What Lies Beyond the Stars

by Micael Goorjian

  “But that’s not what I meant! I was just trying to tell her how I felt. I wasn’t going to DO anything! I didn’t—”

  “Calm down, Adam.” Dr. Mendelson raised his eyebrows in warning. “Getting overly excited does nothing to help your case.”

  “Okay, fine. I’m calm.” Adam took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m calm. And I’m telling you, calmly, that I had no intention of killing myself. I didn’t come up here to jump off a cliff or whatever. I was—”

  “What cliff?”

  Adam stopped himself. He had lost the first match. Time to throw it and start a new one. Spassky 1–Fischer 0. Hanging his head, Adam searched for a new opening, a new approach that could get him out of this mess. “Look,” he finally said, his voice flat, “I don’t want to play games with you, Dr. Mendelson.”

  “Then stop playing them.”

  Adam knew his only chance to beat Dr. Mendelson was to draw him in, give him the impression that he’d already won.

  “Dr. M., something incredible has happened to me. Something—” Adam sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know if I can explain it, really—”

  “Talk to me, Adam.”

  Adam looked up at Dr. M. and considered the dangers of the honest approach. It was potentially disastrous, but Adam couldn’t think quickly enough to come up with an alternative.

  “Adam, please,” Dr. Mendelson coaxed. “How long have we worked together? Since you were seven years old, I have seen you through every single bump in the road. So, like it or not, I have a vested interest in your well-being. You need to trust me.”

  Adam took a deep breath and dove in. “I’ve met someone.”

  Dr. Mendelson nodded encouragingly.

  “Someone special. Someone who has helped me see that these issues I’ve struggled with my whole life, maybe they’re not what they seem to be.”

  Dr. Mendelson frowned slightly. “So you’ve met a woman?”

  “Yes. And she’s helped me figure out what’s been missing in my life—”

  “Who?” Dr. Mendelson interrupted. “Who did you meet?”

  “Beatrice. Her name is Beatrice.”

  “Beatrice?” Hearing the way Dr. Mendelson pronounced her name made Adam regret having told it to him. “Beatrice. What’s her last name?”

  “Well, I’m not totally sure. Coates, I think. But then, Beatrice isn’t her actual name. I know it sounds weird, but I don’t actually know her real name.”

  Dr. Mendelson’s hands returned to his lips.

  “That’s just what I’ve always called her,” Adam stumbled on. “A kind of nickname from childhood. See, we were friends when I was a kid growing up here. Before Gloria and my dad took me away.”

  Dr. Mendelson pulled out his pen and began taking notes. “So Beatrice is a childhood friend that you came up here to meet?”

  “Yes—I mean, no. I didn’t plan on meeting her, she just happened to be visiting at the same time. It was a total coincidence. Or maybe not.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing, I just . . . See, she was on her way to meet with her father, and it turns out that I know who he is. I mean, I knew him as a kid, sort of, but I also knew him from this book he wrote. My God, I can’t believe I actually met him—”

  “Adam, slow down. One thing at a time.” Dr. Mendelson frowned. “First, who is Beatrice’s father? Second, what book?”

  The clock now read 8:48 A.M., and Adam was starting to panic. He had told Dr. Mendelson almost everything in the hopes that he would at least allow Adam to get a message to Beatrice at the docks. Adam hadn’t said anything about where they were heading, only that she had invited him to go sailing for the day and that she was expecting him between 9:00 and 9:30.

  Adam had also avoided saying too much about Virgil Coates after sensing Dr. Mendelson’s disdain once he learned that Coates was the author of the book in Adam’s hotel room. Instead Adam focused on Beatrice and what she meant to him. Dr. M. seemed to appreciate all this and said he had to make some calls to see what could be done, “considering the circumstances.” He assured Adam that everything would work out, and to just be patient.

  That was 20 minutes ago.

  “Come on!” Adam yelled, banging on the window in the door to get the sheriff’s attention. Adam could see him sitting at his desk in the other room. “I have to be somewhere! Can you please get Dr. Mendelson?”

