20

Phil solicitously shoved a box of tissues toward Kendra, who ignored them and brushed away her lone tear.

“Let’s start with X,” she said.  “What would make an intelligent, beautiful woman take a proprietary interest in me, a geek with arrested development?”  Another involuntary tear rolled down Kendra’s cheek.  Again she ignored the tissues and brushed it away.

Phil seemed frustrated.  He glanced at the clock behind Kendra’s head.  His expression lightened considerably.

“Okay, if you really want to discuss the motivations of hypothetical people at a time when you seem to have a real crisis, I’ll play along--this time, but I insist that you show up on time for your next scheduled appointment, and that we talk about your feelings then.”

“Fine.  Information please.”

“Well, X could be a predatory lesbian--”

Kendra snorted…and yet Xenopoulos had flirted with her initially.  “Maybe, but that is a very minor motivation, if it is one at all.  Next?”

“She could be playing out her psychopathology--issues with her mother, that sort of thing.”

“Mmm.” Kendra hoped for more.

“Perhaps she’d been a victim of kidnapping herself, and it has driven her to become a perpetrator.”

“Phil, I need to know what drives her after me specifically.  Any thoughts about that in a less…psychological vein?”

Phil leaned back in his chair and looked a bit distant, as if Kendra’s words had stung him.  “Not really, no.”

“How about the other character in this mystery of mine, M?” Kendra asked lightly, hoping a bit of humor would soothe his wounded ego.

“Shall I respond in a ‘psychological vein’” he mimicked her voice, “or as a reader of mystery novels?”  His sharp tone softened.  “Sorry.”  He raised a shoulder toward his ear, as if to stop a bug crawling down his shirt.  “You certainly do find your way under my skin.”

“Either.  Both, please,” Kendra said, ignoring his apology.  Phil would have to try a lot harder than that to wound her ego.

He turned his chair to face the door, leaned back, and rocked a few times.  Kendra guessed that he was changing gears.  He sat up suddenly, and turned to face her.  “I saw you with M at Carlisle’s, didn’t I?  He looks like Shaggy, and you two won the kissing contest that night.”

Kendra’s face burned.

“Uh huh,” Phil smiled.  “I may have to revise my assessment of arrested development.”  He thought some more.  “M may be a misogynist…or a sadist…or he could be a masochist and under the control of X.”  Phil pointed toward her in his excitement.

Now that’s a possibility.  Kendra raised her eyebrows.

Phil dropped his hand to his desk.  “Less dramatically, and much more commonly, he may seek to exert control over women in order to shore up his own sense of self-worth.”

“And from a mystery reader’s perspective?” Kendra prompted.  Like too much orange cheese spread, the softest science could cause nausea and headache--or maybe that was her recent lack of sleep and food.

“He certainly seemed determined to procure you, so he may be a hired gun.”

That was obvious.  Kendra waited, but Phil said no more.  “How many mysteries have you actually read?” she asked.

Phil stood quickly.  “Well, our time is up this week.”  He walked around his desk and held his arm out, a signal that Kendra should lead the way to the waiting room.  She stood, and took the few steps to the door.

“Remember our agreement,” he said, summarizing out of professional habit, or so Kendra assumed.  “Next week you talk about your feelings.”  He reached around her and opened the door, cutting off any reply.

As she walked out of the counseling center, Kendra wasn’t at all sure that she’d go back.  By the time she reached her apartment, though, she felt quite a bit lighter than she had for most of the week.  Someone in a position to help, sort of, knew at least a little of her story.  On another up note, Phil hadn’t had her committed.  He had even reconsidered the arrested development diagnosis.  Finally, he seemed no better than she was at solving mysteries, so maybe she wasn’t completely hopeless.

Ignoring the illogic of that last thought, Kendra showered, changed her clothes, and put on some lipstick before she headed out the door to start her day for the second time.  She left her book bag behind.  Her neck had improved slightly, but she didn’t want to risk more sharp pains by hanging a lot of weight on her poor little muscles.  She decided to feed them instead.

With an eye out for Matt, she followed the lunch crowd to a sandwich shop, and ate a bowl of soup and half a sandwich at the counter that ran along the shop’s big plate glass window.  In retrospect, that proved to be a mistake.  Matt walked by, slowed, then came into the shop. 

“Oh, hello,” he said five minutes later, pretending to be friendly.  He plunked a sub on the counter next to her and pulled out a chair.  “I didn’t see you here.”

Kendra ignored him.

“Do you come here often?” he asked, and leaned on one elbow so he could stare at her.

What’s he up to?  She didn’t have to wait to find out. 

Between bites of his sandwich, Matt trotted out every pick-up line he knew.  It was an impressive collection.  Kendra heard everything from, “If I said, ‘You have a nice body,’ would you hold it against me?” to “Your face or mine?”

She finished her soup, collected her dishes, and stood. 

“Oh, come on,” Matt said loudly.  “I’ve tried everything in the book.  What do I have to do to get you to go out with me?”  He looked around the cafe for support.  A few of the guys in the cafe whistled and stomped their feet.

Kendra turned at the door.  “Act your age, not your shoe size.”  As she left she heard the women in the place whoop with laughter and applaud.