by P. J. Morse
I asked, “Why?”
Peggy stared at my face for a moment, until she finally recollected the conversation in the gazebo. “Yes. Yes. I was looking at you in the gazebo, and I think you would understand. I feel so lucky! I’ve been trying to recruit your mother for months, and now you come along!”
“Recruit?” I asked.
“Well, yes. Dr. Redburn and I want to spread the word of his teaching. I tell everyone I meet about him. It’s just as well that your mother isn’t interested. Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think your mom could handle what Dr. Redburn would tell her.” Almost instinctively, Peggy took my hands. Her robe swished, and I thought I was about to have my fortune read.
“What would he tell my mom?”
“Your mother is too attached to her possessions. She protects herself with them instead of making herself stronger.”
I wasn’t going to argue with most of that comment. But, while Mom loved her material goods, she wasn’t exactly weak-minded. “What would he tell me?” I asked.
Leaning in and staring into my eyes, Peggy said, “You have a lot of anger. You should release it.”
I didn’t think I was particularly angry. Well, I was mad at Larry. And at the promoter who said our band couldn’t play the South of the Slot. And at the asshole who drove that ice-cream truck. Then I realized I was angrier than I thought. “Is there anything else?” I asked.
Peggy continued, holding my hands tighter, “I can’t tell you everything. You’ll have to talk to Dr. Redburn. And then everything will be clear.”
“What does he do for you?” I asked.
At that moment, Peggy held my hands so tightly that her rings felt like they were cutting into my fingers. “It’s hard to explain.” She paused. “He’s just so … physical.” Then she dropped her voice into a whisper. “Yes! You have to see him to understand. And you’re special. You will understand. Just … don’t be like Sabrina. Try to share a few appointments with the rest of us, okay?”
I nodded, if only to get her to let go of my hands.
Then I saw Mom heading down the museum stairs. She stumbled a little bit on her stilettos and started to teeter. Thinking of Mom’s wrists breaking against the stairs, I wrenched myself from Peggy’s grip and caught Mom’s fall just in time.
After straightening up, Mom proclaimed, “Ladies! It is time for me to flee. I think I have just fended off five men in ten minutes. I am exhausted!” She turned her head toward Peggy, who was glaring at her. “Peggy? Did I interrupt something?”
Peggy pressed her lips together. She didn’t say anything.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Go ahead. It was wonderful talking to you.” She looked at me. “Remember what I said.”
Mom leaned over toward Peggy and whispered, “You have lipstick all over your teeth, sweetie!” Peggy gasped and made a return trip to the ladies’ room.
I turned to Mom. “She didn’t have lipstick on her teeth.”
Nudging me up the stairs, Mom muttered under her breath, “So? I’d say anything to get away from her. That woman is crazy! Speaking of …”
As we walked up the stairs, we encountered Mr. and Mrs. Buckner, who were on their way down. “Sabrina!” my mom called out.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Buckner seemed startled when they saw me. I just smiled and kept my face a blank. Mr. Buckner knew Sabrina hired me, but not vice versa. Before either of them could say anything incriminating, I stretched out my hand. “Hi! I’m Kit’s daughter, Clancy. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Mom was perfect. She played right along. “Where are my manners? All this white wine! Yes, Clancy, this is Mr. Peter Buckner and his wife, Sabrina. Peter! Clancy is a UC alum!”
Mr. Buckner was next to get into the game. “Is that right? Sacramento?”
“No,” I replied. “Santa Cruz. A banana slug!”
Mr. Buckner chuckled. “I must admit. They do have the best mascot!”
Sabrina did not chime in. Her face was frozen, so Mr. Buckner kept on chuckling. We had a record-setting chucklefest until Dr. Redburn appeared and put a hand on Sabrina’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you’d be here!” he said.
Sabrina’s face lit up, while Mr. Buckner’s face soured. “What a surprise!” she said.
“A surprise indeed,” Mr. Buckner said. He recovered and smiled as if he never called Dr. Redburn’s work “mumbo-jumbo.”
