Nutcase

by Hughes, Charlotte

  Red was their signature color. They wore red overalls and rode around in a candy apple red six-ton 2007 Navistar CLT pickup truck, which they’d purchased once their business had taken off and become a huge success. It was twenty-one feet long and capable of hauling more junk than Amtrak. Before they had arrived, as my mother liked to say, selling junk had been a hobby of sorts. My earliest memories were of me digging through the trash in ritzy neighborhoods on garbage day while they kept watch from my father’s battered truck, the engine running so we could make a quick getaway if need be. I’d been coaxed inside every Dumpster within a fifty-mile radius of Atlanta, and I knew everybody’s name at the local flea market where we rented a booth on weekends.

  They had become very successful over the years, having turned their junk into sculptures, wall art, and painted furniture. Their new studio in Little Five Points drew high-end interior decorators and wealthy customers. The sign outside their store read “Junque” because my mother thought it sounded sophisticated. They made a killing.

  While I was enormously proud of my mother, she and I bumped heads constantly. She often stuck her nose in my business, and she had more advice than a self-help book, even though, at thirty-two, I had read most of them. She was bossy and overbearing and could induce guilt in the best of us. I recalled her doing the same to my father. Sometimes, when I was at the end of my rope with her, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d chosen to stay in that burning building.

  I pulled into the parking lot next to my office and was suddenly overcome with a choking sense of dread. I had been served an eviction notice two months ago, a result of the aforementioned explosion. I’d spent the first month begging my landlord to reconsider. He’d agreed to give me an extra month, during which time I’d searched high and low for affordable office space. The only place that had come close was in a one-story building that housed a cab company and a lending operation called Snappy Cash, owned and operated by a seedy man named Freddie who wore white shoes and polyester slacks and had a terrible comb-over. It would have meant sharing a bathroom and kitchen space with people who appeared hygienically challenged and who were not overly concerned that one or two of their front teeth were missing.

  I now had until five p.m. on Friday to find a new place, at which time my landlord planned to change the locks on my doors.

  I spoke to several of the people who got on and off the elevator as I rode to my office on the fourth floor. I knew most of them since my best friend, receptionist, and self-appointed PR person, Mona Epps, held an open house on the first Monday of every month in hopes of building my practice. It was a catered event where she passed out brochures on mental health issues and saw that everyone left with my business card. Since she was rich and paid for it all, there was little I could do about it.

  The events hadn’t drawn many patients, but Mona and I were well liked by the other tenants.

  I heard loud singing before I opened the door leading into my reception room. Inside, I found a striking but disheveled woman in a sequined cowgirl outfit and ten-gallon hat, belting out the words to an old country song, “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” The fact that I wasn’t surprised to find a complete stranger performing a nightclub act in my office said a lot about what I faced on a daily basis.

  Sitting at her desk, Mona gave me an eye roll. I simply stood there quietly while the woman sang, using a hairbrush as her microphone. Finally, she finished. I smiled and clapped and Mona did likewise. I’m sure we were in silent agreement that the woman would never see her name in lights.

  “Who are you?” she asked me.

  I noted a slight odor coming from her; like maybe she needed a hot shower and a bar of deodorant soap. “I’m Dr. Kate Holly,” I said. “You can call me Kate.” I smiled. “And you are?”

  The woman looked surprised. “You don’t recognize me?” She pulled off her cowboy hat, and I almost winced at the sight of her hair, dyed coal black and chopped in an unflattering style.

  Mona cleared her voice and gave me the special look we shared when weird people showed up in my office, which was often. “Kate, meet Marie Osmond,” she said. “I didn’t recognize her at first either. She looks much younger in person.”

  The Marie Osmond wannabe smiled.

  She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. The only thing I knew for certain was that she couldn’t possibly be Marie Osmond, whom I’d recently seen on Dancing with the Stars.

  “I’m honored,” I said, taking her hand and shaking it. I noticed her nails were dirty and chipped. There were bruises on her arms.

