Wicked Forest (DeBeers 2)

thousand students, which was fine with me. I was

looking for as much personal attention as possible. This was a new beginning, I told myself. We're

all going to be fine, I chanted insistently to myself.

We're all going to be fine.

I paused when I heard a door slam and turned to

look back at the beach house.

Linden was charging out and down the beach, a

blank canvas under his arm, his case of paints

clutched in his hand like a club. He looked like a man

who was late for an appointment.

How I hoped it wasn't with some haunting

memory.

4

The Talk of the Town

.

Professor Fuentes's office was small but very

tidy. His assistant, a tall, thin, and prematurely balding psychology graduate student with dull brown strands of hair as thin as dental floss, was aptly named Norman, I thought, because he reminded -me of Norman Bates in Psycho. He had similar vulnerable, lonely eyes and spoke with that same soft uncertainty as if he expected every syllable he uttered to be challenged for its accuracy or its appropriateness. He didn't shake my hand so much as simply touch my fingers and quickly pull his own back like someone who has committed a social violation,

"Professor Fuentes asked me to make you comfortable, He's going to be a few minutes late. Some last-minute business with the department head," Norman muttered, flicking his hand close to his ear as if chasing off a fly. "Would you like anything to drink? I can get you a soda or even a cup of coffee from the coffee machine."

His Adam's apple bobbed at the ends of his sentences, adding an extra period.

"No, thank you."

He looked completely lost as to what to do next. and I wondered what such an inarticulate, shy man could possibly do in the world of psychology.

"Well, then." he said. His eyes moved every which way to avoid direct contact with mine.

"I'm fine," I said. "I'll be all right.'

He looked relieved and left me sitting in Professor Fuentes's office. Looking around. I saw a picture of an elderly couple on his desk and beside that a picture of a tall, dark-haired woman standing beside a man who held a fishing pole. They were on a dock with a boat in the background.

Professor Fuentes's diplomas and awards were in gilded frames and placed on the wall directly behind his desk chair. There was a bookcase on the right, a table with papers neatly piled an the left, a standing lamp, a copy machine, and a computer printer beside it. A laptop stood open on the desk itself, but it wasn't on.

On a small table beside my chair was a pile of Psychology Today magazines. I began to flip through them and came upon an article written about my father. It was entitled "Legacy of a True Analyst." There was a picture of Daddy in his office at his clinic. He looked about twenty years younger than when he died. My eyes immediately clouded over with tears. but I wiped them aside so I could begin to read the article. The author was lauding Daddy's many studies and articles, as well as his book on bipolar disorder,

"You know, I thought that might be your father." I heard a deep, resonant voice say from behind me a short while later, and turned to see a handsome man about six feet tall with a coal-black beard trimmed neatly down the sides of his face and around his lips and chin. He wore a light gray sports jacket and dark gray slacks. His shirt was open at the collar, and I could see a thick gold necklace that glittered against his caramel complexion.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he continued, a very friendly, gentle smile rippling up his lean cheeks to his ebony eyes. He had his hair swept to one side, but fall in the front and well trimmed down the sides and at the back of his neck, "Didn't Norman offer you something to drink?" he asked, putting his briefcase down on the table beside the pile of papers.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"So, was that your father?" he asked, nodding toward the copy of Psychology Today.