The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

  For being too damn stubborn to lock my phone with a passcode because it would hinder my access to the Web browser.

  I switch off the screen and take off at a run toward the food court. I’m no longer being polite as I climb through people. They are just tall weeds and annoying vines in the jungle now. And my elbows and oversize backpack are my machetes.

  Circular References

  “Do you want to talk about your parents’ divorce?” Dr. Judy asked on my very first visit. I sat on the couch fiddling with a rubber snakelike gizmo that Dr. Judy called a “busy toy.”

  Do all shrinks have busy toys?

  My “busy” hands itched for my phone. For the sweet relief of swiping my fingertip against the cool, smooth surface of the screen. For typing and typing and typing until there were no more questions left in my brain. But Dr. Judy had a no-phone policy in her office. There was a sign right on the door. I wondered how strict a policy that was. What would she do to me if I reached into the front pocket of my backpack and just touched it?

  Just a little feel.

  A quick squeeze.

  Would she kick me out? Would she fire me as a client? Would she tell my mother?

  Do all shrinks have no-phone policies?

  I almost laughed as the question popped into my head. We’d just learned about circular references in my computer programming class at school. Basically, it says that you can’t create a formula that references itself. It results in an error.

  My request to ask my phone about a no-phone policy felt like that. A circular reference. A closed loop.

  I wondered if my brain would error out. Shut down.

  ZAP.

  At least then I wouldn’t have to be here anymore, talking to a stranger about my life. How can a stranger possibly give advice about something she knows nothing about?

  My mom insisted that it would be good for me, even though she’d never been to a shrink either. She doesn’t like talking about things. At least not things that matter. Neither does my father. I suppose that’s what made them such a good couple.

  Until they weren’t anymore.

  “No,” I finally responded to the question. For me, it felt like an eternity since she’d asked me if I wanted to talk about my parents’ divorce, but Dr. Judy didn’t seem fazed by the time lapse.

  “No?” she repeated.

  “Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  If this was how this conversation was going to go, then my mom was wasting her money. I could sit around all day in a dimly lit room and repeat everything back in the form of a question. Would someone pay me two hundred dollars an hour?

  Maybe this was just how therapists worked. Maybe this is what all those textbooks on her shelf taught her to do. To add question marks to the end of sentences.

  How should I know? I’d never been to a shrink before.

  My best friend had never died before.

  I fidgeted with the snake in my hand. I wasn’t sure what the point of it was. Twist it. Untwist it. These seemed to be its only two features.

  I placed it on the table to my left.

  “You don’t like the busy toy?” she asked.

  “I’d feel better if I could hold my phone,” I told her.

  She tilted her head. “Why?”

  “I just would.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  I dove for my bag on the floor, feeling my pulse race as I touched it. Grasped it. The plastic case digging satisfyingly into my palm. When I sat back up, Dr. Judy was writing something on her notepad.

  Suddenly, the phone didn’t feel so comforting anymore.

  For a moment I feared she was going to ask me about the phone. About the case. About the text message. But she seemed to be satisfied with her note and moved on.

  “How long ago was the divorce?”

  When I didn’t reply, she tried something else. “Was it a messy separation?”

  Take three: “Do your parents still get along?”

  “I didn’t think I was here to talk about the divorce.” My response was like a boomerang. It shot out of my mouth so fast, I didn’t even realize how agitated I sounded until it came flying back and slapped me across the face.

  “What do you think you’re here to talk about?”

  I clutched my phone with both hands and tucked them between my thighs. I squeezed until my fingers went numb.

  Dr. Judy’s eyes tracked down, studying me with a relaxed interest.

  “What do you do with the phone?” she asked.

  “What does anyone do with a phone?” I asked back. I didn’t recognize my own voice. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t me. Dr. Judy’s office was a magic portal that turned you into someone else. Some ugly, irritable version of yourself.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose different people use their phones for different purposes.”

  “I make phone calls.”

  She nods. “Is that all?”

  “I search the Web.”

  “What do you search the Web for?”

  How does she do that? How does she know exactly which questions to ask?

  I glanced over at her bookshelf once more, searching for a thick tome about mind reading.

  I swallowed and kept my gaze on the books. “I ask questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Any kind.”

  “Can you give me an example of a question you might ask?”

  No.

  “They’re just random questions. They don’t matter.”

  “They matter to you,” she pointed out.

  My head swung back toward her, and I pressed my lips together. “I don’t like unanswered questions.”

  She watched me for a very long time. For some reason it felt like a challenge. For some reason I didn’t feel like backing down.

  “What about Lottie?” she asked. “Is she an unanswered question?”

  I looked at my lap, forfeiting the challenge.

  “Lottie is dead. You don’t get a more finite answer than that.”

  The food court is a buzzing swarm of hangry people struggling to be civil to one another. As civil as a thousand lobsters swimming in a seafood restaurant tank can be.