  “Miss Osmond is reinventing herself,” Mona said. “She plans to take the country music industry by storm. And you’ll never guess what else. She has walked away from all her fame and fortune and started from scratch.”

  Marie nodded. “That’s right. I gave it all up—” She paused and snapped her fingers. “Just like that. A real country western star sings about hardship, broken hearts, and old pickup trucks,” she added. “They don’t sing songs about shopping on Rodeo Drive.”

  Mona gave me another of our special looks. “Marie has been looking for gigs in Atlanta, but she hasn’t had much luck.”

  The woman gave a huff. “It has nothing to do with talent, of course. People would hire me in a second if I would agree to sing the old Donny and Marie songs.” She gave a massive sigh. “I swear, if I have to hear ‘Puppy Love’ again, I’ll barf up my spleen. Anyway, last night I auditioned for this guy named Rusty who owns Rusty’s Place, and he gave me your address and phone number and said you had a lot of connections.”

  I blinked several times. It was a lot to take in at once, and the woman spoke at warp speed. I knew Rusty well. Jay and I often ate at his restaurant because he had the best steaks in town. Obviously, Rusty had decided the woman had serious problems and sent her my way.

  “I had doubts about coming to see you,” Marie said. “I mean, I grew up in the music industry, and there’s nothing I don’t already know about the business, but as I was pulling into your parking lot I saw your phone number written in the sky with the words ‘Compassionate Friend.’ I knew it was a sign from God that I was supposed to be here.”

  I nodded. Most psychologists, upon hearing about signs from God, would immediately suspect they were dealing with a psychotic or a Jehovah’s Witness. Not true in my case. Mona had hired a pilot to pull a banner over the city of Atlanta advertising my services, hoping one day I would be famous and have my own talk show.

  “Well, I’ll certainly do my best to help,” I said after a moment, “but I don’t know anything about the entertainment industry. I’m a clinical psychologist.”

  Marie glanced from me to Mona and then back at me. I could tell she was unsettled and probably very confused. “You’re a shrink?” she said. “Why would Rusty send me to a shrink?”

  I tried to think of a good response.

  “Maybe he thought we could give you the name of a good hair stylist,” Mona said.

  I floundered for a reply. “Well, trying to reinvent yourself can be very stressful,” I began, “and to be perfectly honest, you look worn out.” Actually, she looked like hell.

  “Don’t you get it?” Marie asked Mona. “I’m supposed to look like this. I’m trying to appeal to those who struggle every month to make payments on their mobile homes. I want to reach out to the person who has no one in his life to love except a Bluetick hound dog. I’m singing to the broken masses.”

  “Oh, that just gave me goose pimples,” Mona said, rubbing her arms.

  Marie shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been sleeping in my car.”

  “That’s awfully dangerous,” I said. It probably explained why she needed a shower.

  “Oh, I could stay in the fanciest hotel in town if I wanted, but that would not be true to my new image. Everything I own is in the trunk of my car, including a dozen country western outfits. You’d flip if I told you how much money I spent on them.”

  I had by now realized that
I was most likely dealing with a woman with bipolar disorder. “Marie, when was the last time you slept?” I asked.

  She looked at me as though I were speaking a foreign language. “What day is this?”

  “Monday.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I must’ve slept over the weekend, but I was mostly looking for gigs.”

  “How did you get those bruises?” I asked, motioning to her arms.

  She avoided eye contact. “I don’t remember.”

  “Why don’t we talk in my office,” I said, feeling the need to sit down and take a deep breath. The woman was exhausting.

  “I don’t have much time,” Marie said. “I need a list of your contacts so I can get moving.”

  I did not think she would be safe on her own. “First, you need a solid business plan,” I said. “And you need to write out your short- and long-term goals. A clear plan will save you a lot of time, and it will assist me in helping you.”

  She seemed to ponder it. “That makes sense. Now I know why Rusty sent me to you.”

