The Breakup Doctor

by Phoebe Fox

  Sasha took a giant gulp. “Well, let’s see...boating—that is apparently the subject of dearest interest to him. Did you know he has a fishing boat? And what else...oh, chemistry, of all things.”

  “Chemistry?”

  “Yeah—he was telling me about bartending. Chip said it was like mixing up lab experiments, and he said he’d majored in chemistry or something like that.”

  “Oh...that kind of chemistry.”

  “Hey, Chip says there’s an ice luge in the next clearing!”

  “A what?”

  “You know—a big block of ice with a channel cut out of it. Someone pours in a shot at the top, and you wait at the bottom with your mouth open.”

  “Lovely.”

  “I thought it sounded fun. Chip said it makes whatever you’re drinking super cold.”

  “Did Chip say that?”

  Silence fell between us, drowned out by the chatter of people at the bar and the thump of music from the next clearing and the muted squeals and shouts coming from the ski jump. Even in the darkness I could feel Sasha staring at me.

  “Hey...how are you doing?” she asked finally.

  I rubbed my suddenly throbbing temples. “Fine.”

  “Let’s go check out the ice luge!”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  I heard her sigh, and then she leaned back in her chaise. “Okay.”

  “You can go if you want, Sash. I’m fine.”

  “No, I’ll stay here with you.”

  “No, really.” I could feel my mood darkening, and all I wanted right now was to be by myself. “Go ahead. I’ll come find you later.”

  I heard the creak of her chair and saw her sit forward. I knew she’d been dying to check out the rest of the party ever since we got here. “Are you sure?”

  I made myself chuckle—she wouldn’t leave if she thought I was upset. “It’s not like I’m scared of the dark.”

  She just kept looking at me, and then: “Well...okay. Don’t be too long or I’ll come stalk you.”

  “Okeydokey. That’s your specialty.” I said it singsong, like a joke, but even I could hear the mean undercurrent. What was the matter with me?

  Sasha didn’t say anything, just picked up her drink, shot me an uncertain smile that brought up a fresh current of shame, and walked away.

  When you are overflowing with self-loathing, the last thing you want to do is inflict yourself on anyone else. So I couldn’t have picked a worse place to be tonight: surrounded by people everywhere I turned.

  I tried to find places to sit by myself, nursing the drink Sasha had brought me, but every time I stumbled upon a vacant seating area, it wasn’t long before I was joined by more partygoers making cheerful, friendly, drunken conversation that I couldn’t summon the energy or inclination to respond to.

  Finally, I headed away from the clearings and into a forested part of the property, slashing my way through undergrowth in a way that reminded me—painfully—of creeping into Kendall’s complex through the saw palmettos. I wished I had the car keys. I could leave a note in the tent, let Sasha know I’d come back tomorrow and help her load up.

  In the darkness of the new moon, I almost stumbled into a small drainage pond when the trees and greenery ended abruptly. The sounds of the party were distant enough now that I felt pretty sure no one would follow me out here, and I dropped down to the grass, tucking my legs up under me and staring out over the dark ditch of the pond.

  The sudden scrape of metal made me jump with a girly little yip of surprise, and I saw a flame pop up just a few yards away.

  “Who’s there?” I barked, my heart pounding.

  “Sorry. Didn’t know anyone else was here.”

  I knew that gravelly rasp. “Chip?” I said in disbelief.

  “Who’s that?” His tone was suspicious.

  “It’s Brook Ogden.”

  I heard the crunching of dry St. Augustine grass, and a silhouette came clearer out of the darkness. Now I could see a reflection of the scant light off his shiny shaved head.

  “Doc?” His voice rose at the end, making him sound young, like a kid caught by the principal behind the gym during math class.

  I stood up, brushing off my jeans. “Hi.”

