Rowan

by Tilly Delane

  “I don’t think I need it,” I answer with a half-hearted laugh and see him suppress a flinch of rejection. “But I’d sure as shit like it.”

  “Good,” he says, clearly relieved, and breathes out heavily. “I don’t trust that guy. He’s a slimeball.”

  That earns him a proper grin from me.

  “The brute’s acute,” I quip, and he softly punches my shoulder.

  He hasn’t touched me since he left my bed two mornings ago, so this is the exact moment I find out that my sex ed books in high school were wrong. Way, way wrong. The shoulder, too, is a highly erogenous zone. Shit.

  “The brute’s got an IQ higher than most of these doctors put together,” he answers with a grin then gets serious. “Although maybe not higher than Lewin’s. She’s good.”

  I nod. I can see in his eyes that after taking him apart on Friday she must have gone to work putting him back together again in his session today.

  “She is. She’s tough, she puts people through the wringer, but she’s solid.”

  He nods and I can see in the movement in his throat that he wants to talk to me about it, but he shakes it off.

  “How long do you need before I knock and come looking for you?” he asks instead.

  I shrug.

  “Dunno. Ten, fifteen minutes? Shouldn’t take long.”

  He nods then juts his chin out at Rothman’s door.

  “Go on. I’ll be by the water fountain.”

  He takes a breath and grins down at me.

  “I haven’t fellated any water in a while.”

  Then he walks away, and this time when I grab the knocker, I actually use it.

  A few moments later, the window above my head opens. Rothman sticks his head out. He watches Rowan’s retreating back before he notices me.

  “Oh, Ravenna, I didn’t see you there. What a surprise,” he yells down. “Do come in, the door is open.”

  I enter the dim light in Rothman’s hallway, and immediately his voice rings down from the landing above.

  “I’ll be there in a minute or two. Feel free to go to my therapy room. Make yourself at home.”

  As soon as he says it, I startle at a sudden realization.

  I’ve never been in here since the therapists moved in.

  I know fuck all about Frank Rothman, other than that he gives me the creeps based on a vague visual similarity to my childhood rapist.

  All the houses’ layouts are identical, though, so I know where to go.

  In the counselors’ houses the lounge is the therapy room.

  I move forward into the hallway, but then curiosity leads me the long way around, through the kitchen, where I grab myself a glass of water, and dining room.

  Something strikes me as I take the standard issue glassware while I nosy around. Nothing’s been changed anywhere in number 11 since the contractors finished remodeling the old abandoned village that once stood here in The Village.

  I saw all the houses before anyone moved in and all interiors are the same, but the Allsorts, the Denyers and even Lewin have turned theirs into individual homes. They haven’t completely redecorated them but added a picture here, different curtains there, changed the lamp shades. That sorta thing.

  Rothman’s, at least on this floor, still looks exactly how it did when the official Halosan reps cut the ribbon on the therapy center. Weird.

  I let myself further into the therapy room, a bland set up of a writing desk in one corner and a pair of identical armchairs facing one another by a net curtain obscured window. I stop to study the only alteration he’s made to the room. Framed copies of his PhD, MSc and membership of professional bodies certificates hang in a neat line up above a gas fireplace. All they tell me is he studied in London, graduated five years ago and his middle name is Josiah.

  I spin around when I hear Frank Josiah Rothman’s feet coming down the stairs, so when he appears in the door frame, I’m facing him.

  He looks less slick than I’ve ever seen him before. His hair is mussed, his face slightly flushed and he’s in the last throes of fastening his belt buckle. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what I interrupted. It also doesn’t take a genius to work out that he doesn’t have anyone up there. And the look he gives me makes me absolutely sure he only just got to the finish line. With me already in the house. I want to hurl, but all I give him is my curtest matron-of-the-ward nod and raise my glass.

  “I helped myself to some water in your kitchen. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course,” he answers and indicates the chairs. “Take a seat. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “My apologies for coming over this late in the evening,” I say, while I move across and lower myself onto the edge of the seat. “I was hoping to catch you at the weekend, but you weren’t here.”

  “No problem,” he answers smoothly.

  He takes his position opposite me and studies my coiled-to-leave-at-any-moment stance. Like a good little therapist, he mirrors my body position and looks at me expectantly. Suddenly it occurs to me that this was a huge mistake. I’m confronting him on his own turf.

  Goosebumps crawl across my flesh when my eyes land on his hands. I wonder for a moment if he’s left-handed or right-handed. I try to push the thought away before it tests my gag reflex. Instead, I think of Rowan, waiting outside, watching my back. The image calms me and it’s then that I can smell the soap on Rothman’s hands and relax a little. At least he had the decency to wash his hands.

  I clear my throat and fix Rothman in a mildly disapproving stare that works a treat on hospital patients stepping out of line on a ward.

