Leave It to Claire (19 page)

Of necessity I have not been in contact with my instant-message pals, over the Internet, that is. Made initial friendship
with Linda. Although I haven’t done much more than say a friendly hello lately. I’ll call her later for sure. Darcy . . .
Her friendship would be hard to resist if only . . .

6. In response to #5—Join ladies’ group at church. Perhaps read the book
How to Make Friends and Influence People.
Or maybe one of Dr. Phil’s.

I have, in fact, joined the ladies’ Bible study. We are going through a Beth Moore Bible study workbook, and I’m growing spiritually.
This makes me happy. I have
not
read
How to Make Friends and Influence People
or any of Dr. Phil’s—although that’s still not out of the question.

With a great sigh, I look back over the list. Talk about your slow starters.

The pounding bass of some Christian rock band is vibrating my walls, signaling the completion of Ari’s homework. I tape my
list back to my monitor and head across the room. With one last, longing look at my computer, I switch off the light and go
to Ari’s room, surprised to find that I’d much rather read my daughter’s short story than e-mail anyway.

Maybe I’m making progress after all.

8:05
A.M.
: Just got back from taking the kids to school. Will walk outside for one hour. I lace up my shoes and head for the
door, determination pumping through me like I’m in training for the physical event of a lifetime. I’m ready for this. Time
to get serious. No more fooling around with the exercise commitment. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I will
become a lean, mean walking machine.

8:10 a.m.: I am Tough Chick, emerging from the house and walking down the steps to the sidewalk, arms swinging like a power
walker. I am Rocky Balboa.
Na-na-naaaaaaaaah… Na-na-naaaaaaaaaaaah… Na-na-na-na-Na-na!… Na-na-Na-na-Na-na-na-na-na-Naaaaaaaaaaaaah . .
. Na-na-NA!

I go along for a while. I am full of optimism. Walking is not hard, after all. Babies walk.

But my legs are beginning to quiver. Whew. I need to slow down. I’m starting to breathe heavily. Okay, I wonder how long I’ve
been walking. I glance at my watch. Hmmm. Tap it. It seems to be running right. I look again. No kidding? Three minutes. Wow.
An hour is a much longer amount of time than one might actually think.

Was that a raindrop? I don’t want to get my wristband wet. Maybe I should just… I stare hopefully into a brilliant autumn
sun.

Okay, no excuses. I will do this. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. I
will
lose thirty-five pounds and be the me I always knew I could be.

This commercialesque pep talk fills me with renewed determination and spurs me onward. I am invincible. One foot in front
of the other. Heel-toe. Heel-toe.

Huffing and puffing, I feel myself running out of steam. Oh, man. How many minutes? I bring my arm up and view the time. What
is wrong
with this stupid watch? I think it’s actually going backward.

The cell phone at my waist vibrates. I take the opportunity to stop, lean against an oak bereft of leaves, and answer.

“Are you okay?” the voice on the other end of the line asks.

“Who is this?” I pant in reply.

“It’s your mother. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Why are you breathing so heavy?”

“Exercise.”

“Oh!” Why does she sound so surprised? “Well, then I’ll let you go so you can finish.”

“No!” Oh, please, no. “I’m about done anyway.” I check my watch.

8:25 a.m.

Fifteen minutes is a nice start to my goal of walking one hour a day. I will not allow my overachieving alter ego to make
me feel like a failure. I got out, I walked, now I’m stopping. So Tough Chick can take her competitive nature and stuff it.
Period. Tomorrow I will do better. Today I will sit on the ground surrounded by red and gold leaves, with my back against
this mighty oak, and I will enjoy a chat with my mother.

I share with her my heartbreak over Shawn’s weird new obsession with the trampy secretary Ms. Clark and consequently the necessity
of family counseling.

“Sounds like he wants to get caught, if you ask me,” Mom says in her straightforward, in-a-nutshell fashion. “He read his
poem on the playground?”

“Yeah.”

She starts to laugh.

“Mom! Not funny.”

“Sorry, I’m just picturing him standing in the center of the merry-go-round reading his poem.”

I wince. I see her point. “Does sound like a cry for help, doesn’t it?”

“A little bit.”

“I guess the counseling is a good idea.”

“When are you starting that?”

“Tomorrow, as a matter of fact.”