  The word “zoo” immediately comes to mind, and I picture all the people in line for the McDonald’s as hyenas waiting for their daily servings of meat. The longest line by far though, is the one for the Caribou Coffee. This is where the gang of slouchy meerkats queue up to get their pep juice.

  There are only so many tables to sit at, so several small tribes of diners have set up camp on the ground, just outside the food court barrier. It’s like someone tore a seam in a giant grain sack of people and they’re spilling out onto the floor.

  How am I supposed to find him in all of this anarchy?

  Just then I feel a tap on my shoulder. I spin around and there he is. The same light brown skin, the same dark brown hair, the same striking blue eyes. Animal, wild-eyed and midscream, stares back at me from his T-shirt. If I were to choose a Muppet to put on my clothes, I wouldn’t choose the craziest, most schizo one of them all. I’d probably choose Kermit. He’s always so calm and composed, even when his psycho pig girlfriend is running around screaming.

  Muppet Guy is brandishing my phone toward me like a game show hostess would. It takes all the strength I have left not to reach out and snatch it right from his hand.

  If the hangry mob can be relatively civil, then so can I.

  “Thanks,” I say, offering his phone to him.

  Do we just swap?

  Is it like one of those scenes in a spy movie where neither of us trusts the other, and we have to do it at lightning speed?

  He casually hands me my phone, and I do the same with his. It would be the most uneventful exchange ever, if it weren’t for the fact that, for just a moment, his fingers brush against mine and I flinch. Partly because I wasn’t expecting to touch him, but mostly because I’m surprised by how warm his hands are. It’s hard to bel
ieve anyone’s hands could be that warm during the middle of a history-making blizzard. Somehow it feels unnatural.

  He clears his throat. “I must say, you have excellent taste in phone cases.”

  “Thank you,” I mumble.

  He laughs.

  Was that funny?

  I didn’t intend for it to be funny.

  But he’s still grinning, and I can’t help but notice how straight his teeth are. Definitely the result of some very expensive orthodontic work. No one is born with teeth like that.

  “By the way,” he says, slipping his phone into a phone-size pocket on the strap of his messenger bag. “I think you have an unread text message.”

  My stomach clenches like it’s trying to protect my kidneys and liver from a black-market organ thief.

  “Did you read it?” The question explodes out of me. It’s not civil. It’s not polite. It’s not the least bit restrained. It’s a full-on ambush attack.

  If he read it, then that’s it. That’s the end.

  There’s no way to mark a text message unread once you’ve read it.

  I’ve Googled it hundreds of time.

  He blinks rapidly, obviously startled by the sudden hostility in my voice. I ignore his reaction and swipe on the phone, my eyes darting to the messaging app on the bottom of the home screen.

  A red number 1 hovers over it like a heavenly halo.

  One unread message.

  I breathe out the dragon fire–tinged air that’s trapped in my lungs.

  “Of course not,” he finally answers. “I just used the phone to call you. And send you that text a minute ago. I realized it wasn’t mine as soon as I turned it on.” He snickers like we share an inside joke that I don’t remember. “The folders were my first clue. That’s one organized phone you got there. How long did it take you to do all of that?”

  His cheeks begin to twitch like little chipmunk cheeks. It would be endearing if he weren’t clearly making fun of me.

  “I like knowing where everything is, okay?”

  He holds up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Hey, I’m not knocking it. I’m just . . . impressed.”

  But he doesn’t sound impressed. He sounds like he’s talking to a patient in a mental hospital after entering the kitchen to discover the patient has organized all the spices by country of origin.

  “Look,” he says, hooking a thumb into the strap of his messenger bag. “I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.” He chuckles again. He just can’t help himself. “Actually, you got off on two wrong feet.”

  He pauses, like he’s waiting for me to get it.

  I get it. I’m the one who tripped on the moving walkway. I just don’t laugh. We haven’t known each other long enough to have inside jokes.

  He clears his throat again. “Anyway, do you want to maybe get a bite to eat with me?”

  Instinctively, I look back at the zoo. A zebra and a lion are arguing over who gets to sit at a table that just opened up. I think I know who will win.

  Muppet Guy laughs. Does he do anything else but laugh? Maybe he should be standing in line at McDonald’s with the rest of the hyenas.

  “Not here,” he says quickly. “A buddy of mine told me about some secret, hidden burger place in Terminal B. It’s just one stop on the train. He says they have amazing burgers. You know, as amazing as airport burgers can be.”

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  He nods. “That’s cool. I’m sure they have veggie burgers. And it’s probably much quieter than this place.” He unhooks his thumb and jerks it toward the food court.

  For the briefest moment in the history of brief moments, I consider going. But only because my stomach is still complaining about my unplanned fast, and I’m dying to go somewhere—anywhere—quieter than this.

  But then he says, “C’mon. We can talk about Doctor Who.”

  The unnaturally straight teeth. And the warm hands. And the Muppet shirt.

  And I can’t.

  “Actually, I have to go.”

  Another laugh. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

  This is funny. I know this is funny. Because none of us has anywhere to be but stuck in the middle of this mayhem.

