by Amy Bloom
As I ate my apple, Dr. Frank strode toward the trash can and opened his big, muscular hand above it, releasing the remains of his lunch. He walked away without looking back; a napkin floated to the ground. He was a well-built white man with thick eyebrows. He was somewhat famous: Frank Gillingshurst, early in his career, had become a leading practitioner of an innovative form of child therapy involving unusual informality between therapist and client, and sometimes bluntness on the part of the therapist. He’d published a book, which I’d read. It made me uncomfortable, though I couldn’t quite say why.
Dr. Frank climbed into his truck. The black pickup with the boat trailer rolled out of the lot, the slim white speedboat large and anomalous on land. The truck descended a sloping gravel road to the boat launch below, then turned and backed slowly toward the water. Dr. Frank got out and did something to the white boat. He returned to the truck, backed up a little farther, then climbed out again. A girl said she needed the bathroom, and I accompanied her. When I returned, Dr. Frank had eased the boat into the water, where it rocked slightly. The anchor, a coffee can filled with concrete, lay on the shore, and the truck was on its way back to the parking lot. So far that day, he had not acknowledged my presence.
* * *
Dr. Frank was the only member of our party, resident or staff member, who didn’t ride the carousel. We had full use of it for an hour. Apart from one or two other supervised groups, the park was empty.
I rode a black horse that went up and down. The happy, tinny music was—paradoxically—sad. As a child, I loved and feared carousels. This one exhilarated me, and it made me forget what was going on in my life. Frank stood staring, and each time I circled I saw his gaze, his thick pale eyebrows. When I stepped off the platform, I stumbled.
He looked at me at last. Okay, Jen?
A little dizzy, I said. Your turn.
I’m good, he said. The yearning music started up once more. The horses rose up and plunged down, their graceful legs bent forever, seeming taut with ungratified desire as they circled within the wooden shell, which looked as if a strong wind might blow it down.
We shouldn’t have let him come, Frank said.
Who? I said, though I knew.
Gavin. He hasn’t earned a picnic.
The picnic isn’t something they earn, I said.
Oh, he would have understood. Then he said, Diane overruled me.
Diane was the director, now circling and waving, rising and descending on a white horse with brown spots. She smiled broadly, her big square glasses glittering. Her straightened hair held its shape, and she wore a ruffled blouse under her pantsuit.
I tried to pick Gavin out of the group revolving past me. We didn’t fill much of the carousel, and the kids were lonely figures here and there. Gavin was a stocky, moody, light-skinned boy with a big forehead, now astride a brown horse that didn’t go up and down. I wasn’t his therapist but I knew him—a boy with a serious diagnosis who’d been thrown out of several schools for fighting, a couple of times with a knife. The first time I saw him was at a staff meeting at which Frank explained some of his theories. Then Gavin was invited in, and he spoke in a loud, clear voice about an abusive father, about trouble with the police, about anger he couldn’t control—until now, because Dr. Frank helped him.
Gavin was not one of those who came forward when boat rides were offered. There was a little shoving, as half a dozen vied to be in the first group. The wind had picked up. I managed not to be the assisting adult on any of the rides. Some children wandered off down the beach, throwing rocks into the sea, pretending to throw them at each other. Some circled the locked lighthouse.
Only two kids fit into the boat along with Frank and a staff member, so even though some didn’t go, the rides took time. The motor was loud, and the boat leaned on its side and swung in reckless—or seemingly reckless—arcs through the gray water, beyond which West Haven and the taller buildings of New Haven were visible in the distance under the gray sky. The kids screamed as spray pelted them, and the wake started up curls of foam that broke on the shore with a bit of a crash. The first ride made some waiting kids decide not to try it, but others stepped forward.
So there was some confusion about who had been in the boat and who had not, how many kids had wandered off along the shore with the shift supervisor and her assistant. I was annoyed at how long it all took. I wanted coffee, but the concession stand at some distance along the beach was closed for the season. It started to rain. Diane—her hair now slightly less neat—climbed out of the boat, waved an arm, and called, Okay, enough! Everybody back to the bus!
* * *
It wasn’t until we were all seated inside that the shift supervisor counted us and we realized someone was missing. Gavin, the kids said, before the adults figured out who it was. Diane and I hurried off the bus. Now the park seemed vast—there was a playground I hadn’t noticed before; the beach wrapped around meadows and parking lots. In the other direction was the woods.
Frank was walking toward his truck, about to load his boat, when Diane called to him sharply and waved him over. He didn’t get upset. This kid’s not like the other one, he said. Then he added, in a voice that made Diane frown at him, Gavin’s a coward at heart. He won’t find his way out of the park. Frank spoke slowly, as if he were reading lines he couldn’t quite make out in dim light. Or as if he’d been caught unawares—well, of course he had been, just like the rest of us; but he was claiming that he wasn’t surprised, that this was almost ordinary.
I told myself that he was right, and that Gavin’s disappearance probably had nothing to do with other things that had happened. Downtown New Haven is at the bottom of a U-shaped curve in the shoreline, and the park is at one tip of the U, separated from the rest of the city by a narrow residential area next to the water, and then the mouth of a river that’s crossed by a highway bridge. This was unfamiliar territory to our kids.