  The sheriff shrugged, pantomimed talking on the phone, and then pointed to the side of the room beyond Adam’s line of vision. At the desk that Adam couldn’t see, Dr. Mendelson was on the phone. “No, these aren’t the right ones,” he said impatiently. Using one of the station’s prehistoric computers, he was searching through medical records that his secretary had sent to him. “Look, just e-mail me all his transcripts, and I’ll go through them myself. Yes, all the session notes from his early childhood; there’s a specific name I’m looking for.”

  Another phone rang, and the sheriff answered it. After a moment he called over to Dr. Mendelson, “I have Dorothy Conway on the line; she’s the woman from the hotel. Line two. You want to take it?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Dr. Mendelson told the sheriff. Then, to his secretary on the phone, “Ellen, I’ve got to take another call, but stay on hold until I get the files.” He pushed a button on the phone. “Hello, Dorothy. Dr. Mendelson here. Thank you so much for calling—”

  “Come on!” Adam was now hammering on the door with both fists.

  Dr. Mendelson tried to shield the receiver from the noise. “Yes, you’ve been a great help, Dorothy,” Dr. Mendelson said. “I just have one question for you regarding Adam’s behavior that could help us out quite a bit. Adam told us that while he was in town here, he reconnected with an old friend of his, a woman named Beatrice. Did he ever say anything about running into someone he knew?”

  The computer showed that transcripts of Adam’s early childhood sessions had just arrived via e-mail. Dr. Mendelson opened them and did a document search for the word Beatrice while Dorothy rambled on about Adam’s rudeness. Dr. Mendelson finally broke in. “Dorothy, hold on a second. Did you ever actually see the two of them together?” As Dorothy replied, the computer indicated 139 matches for the name Beatrice.

  Jane and Blake sat side by side on the red Naugahyde couch in the front waiting room until Dr. Mendelson emerged from the back.

  Jane rushed to meet him. “Oh my God, Dr. M. How is he?”

  “Is Adam all right?” Blake followed.

  “Yes, but the situation is delicate.” Dr. Mendelson gestured for the two to sit back down, and then he leaned against the reception desk, careful not to knock over any of the receptionist’s canning jars. “The most important thing is that Adam is safe. He hasn’t hurt himself, which is very good news.” Dr. Mendelson’s tone was grave. “However, the law requires that he be seen at the county hospital, where he’ll be placed on a seventy-two-hour watch.”

  “What?” Jane covered her mouth in disbelief.

  “I may be able to waive the hold if we can get him admitted to a hospital in the Bay Area.”

  “I want to see him, Dr. M. He’s my husband, and I want to see him.”

  “Yes. I do think that would be a good idea, Jane.” Dr. Mendelson walked over to the couch and put his hand over hers, comfortingly. “However, there are a few things I want to go over with you first.”

  The clock now read 9:25. Adam had been pacing back and forth like a dog in the narrow space between the table and the wall when he heard sounds coming from the other room. A door opened and closed. People were moving around. Adam pressed his face against the small window in the door and tried to see what was going on.

  Suddenly the sheriff appeared. He went straight to his desk without looking at Adam.

  “What the hell is going on here? Where’s Dr. M.? When am I going to be released? Hey! Look at me! Please, just look at me!”

  Adam watched as the sheriff took an outdated, ball-shaped webcam out of a drawer i
n his desk. He then positioned it on top of a filing cabinet so it was facing toward the window in the holding room door.

  “What the fuck is that? Please, just let me talk to—”

  Dr. Mendelson came into view. He spoke to the sheriff briefly before they, together, approached the holding room. Adam stepped back as he heard the door unlock.

  The door opened halfway, revealing only Dr. Mendelson; the sheriff had already stepped away. Adam considered rushing Dr. M., trying to make a run for it. However, when the door opened a little farther, Adam felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “No, no, no. How could you—” Adam turned away, looking for somewhere to hide.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Dr. Mendelson said as he put a reassuring hand on Jane’s shoulder. “We’ll be right outside.”