Sabrina and Dr. Redburn got into a conversation right on the steps, something about her next appointment. Mr. Buckner turned to me and Mom. “Ladies! Would you like some fresh air?”
“Sure,” I said.
Mom and I followed Mr. Buckner back up the stairs and through the front door. Mom got tied up with another guy in a Cosby sweater who told her how much he loved the way she decorated her casts and slings. That was a good thing because I followed Mr. Buckner out the door, and he immediately started talking about the case.
“How did you get here?” he asked.
“Just doing my job,” I replied. “I’m checking out Dr. Redburn. I already have an appointment with him for tomorrow.”
Mr. Buckner smiled. “I am impressed. I really am. I thought you’d just do a background check.”
I smiled. “There’s a lot a background check won’t tell you.”
“Well, please hurry,” he said. “My wife is getting stranger by the day.”
“I’m juggling it all,” I replied. “Wife, doctor, necklace.” Then I thought I’d test him. “Is that the right order?”
Mr. Buckner didn’t get the chance to answer. He said, “Oh, God, they’re coming back up.”
I turned around and saw Sabrina and Dr. Redburn heading toward us. Sabrina looked almost a decade younger when she stood beside Dr. Redburn, and she didn’t look half as crazy as Peggy did.
“She seems so happy,” Mr. Buckner said. “But trust me. Inside, she’s not.”
CHAPTER 19
SOCIAL CUES
WHILE ON MY WAY TO Dr. Redburn’s office in Pacific Heights, I hopped off the 38 Geary and walked up Fillmore from Japantown. I walked pretty quickly, and I kept looking behind me in case my ice-cream-truck assassin decided to hijack a city bus and take care of me once and for all.
The higher I climbed, the better the shops became. Soon, the shops filled with porcelain good-luck cats, knickknacks, polished stones, and backscratchers disappeared as upscale boutiques and home-furnishing emporiums took over. Places like the Boom Boom Room were replaced by cafes full of glossy pastries. The panhandlers who pressed me for money evaporated, as if an electric fence sprang up between the Fillmore and Pacific Heights. Skinny women armed with large lattes and cell phones even tinier and sleeker than my own took their place.
I smoothed down my gray-and-black striped skirt and straightened the collar of my shirt underneath my trusty pink cardigan. I didn’t have to look nice to see Dr. Redburn. He knew I was a musician, and it wasn’t like I had to be a fashionista, but when I woke up that morning I wanted to try a little harder. The warm October day was sunny and gentle, so my fancy duds felt less scratchy. I even wore heels, low ones.
As I walked, I listened to some of the Sun-Seekers’ music that I downloaded to my phone. Their only record, Argonauts, was more structured and literate than the punk-rock explosions popular during that time period, so I could see why the band never took off. If they had been around a few years later, they would have been huge.
Dr. Redburn’s bass was also a highlight of the record. Even though the record wasn’t mixed very well, his style of bass playing was thick and smoky. His style was just the sound I was looking for. He really had the show-stopping bass of a Les Claypool, the kind of sound that made audiences remember why a bass player was such a necessary component of rock.
On the way, I broke out the Crackberry and texted Muriel that I was passing by the Cozy Corner Café and I’d stop by to say hi. Although there was nothing cozy about Muriel, she somehow talked her way into a job making custom-ordered lattes.
/> Muriel was standing outside, smoking and looking miserable in the Cozy Corner Café uniform of a rust-colored T-shirt and black pants. I walked right past her to see if she recognized me. She didn’t. I spun back around. “Muriel!” I noticed that my voice became more high-pitched with my fancier duds.
Muriel started coughing and stepped back. “Hold up! Clancy! That you? What happened? Heels? You? You hit your head on something?”
I laughed. “Well, I am undercover as one of your customers. What do you think?”
Cringing slightly, Muriel leaned in and confided, “I have to be honest. You are doing a bad job of it, dollface. You are last season, so these ladies say. If anyone asks, tell them you have been out of the country for a year or something. And the pink is not working for your hair.”
I scowled at that one. “Ouch,” I muttered. I liked the contrast of the pink with my red hair and spent a long time the night before assembling my clothes into a coherent outfit. But Muriel knew fashion, as she saw the new seasons walk in and out of the Cozy Corner Café, and she was probably right.
