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Finally, my car came. and I asked directions, trying desperately to absorb what I was being told. Nevertheless. I did get lost. Fortunately, I spotted a police car parked near a curb, and the officers directed me well enough to get me to Dr. Anderson's office only five minutes late.
When I shut off the engine. I took some deep breaths and glanced at myself in the visor mirror. I looked like a wild madwoman, just the sort of person who would be coming here. perhaps. I closed my eves and swallowed back a lump. It was really like someone experiencing stagefright. For a moment. I couldn't move. Then I opened the car door and stepped out.
If ever there was an attempt to hide the real purpose of an office, this was it. The building looked like a residence, and there were no signs announcing whose offices were in there, nothing but simple nameplates near the front door. Apparently, a dentist and an accountant were in the same building. I went inside and found the door to Dr. Anderson's offices on my right.
Dr. Anderson's receptionist looked like someone who was on her way to a formal dinner party. She was at a computer, but she was wearing an elegant knit skirt suit and a pair of what looked like flawless diamond teardrop earrings. She was a very attractive woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, with soft blue eyes and straight, light brown hair.
"Willow De Beers?" she asked before I approached the desk. "Yes. I'm sorry I'm a little late. but I got lost," I explained.
"Late?" She widened her smile. ''Most of Dr. Anderson's patients consider twenty minutes to a half hour late to be on time. We build it into our schedule," she said. "Let me tell him you are here. He'll probably be surprised you're so close to your appointment," she added, and rose to knock on the inner office door. She opened it, leaned in, and announced my arrival.
My heart was thumping so hard I thought I wouldn't be able to take the next step. Would he be like Daddy and see right through my contrived story? But I couldn't very well tell him what my father had told only his closest associate and me in his diary. Who knew how he would react, what he would think? If my mother was still in some form of treatment, he might very well blame it on my father's actions, actions any other psychiatrist would certainly consider unprofessional.
I would be devastated if all I accomplished was to embarrass my father, even though he was gone. In fact, it would be even worse because he was no longe
r here to defend himself.
"Please show her in," I heard Dr. Anderson say, He had a deep baritone voice.
His receptionist nodded at me and stepped aside as I entered, Dr. Anderson started around his light oak desk. Amou would call him Uma bebida longa de agua, "a long drink of water," I thought. He was well over six feet tall, probably six-foot-six or -seven, very slim with a prominent Adam's apple and a sharply jutting chin. His brown eyes were set deeply under a wide forehead, creased with small ripples that reached into his temples. He had a long thin nose but thick lips under a neatly trimmed mustache that had more red in it than brown-- quite similar to my father's. actually. He extended his long hand to me.
"How do you do." he said. "Please," he added, practically tugging me to the soft leather chair in front of his desk. "I heard about your father only a few hours before you phoned my office." he explained, standing there for a moment and nodding at me. "I'm so sorry. He was actually somewhat of a mentor to me. I think I've read everything he's written. What a loss to the world of psychiatric medicine."
"Thank you," I said.
He had a way of folding his arms over his chest and pressing back on his upper torso as if that were the only way he could keep his shoulders straight. Very tall people had a tendency to slouch and diminish the distance between themselves and everyone else, but his posture made him look like an old statue of a cigar-store Indian.
"How can I help you?" he asked, still not moving back to his chair.
Here I go, 1 thought, like some drama student about to step onto the stage for her first performance before a real audience.
"My father taught me that the only way to deal successfully with disappointments, sadness, tragedy, and defeats in life was to immerse yourself
immediately in some productive activity. One thing he would definitely not want is for me to sit at home and mourn him for days and days and drop out of social and educational activities. He would say I was fanning the flames," I added. "Stoking the hot coals of my own misery."
"Yes," Dr. Anderson said, smiling as if he fondly recalled my father saying something similar to him, and then he started around his desk, which looked as if everything on it were arranged in some sort of geometric pattern.
I glanced around. Unlike Daddy's office, this looked like someone's sitting room at home. The curtains coordinated with the carpet and furniture, as well as the carefully chosen artwork, the vases, and even the artificial flowers that were in those vases. Everything was in harmony.
I told myself this was actually a place to treat patients, and therefore helping them feel comfortable was important. Daddy's was a work office: all that was in it was arranged for his needs and his pleasure.
"So how are you keeping yourself busy?" Dr. Anderson asked. "I attend the University of North Carolina, I was in the middle of a project at school when he passed away."
Dr. Anderson nodded. His eyes seemed to move forward in his shill as he studied me. His staring without speaking began to make me even more nervous. As far as I knew, Daddy never made his patients feel like specimens caught under a
microscope's lens. I remember one of his patients' fathers remarking that his daughter thought she was simply having an informal conversation with him. "You don't even realize you're telling him the most intimate things." she'd remarked.
It was a work-study research project. I mean, it is, and it's very important to me," I told Dr, Anderson,
"What is your major?" he asked.
"Oh. Sorry. I am going into psychology"
"I should have guessed," he said, smiling. He put his elbows on his desk and pressed his palms against his chest, as if he were once again doing something to keep his shoulders back. "What's your project?"
"Well, it's a study of the wealthy and how they distinguish between the real and the unreal, the important and the unimportant events in their lives," I said, and held my breath in anticipation of his thinking it stupid or contrived.
Instead, he nodded and continued to smile. but I felt the need to elaborate.