  “Frank,” I start, and give him a small, dishonest smile. “I am afraid this is not a social call. I’m giving you the chance to explain yourself before I contact head office about your conduct.”

  He sits bolt upright at that. Good. I have his attention. I don’t let him speak before I continue.

  “It appears that you have been reorganizing room allocations without clearing this with me first.”

  I let it hang there and watch him relax a little. He thinks this is not a big deal. He’s wrong. I wonder how he’s going to play this. The answer is, badly. Because the idiot draws the superiority card.

  “Well, I think we can both agree that although assigning guests to houses may be on your job description, Ravenna, as a therapist I am best placed to alter decisions if I deem them counterproductive to my clients’ progress.”

  “Wrong. There is good reason the placements of the guests fall under the head nurse’s remit. Do you have the Halosan house allocations supervisor qualification?”

  He laughs and I can see in his eyes that he thinks I’m being sarcastic, that I made it up. I frown because he should be aware that I’m not. But this is the first time I’m dealing with outside providers, as HQ call them, so maybe he is genuinely oblivious.

  In the States, all Halosan staff have been through our in-house training and know why who is responsible for what. These international centers are different. I am the only one here who is fully Halosan trained. I hate how that actually gives me a sense of pride. How pathetic is that? But I park this little inner discourse for examination another day as I pick up the conversation where we left off.

  “I am not joking, Frank,” I tell him. “I went through months of training pertinent to successfully allocating guests to nurses and houses. You don’t just look at your individual client, you look at the group, you look at the group in relation to the background of your host nurse, personal and professional. You factor in type of addiction, medical background, known trauma, known triggers, known–“

  I cut myself off there and change tack, smiling into his stunned face.

  “Tell you what, pass me a piece of paper and a pencil.”

  I watch him go to his desk, where he takes a stack of A4 sheets out of his printer and starts rummaging around for a pencil until he finally finds one in his leather satchel on the floor. He comes back to bring me both and then I go to wo
rk.

  For the next ten minutes, I dazzle him with what I inwardly decide to call my wedding planner act. I don’t use real guests or our real nurses for my examples, but by the end of my demonstration I’ve produced a sprawling spider diagram, illustrating exactly what goes into the process. Until I’m sure he gets the picture of how truly complex house dynamics are.

  “As I pointed out earlier,” I say, signaling that I’m done by sticking the pencil behind my ear, “months of training. And experience, Frank. I have done this for some time. That is why I have much higher clearance than you, or Lewin, or even the Denyers regarding our staffs’ personal backgrounds. Because it’s on a need to know basis. And I am the only one who needs to know. For this.” I stab my index finger at the piece of paper. “Now can we agree that there won’t be any more reshuffling without clearing it with me first?”

  He’s still frowning at the paper on my knees, but he nods slowly.

  “So what happens when you leave?”

  “Christine takes my place.”

  “But she does not have your training,” he points out.

  I don’t know why he’s drawing this out. He’s like a dog with a bone and it’s getting on my nerves now. We should be done here. I want to get out of here. Nothing’s changed in the last fifteen minutes. The guy is a creep and I’ve made my point. But I won’t let my annoyance show on my face. I want him to get this into his thick skull, so Christine doesn’t have any problems with him when I go home.

  “Christine’s had a year’s worth of evening tutorial from me alongside online training sessions with HQ. She was essentially linked into the training by Skype. So, yes, she does have my training.”

  “Shit,” I hear him mutter under his breath while my face is turned to the floor as I lower the paper onto the carpet.

  It’s an odd reaction, but I let it go. It really is time to leave before my cavalry breaks up the party. I’ve been here too long, and I can fucking well feel Rowan approaching Rothman’s front door.

  “Are we good here?” I ask.

  He leans in and puts a hand on my knee.

  “We’re good,” he says with what I’m sure he thinks is a charming smile, but I can barely hear him through the noise in my ears.

  Bile rises in my throat.

  But then there is a knock on the front door, loud enough to cut through my panic attack.

  I never loved anyone as much as I love Rowan in that moment.

  Rowan

  I get antsy after about fifteen minutes. After another five, I walk up to Rothman’s house and knock. Loudly.

  It doesn’t take long before Rothman answers the door with Raven standing right behind him. It is hard to tell in the gloom of the hallway, but she appears pale. Before Rothman can say anything, I speak.

  “Excuse me for interrupting,” I say, smiling politely. “But we have a bit of an emergency at the house. If you're finished here, Raven, could we have you back, please?”

  She slips around Rothman, and despite the green hue on her face that becomes apparent in the orange glow of the late sunset, she manages to play along without missing a beat.

  “Don't tell me it's the Wi-Fi again,” she says, holding my gaze.