“I’ll pray, honey.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

So, Rick, Darcy, and I are sitting in the waiting room while family counselor Andy Goldberg, PhD, speaks to our son. Andy
is a short but handsome fortyish man with Jewish ancestry and Christian beliefs. He is amazingly kind and was referred to
us by our pastor after two of Rick’s suggestions turned out to be duds.

The three of us have been silent for fifty-three agonizing minutes, them on one side of the room and me on the other. So far
we have avoided eye contact, but movement from their side gets my attention and like a trained seal I look up. Darcy is staring
at me. I feel frumpy, as usual, dressed in brown slacks that are just a little snug. But not as snug as the Lycra hose. I
moved like a contortionist as I struggled into these instruments of Satan just to hide the bulges below my behind and on my
thighs. The hose are snug on my stomach and cutting into my waist. In short, I’m miserable for more reasons than one, and
I’m not positive the torture hose are even working. I’m still feeling a little bulgy.

Darcy, on the other hand, is wearing a very smart navy-blue suit. The hem comes just to the knee, and even sitting down she
looks put together. I detect not one wrinkle in her outfit.

“So, what sorts of things do you think he’s telling Dr. Goldberg?” Darcy seems nervous, a condition that raises my suspicions.
The pain in the lower half of my body, combined with the unbearable wait, has made me cranky. This must be why I spew forth
the first thing that pops into my head as I stare into her oh-so-perfectly-made-up China doll face.

“Why? Are you worried?” Why do I do that? I immediately regret my hasty words. I
like
Darcy. I really do. It’s her toad-sucking husband that I despise. Problem is, Darcy and Rick go together.

She tenses. Rick’s hand slides to her bony knee. He gives her a comforting little squeeze. “Claire, there’s no reason to be
hateful.”

Oh yeah, bud? Are you wearing control-top panty hose? That’s all the reason I need. I feel Tough Chick coming on, making it
impossible for me to back down and apologize to Darcy for snapping at her. Pride is an ugly, ugly thing. The thing is, I recognize
it for what it is. And still, I can’t seem to let it go. I shrug. “I wasn’t being hateful,
Rick,
” I shoot back, “I was just asking Darcy if perhaps she’d like to tell us anything that might be helpful in trying to figure
out this sudden change in our son.”

He scowls. “Darcy isn’t the problem here.”

“Oh, so I guess you’re saying it’s my fault Shawn is writing soft porn?”

“He didn’t say that, Claire.” See, this is why I can’t be friends with Darcy. She’s always on his side.

“Oh, didn’t he?” I shoot back with enough venom to silence a mountain lion. She clamps her lips together and sits back, obviously
not about to go there with me. I hate the fact that Darcy is taking the high road.

Rick, however, is obviously willing to go down whatever road I’m speeding on because he sits forward and gives me an icy glare.
“You really need to deal with your issues.”

“And what issues are those, Doctor?”

“You know.”

“Oh, you mean the ones inevitably caused by an unfaithful husband’s abandonment?”

“For the love of…”

The door opens and by unspoken agreement, we straighten up, lest the doctor think we’re all nuts.

He stands tall behind our son, a hand resting easily on Shawn’s shoulder. “Why don’t you have a seat there, bud? Let me have
a word with your parents.”

I stiffen as Rick and Darcy both stand. But Darcy apparently realizes I’m in no mood to share my parental status with her.
She sits.

Rick and I follow the doctor into his office. I glance around. Hmm. No couch. There are, however, a couple of overstuffed
chairs and a love seat in one section of the room. On the other side is his desk, a deep cherry with a slate top. He waves
us to the two semi-comfortable chairs on one side of his desk while he occupies a brown-leather chair.

“So. What did he say?” I ask.

Dr. Goldberg gives me a smile. His eyes crinkle, and I immediately like him. He has a gentle face that would be easy to trust.
“I can only repeat what we discuss if he gives me permission. Or if he tells me his intention to commit a crime or is going
to do something that is harmful to him. Otherwise, our conversations are confidential.”

Slack-jawed, I have to wonder what good it does to bring the kid to counseling if I am not going to be privy to any information
that might help me figure out how to deal with him. I decide to relay this concern.