  I stroke the phone case in my hand.

  My phone case.

  My phone.

  The questions from the last twenty minutes have been piling up and they won’t answer themselves.

  “I just have to go.”

  His smile fades. The curtain is drawn over the sideshow of perfect teeth. “Okay. No worries. But hey, if you change your mind, the secret burger place is at B89. But don’t like tell a whole bunch of people. Then it won’t be a secret anymore.”

  “B89,” I repeat with a nod. Not because I need to remember it. But because I need him to let me go.

  Because I need to go.

  “Thanks,” I mumble, staring down at my phone. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

  I turn and leave the zoo.

  I know he hasn’t moved yet. I know he’s watching me walk away. Even through the buzzing swarm, I can sense it. Like he’s standing alone.

  Like he’s the only human in the room.

  75. I blame the Denver airport for making moving walkways that stop too abruptly.

  76. I blame boys with Muppet shirts for not recognizing their own phones on the ground.

  77. I blame the factory in Taiwan for manufacturing too many Doctor Who phone cases.

  After that first visit, Dr. Judy stopped asking about Lottie. I tried to psychoanalyze what that meant, but I found myself trapped in another frustrating loop—the circular reference of a patient trying to analyze her therapist trying to analyze her—and eventually gave up.

  Besides, what’s that saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth?

  I figured I probably shouldn’t question her decision to omit my dead best friend from the conversation. I had no interest in talking about Lottie.

  “How are you fitting in at your new school?” she asked me on my second visit.

  My thumb absentmindedly stroked my phone as I shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”

  “Fine, you guess?”

  I was starting to learn that open-ended statements were dangerous inside these walls. They usually required follow-ups. And follow-ups led down dark rabbit holes. It was best to end things with decisive periods.

  “Fine.”

  “Are you taking any art classes?”

  I gave her a quizzical look. It seemed like such a random question.

  “I assume you like to draw,” she clarified.

  “Did my mother tell you that?” I asked, feeling defensive. Feeling betrayed. I didn’t like the idea of Dr. Judy talking to my mother about me behind my back. It seemed like cheating. Insider trading.

  Dr. Judy nodded toward my left hand, the one holding the phone. “I noticed the ink stains.”

  I surreptitiously tried to wipe away the evidence. I hadn’t realized there was any left. It had been two days since I’d last tried to draw something. Safe, innocuous things like trees and buildings and blades of grass. Two days since I stared at those crooked lines and distorted shapes and then angrily tossed them in the trash, where they belonged.

  “So,” she prompted. “Do you like to draw?”

  “I used to,” I admitted, intentionally omitting all the variations of the second half of that sentence.

  I used to be good.

  I used to impress people.

  I used to be able to draw a straight fucking line.

  “What happened?” Dr. Judy asked.

  I remained quiet. Eventually, she got the hint and changed topics.

  “Have you made any new friends at school?”

  I studied the lampshade. It wasn’t a particularly interesting lampshade. But it felt safe. “It’s still early.”

  “Does that mean you want to make new friends?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Dr. Judy smiled tenderly. “I’m not asking about everyone. I’
m asking about you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you want to make new friends?”

  I didn’t like where this conversation was heading. It felt slippery. Like I could lose control of it at any moment. One minute you’re talking about new friends, the next minute you’re talking about old ones.

  I dug deep down and conjured up the bubbliest, most enthusiastic smile I could conjure. “Yes. I would like very much to make new friends.”

  Dr. Judy didn’t look convinced. She scribbled something down on her yellow notepad. I was starting to despise that yellow notepad. I was starting to despise her scratchy black pen and the cryptic hieroglyphics she scrawled with it.

  The whole concept of a psychologist taking notes about you felt counterintuitive. It was like inviting a group of gossipy girls to whisper behind your back. To judge you when you’re feeling the most vulnerable.

  “Let’s talk about that smile.”

  My face fell. “What smile?”

  “The one you just gave me.”

  “I’m not allowed to smile?”

  Dr. Judy put her pen down. I felt my muscles relax a bit. “I just think if you’re going to fake a smile, it needs to look real.”

  The surprise must have registered on my face, because Dr. Judy chuckled. “Ryn.” She said my name delicately, like I was a glass ballerina figurine whose broken leg had recently been glued back on. “I don’t expect you to walk around grinning like life is some amazing gift. I don’t expect you to be okay with this. You still have a lot of healing to do. But I’ll be honest with you. There are going to be times when you’re going to have to fake it. And you’re going to have to do a better job than that if you want to convince people.”

  “You’re encouraging me to lie?”

  “I’m encouraging you to survive. Out there. In here, I don’t care what you do. You can act tough, you can fall to pieces, you can pretend like you don’t feel completely betrayed by the world. This is a safe space. But out there is very different. People won’t understand. Strangers won’t automatically know what you’re dealing with. If you don’t want people to ask questions, then you’re going to have to do a better job convincing them there’s nothing to know. You have to sell yourself.”