by Yvonne Prinz
“Tout ce spectacle, c’était juste pour le vin?”
Marc laughed and clapped Fin on the shoulder. “Eh bien, il est assez bon, ce vin. Je prends un autre verre?”
Fin shook his head. “Je ne pousserais pas si j’étais vous. Ces deux là sont très pingre avec le vin.”
“Pas qu’avec le vin, ils sont radins comme tout,” said Marc, and they laughed together like old friends—like old French friends. Miles and Jeff watched the exchange with amusement, even though it seemed that Fin and Marc were talking about them.
I stood there watching through a crack in the door for a couple of minutes. Fin’s accent was beautiful. I could have stood there listening all day.
Fin seemed to be leaving. I guess he wasn’t on the schedule for dinner service. “Adieu. À bientôt,” he said to Marc. To Jeff and Miles he said, “Later, gentlemen.”
They both grinned. “Bye, Fin,” they said in unison. They were head over heels in love.
After I finished baking the cookies and pulled two trays of plum and cardamom crisps in individual ramekins from the oven, I set everything to cool on the prep table and I hung up my apron. The kitchen was peaceful for a moment but the staff would arrive soon to start setting up for dinner service. I left out the back door and walked briskly home up the hill. The sky looked ominous. It was still early evening, but the fog had never really pulled back all day. I was tired and my headache had returned. I really wanted to talk to Sonia, but I doubted she wanted to talk to me after this morning’s conversation. I was starting to feel something strangely unsettling about Fin, but I decided to keep it to myself for now. Fin was just what this town sorely needed: a good dose of charm and a fresh face. Who was I to get in the way of that?
As I neared my house, I saw Fin’s red truck parked in the driveway. My pulse quickened. My first thought was that he’d come to see me. The house was dark, though. My dad wasn’t home yet, but my mom’s studio glowed warmly through the tall windows. I stood off to the side, hidden by the creeping jasmine, and watched through the studio window. Fin was sprawled in my mom’s old wicker chair, holding a large handmade mug in his lap. He rubbed Rocket’s belly with his bare foot. Rocket was passed out next to him on the wooden floor. My mom was perched on a stool a few feet away, burnishing a pot on the canvas-covered worktable. She vigorously rubbed a small polished piece of glass against the outside of the large pot, bringing the surface to a soft sheen. Her forearm looked strong and sinewy, and a strand of hair fell across her eye. She looked a bit like Georgia O’Keeffe, my namesake. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see their lips moving. My mom didn’t look up when she spoke. She seemed very comfortable having Fin sit there, watching her.
I’d never sat in that chair long myself. My mom had always shooed me away after a few moments, claiming that I was distracting her. I was a fidgety kid. I could never sit still. Watching Fin, so comfortable in that chair, and so comfortable in his own skin as he watched my mom, I felt envious again. I also felt protective of my mom and her space. But she was smiling slightly. She looked focused and calm. She seemed not to mind that Fin had crossed boundaries I wouldn’t cross, boundaries that had been in place since I was a little kid. She laughed at something Fin said and looked over at him coyly. It was clear now who he came to see. He was here to charm my mother the same way he’d been charming every living thing in his path, including me, since he arrived.
I let myself into the darkened house through the kitchen door and flicked on some lights. There was a damp chill in the air. I started a fire with kindling in the woodstove and added a few logs once it got going. My laptop was on the kitchen table. I quickly typed in Abel Sacula again. This time an article from a French newspaper appeared. The headline read: “Guitariste célèbre tué dans un accident de voiture.” I tried to read the article but could only figure out a word here and there. It seemed to say something about a car accident. In the middle, there was a grainy black-and-white photo of a man who looked an awful lot like Fin playing guitar. Underneath the photo it said, “Yuri Sacula, sur scène.” I worked my way through the article, word by word, as though my French might improve if I kept at it long enough, but it just frustrated me.
