Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein Read Free Book Online Page A

the moment.
    Down the line she went, crossing out names in the phone book for those who were not accepting new patients or for therapists she knew were seeing her friends or her friends’ children. There was no way she was taking the chance that my arrest and her subsequent shame would leak out.
    I couldn’t help wondering whether, if this therapist she finally found wasn’t the first or second or third choice of any of her friends, that meant he probably wasn’t all that good.
    But then I wondered if it mattered, anyway. I wasn’t going to a therapist because I wanted to, but because I had to. It didn’t really matter if he helped me, as long as it looked like he did.
    …
    My mother and I sat next to each other in the waiting room. Magazines formed glossy Chinese fans on the end tables around us. The walls were decorated with the sort of monochromatic fuzzy pictures you find in hotels. A red barn and pinkish-hued pond, sunset-induced. A brown, thatched-roof cottage in a field of wheat.
    The man who would be my therapist came to greet us with his hands clasped behind his back like a waiting butler. He was short and had glasses with thick black frames that sat so close to his eyes they made him look like a raccoon. He had a long brown ponytail and wore a tie-dyed shirt that looked like a tornado had collided with a rainbow.
    “Amy, it’s very nice to meet you,” he said, his hands still behind his back.
    I liked that he chose to ignore my mother and only introduce himself to me. But as the three of us walked down the hall to his office, I wondered if he was just acting like doctors or dentists act when you’re a little kid and they’re meeting you for the first time, pretending to treat you like an adult but treating you like a child in the process.
    My mother looked behind her. I could tell she was questioning her decision, realizing that she had sent her daughter, who was up on drug charges, into the care of a hippie. But I guess that’s what can happen when you try to cure your kid by playing Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe in the phone book.
    “Have a seat,” he said as he closed the door behind us. This was not as easy as it sounded. The room was filled with chairs and couches—a leather love seat, a woven beanbag chair that looked like a huge Hacky Sack, a recliner, a rocking chair, a few metal folding chairs, and one that seemed like it had come from his dining-room set.
    My mother looked confused. Maybe this was our first test. Maybe the chair we chose told him something about us. I took the rocker. My mother sat in the one from the dining-room set. He sat in the beanbag chair, which I had assumed was his, anyway.
    I waited for someone to start talking. I’m not sure what my mother was doing because I was looking down, watching my feet push me back and forth in the rocking chair. Filling the room with a noise that could have been heard from the hallway, and which might have sounded like two people going at it really heavily on the couch.
    My mother glared at me to get me to stop, which just made me rock harder. I couldn’t help it. It felt good to be doing something so simple.
    She shifted in her seat. It was just like her to choose the chair that would make her the least comfortable.
    “There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “Plenty of people need help at one time or another in their life.” I could feel him looking at me.
    I stopped rocking. I guess he was waiting for me to say, I’m one of those people; I need help; it’s my time. But there was no way I was saying that in front of my mother. I’d asked for her help and gotten Dick Simon.
    “Oh, I’m not afraid or anything.” My mother laughed her meant-to-be-charming laugh. “All of this has just been a lot to take.”
    “It is stressful when a family member is facing incar-ceration. Amy, what are your feelings about all of this?” he asked, coaxing me with his grin.
    “She feels nothing. Her life is careering into a ditch and all