Nothing to worry about, Frank continued. I’ll drive him back. Then I’ll return to load the boat. No, wait—Gavin will help me load the boat. It’ll do him good.
But we don’t even know where that child is! Diane said.
He’s behind a nearby tree, Frank said, patting her on the arm. I know Gavin, he continued. All the trouble is bluster. He wants to be found—just not in front of his friends.
We’ll keep the kids on the bus, I said. We can wait.
I didn’t think all Gavin’s trouble was bluster, and I knew Frank didn’t think that either.
Absolutely not, Frank said. They know I take him places. Tell them I’m driving him back to the house.
I hesitated. Frank, I said, at least I should stay. I’ll help you look.
Nonsense, he said, and all but pushed Diane and me onto the bus.
* * *
I’ve asked myself many times why I allowed myself to get on the bus. There was no reason why two searchers would be any less effective than one—obviously they would be more effective, no matter who they were. The truck was big enough that all three of us could have ridden back to the house together. I think Diane didn’t chime in and encourage me to stay because she was desperate to pretend things were normal—and Frank alone with one of his own clients would be very normal. He’d taken two girls hiking in a different park a few weeks earlier. Diane was arguing with herself, I found out later, about whether it was essential to call the police immediately. Gavin was sixteen. If the police were alerted it would be terrible for the residence, terrible for Diane. It might also be terrible for Gavin if he were found by the police: he was a known juvenile offender; he was a black teenager. It would be much better if we could consider his disappearance something that concerned no one but us, a problem we could solve easily.
My immediate response when Frank sent me off was shame, as if I’d proposed a sexual encounter and he’d said he didn’t find me attractive. Or attractive any longer.
* * *
One afternoon a few weeks after I was hired, I stepped out of my office and observe
d Frank, whom I scarcely knew, peering through a corridor window. Something about the way he stood, or his amused expression, drew me in. He seemed as if he were about to say something outrageous: I was detecting that he wasn’t a docile follower, but a skeptical observer. I was not happy in the job, which would lead nowhere. The administrators were competent but unimaginative. I needed a friend who’d raise an eyebrow—and Frank had such grand eyebrows.
Out the window, sitting on the front steps—though it was winter—were two girls. They’re deciding whether to sneak out, Frank said.
The kids were allowed on the porch, but no farther.
How do you know? I said.
Nobody sits on the steps in this weather. They’re making sure nobody sees them, but they’re not too bright—they haven’t thought of windows.
Will you stop them?
No. He shook his big blond head.
They could get into trouble, I said.
Girls get into trouble by getting pregnant, he said, but they won’t want to miss supper, and they can’t get pregnant between now and supper. They’ll just walk to the convenience store and buy cigarettes.
They’ll get lung cancer, I said.
That I can’t prevent, Frank said. He turned from the window. He was outrageous but not too outrageous, I decided. He took an emphatic step or two, then called over his shoulder, I hear you’re from Philly.
So I caught up to him.
Me too, he said. We should get coffee.
I’d like that, I said.
The first time we had dinner, we ended up at my apartment. I’d never slept with a man who had such big bones, such vigorous arms and legs. Frank was on all sides of me: we were Leda and the Swan. His arms glowed—his arm hair was golden too. When eventually he got out of bed that first night, he clutched his lower back and then pulled a vial from his pants pocket, swallowing a handful of pills without water.
What’s wrong?
Sciatica.
I’d have brought you a glass of water! I said.
He said, I can find the faucet. I don’t need water.
He took many pills and never with water. You’re addicted to prescription painkillers, I said a few weeks later, and he shrugged, which startled me: I had intended hyperbole. By then I was dependent on the sex, maybe a little in love, or, at least, more vulnerable than I liked. Frank would stick his head into my office and say Tonight? or Dinner? without bothering with conventional greetings and inquiries. That felt thrillingly intimate. He couldn’t get enough of me—but then he might become impatient and resentful, as if we were only in the same room at the same time because I’d tricked him. My stories about my middle-class, ethnically mixed family (I’m half Korean, half Jewish) bored him, and he said so. His cynicism about the job went beyond my irreverent jokes about Diane’s love of rules or her assistant’s fussiness about paperwork. He dismissed the administrators from his mind, as if of no consequence.
When Frank talked about himself, he generally began with ambition, though I sometimes learned about something else as well. Hearing about a prestigious conference in Vancouver at which he’d been invited to speak, I learned that he was afraid of airplanes, though he flew often. I learned about the conference in bed, when he took a call after we’d finished.
I’ve been hoping for this, he said. I know what I want to do.
What do you want to do?
His talk, he explained, would include videos of him working with Gavin. He said, One of my students is taping us. And after I show the videos—then I introduce Gavin himself! He paused, then added, I’d better bring a chaperone. He has an uncle. My research money will pay for their plane tickets.
Frank had some kind of university appointment.
Videos? I said. What about confidentiality?
No last name, Frank said. He stood up, rubbed his back, and went to the bathroom.
But still, I said when he returned.
Still what? I just wish I didn’t have to fly!
Confidentiality.