I got up and put a kettle on for tea. Then I sat down again and clicked through some more links till I found one in English. It was a story in a British guitar magazine about Yuri Sacula, a famous gypsy jazz guitarist from Bulgaria. This had to be Fin’s dad. There was a better photo here too. Yuri was attractive in the same way that Fin was. He had the same dark expressive eyes and the same bemused smile. The article said that Yuri was married to a woman named Sophie. There had been a car accident outside Paris and Yuri and Sophie were killed. The gypsy jazz guitar world mourned the loss of a magnificent player, it said. It mentioned that the couple’s son Abel had survived the accident, but there was nothing about what happened to him after that. Fin’s story checked out. He was who he said he was. Why wasn’t I more pleased about that?
I got up and looked out the window at the studio. The two of them were still there. The kettle whistled and I shut the burner off. I browsed the fridge. Dad had left a colander full of clams on a plate. I’m sure he had plans for them, but I needed to do something, so I started working on linguine and clam sauce: I gathered up parsley, garlic, white wine, olive oil, lemon. We had no shallots but onions would do. As I was chopping the garlic, I heard the kitchen door open. My mom was laughing. It was possible that this was the first time I’d heard her laugh since before Lucky died. Suddenly she and Fin were standing together in front of me. My mom’s cheeks were pink and her eyes were dancing the way they used to when she and Lucky would go on their walks on the beach and they would come back full of ideas. Rocket gave me a halfhearted greeting and returned to Fin’s side.
“I didn’t see you come home, Honey.” My mom kissed my cheek.
“I thought I’d better get a fire going. It was so chilly in here.” I kept chopping.
“Have you met Fin, Lucky’s friend? Oh, I forgot, of course you have.”
She said “Lucky’s friend” like it was all the endorsement she needed, like it was the passcode to gain him access to everything that was Lucky’s.
“Uh-huh.” I looked up. “Hi.” My heart pounded in my chest. I felt a twinge of guilt, like I’d been reading his diary. The story of how he was orphaned was terribly sad, but he seemed so self-assured that it was hard to think of him as the little boy who’d lost both his parents in one moment.
He grinned at me. “Hi, George.” He seemed to need to explain to me what he was doing here. “I was just returning Rocket. We went on a field trip together, didn’t we, Boy?”
Rocket, hearing his name, did a quick happy circle around Fin and then looked at me just in case I may not be aware that this Fin guy really knew how to show a dog a good time. It occurred to me that Rocket must have been in Fin’s truck when he stopped off at the Inn a couple of hours ago.
“Looks like you’ve made a friend,” I said, finally looking him straight in the eye. “Looks like you’ve made lots of friends.”
He was still smiling with not even a hint of sheepishness in his eyes. He looked at the clock over the table. “It’s getting late. I should get going,” he said.
“Really? Can’t you stay for dinner? We’ve got lots,” said my mom. She touched the sleeve of his pale blue linen shirt. Her eyes sparkled. “He should stay, shouldn’t he, George?”
“Absolutely,” I said. Almost all of me did want him to stay even though I intentionally sounded sarcastic. I would not let him know how conflicted I was feeling, but I wanted desperately to touch him. I wanted to be near him.
He watched me. “Another time,” he said.
My mom looked disappointed. “Okay, then. Another time. Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Oh, wait, let me grab that book I was telling you about.” She went into the living room, leaving me alone with Fin.
He plucked a stem of parsley off the cutt
ing board and put it in his mouth. “Your mom is incredible. I see now where you get it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Hey, by the way, I looked up your dad online. He wasn’t just some guitar player. He was really famous.” I watched Fin for a reaction.
He didn’t respond at all. It was almost like he hadn’t heard me. I rubbed the back of my neck. My headache was back with a vengeance.
I tried again. “And Jesse says hi.”
He looked at me with a deeper intensity in his eyes. “You’re really suffering with those headaches, aren’t you? You should get off your meds. The sooner, the better. They’re poison.”
“Found it!” called my mom from the other room. She returned with the book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. She handed it to him. “Take your time with it. You’ll see what I mean about him.”