  I could see him clearly now—plain T-shirt keeping close acquaintance with the muscles underneath; cargo pants that skimmed his athletic thighs; running shoes; the cigarette held, unlit and forgotten, in one large hand. He was on a slight incline, one leg bent and hiked up higher than the other, and the pose made him look like the Marlboro Man. I scrounged for my professional detachment.

  “Nice to see you again, Chip.”

  “Yeah, you too, Doc.” I didn’t know if Chip always called me “Doc” because it made him feel he was in more capable hands, or if he was somehow having a secret jibe at me. “What are you doing here?”

  I made a gesture back toward the party. “Friends of mine. I come every year. You?” I added belatedly, remembering he didn’t know I’d already seen him.

  “Work. I’m bartending.” He retrieved the pack from his back pocket and held it toward me. “Smoke?”

  “Nah. Stunts your growth.”

  He laughed, then lit his. The ember glowed bright at the end of his lips, silence stretching long enough to make me uncomfortable, punctuated only by the sound of his breath as he drew on the cigarette and exhaled. Why couldn’t I think of anything to say? It was always a little awkward seeing clients outside of work. But with Chip it was downright unsettling. Out here in near-total darkness, on the edges of a forest of palm trees and scrub pine and oak, I felt unbalanced, unprotected, as if he were a half-wild animal.

  “I guess I’d better head back,” he said finally. “There’s only one other guy working with me. Your friends are keeping us pretty busy.”

  I wheezed out a chuckle. “Most of us aren’t usually quite this wild. This is sort of a special occasion.”

  “I figured.” Chip twisted the butt between his fingers until the smoldering tobacco fell out. He ground it out with his shoe and put the filter in his pocket. An environmentally conscious smoker. “Well, see you.”

  “I hope so.” I cringed in the dark as his chuckle drifted to me over his shoulder. “Chip.”

  He stopped and angled himself toward me, his features again blurred into shadows. I was very, very conscious of the fact that it was dark, we were alone, and the party was far behind us.

  “How’s...” I wanted to ask how his work with his new therapist was coming, but that was bad form. “How’s everything?”

  “No complaints.” His tone sounded amused.

  Silence fell between us again, and for some reason I was desperate to break it, to keep him here.

  “I, uh... I’m sorry I had to terminate our work together.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I get it. It’s good to see you, Doc. Enjoy the party.” He turned and walked back toward the lights and the music and the noise, skirting the overgrowth until he turned a corner and was out of sight.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face, wishing I could wipe away the whole encounter. It was bad enough that I was sinking deeper and deeper into behavior people came to me to learn how to avoid. But if I couldn’t keep my own issues separate from my patients’, then I wasn’t fit for the one thing I was still good at, the only area in which I felt competent.

  I wished I’d taken Chip up on the offer of a cigarette. Or bought the whole pack from him. Right now, sitting in my sorrows with a pack of smokes and a bottle of booze sounded like the only way to escape my own head and get away from myself. I turned to go back to the party, knowing that if oblivion was what I wanted, I was heading toward the right place.

  But halfway back to the crush of laughing, shouting, happy partygoers, I realized I couldn’t even summon enough social interaction to ask for a drink, or something—any
thing—to smoke. I turned and plodded back to Sasha’s and my tent, let myself in through the zippered front flap, and collapsed onto my sleeping bag on the ground, hoping to fall asleep despite the noise and get through the hours until daybreak.

  And somehow, despite the incessant thumping of a bass line from the band, despite the occasional crack of fireworks and the frequent loud bursts of raucous laughter, the noise turned into a soporific hum of sound that did lull me into a restless drowse.

  I realized I’d managed to lose myself in unconsciousness only later, when the scratching sound at my tent flap and a hoarse whisper of, “Hey, Doc...you in there?” brought me jolting back to awareness, along with the realization that Chip Santana was standing outside of the tent I was sharing with Sasha, calling for me to come outside.

  twenty-five

  I sat up and pushed the hair back out of my face, shooting a look over to Sasha’s elevated bed. She lay sprawled across the top of it, arms and legs jutting at right angles. I was tempted to press two fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. How had I not heard her stumble in?

