Authors: Susan Ketchen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I'm walking across a meadow with the unicorn. I think we're walking to the psychiatrist's office, but I'm not sure why. Whatever we're doing, I'm not very happy about it. I'm about to ask the unicorn what his/her name is when it says, “You did the right thing about the barnacles. I know it was difficultâoften the right thing is.”
“Thanks.” I'm glad that someone has noticed. This helps me feel less sad.
“But forget about naming me.”
“Okay.”
“And if you had some gender-free way of referring to me, that would be good, but since I'm not fond of the pronoun it, you may use the male words.”
“Okay.” I look down. I'm wearing a pink leotard with some frilly netting around my waist. On my feet are pink satin slippers with pink ribbons that wind up around my calves.
The unicorn stops, turns his head and takes a long hard look at me. His horn seems shorter but before I can ask about it he says, “You look . . . ” He seems unable to find the right word.
“Stupid?”
“Worse. You look kind of dead. All your shine has gone. And all those lights you get around your head when you're with the hornless ones have disappeared.”
My hand goes automatically to my hairâcould the hi-lights have faded?
“No, not that, not the colours you put in your mane.”
Not that I would have cared. Those hi-lights have only got me unwanted attention. “Hornless ones? Do you mean horses?”
“Use the abbreviated term if you must.”
We plod on.
“I feel like there's something wrong with me.”
The unicorn grunts.
“My mom says everyone feels like there's something wrong with them which is why we have to work on our self-esteem all the time.”
“Yeah, I've heard that one,” says the unicorn. “The difference here is that there really is something wrong with you.”
I stop in my tracks. The unicorn keeps walking.
“I thought you were spiritual and would protect me and lift me up.”
“Well sure,” he says over his shoulder. “But there's still reality.”
“Reality? You're a unicorn! You're mythical!”
He turns on his haunches until he faces me, executing a perfect walk-pirouette, like the ones I've seen on dressage videos on YouTube. His back feet keep moving up and down in one place and his front feet follow an arc. If he'd been in a competition he would have got a ten out of ten.
“We're not talking about me,” says the unicorn. “We're talking about you, and you are real.”
“And there's something wrong with me?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Not just that I'm unique?”
“Unfortunately not. Don't pretend that you're surprised.”
Well I'm not. And it's such a fantastic relief to be talking about it and not talking about vague things like low self-esteem that I smile so hard I wake myself up.
I check my clock and there's still ten minutes before my alarm goes off. And I don't have to make the trip to the beach for seawater any more, so I've got some time to myself to think.
Sure, it was only a dream, but somehow it makes sense. There's something wrong with me. And I don't think it's that I'm bisexual, because technically that's not wrong.
I climb out of bed then lie back down on the floor and do some stretching exercises. I wonder if I should be scared, and at first I'm not. After all, the unicorn didn't tell me to get to a hospital right away because I was going to die. He didn't say I was an alien and would explode soon. So I'm okay, but I'm not, which is very confusing, not to mention weird. The more I think about it the worse I feel. The kids at school are right. I'm a freak. Or maybe I'm broken in some way, maybe I need a repair job, like how Stephanie had her nose fixed. I wish I'd had the sense to ask the unicorn whether there was a possibility of repair and who should be doing it. I don't know what to do.
I'm lying stiff on the floor. I must have stopped doing stretching exercises several minutes ago. There are goose bumps on my arms, only partly from being cold. Mostly I have them because I'm so frightened.
It seems I only have one option, and I hate it. But it looks like I'm going to have to enlist the assistance of my parents.
*
I know I can't eat any breakfast. I'm sure if I try to swallow something it will only come right back up again. So I play with my porridge. The beach of golden sand dissolves before my eyes, and the island sinks under the pool of milk.
Eventually the stock report on the radio comes to an end. Before Dad can push his chair back, I say, “I think there's something wrong with me.”
“Oh, Honey,” says Mom.
“There's nothing wrong with my little ray of sunshine!” says Dad.
“No, I mean really,” I say.
“Are you feeling okay? You haven't eaten. Do you have the flu? Do you need to stay home from school?” Mom is patting my face feeling for a temperature.
“It's not that.”
Mom pushes up my sleeve and feels for a pulse. “A bit fast,” she says. “Are you anxious about something? Is this about what we've been talking about? Because being bisexual is not wrong, Cupcake. But if you're feeling it's wrong then that's why you need to talk to the psychiatrist.”
Dad gets up from the table and puts his dishes in the washer.
“Tony, you should be part of this,” says Mom.
Dad sits back down but he doesn't look at me, which is fine because Mom is looking at me hard enough for both of them.
“Never mind,” I say. This was not a good idea. I should have known better. They're making everything worse.
“You're fine,” says Mom. “It's normal to feel like an outsider sometimes, to feel different. Right, Tony?”
“Oh sure,” says Dad.
“Okay, I understand,” I say, hoping it doesn't sound like I'm caving too quickly.
“And no matter what, we love you very much, don't we, Tony?”
“We sure do, Munchkin,” says Dad.
“That's good then,” I say. I make a show of checking my watch. “Hey, it's time for school. Are you driving me, Dad?”
They both check their watches and we're off in a flurry, like someone has opened a cage and we've all burst free.