“Thank you, Madeleine.” He kissed her cheek.
“Bye, George.” He waited for me to acknowledge it.
I tried to look nonchalant. “Bye.”
“Hey, maybe you could come along next time.”
“Next time?”
“Next time I come for Rocket.”
This is a regular thing now, you in my house?
Rocket jumped up on him and gave him a slobbery kiss, sensing that this was good-bye. “Till then, Rocket Man!” he said.
As he turned to leave he looked back at me. “And say hi to Jesse for me, okay? I owe that guy a letter.” He didn’t wait for my reaction. He was already out the door.
My mom opened the fridge and pulled out the colander of clams. She looked at the ingredients on the chopping board.
“Linguine and clams? That sounds good. I’ll put on the water for the pasta.” She hummed to herself while she ran the water into the big pot at the sink. I dropped a tea bag into a mug and grabbed the kettle off the stove with a potholder.
“Tea?” I asked my mom.
“No. I’m drowning in it. Thanks.”
I poured boiled water into the mug.
“Fin’s awfully nice, don’t you think?” she said.
“I suppose.”
She caught something in my voice. She looked over at me from the sink.
“Have you been taking your meds?”
“Yes, of course I’ve been taking my meds. Why?”
“Nothing. You just look a bit pale, that’s all.”
“I’m fine. I just have a headache. And yes, I took some aspirin.”
“Okay. Anyway, I think he’s very nice.”
“But you don’t really know him, do you?”
She paused a moment, thinking. “You know, I guess I don’t know him at all but I feel like I’ve known him for years. Isn’t that strange? Has that ever happened to you?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I wanted this conversation to go any further.
“It’s like he exudes this consoling vibe.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’m just imagining it because he was close to Lucky. Maybe that’s it.”
“Could be. Is there lettuce? I was thinking about making a salad.” I went to the fridge to check. My mom seemed not to have heard me. She was gazing into the pot she just filled with water and smiling slightly like she was remembering something pleasant. I stood behind her and squeezed her shoulder. She patted my hand absentmindedly. I looked out the window, squinting past our reflection in the glass.
Fin’s truck was still in the driveway with the motor running. His shadowy figure was sitting in the dark, watching us. He seemed to know that I’d seen him because he quickly put the truck in gear and backed out of the driveway.
Twelve
Dr. Saul watched me impassively from his cracked leather chair.
“I’m getting more headaches,” I said. “It’s the meds.”
He stroked his beard and blinked behind his little silver-rimmed glasses. This was not the first time I’d complained about the meds. We’d tried several different ones: Clozaril, Geodon, Risperidone, and now Seroquel. We’d also tried combinations: a bit of this, a bit of that, but the meds were always problematic. There were side effects: lethargy, dry mouth, depression, suicidal thoughts, weight gain, weight loss, nausea, appetite loss, and headaches. I’d experienced all of them.
“I was reading about Famotidine online. It looks promising,” I said.
“It’s still in trials for schizophrenia. It won’t be approved for years.”
“So, now what?”
“I’ll adjust the dosage again,” he said.
I sighed heavily. I was so tired of this adjusting, changing, adding in, taking out. “I don’t want to adjust the dosage. I want off them. Can’t we just try? Just to see what happens. I’ve been fine for ages. Maybe I am fine. Maybe I’m better. Hey, Doc, maybe you’ve healed me.”
“It doesn’t work like that, George. We’ve talked about this. I hope I don’t have to tell you again. I’m sorry.”
I looked out the window at the alpacas cantering around the paddock. Dr. Saul’s wife, Peggy, raises them for the wool, which she spins herself on an old wood spinning wheel and sells from a little workshop on the other side of the property.
Dr. Saul is an unconventional psychiatrist. He and Peggy are Deadheads. They met at a Grateful Dead concert back when they were young hippies and they spent years following the band all over America in a VW microbus. Dr. Saul’s office is an old log cabin. Any wall space that isn’t taken up with bookshelves features Dead posters from all the shows he and Peggy have been to. Also, colorful drums from their weekly drum circle are stacked up next to the fieldstone fireplace. The room smells of wood smoke and incense.