  I had just decided I’d dreamed Chip’s hoarse whisper calling to me when I heard it again.

  “Hey, Doc!” There was a muffled thump and a short, raspy laugh, and then I heard him moving off.

  Quickly I threw back my sleeping bag and scrambled into drawstring pants and a sweatshirt over the long-sleeved tee I’d worn to hide my bandaged shoulder, then let myself out of the tent flap.

  Chip must have heard the zipper; he was standing a few feet away, waiting. I could smell the acrid smoke from the cigarette dangling between two fingers by his side. The music had stopped, even the tribal pulsing of the drum circle, and the hush of night hovered over the property.

  “Your friends are going to hate me. I’ve probably knocked on a dozen tents.” His lowered pitch gave his voice even more gravel, like coarse sandpaper.

  “What time is it?”

  “Little after four.”

  “Oh... Are you through working?”

  “Just got cleaned up.” He squeezed off the lit end of his cigarette, ground it out, and pocketed the filter, then looked back up at me with a rascal’s smile, like a kid looking for a coconspirator. “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

  I couldn’t help it: I laughed. “It’s the middle of the night! Where are we going to get ice cream?”

  “I have a few pints at home. We can grab a couple and walk over to the beach. It’ll be fun.”

  I looked back at my tent, then shook my head. “I’d better not.”

  One of his forked eyebrows lifted, his lips still tilting upward. “Come on, Doc. Bend a spoon with me. I could use some company.”

  I like to think it was that last statement that got me. Being needed, being reminded that my job was to help people when they asked for it—specifically, up until recently, to help this person—and he had just asked for it.

  Although even as I agreed, I knew what it really was. Chip Santana was dangerous, sexy, and seductively appealing. He had hunted through the party to find me—the epitome of the alpha male come to fetch his woman. And I loved it. I loved feeling that this pulsing ball of testosterone had picked me out of all his options tonight, had worked to come find me, and wanted me—only me—to come back to his house with him. After the feeling of running after Kendall when he walked away, desperately wanting him to want me again just a little, tiny bit, this was like a tidal wave of acceptance and approval.

  I hesitated for a much shorter moment than I probably should have before nodding my head yes. All I’d wanted earlier was to be able to leave here, and now the universe had answered my request.

  I didn’t want to risk waking Sasha, so I didn’t go back for my wallet or cell phone or even a pair of shoes—feeling as if I were watching myself from a distance, I just fell into step beside Chip Santana’s long stride and followed him out to his hulking maroon SUV in Faryn and Jan’s driveway.

  “Are you okay to drive?” I said as he opened my door and helped me up into the passenger seat.

  “Yeah, I don’t drink.”

  “You don’t drink? You’re a bartender.”

  “That’s why I don’t drink. You see enough drunken idiots at your bar night after night, you wouldn’t drink either.”

  Ah, yes. The idiots he ranted about in every session we’d ever had—meaning everyone who was not Chip, apparently.

  Okay. So we were both stone-cold sober.

  Chip walked around to his side and got in, and when he shut the door and started the engine, my heart jumped into gear along with the truck. The cab suddenly felt very, very small. He pulled through the semicircular drive and out onto the side street. The few houses we passed were dark, and there were no streetlights, so when Chip flipped open his Zippo and lit up again—and this time I noticed it was a joint—the flare of light almost hurt my eyes.

  “This is how I relax,” he said. “Easier on the system—and no one ever got in a fight or broke into a liquor store or attacked someone from getting high.”

  No. Most people didn’t much get off the sofa when they were high, but I didn’t say anything. When he passed it over to me, I took a hit.

  Chip’s face shone faintly orange in the reflected light from the dash of his truck, making it glow like a jack-o’-lantern, his hands on the wheel illuminated at the knuckles. The dim light picked out the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks and chin, as if that tender-looking skin there were trying to protect itself with tiny porcupine quills.

