That afternoon she skipped the cleaning. Her grandma came home to an empty house, Louise wandering home an hour later with a mouth full of Lifesavers.
“And is that when it started?” her therapist asks. It’s fifteen months later. They are sitting on a screened-in porch at the Float Anxiety Reduction Center. “This fixation on sex and sexuality?”
Louise drops the Crocs from her feet, crosses her legs. She is sitting on the wooden porch swing. Incense burns in a tray on the table beside her. There is a cool afternoon breeze blowing in from the east, and she can hear the bleat of the lambs and goats from the animal enclosure next door.
“Can’t get to Carnegie Hall without practice,” she says.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if you want to be the best at something, you gotta work for it.”
The therapist makes a note. He is in his midforties with an island of brown hair in the center of his forehead, which he combs back like a bridge to connect with the rest of his receding hairline.
“And what does that mean to you, being the best at sex?”
Louise leans back, the swing moving with her, and rolls her eyes to the roof. Sex is part of her currency, her exoticness here and at home, the stereotype of the sensual Black woman. It’s a role she adopted without realizing, drawn by the allure of approval, the gravitational pull of being wanted. But at night she slid crafting scissors across her skin in places only teenage treasure seekers would see them—a warning carved into the rock outside a sacred cave—for you cannot take something sacred without leaving pain and suffering behind.
Because, of course, there is a fourth thing that makes Louise anxious, a foundational fear that dwarfs all the others, a traumatizing experience that led to her breakdown and her escape to this picturesque suburban facility her grandmother can’t afford.
And that fear’s name is the Wizard.
“It’s, God, it’s a joke, dude,” she tells the therapist. “Lighten up.”
He makes another note.
“I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress recently,” he says.
“Great.”
“Would you agree?”
“Would I agree we’ve made a lot of progress? I don’t know. What is that? Progress, when it comes to me, you know, not losing my fucking mind?”
“Well—you seem more relaxed.”
“That’s pharmaceutical.”
“Are you sure?”
Louise sighs. She doesn’t like looking straight at things. She’s a peripheral person. Like how a boy doesn’t have to ask for head, you just know he wants it. Even this guy. Therapy Man. She sees the way he writes down her stories, the way he licks the end of his pencil before jotting down the gory details—not literally, but with his mind. He acts cool and detached, but Louise knows if she dropped to her knees right in the middle of the session, he wouldn’t put up much of a fight.
“Often,” the therapist says, “promiscuity at a young age is brought on by abuse. What do you think about that statement?”
“I think I’m the one with the questions and you’re supposed to be Mr. Answer Man.”
He clicked his pen once, twice. Click-click.
“You’re fifteen, Louise. And if you’re telling the truth, you’ve had sexual encounters with a dozen boys.”
“Don’t forget the girls, dude. If she’s got the sway, I’ll munch a well-groomed carpet any day.”
Her therapist takes off his glasses, wipes the lenses with a cloth.
“Are you trying to shock me?”
“I could give a shit. I’m just being factual.”
“And how,” he said then, “do you think your race plays into all of this?”
She stares at him. “For real?”
He nods, comfortable in his professional detachment.
“Fine,” she says. “Lemme ask you this: You think anxiety is a personal problem? You’re anxious. I’m anxious.”
He draws himself up, an expert thrilled to pontificate his expertise.
“Anxiety,” he says, “is a psychological affliction.”
“No,” she tells him. “It’s a we problem. We’re anxious—Black people, brown people, women. Anxious about discrimination. About violence. About our bodies and their physical health. About being seen—really seen—which I’m thinking, Steve, is not a problem you have.”
“Because I’m white.”
She raises her eyebrows. Duh.
He wipes his glasses, a pained expression on his face.
“It hurts,” he says, “that you would judge me on the color of my skin.”
She stares at him.
“Seriously?”
She watches as he puts his glasses back on.
“Was there racism against Black people in the past?” he says. “Yes. No one’s denying that, but I think we can all agree it’s rare now. Individual cases, sure, but—”
She stares at him. He trails off, not wanting to get political. He’s done a lot of reading on the subject, however. How the Civil Rights Act was a success, followed by affirmative action, and now there’s equality. Baseline equality. I mean, sure, he thinks, people are struggling—Black people, white people, everyone—times are tough, but it’s important we teach our kids the truth, not a bunch of liberal talking points.
Imagine, he thinks, teaching innocent white children that they’re guilty of racism from the moment they’re born?
But this isn’t his therapy session. It’s hers, so he holds out his right palm, inviting her to talk.
“O—kay,” says Louise, making a mental note to keep her real feelings to herself from now on.
He smiles.
“And hey,” he says, “we feel how we feel. That’s your experience of the world, and I want to honor that.”
For some reason his smile—empty of meaning—reminds her of He Who Must Not be Named. This is the story her therapist really wants to hear, but no way she’s gonna tell it. The Wizard and the Troll. The guardian at the gate and the mansion on the hill. He’d take one listen and write make believe artist in his little book. But what is a tall tale if not a portrait of some larger truth?
You like to party? Because this is a party house.
Bowls of pills. All the vodka you could drink.