Mom is waiting for me in the parking lot after school. She's made an appointment for me with Dr. Destrie. Oh lucky day. It takes ten minutes to re-start the car and we're late for the appointment but we still have to sit for half an hour in his waiting room. I read old
Reader's Digest
magazines because I'm trying not to think about being examined and because I like the jokes; I read the good ones to Mom but she's not interested. She's flipping through
Psychology Today
magazine, sighing a lot and complaining about their “biological approach to mental health”.
Finally the receptionist calls my name. Mom comes in with me and we sit for another ten minutes in an examination room. We forgot to bring our magazines. There's a big window with slatted blinds that are half-open. If I stretch up tall I can see out into the parking lot, but if I slouch down I can't. I do this a few times, changing the angle at which I'm looking through the curtains, because I need to figure out whether someone outside in the parking lot could look through the slats and see me naked if Dr. Destrie has to examine me. The examination table is against the wall beside the window. A long strip of white paper runs down the middle of the table. There are metal handles at one end that look like torture devices.
“Sylvie, sit still.”
“Mom, what are those called?” I point to the handles at the end of the table.
“They're stirrups, Honey.”
“Well that's stupid. Are you teasing me? How can you have stirrups without a saddle?”
“Oh, Sylvie. Please sit still and wait. Everything will be fine.”
Mom is fidgeting more than I amâplus even when she's not talking to me she's moving her lips. I guess she's rehearsing what she wants to say. She's always nervous dealing with Dr. Destrie even though she's known him since the last century, but now she says she's extra nervous because not only is he an authority figure, he's also a colleague so she has to negotiate a new relationship with him. Well, whatever she comes up with is fine with me, she can do all the talking because I sure don't know what to say. I could tell him I miss my barnacles. I could tell him I'm picked on at school and my only friend, other than possibly Logan Losino, is Kansas and my parents won't let me see her because they're afraid she's a predatory lesbian when really she's this amazing equestrian. I could tell him I need to grow faster. I could tell him I want a horse.
Dr. Destrie comes in and closes the door behind him. He shakes Mom's hand. “Good to see you, Evelyn,” he says, then he ruffles my hair like I'm a five-year-old or a golden retriever. “Hey, Erika.”
“Erika is my cousin. I'm Sylvia.”
“You're thinking of Sally's youngest,” Mom says, smiling.
“So what's the problem here, Sal?” says Dr. Destrie turning to me. I'm sure he said Sal. It could have been Syl but that wouldn't have been much better.
“Sylvie,” says Mom, heavily emphasizing the first syllable, “is having some problems related to puberty and we would like a referral to see Dr. Gelderlander, the adolescent psychiatrist.” My mom sounds like such a dork. Sometimes I think I liked her better before she learned to be a helping professional even if she was crying half the time.
Dr. Destrie flops into his swivel chair. He tilts way back and laughs. “Oh come on, Evelyn. A psychiatrist? All kids need is a good grandmother. Isn't that right, Syl?”
Mom clears her throat three times. I can't imagine what she's got caught in there.
“Both my grandmothers are dead,” I say. This would probably be a good opportunity to tell him about my grandfather and what he's promised me and how that would change my life because finally, I would have the horse that I've wanted forever, but somehow I can't manage it. I don't trust this guy.
“Ahh,” says Dr. Destrie. He smiles at me. He doesn't have good teeth. They're yellow and bent over top of each other as though he grew too many for the size of his mouth. I guess they hadn't invented orthodontics when he was a child. “Why don't you tell me what's bothering you?”
“There's nothing bothering me.” I'd rather let the guy physically examine me than tell him anything personal about my life.
“Honey, this morning at breakfast you thought there was something wrong with you,” says Mom, able to speak at last.
“I made a mistake.”
We sit quietly, Dr. Destrie with what's probably supposed to be a look of friendly grandmotherly concern on his face, my mom with her lips pressed out like she's about to spit sunflower seeds, and me trying to look happy and normal.
Finally Mom says, “Peaches, how about you go back to the waiting room and I'll talk to Dr. Destrie for a minute.”
Peaches? That's a new one, and somehow it's worse than all the others. Soft sweet pastel-coloured fruit. I slide slowly out of my chair, wondering what I could possibly do to save myself, because I know what Mom's going to say after I leave: that I'm obsessed with getting taller and I want to kill her and marry my father and I can't even be trusted to take care of a dish of barnacles without losing interest. I scuff across the room and stop with my hand on the door knob. I look at my mom, who is smiling at me as though she's completely harmless and has only my best interests at heart and I tell her, “Don't forget to tell him that you think I'm bisexual.” And I go and sit out my defeat in the car.
After dinner Taylor phones me. “Did he examine you?”
“No.”
“Oh, thank goodness for that. I was so worried about you.”
That's nice to hear. I didn't think anyone was worried about me. Well, Mom's worried, but somehow it doesn't seem to be worry about me exactly. She's worried about being a good parent, or worried about worry. I don't quite understand it. Besides, she's worried all the time so it almost doesn't count if she's a bit worried about me. Taylor is another matter.
“Dr. Destrie wanted me to talk to him, but I wasn't comfortable telling him anything, so I just said nothing was bothering me.”
“And you got away with that?”
“Sort of. My mom told me to wait outside while she had a private discussion with him, and he agreed to refer me to Dr. Gelderlander.”
“That'll be okay. He's supposed to be fun to talk to. You'll have to wait though, maybe three months.”
“My mom says he'll see me faster than that because of professional courtesy.”
“I'd love to see Dr. Gelderlander. It would be so interesting talking to a psychiatrist. Not that I need to. It's more Erika who needs to.”