Page 22 of Touch of Class

“What? She doesn’t.”

“Gilly.” Brooke gave her a look. “Your jaw was so tight last night it might as well be chiseled out of stone, and the few times you managed to speak, you sounded like a robot trained to speak some mash-up of mental health and professional buzzwords.”

She wanted to argue. She’d come in looking for evidence to support her positions. She wanted them to be sound and logical and based in hard facts. Instead, she said, “Daphne’s absurd and annoying and maddening. She was in bed with Robin while we all stood around watching and listening to absolute drivel.”

Brooke softened. “I get why it’s hard for you.”

“Do you?” Gillian wasn’t sure either of them really did. At least not fully. “Can you explain it to me?”

“You worked hard to build this practice based on all your skills and values, and you succeeded. You’ve made something to be proud of, and believe me, I know we haven’t made it easy on you lately. Maybe that’s why you didn’t call me immediately when a woman from your past knocked you off your feet and into bed at your place of work.”

“Like you called me when you slept with Tegan?” She regretted the comment immediately, and even more so as the hurt spread pink across Brooke’s cheeks.

“Ouch. Should I ask if we’re even now, or am I still serving time?”

Gillian shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to be punitive. It wasn’t. I did text to see if you were busy.”

“No, you asked if I was coming to the office. That’s a business text, not a best friend text, because you know there’s nothing in my life I wouldn’t interrupt for you to share some juicy gossip with me.”

Gillian managed a half-smile. She did know, but she also knew it would’ve been an interruption. “I didn’t want to pull you away from your life with Tegan. We’ve all had enough disruption.”

“And Daphne is the latest in a string of them for you.” The statement was delivered as fact with no room for denial. “It’s just us. All joking aside, what’s beneath the story of not knowing each other in high school?”

“Nothing,” she snapped, and didn’t care to correct her tone this time. “Why does this have to stem from some high school trauma? Isn’t having a snuggery across the hall enough to explain my discomfort? Isn’t the fact that snuggeries exist anywhere in the world enough? Any person trading money for physical affection or emotional intimacy under the guise of pseudoscience is an affront to me. The fact that the person doing the offensive thing also happens to be the adult version of a girl who regularly annoyed me twentyish years ago is icing on the cake.”

Brooke grimaced. “When you put it that way—”

“There’s no other way to put it.” Gillian had picked up steam, and it felt good to vent. “I know she pushed some emotional buttons last night, but be honest. Could you bring yourself to pay for a stranger to pet your hair, or could you accept payment to hold someone the way you hold Tegan?”

“No,” Brooke said quickly enough. “I’d be profoundly uncomfortable in the first scenario, and I would not be adept at the latter, but lots of people aren’t comfortable or adept at what we do. We’ve all heard people express discomfort at sharing their innermost fears and insecurities with a paid stranger.”

Gillian rolled her eyes. “It’s not the same at all.”

“You don’t see any similarities?”

Gillian shook her head. “No. Maybe there are correlations between what we do and the way Daphne talks about her occupation. She’s certainly learned to appropriate the vernacular, but, honestly, that makes it feel more dangerous to me.”

“Why?”

“You and I both know how easy it is for some people to prey on others. We’ve both seen the damage done by bad therapists or untrained people declaring themselves counselors, or even by people who say things like, ‘Oh I don’t need a therapist. I talk to my husband/friend/mother.’”

“And we saw what the most highly trained member of our field did to Sawyer.”

“Exactly!” Gillian remembered the havoc Maura had wreaked on all of them as recently as a few months ago, and her stomach roiled. “It doesn’t matter how noble or sweet or cuddly Daphne’s intentions may be, or how deeply she believes her own delusions. There’s danger here.”

Brooke nodded. “You make some valid points.”

“And?”

Brooke shifted slightly, as if uncertain how much she wanted to push.

“Say it.”

“If you had all these questions, concerns, and sharp points primed on the tip of your tongue, why didn’t you say them last night when Daphne was actively inviting all of them?”

Gillian ground her teeth at the question, a myriad of knee-jerk reactions assaulting her brain. She had the urge to evaluate each one thoroughly while simultaneously not examining any one of them too closely.

Brooke, for her part, waited patiently, because of course she did.