Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) (2 page)

Zoe toed out of her slip-on sandals outside Dr. Suzuki’s office and set them on the rack outside the door. She still felt a little weird doing it. She didn’t really like the vulnerable feeling of bare feet even though it was the norm for Hawaii, and particularly for Japanese culture, in entering a living area. 

Dr. Suzuki opened the door. She wore a simple cream sheath dress that emphasized the kind of ectomorph build Zoe had always envied. “Come on in, Zoe.”

Dr. Suzuki gestured into the room. It was simply furnished in cool neutrals with a few red throw pillows. Zoe sat in the peacock-backed rattan chair again. Dr. Suzuki took her usual spot across the room in her leather office chair—even though it was only their second session, a rhythm was being established. “How’s this week going for you?”

“Okay. Picked up some trash on the street before I came here.” Zoe wished she had something to do with her hands. “I do stuff like that when I’m feeling down, trying to get myself to feel better. Sometimes it even works.” She leaned forward to trace a design in the sand tray on the coffee table. “I have this story to write on getting back into the dating scene after a divorce.
It’s about using online dating, with myself as the guinea pig.”

“Are you ready for that?” Dr. Suzuki had a clipboard and pen for notes, but she appeared to remember what Zoe had told her the week before, a relief.

“I pitched it to
Ladies’ Home Journal
before I moved over here. I had a lot of energy and anger then, and I thought I would be ready for it. I’d forgotten all about it and just heard back from the editor that the story’s a go.” Zoe shook the tray of sand, and her design disappeared. “It felt so weird filling out the online profile for the dating site that I made up answers.”

“Hmm. Doesn’t
seem like a good idea to put yourself out there before you’re ready.” Dr. Suzuki had intelligent dark brown eyes, and a tiny crease had appeared between her well-groomed brows. “Maybe you should defer this piece until you are ready to experience that world.”

“Not to be crude, but I need the money.
It’s a job.” Zoe sat back, leaving the sand tray unmarked. “I left a staff magazine writer position in California to come here, and this freelancer gig is no picnic. I need to be constantly pitching pieces and getting them out there. This is work, and I’m a journalist. I can do it.”

“With that attitude, I have no doubt of it. Tell me more about the premise of the article. What’s the ‘hook’?”

Zoe was pleased the therapist was familiar with some of the aspects of her work. “The hook is that I’m a journalist on an investigative job as well as a recent divorcée. How will that impact my ability to have dates? At what point will I disclose to my Internet-generated dates that this is a research article? And what will I learn about dating and relationships in the process?”

The tiny crease between the psychologist’s brows deepened. “I see a number of concerns here, not just for you but for others. What if you do meet someone you really like? At what point are you going to tell them you are writing an article on Internet dating and
they’re just ‘research’?”

Zoe snorted. “I’m not going to meet anyone I like. Seriously? I couldn’t even put up a truthful bio. I can’t stand for anyone to reject the ‘real me,’ so I made a fake me.” She found herself twisting her fingers in her lap. “This is just a story, and I’ll make it entertaining, but quite frankly, the chances of meeting someone nice…” Zoe found her throat closing. She grabbed a tissue out of the box on the table and pressed it to her eyes.

“You’re hurting, and that’s okay.” Dr. Suzuki’s voice felt like cool water on a burn. “I would just hate to see you be further hurt, or for you to hurt someone else, by deception. Fake identities have a way of catching up to you.”

“I can’t be myself right now,” Zoe said from behind the tissues. “I can’t stand being out
there for people to critique. It was so hard just to put the bio up.”

“So tell me more about
your work and how you got into journalism.” Dr. Suzuki was helping her move away from emotionality, for which Zoe was grateful. She filled the psychologist in on how she’d majored in communications, imagining herself as a TV journalist initially but had fallen in love with writing nonfiction.

“I get interested in something. My mom says I was just born with an extra dose of curiosity. I investigate what I’m interested in, and I write about it in a way that entertains and educates,” she said. “I got hired after graduation as an intern at
Time
magazine, then went on to write for them for several years but found I was more interested in softer topics, relationship and psychology stuff. I ended up writing and editing at a women’s magazine for the last ten years—but then the divorce happened, and I decided my career was one of the things that had been getting stale. I decided to go independent when I moved to Maui.”

“So tell me about what brings you here. To
Maui.” They’d touched on this before, but Zoe could tell Dr. Suzuki hadn’t been satisfied with her “I’m having trouble adjusting to the life of my dreams” answer from her first session.

Zoe sighed. “I’ve been to therapy before, so I know it can help. I’m having trouble sleeping,
then I oversleep and stay in bed all day. Sometimes I feel anxious leaving the house. It’s so sad because this is what I wanted, what I always wanted—but with Rex, my husband. We dreamed we’d be self-employed and live somewhere gorgeous and enjoy nature every day.”

“And
you’re doing your dream without Rex.”

“Yeah. I keep thinking about how and why we got divorced, and it hasn’t stopped hurting.”

A long pause and then Dr. Suzuki prompted, “And that is?”

“We couldn’t have a baby. I did the whole hormone injection thing. We tried a round of in vitro fertilization, and I lost the babies. And
then Rex told me he’d had an affair on one of his business trips and got this woman pregnant. Says he has to do right by her. He loves me and he’s sorry, but she’s the one having a baby.” Zoe hunched over, her hands crossed over the empty womb that had killed two babies placed in it by science—to the tune of twenty thousand dollars, which she was still paying off.

“Oh no.” Dr. Suzuki covered her mouth, her eyes wide. “Zoe. That’s gut-wrenching. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.” A long moment passed. Zoe wished she could cry again, but the tears of this particular wound were flash frozen, walled up somewhere so they couldn’t overwhelm her.