“I’m sorry,” Muriel said. She took another puff of her cigarette. “I feel bad. Sometimes I shouldn’t open my trap … you want a free latte?”
“Not at the moment. You want to join my band?”
“You can tell that loose-crotched caveman drummer of yours that he can —”
I realized I shouldn’t have launched Muriel on an anti-Shane diatribe, so I checked my Crackberry for the time. “I have an appointment. I’ll pick up a drink on my way back down. And I promise I’ll have you vet my outfits next time.”
Muriel took one last drag on her cigarette and stomped on it, making sure the Pacific Heights locals got an eyeful of her making some litter. “Gladly. You have fun in the wilds of Pac Heights.”
After walking a few blocks, I hung a left toward a series of private homes. As I scanned the cars and tasteful paint jobs, I determined that Dr. Redburn had done well for himself. I’d had a few clients who were doctors. Most of them had narrow offices in the Financial District high-rises, but even they couldn’t afford to live among their clients and enjoy the high life as defined by San Francisco, and they always returned home to the comfy suburbs of the South Bay. But Dr. Redburn had the special privilege of living and working in his fine home. It was definitely a step up from slumming it as a member of a lesser-known rock band.
I arrived at the address and minced up the front steps in my heels. There was no sign that I was entering a doctor’s office, not even a plaque on the door. Hoping I had the right place, I pressed the buzzer.
The door opened with a click, leading to a poorly lit staircase. The staircase was narrow and tight, and each step creaked with my weight. It would have been difficult for anyone to abscond with Sabrina’s necklace if they were trying to sneak out. A potted plant blocked my access if I had wanted to look for Dr. Redburn on the first floor, so I took the stairs.
The waiting room on the second floor was clean and spacious, but it looked more like a living room than a doctor’s office. The only element that was out of place was a large mahogany desk where a small man with slick hair and a too-tight tie waited. The room also smelled musky, like cheap aftershave.
The man at the desk sat placidly, grasping a copy of a tabloid. If anyone were going to steal a million-dollar necklace in the office, he probably wouldn’t have the muscle to stop them.
I stepped up to speak with the receptionist, who was so absorbed in a spread covering the latest exploits of a soap star that it took him a while to acknowledge me. “Hi there. I’m here for an appointment.”
I knew full well that most receptionists would rather be anywhere else than the receptionist’s desk, but the little man looked especially ill-suited for the job. He rolled his eyes slowly to meet mine. After an insolent blink, he asked, “Really? And what is your name?”
“Clancy Parker.”
“Have a seat.” He idly flipped through an appointment book.
Pretending to be interested in his tabloid, I leaned over to find out what was in the appointment book, which the receptionist opened to the full month of October. I had hoped to see who had been in the office the day Sabrina’s necklace was missing. I noticed Peggy’s name in the 9:00 am slot every single weekday for the whole month, beating Sabrina’s total of an appointment every other day at 10:00 am. Sabrina told me she brought the necklace by the office early in the morning, so she probably encountered Peggy around the time the necklace went missing. I was also amused that the doctor had scheduled me in on one of Sabrina’s off-days.
The receptionist found my name and crossed through it. Then he looked up. “Have a seat,” he repeated.
I hoped he hadn’t caught me snooping. I didn’t think so, but I pointed at the photo of the soap star. “I heard she had a facelift.”
The receptionist didn’t reply. He just nodded his head toward the waiting area, which included a row of overstuffed love seats lining the wall. A long coffee table offered an assortment of magazines. If the office were usually that empty, no necklace-stealers would be sitting around. And, given most people’s craving for personal space, I couldn’t imagine anyone sitting down next to Sabrina Norton Buckner in such a large office—unless she trusted them. Or, unless they were like Peggy and lacked the ability to read social cues.
Then I realized the receptionist forgot something. “Excuse me, sir. Don’t I need to fill out a past patient’s history? Medications I’m on, insurance info, stuff like that?”
The receptionist was already back to gazing upon the soap star’s cleavage. He shrugged. “It’s not necessary.”
