He came at ten and stayed only long enough to tell her what he thought she had a right to know.
She grew pale with his words.
“But what about me?” she wondered aloud, still confused by his confession.
“Nothing has changed,” he assured her. “I may be here for another five years. I thought you should know that I saw her. I thought it was only fair.”
“I don’t understand why you came here.” she cried, glancing around the room.
“Because I like you, Debbie. Because we’re friends.” He reached for her. She pulled back.
“No,” she said. “Friends don’t hurt each other and I thought we were more than friends.”
“Hey, Debbie, don’t get so serious about this. I care about you. You know that. There’s no reason for us to stop seeing each other. It was only one night. Come on.” He opened his arms. “Come on, big ‘un, give us a hug.”
“One night? You spent the night with her? Is that what you mean?” She was stunned.
He shrugged.
“Get out of here,” she ordered, jumping to her feet. “I don’t want you here.”
“Debbie, don’t be ridiculous,” he argued. “It wasn’t anything. It just happened. We can talk about it.”
“No. You get out of here now.”
“Debbie, this is silly. I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“You go now, right now,” she demanded. “Now.”
“Okay, then.” He shrugged. “If that’s what you want, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t.”
So much for telling the truth. He’d talk to her later, when she calmed down. Everything would be fine.
She told Ellen on Monday morning.
“I cried all night. I couldn’t even talk. But, I am okay now.”
“He’s a bastard,” Ellen stated loudly.
She looked around to see if Jason was near. She’d give him a look if she saw him.
“I mean, I don’t even understand,” Debbie was saying as she wiped at her eyes with a tissue. “He’s with me and goes to her? And then he comes back to me? That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“Yeah, well.”
“And then he says it is nothing. How can that be? How can it be nothing to sleep with someone? Is she really all that wonderful?” she asked.
“Who, Ashley?”
“Yes, Ashley,” Debbie snapped.
“She was okay. Blond. She was pretty in a loose sort of way. You know, the sweater girl.”
“Was she a good reporter?”
“Not bad.”
“Oh. Well, maybe he won’t get a job in Washington.” Debbie pulled a tissue from her purse.
“Who cares?” Ellen shouted it out. “He’s not important, Debbie. He obviously doesn’t worry about your feelings.”
“Maybe I should see somebody.”
“Who?”
“A doctor, like I told you before.”
“Because of this?”
“No, not this, lots of things.”
“I suppose,” Ellen said. “If you think so. What could it hurt?”
*
He smoked and drank coffee while Debbie tried to read the degrees hanging on the wall behind him.
“How did you find me?” he asked.
“The phone book,” she said and smiled. “I liked it because you called me back yourself.”
He reached for another cigarette.
“Do you mind?”
She shook her head.
“Is there something in particular you want to talk about?”
“The crying,” she said and smiled shyly. “I cry a lot and I don’t think it’s the job anymore or because this man I was dating slept with an old girlfriend. I think it’s because I’m not happy about a lot of things and I want to change that.”
“You said there was this other doctor who told you to find someone here?”
“That was a few months ago. He was my doctor for a while in Oregon and he said I might need a tune-up. I guess this is it.”
She tried to see the time on the watch he had placed on the small table beside his chair.
“Anyway, I feel okay now so I thought this might be a good time to start changing.”
“Tell me about this crying.”
“It’s nothing. I get sad, that’s all. I see things and people that make me sad and I don’t know why.”
“Have you ever been on medication for depression?”
“No!” She yelled out the word. “I don’t believe in medication.”
“I’m not suggesting it,” he told her quickly. “However, sometimes we find medication useful.”
“Not for me,” she stated firmly. “Nothing is that wrong.”
He may have seen her on the news. He couldn’t remember. He knew at least one doctor who was seeing a few of these television people. Once the word got around, others came, he supposed. He’d have to call him, mention this reporter and ask about her melancholy. Possibly part of the business.
He put out his cigarette. Ridiculous that he couldn’t hold off for fifty minutes.
“I want to do this fast,” she said. “I don’t have lots of time, but I’ve been reading that there is some therapy that goes really fast.”
“It all depends on the problem and how committed the patient is. Would you like to come twice a week to begin with, for speed?” he said with a smile.
“Yes, yes,” she agreed. “That would be good, at first.”
It wouldn’t be two times a week for long. Soon she would be coming to this office once a week and soon, she told herself, not at all.
Clifford waited in the van. He looked around the parking lot while he ate his fast-food lunch. The cars were no big deal. No Mercedes, no BMWs, and that’s what these guys drove. Her doctor could be parked around back. Still, he didn’t like it. If you were good, you had a Mercedes or a Jag, not some old junky Toyota or Ford.
“Everything okay?” he asked when she got back to the van.
“Great.” She smiled.
That night she told Ellen about the visit.“He is nice.”
“What’s his name?”
“Waddell. Stanley Waddell.”
“What’s that? I mean, isn’t Stanley Polish? What’s the Waddell?”
“English?”
“Or German. Man, what a combination.”
“There was one thing, though,” Debbie said.
“What?”
“He wanted to know if I wanted pills, you know, medication.”
“That’s the last thing you need,” Ellen pronounced.
“I told him that. I told him I didn’t want anything. I never took