  Jane nodded and walked into the room. She appeared calm, yet her eyes were wide, as if she was approaching a wounded animal.

  “Adam?” she began softly, “Oh dear God, Adam. You can’t imagine what we’ve been through, what the kids and I have been through.”

  “No, I’m sorry—I can’t do this . . . I’m sorry.” Adam refused to look at her. He had pushed himself into the far corner of the room, not wanting to face the humiliating fact that his wife was here.

  “Adam, honey, everything is going to be all right. I promise.” Jane crossed over to the table and slowly sat down. “I know you, Adam. I do. I know that this is your way of crying out for help. You’ve been overworked, and Blake even said he felt awful for pushing you so hard lately. He’s going to make some changes at work. Adam, would you just look at me, please? . . . Adam, look at me.”

  Adam slowly looked up from the floor to meet Jane’s gaze.

  She was smiling at him, her lips trembling. “My God, sweetie, I love you so much. We just need a damn vacation.” Jane let out a laugh. “That’s all this is. You just need a break. You need Hawaii.”

  In the other room, Blake was trying to peek over the sheriff’s shoulder at the computer screen that he and Dr. Mendelson were watching. The sheriff had explained that, due to budget cuts, the station had not been equipped with proper monitoring for the holding room, so this was their work-around.

  On the screen Jane could be seen sitting at the table, her hands folded. Adam was across the room, in a corner. The image wasn’t bad. The problem was the lack of sound.

  “Did we find all of Adam’s belongings?” Blake quietly asked the sheriff. “If they’re still at the hotel, I could—”

  “His laptop is safe, Blake,” Dr. Mendelson cut in.

  “I’m just trying to be helpful—”

  Dr. Mendelson raised a hand, making it clear that Blake needed to keep quiet. He and the sheriff were listening intently, trying to hear Jane’s muffled words from the other room. She seemed to be pleading with Adam. Adam was still pressed against the far wall, his body now rocking slightly.

  Jane stood up. “I never told you this, Adam, but I made a promise to your stepmother just before she died. I promised Gloria that I would take care of you, sweetie, the way she had done before her stroke.” Jane approached Adam, tentatively. His gaze remained firmly fixed on the floor. “I promised her I would help you stay balanced and grounded.” Tears were beginning to well in Jane’s eyes. “So you see, Adam, I failed. Me, not you. I’m the one to blame for all this.”

  “No. You didn’t—you don’t—” Adam’s jaw clamped down tight. Various parts of his brain were beginning to short-circuit.

  “You need support, honey. That is a fact,” Jane said as she cautiously approached Adam. “That’s a big reason we got married; remember our deal? We fit together. And I have not been living up to my end of the bargain. I’ve been neglecting you, Adam.”

  Jane’s face was streaked with tears. She continued to move closer. “I won’t let it happen again. Your medication, your diet, your work schedule, your exercise—we’re going to get things back on an even keel.”

  “But, I—I—” Adam felt a surge of panic and quickly pressed his fingers to his ears, trying to contain the tinnitus that was spilling out.

  “Everything is going back to the way it was—only better—so that you can do what you’re so good at . . . what you love doing.” Jane was directly in front of Adam now. She reached up to touch his hands, gently at first, trying to pry them away from his ears.

  “No, I don’t—I just—” Adam sputtered.

  “You don’t what, honey?”

  “I’m not—I’m—”

  Jane pulled her hands away in frustration. “Christ, Adam, just say it already!”

  At that moment, Adam felt the pressure inside his head suddenly ease as if a valve had been opened. Everything in the room became very still. Time slowed. It was that uncanny feeling of being inside a bubble, his senses oddly enhanced. And beneath the small sounds in the room—the tick of the wall clock, a low rumble of water pipes, a car horn far away—Adam began to notice the silence. That same silence that he had heard beyond the campfire with Virgil Coates. It was here in the room with him, that original vibration from which all other vibrations arise. Silence was presenting itself to Adam, making itself available as a source of strength.

  “I don’t love you.”