The guy had so little interest in his work that I began scanning the desk for any elements that identified him as a receptionist. I didn’t see a nameplate, and I didn’t see any paperwork that might occupy him, aside from the appointment book. The guy didn’t look strong, but he didn’t look sweet, either. I wondered if the guy was a bodyguard who whipped out a straitjacket in case an especially loony socialite showed up, but the man was too slight to wrestle down even the most frail of aging debutantes.
A few more minutes passed, and I got bored. I started walking around the waiting room. I also didn’t see any file cabinets or folders of patient history. I wondered where the doctor kept his files—if he kept any. I thought that, if the doctor were a quack, he might try a little harder to look legitimate. Then again, to someone like Sabrina Norton Buckner, who probably spent most of her life in a bubble, something that looked more like a living room than a doctor’s office would seem normal. And a psychiatrist with a rock ‘n’ roll past probably wasn’t inclined to follow the rules.
The receptionist said, “You. May. Sit. Until. The. Doctor. Arrives. Miss.” His words were more of an order than a suggestion.
“Aye-aye, captain,” I said. I twirled on my heel and stalked my way to a loveseat, trying to make as much racket as possible to keep the receptionist annoyed. Something about him did not sit right with me.
I began tapping my foot loudly and ho-humming. I picked up an old issue of San Francisco Magazine and made a big show of leafing through the pages. I whistled occasionally as I browsed the society photos. I saw the elegant Sabrina Norton Buckner and her less luminous husband smiling into a camera while at a fundraiser. I saw Mom at a gallery opening, wearing a plaid sling. “When did Mom sprain her wrist? Last year?” I wondered aloud.
I kept muttering to myself until the receptionist finally decided he’d had enough of me. He walked across the room, opened a door and whispered to someone. A few minutes passed, and Dr. Redburn came to the door with a clipboard in hand.
CHAPTER 20
THE SOUNDPROOFED ROOM
DR. REDBURN’S SMILE WAS FAR warmer than that of his receptionist’s. He shook my hand, and I was surprised by how strong his grip was. I imagined him going to work on a bass guitar. “Clancy, come on in, and we’ll get started.” He didn’t even look at the receptionist.
I followed him through a small hall
way. It turned out that was where the doctor kept the file cabinets, only they were made of dark wood instead of the traditional metal. Given the nondescript nature of his office, it was as if Dr. Redburn had tried to hide the business of doctoring from his elite patients. Maybe they felt more comfortable in a room that looked more like a library than a shrink’s office.
Dr. Redburn turned into a small, sunny room with a corner desk, two tan recliners and a small table. “Will you sit down?” he asked.
I did, setting my satchel on the table and imagining where Sabrina Norton Buckner might have left hers. Then I looked out the window. The view was glorious, as usual, but it couldn’t have distracted Sabrina from her necklace for too long. After all, she had the same view out the back of her home.
When Dr. Redburn glanced at some paperwork on his desk, I slipped my hands quickly into the recliner cushions, just in case a stray necklace happened to be tucked in there. No luck.
Dr. Redburn took a clipboard off the desk and sat down. “Don’t look so nervous. I take notes, not judgments, on everyone.”
I smiled shyly. That was something I would say to a client.
“Now, we need to talk about a few ground rules before we get to work. Have you been to a psychiatrist before?”
I shook my head no, trying to send the message that I was putty in his hands.
“Well, all psychiatrists have a set of ground rules. Our goal is to make you feel better about yourself, to help you overcome your obstacles to a fulfilling life.”
I nodded eagerly. “Overcoming your obstacles to a fulfilling life” was a phrase used often in his books. I was glad I did my homework.
Dr. Redburn continued, “Like many psychiatrists, I ask that you make the commitment to coming in at least once a week.”
“I can do that.” If Peggy could come in once a day, I could at least do once a week.
Dr. Redburn said, “I ask that you also drop any preconceived notions about psychiatry.”
“Like what?” I asked.
The doctor’s tone changed. “Don’t expect to be talking about your past. For example, I don’t want to hear about your issues with your parents.”