  I led her inside my office and invited her to sit. I grabbed a fresh legal pad and two pens from my coffee mug so that I would still have an even number left inside. I handed them to her. My plan was to keep her occupied until I could make arrangements to get her help, which, in her case, probably meant hospitalization. I’d seen enough manic highs in my life to recognize the symptoms. The flip side of mania is depression. I needed to make certain that Marie wasn’t sleeping in her car when she hit the emotional skids.

  “Perhaps you’d like to list the reasons you’ve decided to reinvent yourself in the first place,” I said.

  She nodded enthusiastically. “What an excellent idea!”

  I opened my desk drawer and pulled out a release form that would give me a legal right to share information related to Marie. “I would like to be able to discuss your situation with a friend and colleague of mine,” I said. “He and I sometimes work together on cases. I trust his opinion.”

  “No problem.” She signed the paper and handed it back to me. She was scribbling furiously on the legal pad as I left the room.

  Mona was filing her nails. “That woman is off her rocker,” she said without looking up.

  “Would you get Thad Glazer on the line? Try his cell phone first.”

  “Uh-oh,” Mona said. “You know what happens every time you ask him for a favor.”

  Dr. Thad Glazer was my ex-boyfriend, and the center of his own universe. He was also a psychiatrist to the wealthy, meaning he never worried about his patients’ checks bouncing. I’d broken it off with Thad some four and a half years ago when I caught him cheating. I’d later met and married Jay. Thad still believed I did it to get back at him. Now that I was officially divorced, he thought we should pick up where we’d left off. I did not share his opinion. But, despite it all, I could pretty much count on him to see my patients for medication therapy. In return, I took on his more troublesome patients for talk therapy, which is how I’d ended up with the major nutcases.

  I was hoping Thad could get the commitment order drawn up more quickly than I could and, hopefully, find a spare bed in the psychiatric ward at the hospital we often used. He had a silver tongue that came in handy during crunch time.

  Mona dialed Thad’s number and waited. “Hello, Thad,” Mona said. “Kate needs to speak with you. There’s some wacko here who thinks she’s Marie Osmond. I think Kate wants to throw her in the loony bin.” Mona held her hand over the receiver. “Thad wants to know if you’re naked.”

  I didn’t bother with a response. In my line of work, there are certain ethical standards we are supposed to follow. Mona and Thad ignored them. But firing Mona was out of the question. Not only was she my best friend, she worked for free.

  I held out my hand and Mona gave me the phone. “Thad, I’ve got a bipolar woman in my office who needs to be admitted to the hospital. She’s also going to require meds. Lots of meds,” I added.

  Thad chuckled. “That sort of places you in the predicament of needing me,” he said.

  “Yeah, okay.” It was easier to play along.

  “Say the words, Kate.”

  “I need you, Thad.”

  Mona shook her head sadly.

  “I’ll have to reschedule my tennis match,” he said. “I wish you’d called me yesterday when I had more time on my hands.”

  I tried to sound sympathetic. “I’m sorry you’ll be forced to spend the afternoon practicing psychiatry instead of your backhand,” I said.

  “You’re not sorry. Which brings me to the next question,” he said. “What’s in it for me?”

  I’d been subconsciously waiting for Thad to say something inappropriate, because that’s what he usually did. He pushed my buttons, yanked my chain, and all of the above. As a professional, I knew I should try to rise above it. I seldom did.

  “You owe me, Thad. Does the name George Moss mean anything to you?” George was the patient who’d carried into my office the vial of nitroglycerin that had ultimately led to the explosion. Thad had referred him to me.

  “That was not my fault,” Thad said. “You are the one who lost your temper and threw the vial against the wall and blew up your own office.”

  “Maybe so, but you’re the one who told me George Moss was harmless and that the vial contained his insulin. You should have had it checked by a lab before sending him to my office. After all, he threatened to blow up your place as well.”