  The clock ticked out several long seconds.

  Jane said nothing at first. When she finally spoke, her face betrayed no emotion. “Right now you’re exhausted, Adam. So what we’re going to do—”

  “Jane, I don’t love you.”

  Now it was Jane who was forced to divert her gaze.

  Adam continued. “I haven’t been happy for such a long, long time now. I’m not saying our marriage was always this way, but over the years it has become a lie.”

  Jane nodded. “Okay, sweetie, that’s okay. There are definitely some things we can work on and—”

  “No, you’re not hearing me, Jane.” Adam’s voice grew more resolute. “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore. I’ve met someone else.”

  Adam waited, but he didn’t get the reaction he was expecting. Instead of anger or tears, to Adam’s utter disbelief, Jane reacted with a smile.

  “It’s all right, sweetie. I promise. It’s all going to be all right.”

  “Did you hear what I just said? I’ve met someone else.”

  “Once we get back home—”

  “I’ve fallen in love with someone else. I’ve slept with someone else.”

  “It’s okay, Adam.” Jane took a step back. There was a flash of panic in her eyes, but she was still smiling. “We can figure everything out as long as we just—”

  “No!” Adam started after her. “Listen to me!”

  Jane shot a quick look at the window, at the small webcam, her eyes pleading for help.

  At the computer monitor in the other room, the sheriff turned to Dr. Mendelson. “Should we—”

  Dr. Mendelson raised a hand. “Not yet. This needs to play out.” His eyes were glued to the screen where Adam was now standing directly in front of his wife.

  “I don’t love you. Do you understand that?” Adam’s tone wasn’t aggressive. It sounded more like he was trying to get through to someone with a broken hearing aid. “I don’t love you, Jane. I don’t even like you. We have absolutely nothing in common. I hate yoga, I hate health shakes, I hate Blackhawk, and I fucking hate Hawaii. Look at me, Jane. This time, you need to look at me!”

  Jane looked at Adam; her jaw was clinched tight, the muscles in her neck strained as if holding a difficult yoga pose.

  “I am leaving you.” Adam waited for a reply. Nothing. “Do you hear me?”

  Jane took a deep breath in, followed by a long exhalation. All of the tension in her face fell away. “I hear you, Adam.”

  It was a voice Adam didn’t recognize. The sweet, wheedling notes were gone. The change was so unnerving that Adam had to take a small step back. “So what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Jane continued flatly. “Leaving me for someone else?”

  “It’s not what I think; it’
s what’s happening.”

  “I see.” Jane’s voice remained eerily cool. “And this person you’ve met, what’s her name, Adam?”

  Adam became aware that the nurturing silence inside himself had evaporated. “Her name is Beatrice. She’s a friend—well, more than that now. We grew up together—”

  “How sweet,” Jane said softly. She took a step toward Adam so they were face to face again. “And where is she now? Where is this Beatrice right now?”

  “She’s waiting for me,” Adam said cautiously. “I’m supposed to meet her at her boat. I was supposed to be there already.” Adam looked at the clock—9:50.

  “So you’re going sailing with this Beatrice? How romantic. Sail off into the sunset together, is that it?” Jane’s eyes glowed with a vindictive fire.

  “No—I mean, yes. We are going sailing but . . .” Adam stopped himself, took a breath, and then started again. “Jane, I know this is all very difficult, but please try to understand. It’s not just about Beatrice. There are people she travels with, and this work that she’s doing . . . Look, it’s something that I need to be part of. This isn’t personal. It’s just something I’ve got to do.”

  “Well, that sounds just wonderful.” Now Jane’s tone was blatantly patronizing. “Oh, and let me guess. I bet this Beatrice of yours is going to take you to some really exciting places, right? Places you’ve always wanted to go? Places like, oh, I don’t know, Egypt?”

  “Yes—well, she’s already been there, but—” As Adam realized Jane was mocking him, rage began to swell in his chest. “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing, Adam. She just sounds so perfect. Too good to be true; just a little too good to be true.”