I started seeing Dr. Saul right after the fire. Back then he took scribbled notes when we spoke. My mom came along with me at first. Dr. Saul asked me what kind of a kid I remembered being and I blurted out, “Gifted, creative, maybe a bit emotional.” Then he had a private conference with my mom and I’m sure she filled in all the blanks about me: Prone to hysteria and fits; suspicious, paranoid, and possessive; a loner, quiet, withdrawn, and moody but capable of flying into an unprovoked rage. I really hoped she didn’t use the word “dangerous” because I wasn’t, even though I’d heard it whispered behind my back.
School was very difficult for me; some days it was impossible. I couldn’t seem to make friends and there had been incidents, lots of them. Dr. Saul took me off Ritalin, which Dr. Garcia, our family doctor, had put me on years ago. Once I was off the drugs I felt better for a time, but then I began to notice some changes in myself. I felt like there was a committee in my brain. They took every thought I had and fed it through a device that twisted it or fouled it up or misconstrued it and then fed it back to me. I wasn’t in control of my own thoughts anymore. I started coming unglued. I was sure that I was being followed. I read secret messages meant only for me in road signs and billboards. I was convinced that some of my classmates wanted to kill me. I believed I had killed people with my thoughts.
Right after I turned sixteen, Dr. Saul sent me to San Francisco for some tests at a clinic in the University of California. They were very nice to me there. They gave me a CT scan so they could look at my brain and an EEG so they could chart my brain waves. They asked me hundreds of questions about myself and they did blood and urine tests and they took some spinal fluid, which was horribly painful. They asked my mom about our family, her parents and my dad’s parents, aunts, uncles, everybody. My mom took me to Chinatown for Chinese food when we were done. I remember having a nice time with her that day. I still have the fortune from my fortune cookie in my jewelry box: You will soon uncover a happy secret, it said.
When he got the results of all the tests, Dr. Saul told me that I was most likely suffering from chronic paranoid schizophrenia. He told me that I didn’t need to worry, that there were good drugs and we would keep it under control. He said that I could live a normal life, or almost normal. That’s when he started me on meds. I am nowhere near normal.
Dr. Saul’s golden retriever, Jerry, asleep at Dr. Saul’s feet, made a whimpering sound and
flicked his paws like he was dreaming about running. Out the window I could see Jerry’s sister Janis in the paddock, annoying the alpacas.
“My brother died and all I cared about was getting my lemon tarts right for the party,” I said, still looking out the window.
“That’s perfectly normal. It’s a coping mechanism.”
“And I haven’t cried yet.” I looked at him.
He blinked and said nothing.
“I’m sick of it. I’m sick of feeling shitty or feeling nothing.”
“I understand, Georgia.”
“I haven’t had an incident in a really long time. How will I ever know if I’m okay if I never get off the meds?”
“Georgia, you know better than that. The drug has built up in your system. If you stop taking it, the results could be disastrous, and then you’d have to start all over again.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind. I promise I’ll start again if it doesn’t work. Can’t we just try?” I looked at him pleadingly.
“I’ll lower your dosage. It might help with the headaches, but I want to see you in two weeks for an assessment and I want you to call me immediately if you notice any changes. I know that these sessions are private, but I want you to let your mom know what we’re doing, okay? She needs to know to keep an eye on you.”
“Deal.”
“And this is a trial only.”
“I know, I know, I know.” I smiled.
Dr. Saul scratched a prescription onto a pad.
This was the best I could do. I knew I could never persuade Dr. Saul to take me off my meds completely. But if I could cut back a bit at a time, and he could see an improvement, maybe eventually I could get him to let me stop taking them completely. I just wanted a chance to see who I could be without them. Maybe I could be normal. Maybe I could be happy. Maybe someone like Fin could love me.
