did it? Family issues. What were they?
Her well-organized spreadsheet of causes and
effects had scattered like autumn leaves. She didn’t know how to
answer the doctor’s question.

Kay leaned forward and put her arms
across her knees before she realized that this was how she sat when
she had serious business to discuss with Kenny. She missed the feel
of her jeans against her legs. She missed the comfort of her old
friend listening to her problems.

Finally she spoke: “I’m
worried about my granddaughter.” She sat back against the hard sofa
cushion and took a moment to think about what she needed to say to
this woman who was sitting across from her.
Make it simple
, she
thought

She wished the therapist wore glasses,
didn’t have perfect, white-tipped fingernails, didn’t look like she
was just out of college. Kay couldn’t shake the feeling that she
was at a social gathering, about to reveal private secrets to a
gossip columnist.

Suddenly her throat went dry, and no
amount of swallowing helped. The words in her head came to her
lips, and she watched as Dr. Lubell nodded her very blond head. Kay
prayed that what she was saying made sense.

“
I’m not . . .” Kay thought
that maybe, if she cleared her throat, her reason for being here
would be easier to express. “. . . handling the situation well.”
She heard her own words, but they seemed to come from someone
else’s lips. “…I just don’t know how.” She heard herself utter that
sentence, because that was the most important part of the whole
speech. It was painfully true, too, and it exhausted her to say it.
She was glad for the leather sofa at her back.

It was Dr. Lubell’s turn. “Shawna, do
you want to say anything about your grandmother’s
concern?”

Shawna glared at first the doctor,
then at Kay. Kay felt the heat of Shawna’s anger, along with her
own rising tide of self-doubt. Had she been right in demanding to
sit in on this first session, despite the doctor’s wish to meet
with Shawna alone?

But she couldn’t just leave Shawna
stranded with someone neither of them knew. Kay was nervous enough
herself. How would Shawna feel, especially alone in this room with
a stranger, even if she was a doctor? Kay rubbed her eyes. Robby
had asked for the same privacy, and he’d talked her out of staying.
And she regretted not being there in that room, being with Shawna
while Robby asked her his questions. Was she making mistake after
mistake?

Shawna scowled at Kay and shoved the
neat pile of magazines across the glass table. “What’s all this
crap about me being angry?”

She is
angry
, Kay wanted to scream.
Why else would she act the way she does? Why else
would she look at me with eyes that shoot bullets?

Dr. Lubell was saying something about
anger . . . about being pissed. My god, she sounded like
Shawna.

Shawna let loose with her mouth from
hell and shouted back at the doctor.

It was the therapist’s turn, “Do you
want to tell me why you’re so pissed.”

As Shawna jumped up from the couch,
Kay felt as though someone had drained any energy she had in
reserve, quickly pouring it onto the carpet. She looked up at her
granddaughter, thinking, that yelling never calms a horse. So she
quietly said, “Shawna, sit down, please.”

After Shawna’s outburst, the room
became silent, as if it were pulling back just like its occupants,
and regrouping for the next verbal onslaught. Kay just kept still
and listened.

Dr. Lubell then asked Shawna, “Is
there anything you feel comfortable sharing with me?”

Kay squeezed her fists so hard, her
nails nearly cut into her palms.

Shawna shook her head. Then, in that
way she had of becoming absent, disappeared inside her skin. Her
eyes roved the room desperately.

Escape? Is that what she’s
looking for?
Kay wondered.

“
Do you have any idea why
your principal might think you’re depressed? Why he suggested you
talk to me?” Dr. Lubell asked softly.