Help. The cut on Rain’s thigh burned at the word.
They sat in the same seats they had chosen last time. Today there were peppermints in the copper bowl. The green vase held white peonies. As soon as Rain settled in the chair, the old spaniel stirred from beneath the desk and crossed to settle at Rain’s feet.
“He likes you,” Dr. Mallory said.
Again Rain felt the meanness rise in her. She looked around for a place to put her glass.
“Oh, just set it on the table,” Dr. Mallory said with no fuss about coasters or making water marks. She placed her own glass on the table by her side. “I guess school must end pretty soon.”
“Yeah. We have two more weeks and then we get out.”
“And what are your plans for the vacation?”
“Plans? Like what?”
“What are you going to do? Do you go to summer camp?”
Camp. Seriously. Just shoot me now. “No.”
“What do you usually do?”
Rain thought of the summer stretching out in front of her: hanging at the mall, sunning at the beach, endless arguments at home, her mother nagging her to help out around the house. It all seemed hugely pointless.
“Nothing much. Just hang out, I guess.”
“If you could do absolutely anything, what would it be?”
“Anything?”
“Yes. If you had a magic wand and could do anything, go anywhere this summer, what would it be?”
“Well, that’s a stupid question.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t go anywhere or do anything, so why think about it? It’s a colossal waste of time.”
Dr. Mallory reached for the candy bowl and offered it to Rain, who refused. “Daydreaming. Imagining. These are never a waste of time. It’s the rich territory that holds our deepest longings that can guide us to our daimon.”
“Our what?”
“Our daimon. It’s a word from the Greeks. It means our soul’s purpose. Our destiny. The expression of our gifts.”
Rain’s heart began to beat hard again.
“What do you want to do after high school? Beyond this town?”
“I don’t think about stuff like that.”
“Really? You seem like a person who would have a lot of dreams.”
She and Lucy used to talk about a future, even imagined adventures they would take together. Once they had talked about going on a car trip around the country. Maybe to the Southwest. Lucy was the only one she had told the story about the tribe of Apache women hiding in the cave, their tears turning to stone. She had told Lucy about the different kinds of rocks. They found special ones and exchanged them, called them their Lucky Strike stones. Once Lucy’s parents had taken them on a day trip to Mount Tom, and when they were hiking they had found a shiny black stone. When she showed it to her grandfather, he’d told her it looked like babingtonite, which wasn’t really a stone. It was a mineral. And then he’d told her the difference between them. He’d also told her she and Lucy had happened to find the one mineral that was the official mineral of Massachusetts, and what were the odds of that. She still had the babingtonite, and it was the luckiest of all her Lucky Strike stones, even if it was really a mineral. They’d talked, too, of taking a trip to Europe after they graduated. “We can get a Eurail pass,” Lucy had said. “And stay at hostels.” As if Rain would ever be allowed to do that.
“Rain?”
“What?”
“What would you like to do with your life?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you could be anything at all, what would it be? Just tell me the first three things that come to mind.”
Rain smirked. “The pope.” Geologist.
“Interesting.” Dr. Mallory reached for one of the red-striped candies and unwrapped it. “Close your eyes, Rain.”
Rain stared, open-eyed.
“Just for a minute. Good. Okay, think back to when you were ten. The ten-year-old Rain is lying on the ground staring at the sky. The grass is soft and your entire body feels supported. It’s warm; there is a little breeze, and it feels like a soft hand on your cheek. It is quiet. You are happy.”
In spite of her reluctance, Rain felt herself grow quiet, dreamy.
“You are imagining the future. You see your adult self.”
The spaniel snored. The clock on the bookshelf ticked off the minutes.
Rain opened her eyes. “This is bullshit.”
“Why?”
“Because just because we want something doesn’t mean we can get it or be it.”
Dr. Mallory leaned toward her. “But you do have dreams, passions. What would you like to be, dear?”
“A geologist,” she blurted. “Okay? Now can we stop this stupid game?”
“A geologist? What sparked that interest?”
Rain didn’t answer. She was done with this foolishness.
“You know it’s a good thing to have ambitions and aspirations, Rain,” Dr. Mallory said. “The root word of aspiration comes from the Latin, meaning to take in breath. To have life. Our aspirations fill us with life.”
Rain shifted in the chair. A memory rose up. She and Lucy lying on Lucy’s bed. Someday I’m going to live in Paris. I’ll speak perfect French and be a writer for a magazine there. I’ll write about food and travel and what’s it like to be an American living in Paris. And you could come and stay with me. Wouldn’t that be the coolest?
Her stomach ached and she curled her fingers into a tight fist, pressing her nails into her palms, harder and harder. Her gaze fell on the backpack, still on the floor where she’d left it when she’d entered the room what seemed like hours ago. Silence filled the air, broken only by the sound of Walker snoring at her feet.
“We got the school yearbook today.” The words slipped from her mouth of their own will. She squeezed her hands tighter. “The senior class dedicated it to Lucy.”
“Was that a surprise?”
“Well, usually the book is dedicated to the class advisor. I mean Lucy wasn’t even a senior.”
“Ah.”
“And there’s one whole page at the beginning with Lucy’s photo and this really stupid quote, and a poem Lucy wrote for sophomore English composition.”
“That must have been a shock. How do you feel about that?”
“The poem?”
“About the dedication.”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“There are many feelings this could evoke. Sorrow. Grief. It’s possible some people might even feel a little resentful.”
“Why?”
“Because of the attention.”
“That would be just sick.”
“Why?”
“’Cause Lucy was—well, everybody knows what happened to her.”
“Do you want to talk a little more about that?”
“Not really.”
Dr. Mallory sat quietly, waiting for her to continue.
“It’s just that the kids at school act like she’s some kind of saint,” she blurted.
“Have they always?”
“What?”
“Acted like she was a saint.”