But standing in that doorway, I believed in me and Jason. I thought maybe I was pushing it. Moving too fast. Maybe a different approach. So I said, “You know, we can just be friends.”
I saw a trace of hurt in his eyes. But I got too angry to care about his hurt. And said, “Actually, forget that. I take it back. I have plenty of friends. I don’t want to be your friend. I want to date you. I don’t quite understand you, but I like that. And I like you. A lot. And if you don’t feel the same, okay. But I won’t be your friend.”
Before I could shut the door on him forever, Jason strode over to me, grabbed me around the waist, pulled me in, and kissed me. And that night he became my number twenty-five. He was more defined than his blue T-shirts had led on. Each muscle in his shoulders and back twitched as he pulled his shirt off. When he reached for me, I could picture him paddling out through the water, on his surfboard, his arms and core well attuned to working together. As I pressed against him, I thought we could be that sixty-years-of-bliss couple. I was wrong.
CHAPTER 22
FLOWERS
The morning after our third date, Jason admitted he was in fact giving me mixed messages. Not on purpose to play games, but because he really wasn’t sure about me. It wasn’t until I told him I didn’t want to be friends that he clicked in. As he sipped on his Diet Coke, he said there was a rare honesty and integrity to my outburst, so he was willing to let his guard down. What would scare most men away even more made the alien in him dive into the deep end with me.
When my supervised internship hours were complete, my classes were finished, and my thesis on sociopaths and narcissists being like first cousins once removed was turned in and getting rave reviews from my professors and advisers, I officially graduated with my doctorate degree.
Immediately after graduation—because why would I start procrastinating now?—I took the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology, EPPP for short. I studied for it using the old-school cue card method, and missed Roman so much at these times. The nostalgia came in waves, sometimes so strong I felt almost pushed overboard. But I hung on, breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, and remained focused.
Like the IQ tests I used to enjoy as a child, I reveled in the 225 multiple-choice-question test focusing on core areas of psychology, such as assessment and diagnosis, and social and biological bases of behavior. Fun! There was a right and wrong to every question. Nothing open-ended, nothing left to chance.
I passed and was officially a licensed psychologist. Ready to go into the world unsupervised, delve into the trauma and darkest places of others, and do my best to make their lives better. To use my strengths to help those weakened by life.
To celebrate this achievement, Jason arrived at my apartment with a bottle of my favorite Champagne and a beautiful bursting bouquet of several different types of purple flowers. He made sure that all the varietals were nontoxic to cats, since sometimes Mr. Cat would nibble on the petals and harmlessly puke up his own bouquet. Jason was always so conscientious like this. And wonderful and kind and supportive. He brought out the best in me. So why was I being questioned about his death?
Goose bumps crept up my legs because the metal chair I was sitting on had itself succumbed to the cold air and become a conduit for shivers. Detective Jackson now looked at me with kindness. His face was open and patient. He was playing both good cop and bad cop all on his own. As I held the flimsy photo of me and Jason at the lamp store, I asked myself a very important question. If I could think of no reason to kill him, why on earth would anyone else think I killed him? As I put the photo back down on the table, I thought about all the flowers he had given me over the years. How there is always an end to things. No matter how long the flowers stayed fresh, they always seemed to die too soon. I suppose the moment they were cut from their stems they were already dead and, like me in happier times, were just reveling in the beauty of their slow decay.
CHAPTER 23
CAKE
Jason spoke to his mother on the phone at least three times a day. He filled her in on his minutiae, asked her for advice constantly, and rarely made a decision without her input. If he had a major flaw, it would be this. It seemed a tad codependent to me, but I murdered a little boy to protect my sister, so who was I to judge?
After we’d been dating for several months, Gertrude wanted to meet me. Jason’s twenty-ninth birthday was coming up, so it was the perfect opportunity. He said that way it would be a big group and not too much pressure, but I didn’t feel any pressure. Meeting parents had never caused me anxiety. Parents usually loved me. And because I was a psychologist, I was great at asking other people questions and either really listening to their answers or pretending very well to really listen. Most people like talking about themselves, so if you walk away from an interaction feeling you’ve been heard, you usually like the person who you believe was listening. I kept reassuring Jason that it would all be great, his mom and I would be fast friends, or at the very least cordial acquaintances. How could we not get along when we both clearly cared about him so much? But looking back, I now see he was trying to shield me from something. Something he wasn’t able to communicate at that time but subconsciously knew was a danger.
Jason decided to have his party by the pool of the landmark hotel the Fontainebleau. It was the place to be seen in the 1950s, all glitz and glamour, kitten heels and cat eyes. By the eighties it was a punch line. Sunburnt, overweight tourists and discounted frozen daiquiris. But like so many old ladies on Miami Beach, it got a face-lift and a makeover and a rebrand and was forcing its way into a comeback. New owners! New lobby! New guest rooms! But the same classic chandeliers and pizzazz of yesteryear. Jason reserved several of their cabanas and planned a lunch of burgers, veggie skewers, and an open bar.
He invited lots of his coworkers from the news station, both on-camera talent and fellow behind-the-scenes employees, and many of his surfer friends who saw him at sunrise most mornings. Because he grew up in Georgia, he didn’t have any childhood friends in town. But several of his college friends from Florida State University were in Miami and also attending.
So not only was I going to be meeting his mom for the first time, I was going to be meeting almost everyone else from Jason’s world for the first time as well. And I wanted to be liked. I wanted his friends to give him a knowing smile, like, Hey, you got yourself a keeper. She’s smart, yet easygoing, yet keeps you on your toes. She’s pretty, but not in an intimidating or trashy South Beach way. She’s a great match for you, Jason. Don’t fuck it up!
It mattered to me that all his friends thought this because it’s normal to want to be liked and accepted, and although I might be a murderer, I was still just like everyone else. And as far as platitudes go, “There’s never a second chance to make a good first impression” is at the top of my list. Because it’s true. There’s been plenty of times I’ve met someone, liked them at first, and then learned I didn’t like them one bit. But I can’t think of a time I met someone, didn’t like them, then learned to like them.