  “He was histrionic, Kate. That’s what histrionics do. Why didn’t you have the vial checked out?”

  Thad had a point. The truth was George had created such a frenzy of drama for himself and others that nobody, myself included, had taken him seriously.

  “You can’t hold that over my head for the rest of my life,” Thad said.

  “Yes, I can. It’s more fun that way. Now, the patient we’ll be consulting on goes by the name of Marie Osmond.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s who she thinks she is,” I said. “Personally, I would have chosen to be Celine Dion, but that’s just me.”

  “Are we talking voluntary commitment here?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  He sighed. “Okay, I’ll get on it right away and have the hospital send an ambulance for her. Since my day is shot anyway, I can probably meet you over there in a couple of hours.”

  “Thank you, Thad,” I said, meaning it.

  “And, hey, we can go to dinner later and discuss our findings. It’ll give us a chance to talk about us.”

  “There is no us, Thad.”

  “Kate, Kate, Kate. I know you’ve been through a rough time, but you have to move on. I could help you forget Jay Rush ever existed.”

  I knew Thad’s remedy for everything from stress to ingrown toenails was a pitcher of margaritas and a stint in his hot tub followed by all-night sex. But the only thing likely to make me forget Jay was a full frontal lobotomy.

  “I have to go, Thad,” I said. “I’ll see you at the hospital.” I hung up and handed the phone to Mona.

  “Did he try to talk you into having phone sex?” she asked.

  “Not this time.”

  chapter 2

  Marie was still writing out her business plan when my next patient, Eddie Franks, arrived. He’d spent a few years in prison for swindling several old ladies out of their retirement. Since he’d invested a large portion of the money in the stock market, he had been able to make restitution, as ordered by the court; thus serving less time behind bars. Of course, Eddie, being the con he was, had tried to convince the judge he was simply trying to build the nice ladies’ savings. But the fact that he had tried—and failed—to cover his sly financial tracks by using an alias had “guilty” written all over him. The judge had thrown him in the slammer. Weekly therapy sessions were one of the conditions of Eddie’s parole.

  In his late fifties, he was still handsome, impeccably dressed, and one of the smoothest-talking men I’d ever met. Except for
Jay, who could charm a woman right out of her undies. But I didn’t want to think about Jay or what it was like to feel his mouth on me and his warm flesh against mine, since I had no idea where our relationship was headed.

  I decided it was best not to disturb Marie by going into my office for Eddie’s file. I grabbed a legal tablet and pen from the supply room so that I could take notes. I pulled Mona aside. “Don’t let Marie leave this office,” I whispered to her.

  “I’m on it,” Mona said.

  I asked Eddie to follow me down the hall to my small kitchenette. I motioned for him to sit at the table, and I joined him. “I have a situation on my hands this morning,” I said, “so we’ll have to talk in here. We may be interrupted.” I had no idea how long it would take Thad to get commitment papers on Marie because each case was different.

  Eddie shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Just as long as you tell my parole officer I was here,” he said and smiled. His teeth were too perfect to be his own, but he still had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper.

  “How was your week?” I asked quickly. Despite jail time, Eddie had been able to find a job in a prestigious menswear store and had made top salesman within the first couple of weeks.

  “You’re looking at the new manager of the most elite menswear store in town,” he announced proudly.

  I was impressed. “Congratulations!”

  “I plan to have my own store one day.”

  “Slow down, Eddie,” I said, although it was easy to get caught up in his enthusiasm. He was the kind of person people flocked to at a party. “You need to take it one day at a time and follow through with the conditions of your parole.” I did not want Eddie to backslide into his old habits.

  “I can’t help being impatient,” he said. “I spent three years of my life behind bars.”

  I nodded. I liked Eddie, but it bothered me that he was more focused on how his crimes had affected him. He spent very little time thinking about the women he’d cheated. I wanted to hear remorse. I wanted Eddie to be genuinely sorry for what he’d done.