  “You ever seen Bowman’s at night?” His voice rumbled up out of the dimness like far-off thunder.

  I shook my head, then realized he might not see it. “No. We went farther down the beach when I was a kid. Fewer cops.”

  He laughed, short and choppy. “They’re cool with the locals. I go there at night a lot. Schools of fish run through the channel after sunset—it’s almost too easy to cast a line and pluck one out.”

  “You fish?”

  His head turned toward me, and even in the gloaming of the car I knew one of those satyr eyebrows was raised. He neglected to answer, and something about the intimacy of that made my heart pound.

  “Right,” I said, my chuckle sounding oddly low and throaty in my own ears. “Clearly.”

  We crested the bridge, and the two beach-bound lanes that were the only way onto Estero Island narrowed to one. Once you got this far there were no other routes—if you changed your mind you couldn’t turn around till you’d already gotten all the way to where you were headed.

  Chip lived on the bottom level of a house that must have been grandfathered in before the hurricane building codes that stated you couldn’t build a living area below twelve feet elevation. It was a windowless space with cinder-block walls, and it reminded me of an old elementary school classroom. Chip went inside, but I just leaned against the doorjamb, reluctant to take that next step over the threshold.

  A breath I didn’t know I was holding rushed out in a whoosh when all he did was set his backpack down, open the freezer door, and retrieve two pints of Ben & Jerry’s. He opened a drawer, clattered around for two spoons, and then came back toward me. I’d been second-guessing myself since I got in the car for falling so easily into what could only be a thinly veiled seduction scheme, but apparently we really were just going to share some ice cream on the beach. It was almost...sweet.

  “Come on,” he said, his voice in my ear as I stepped aside so he could lock the door behind us. “We’ll walk.”

  Estero Boulevard was silent at this hour, no traffic, no tourists stumbling and laughing along the sidewalks on both sides of the three-lane road, no souvenir shops and bars pumping out steel-drum beach music along with blasts of air-conditioning to lure customers inside. I hadn’t seen it like this since my friends and I used to sneak down here in high school after our parents fell asleep. Chip and I walked across the stree
t and onto a sandy beach access path. Even though they flopped loosely on my feet and I had to clench my toes to keep them on, I was grateful for the Birkenstocks he’d offered me at his apartment.

  “What flavors do we have?” I asked, trying to make out the label of the one I held.

  “Magic Brownies and Karamel Sutra.”

  They both sounded dangerous.

  Out on the beach the water was calm, the way the gulf almost always was in Fort Myers. The earthy, rich scent of salt water and sea life filled my sinuses, and I felt some of my tension let go. I shuffled through the shifting sand behind Chip, following him wordlessly up the shoreline until the curve of Bowman’s Beach crept into view. He sat down near a tiny dune anchored by sea oats. Lowering myself beside him, I handed him the pint of ice cream and shook out my frozen hand to get the blood to return to it.

  Chip peeled the lids back and then handed me a pint and one of the spoons. “It’s a little soft.”

  “That’s okay.”

  We dug in directly out of the containers. I had the Karamel Sutra, the thick ribbon of caramel sweet and heavy in my mouth against the cool ice cream. After a few bites Chip pushed his spoon into my pint, and I followed his lead and tried his, rich and chocolatey. Sharing felt both intimate and innocent.

  When I’d eaten all I could I raised my spoon in surrender. “I’m out.”

  “Me too.” He capped the pints, and then looked at them in his hands. “I think I’m going to call them a wash. We’ll never get them back to the freezer in time.” He plopped them into the sand beside him.

  I laughed. I felt drunk on sugar, on the darkness, on the sheer incongruity of being on a deserted beach in the middle of the night with my patient.

  Former patient. With whom I was not behaving as a professional counselor.

  I was acutely conscious that beneath my cotton drawstring pants I wore only a pair of panties, and under the sweatshirt and tee I had on nothing else at all. I wore no makeup—every inch of my usual therapist’s armor was gone.