“Thank you for telling me. You don’t have to go into it again if you don’t want to.”

“No, it helps to tell someone, I feel a little better for it.” She was surprised to find that she did feel a little better. “So what do you suggest about this online thing?”

“Just go slow.” Dr. Suzuki glanced at the clock. “Let’s meet twice a week until you begin to get some traction on the changes you’ve made.”

“All right.” They set up appointments, and Zoe shook the psychologist’s hand as she left. “I’ll report in on my adventures in online dating. I’m sure I’ll have stories by next time.”

“I still think it might be too soon, but
it’s your choice, always.”

“Well, I’ve signed up for something called Crazy Blind Date, where the computer matches me with someone. I’ve got my first date tomorrow night.”

“I’m sure that’ll be interesting. I’ll look forward to hearing all about it.”

Zoe felt a little lighter as she walked to her car, turning to wave at the psychologist, a slender form in the doorway. Dr. Suzuki waved back.

Adam sat on the low couch, his
bare feet crossed at the ankle in front of him. He glanced around at the cool gray walls, the two love seats in beige suede, the peacock fan chair in one corner, the psychologist in a rolling office chair. On the low coffee table before him was a ceramic tray of sand with a little rake, and on the wall opposite, a framed photo of a rainbow over a whale’s tail on a stormy sea. Two bright red pillows brought a pop of color to the ends of the love seats.

Dr. Suzuki saw his gaze and smiled. “What do you think of the space?”

“Nice.” He laced his fingers over his stomach, smiled back. “Sends a message of refined elegance and relaxation, with some nice red wealth feng shui thrown in.”

Dr. Suzuki’s eyebrows rose. He’d surprised her, and he liked surprising people, knocking over stereotypes. “I see you know something about interiors as well as building.”

“I actually went to college for architecture.” He folded one ankle onto the other knee, brushed a bit of sawdust off his jeans. He wished he’d been able to change, but he’d come on his lunch break from the build site. “I came home from college to Hawaii and had planned to open my own architecture firm, but my father died. This is the family business.”

“Ah. So you hadn’t planned to be a contractor,
then.”

“No. But
it’s fine.” He laced his fingers again. “I had responsibilities. My mom and two sisters, who were still in school, took the contractor test, and the rest is history.”

Dr. Suzuki made a note on her tablet. She was tall for a Japanese
woman, with the kind of skinny frame that made him nervous, as if he’d break something if he touched her.

“So. I have six sessions with you for anger management. When do we get started?”

Dr. Suzuki gazed at him. “I can tell you wouldn’t be here if the sessions weren’t assigned to you—but since you are, I suggest you just relax and let us move through the process. You might find it more helpful than you expect. The fifty minutes will go by either way for me.”

Adam resisted the urge to run his hands
through his hair, dust himself down. He didn’t have to impress this woman. As she said, the fifty minutes would go by easy or annoying.

“Let’s start with a tool. When you feel yourself getting impatient, breathe in
through your nose to the count of three, out through your mouth to the count of five. Let’s practice together.”

She led him
through three breaths, and he smiled. “That wasn’t so bad. I’m cured.”

Dr. Suzuki blinked—
then glanced down at her notes. “You have a nice smile. You should do it more often.” She gave a little head shake. “I wish it were that easy, Adam, and I’m glad you found that helpful. I may prompt you or remind you of the technique when I see you getting agitated. It’s the kind of thing that takes some time to become a habit but can really help you stay calm and what we call ‘regulated’ throughout the day. Now, why don’t you tell me about the situation that brought you here?”

Adam shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “I’ve been feeling angry for a while. My ex-wife drinks. Grade-A, certifiable alcoholic. I confronted her one too many times, poured out her booze one too many times, and she took the kids and left six months ago. We divorced.” He scrubbed his hands down the roughness of his work jeans. “I miss those kids.”

“So they were her children?”

“Yes, but just toddlers when we got married. I’ve been the only dad they know.
They’re six and seven now.”

“So you were angry. And
your wife had left you. Then what happened?”

“Lost my temper with one of my workers. Stupid sonofabitch left one of the saws on and unplugged it. Almost took my hand off when I plugged it in. So I gave him something to remember.”

He could see Dr. Suzuki reading down a referral paper. “Says here you agreed to six weeks of anger management and to pay Tim Tindale’s hospital bill in return for dropped charges.”

Adam frowned, folded his arms. “Never should have got to that point.
There were no hospital bills. I just gave him a shove in the shoulder and a few choice words and fired him. He took himself down to the hospital and filed a complaint against me with the contractor’s association. Eventually, the cops threw out the charges—we had a dozen witnesses—but I agreed to go to anger management just to shut the guy up. At least I didn’t have to hire him back.”

Dr. Suzuki glanced up, sharp brown eyes narrowed, and he felt them probing into his head. “So you don’t think
you’re angry?”

“I never said that.” He shook his head. “This whole thing was Tim trying to get back on the job, trying to save face. But I never said I wasn’t angry. In fact, I’m hoping you can help me deal with losing the kids.” He hunched forward, elbows on his knees, rubbed his eyes against a telltale prickling
there. “They were everything to me.”

He felt a flash of memory—one of them on either side of him, tucked under his arms, Diego snuggled against him and Serena sucking her thumb as he read them a story.

“It feels so wrong that because I’m not their biological father, I have no rights to see them, while God knows what their mother is doing. At least from what I can tell, she’s living at her parents’ and the kids will have some care. Her parents are good people, even if they wouldn’t take my calls.”

“Did you adopt them?”

“I always meant to. Their dad is a total deadbeat; he seems to have disappeared out of the state. But we never got around to it.”

“Have you filed anything with the court? An appeal for visitation rights?”