After listening without interruption, he gives me a patient nod. “I understand how you must be feeling, Ms. Everett.” At least
he got the name right. Finally, someone who really does listen. “But please realize this isn’t about you learning how to change
your son’s behavior. It’s about getting to the bottom of his reasons for such actions in the first place.

“Without being able to share specifics, I can tell you from the little time I’ve spent with him that he loves both of his
parents very much. He is angry at his father and feels the need to protect his mother above all else.”

Rick scrubs his fingers across his jaw. “She’s bitter. Of course the boy is angry at me.”

Feeling the indignation that comes from being falsely accused, I hear the rise in my voice. But I address the doctor,
not
the toad-sucking cheater. “He’s right. I
am
angry. And with good reason, but I do not speak bad things about my children’s father when they’re around.” I stop and no
one speaks. You could cut the skepticism in the room with a knife. “Well, okay. At least they’re not around as far as I know,”
I admit.

“Maybe not intentionally,” Rick shoots back. “But even if they don’t hear your resentment toward me in actual words, they
can feel it every time you say something sarcastic to me or Darcy.”

“Darcy is your wife, right?” the doctor interjects. “Shawn mentioned her.”

Shawn has been talking about Darcy? My suspicions rise again.

A nearly imperceptible nod moves Rick’s head.

Dr. Goldberg scratches a few notes onto his pad. Rick and I both clam up.

The doctor draws a breath and looks up from his notes. He glances first at me, then Rick. “We’re here about your son,” he
says gently. “It’s obvious that you two have things to work out between you, and I suggest you do your best to deal with those
issues. But we have to concentrate on getting to the bottom of what’s eating Shawn and causing him to act up. Do you both
agree?”

Another jerky nod from Rick.

“I agree,” I say grudgingly. And I do. Oh, God. Why is this so hard? Tears jump to my eyes, catching me off guard with their
sting. I blink them back lickety-split and pray no one but me knows they ever existed.

“I’d like to see Shawn alone, once a week. And I’d like to see the whole family once a week also, on a different day.”

I cringe and I feel Rick recoil. I mean, we knew it was coming, but somehow the reality of family counseling is even more
repulsive than before, now that it’s staring us in the face with its mocking truth: our system of silent resentment and surface
politeness has worked quite well for us both thus far, but apparently it’s tearing Shawn, our sensitive child, to pieces.
Am I ready to deal with all of the things that are inevitably about to come out?

I feel Rick’s hand on my arm. Slowly, I am drawn to his gaze. Those incredible dark-blue eyes. Eyes I once thought reflected
the color of the ocean, eyes that used to sparkle with his love for me.

Now they are filled with questions. Do we want to do this? Is our son worth the pain of learning to forgive?

I’m sitting at Churchill’s, my favorite coffee/sandwich shop, drinking a skinny latte, and avoiding the chocolate cheesecake
I would normally order. Excitement dances in Linda’s eyes as I take in the information she’s just dropped on me.

“You’re kidding me!”

Linda shakes her head and giggles like a schoolgirl.

“When?”

“Mid-December. We’ll renew our vows on the seventeenth, and the next morning we’ll fly out for almost a week of sunny beaches
and romantic nights…”

“Spare me the nights.”

She giggles again. “We’ll be back on the twenty-third so we can spend Christmas Eve with his parents and Christmas Day at
home with Trish. Can you imagine trying to plan a wedding and Christmas plus a honeymoon in the Bahamas all at the same time?”

I shake my head. It brings my blood pressure up just thinking of it. “So this is why he’s been working late so much?” I’m
amazed and a little surprised, I have to admit. I really thought the guy was at it again. Once a cheater, always a cheater.
In this instance, I’m so glad I’m wrong.

Linda’s eyes shine with love and excitement. “I can’t believe it. We never had a honeymoon the first time around.”

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I want you to be my matron of honor.”

I feel the horror spring to my eyes as I picture myself in a tight satin fuchsia gown, holding pink roses and trying not to
trip, thereby landing on my face in the aisle, with my dress around my neck as I moon the guests.

My reaction sifts the joy from her face.

“It’s all right, Claire. It was nervy of me to even ask.” She pulls her hand back to her side of the table and sucks a gulp
of Diet Coke with trembling lips. “It’s just that Mark and I both know without you we wouldn’t be where we are. Our marriage
healed, us headed for the altar again to recommit to each other.”