  My heart starts pounding with the proud realisation that she is anchoring herself in my eyes. At the same time, anger vibrates through my body. What has Rothman done to make her need anchoring in the first place? As if she can hear my thoughts, she surreptitiously shakes her head, signalling, 'let it go and let’s get outta here'.

  “However did you know?” I mockingly respond to the Wi-Fi question to keep up the farce.

  We are already a couple of steps away from number 11 when she looks back over her shoulder at Rothman.

  “I'm glad we had a chat, Frank. It's good to be on the same page,” she says to him evenly then walks away without sparing him another glance.

  And in that moment, I realise that this woman is a professional through and through. I haven’t got the faintest what their confab was about, but I know it made her feel majorly uncomfortable. Yet she comes out with the upper hand, and smoothly so. I march silently beside her, feeling like a fucking child in comparison.

  I sense that she doesn’t want to talk right now, that she needs time to get back her bearings, so I think about the choices I made instead. About the world I chose, about the people, about the fights, the gambling, the debauched men that never grow up and their dumb bitches, who think the bigger the crime the higher the status. And who wash up battered, bruised or fucked to death because they believed the trashy romance novels that told them bad guys are sexy.

  They’re not. They’re arseholes.

  Like me.

  I think of my mum and how disappointed she would have been in me. She was a professional. Like Raven. Not a nurse, but a teacher. Someone who society depends on.

  We touched on the subject of Mum in my session with Lewin today. Lewin knows the facts and I really appreciate that she is the first person ever not to say that it wasn’t my fault. She just acknowledged in a really neutral tone that objectively, yes, it was.

  Something happened inside of me when she said that. Some knot pinged open that I’ve been carrying since that day.

  Raven and I arrive at our house just as my thoughts meander to Adam and Sammy, my half brother and sister, who I haven’t seen since their dad decided to take off with his own brood but leave me behind with Sheena and Silas. That was eleven years ago. Adam and Sammy are teenagers now. I wonder if I’d even recognize them if I passed them in the street these days.

  I’m dragged from my ruminations when Raven clears her throat, her hand on the doorknob. I look over at her profile. Her pallor has returned to normal.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” she says quietly.

  I bark a quick laugh.

  “You don’t need rescuing, lady. You’re tough as nails.”

  She shakes her head, and it’s then that I see she is actually still shaking slightly.

  What the fuck did Rothman do?

  I know better than to ask, though.

  “What are you doing with the rest of your evening?” I enquire instead.

  “What? Once the Wi-Fi is sorted out?”

  She chuckles, and the sound warms my soul. I pull my mobile from my pocket and look at it.

  “Oh, my bad. It appears to have magically reset itself.”

  She looks over at me with a smile that lights up my soul.

  “Well, waddayaknow.”

  “Sooo, back to my question...”

  She shrugs and turns the doorknob. I’m not ready to split from her for the night, though. Sex may be off the menu, but I still want to be around her.

  “You wanna spend some time?” I ask, and it earns me a raised eyebrow. “Not like that. I heard you. Even though, technically, you didn’t say anything. No, I mean, in the garden, in plain view. Just hang for a bit.”

  “Okay,” she answers as she pushes open the door. “See if those boys have relinquished the backgammon set yet. I’ll whoop your ass.”

  I snicker at that.

  “Not a chance, lady. Not a friggin’ chance.”

  Raven

  It so happens we have to win the board off Tristan and Charlie first in a winner stays on match. Rowan lets me take that one, and I know he’s studying my every move as I play Charlie while we sit outside at the terrace table in the ever-dimming evening light.

  Tristan also stays to watch, and when it gets almost too dark to see, he goes and gets matches from the kitchen to light the candle in the hurricane lamp on the table. It makes my heart soar that our shy little kid is starting to do stuff like this. Taking the initiative, taking part. He’s still awkward as hell, but at least he’s not frightened away by everything and everyone anymore, not even when Elias and Ann-Marie, the ballerina, come over and sit with us after everyone else has gone inside their houses.

  I only half listen to the banter going around the table, mostly between Rowan and Elias, while I concentrate o
n wiping the floor with Charlie. It takes a while, but in the end, he sits defeated. When we’re finished, he looks at me in disbelief.

  “You’re a fiend,” he says and mimes taking his hat off to me. “Where did you learn to play like that?”

  “Foster kid,” I let slip out without thinking.

  I hear a sharp intake of breath from Elias but nothing from Rowan or any of the others. I shrug as I smile into the round of faces illuminated by the gently flickering light on the table.

  “Group homes, guys,” I explain. “BG is one of the few board games you can play even when half the counters are missing. You just use quarters and dimes instead. You ain’t seen nothing yet. You should see my drafts skills.”

  I laugh to lighten the mood then nod at Rowan.

  “You’re on.”