No last name, he said again. I have his permission, of course. And he’s being photographed from behind.
Why bring him? I said. If you’ve got him on video . . .
Q&A, he said. They’ll eat it up. It all has to do with teenagers getting past anger—not letting it get them into trouble.
What do you do that’s so different? I said. I too spent hours every week with angry teenagers, and I knew that any of them might get into trouble at any minute.
He was silent. Gavin’s going to be the subject of my next book, he said then. I’m writing a proposal. There’s interest.
From the people who brought out your last book?
From agents. That was a university press. Now I’m going big time.
Soon, I calculated, Frank would be offered a more lucrative job in a bigger city.
* * *
One night at the beginning of summer, Frank and I met at a restaurant. He was late, and came in looking rushed, whipping his napkin from the place setting. Did you order for us? he said.
I wouldn’t have dared order for him. When we were finally eating, he said, I just confiscated a gun.
From who?
He shrugged. That’s why I was late.
From Gavin?
Gavin? Of course not. Gavin doesn’t have a gun!
Who, then? How did you find out?
I’d rather not say.
But don’t you have to turn him in? I said. A gun was serious. The client might be sent to a more restrictive facility.
I’m not turning him in, Frank said.
You’re not? What then?
I’ll keep it. When he’s ready, he and I will take it to the buyback program. They’ll pay me, and I’ll give him the money.
Won’t he just buy another gun?
By then he won’t want one.
I suppose he’ll spend the money on books, I said drily.
In Latin, Frank said. Greek.
We ate. Where is it now? I said.
Frank shook his head.
It’s not in your pocket, is it?
Forget it, he said.
I’d intended to work on reports that evening, but had decided to postpone them when Frank suggested dinner. I expected that he’d come home with me. But at the end of the meal, which he paid for, I thanked him, mentioned the reports, and left while he was pulling out his credit card.
After that Frank was less interested in me. I was sure he blamed me for timidity. I blamed myself. Obviously Frank wasn’t dangerous! I liked him for his outrageousness, I scolded myself—but apparently I couldn’t handle someone who went beyond making lame jokes about the administration and actually tried innovative methods—risky ones, yes, but taking risks led to progress.
Then, one evening, he phoned: a quick, impersonal call. Can I come over now? When he arrived he accepted some Scotch and sat down on my sofa. I have a proposal for you, he said. I don’t mean I’m going to propose!
I didn’t think you did, I said. You’re not down on one knee.
I felt flustered, unable to be at my best—too needy.
The organizers of the conference in Vancouver, he told me, were so pleased by his plan to bring Gavin, and by the video Frank had sent, that they had offered to make him one of the main speakers in the plenary session. They’d pay him a good sum, as well as expenses. The only problem, his contact had said, was the unfortunate, unspoken message conveyed by the fact that Frank was a white man and Gavin a black boy. The pairing—and the absence of a speaker of color, or a woman, in what would now be a longer part of the program—might seem insensitive.
That’s all that troubles them? I said, but Frank kept talking. The organization, he explained, prided itself on its diversity, and on making clear to the public (Frank’s segment would be filmed and offered to news organizations) that all clients aren’t black, all therapists aren’t white. So they’d made Frank’s featured participation contingent on his bringing along a nonwhite colleague, preferably female. Would I be
willing to join him?
You’re not in the videos, of course, he said, but you can interview Gavin before the Q&A—bring up concepts the videos don’t get to. Or accuse me of invading his privacy! You’d like that. A little controversy will be perfect.
I’m not black, I said. I wanted to do it, and I knew I shouldn’t. I said, Isn’t the idea that you should have someone black with you?
They said nonwhite, he said.
I’m mixed, I said. Maybe ask Diane? But I didn’t want him to ask Diane.
Frank turned his head quickly. Diane can’t hear about any of this! he said sharply. Diane thinks I’m a show-off. Then he said, And at this point in your career, the exposure will be fabulous for you.
I had thought of that. I’d never been to Vancouver. Frank and I would have hours together on the plane and in the hotel. Gavin and his uncle would be present much of the time, but even so . . . I wondered how much money I’d get. I began to think about what I might ask Gavin in our public conversation that would make the whole thing ethical after all.
It would be easy not to tell Diane, whom I respected: I didn’t want to know her opinion.
I didn’t say yes, but Frank talked as if it were settled, and I didn’t argue. From his chair he reached to stroke my arm with one finger, then put down his drink, stood, and took me in his arms.
When I awoke in the night he was asleep beside me—naked, sprawled, the blanket twisted around one leg. I got out of bed and crossed the room to the chair where he’d laid his clothes. In his left pants pocket I could see the outline of his bottle of pills. I put my hand into his right pants pocket and felt the flat leather billfold he carried, and something made of metal. I snatched my fingers back, then let the tips graze the edges of the object: the barrel, trigger, and grip of a small handgun.
* * *
A few weeks later I heard shouts from the lunchroom while I ate a sandwich at my desk. My next client told me Gavin had gotten into a fight.
Really? I said. I didn’t think I should ask who started it, but the girl told me anyway. Gavin had claimed that another boy shoved him while he ate. He jumped up, punching.
