“It will be fine,” he said. “You can do it.”
It was a new feeling, having someone believe in her. Her mom did, of course, but that was different. Her mom believed in her because the idea of Zoe being humiliated was too painful for her to consider. But Harry, he believed because he actually thought she was good. Her team was relying on her. There was something about that. Something hard to refuse.
There were seven of them onstage now, six speakers and the adjudicator, and the rest of the class was in the audience. Zoe focused on the back wall like she’d planned, pretending she was there all alone, but every now and then she glanced into the faces, looking for Harry’s. Still no sign of him.
“Okay, class, welcome to our debate,” said Jim, who was the adjudicator. A burst of adrenaline shot through Zoe. “The topic is ‘Should we call teachers by their first names?’ Can I have one person from each team come up and introduce each team member please?”
As each team member was introduced, Zoe scanned the rows again for Harry. He wasn’t there. Zoe’s skin began to prickle. He was supposed to be introducing her!
“Harry?” Jim said, scanning the rows as Zoe had just done.
Everyone looked around. Finally Jim looked at her. “Where’s Harry?”
She must have mumbled something like “I don’t know” or maybe just said nothing at all, because Jim turned away from her and looked at Mrs. Patterson. “What should we do?”
“Can someone else from the team introduce Zoe?” she asked.
Eric jumped up and introduced her without so much as a blush or a moment’s hesitation. Every other introduction was just as fluid, just as fast. And then introductions were over and they were all sitting down again.
“And now,” Jim said, “I’d like to invite our first speaker for the affirmative, Zoe Stanhope, to please take the floor!”
There was clapping, and Zoe’s heartbeat started to thrum in her ears. She stared at the door, waiting for Harry to come flying in, apologizing for being late. But the doors remained closed. The clapping died down and the class looked at her, all of them expectant. Zoe tried to push her chair back but her feet didn’t seem to work properly. Potential disasters popped into her mind, one after the other. What if her skirt was hitched into her underwear? What if she blushed? What if she panicked? A tingle started around her chest and suddenly her bladder felt full.
I am calm, confident, and in control. I am calm, confident, and in control.
She managed to hoist herself into a standing position, but stayed where she was, behind the desk. “Uh…,” she started, into the cavernous room. “Thank you all for being here today … students, and um … Mrs.…” Her mind went blank. What was her teacher’s name again? She looked down at her cards, but her neatly printed handwriting was suddenly blurry. “May I begin by…,” she started from memory, and then a card dropped from her shaking hands. “Whoops,” she said, squatting to pick it up. She dropped another. Her face burned red. Why had she agreed to do a debate? Was she crazy? From a squatting position, Zoe glanced around, catching Mrs. Patterson’s eye, noting a faint sense of worry on her face.
The silence in the room was loud. So loud.
She stood again. In the crowd, she saw Emily, her expression unreadable. No one else could meet her gaze. Someone coughed, then someone else. Zoe’s breath started to be sucked from her lungs. She knew she should speak—saying something was still a hell of a lot better than saying nothing—but nothing would come and all she could think was that she couldn’t breathe and that she really needed to pee. She closed her eyes, but then all she could think was that now she was a freak with her eyes closed. So she opened them, her knees pressing together, her face pinched and hot, trying not to cry. Trying to breathe.
Finally Mrs. Patterson spoke: “Zoe, do you need a break? Maybe we can start with the…”
The door suddenly burst open and there he was. Harry. He did a quick scan of the room and then his eyes locked on her. She saw him register the scene and the reflected panic in his face. She’d seen the same look on her mother’s face so many times before. But this time it was worse. Because it wasn’t her mother. And because this time her bladder chose that moment to release, all over the floor.
39
Alice wasn’t sure why she decided to tell Paul the truth. Perhaps it was the fact that he was toasted and likely to forget anyway? Or perhaps it was the fact that she’d always wanted to tell someone? Perhaps it was the fact that they didn’t have anything else to talk about? But for some reason, as she was hooked up to an IV line feeding poison directly into her bloodstream, Alice started to talk.
“Remember,” she said, “when I decided I wanted to be a therapist?”
“Rings a bell,” Paul said, though she suspected it didn’t. The truth was, it was just one in a line of professions that she’d been certain were the career for her. Journalist, PR professional, nanny. Back then, everyone told her she was a “people person.” So why not help people, she’d thought, and found herself a job as a receptionist at a psychology clinic, to see what it was all about.
Alice’s new boss, Dr. Sanders, was in his mid-forties. Good-looking, for an oldie, with an air of authority that Alice had never encountered before. It hadn’t taken Alice long to realize that Dr. Sanders was a superstar. He was revered all over the country for expertise in adolescent psychology—he had published two books on the subject and was a regular on TV as a consulting psychologist. The phones rang hot, wanting him to give keynote presentations at conferences or seminars. Clients came out of his office smiling—kids who, Alice knew, had suffered sexual assaults, loss of parents, debilitating mental illnesses. Parents phoned up daily, so desperate for a session with him they were willing to wait a year for any appointment.
Alice worked hard for Dr. Sanders. He was an old-school kind of boss, never made his own coffee, never typed up his own notes. Everyone in the office called him “Dr. Sanders.” He commanded a certain respect.