At the moment, Dr. Sullivan Crisp felt almost nothing like a psychologist. And that, he told himself, was exactly what he wanted.
He’d picked the right place. The beach at Point No Point, the northernmost tip of the peninsula, stretched out before him like an endless playground strewn with oversized toys. It couldn’t be further from the crowded too-adult world.
Here, the tossed-about driftwood of boys’ forts, built long ago last summer, begged for reconstruction. Smooth rocks littered the sparkle-gray sand, silent to all but the youthfully savvy and sly, who heard their pleas to be skimmed or piled or collected in pockets.
Sully put his hands on his negligible hips and grinned. God had created a playland of scattered magical pieces for the putting together of puzzles. Here he could forget he was six-foot-two and forty-five years old and in self-imposed exile. He could be twelve, because in the world of twelve, possibilities were endless.
He jiggled the rocks in his pockets. Yeah. He could lounge in that log hollowed out into a weather-beaten chaise.
He did. And then he contemplated the pranks that screamed to be played on the plump woman who sat like a Buddha on her blanket a few yards away, reading her book in the cold.
Sully sagged against the ragged wood. He could do anything except forget why he was there instead of out fixing the world’s psyche, one therapeutic method at a time.
“Maybe the psychologist needs a psychologist,” he said out loud.
Buddha Lady glanced up from her book and then back, the way people did when they didn’t want to be caught staring at the— unusual.
Sully adjusted the purple hat he’d picked up at Made in America, a funky shop down in Hoodsport, the day before. Had this woman never seen a middle-aged man in a tie-dyed ball cap? Maybe it was the scent of geoduck on him that got her attention. He’d just cleaned and marinated one, and she was downwind.
Or maybe it was merely the fact that he talked to himself. When you were used to bantering with people all day, it was hard to shut up.
Sully stirred in the log that cradled him like a frog in a hand. How many kites could you fly—how much geoduck could you dig—how much tie-dye could you buy before you were healed enough to go back to the depressed, the bipolar, and the narcissistic, and enjoy yourself again?
“Holy crow, I can’t even get the Game Show Network up here,” he said, for Buddha Lady’s benefit.
She gathered up her blanket and her book and picked her way to a spot closer to the lighthouse. As Sully watched her, he saw Ethan Kaye appear at the edge of the bluff and shield his eyes with his hand. Sully could have kissed the man’s L.L.Bean boots. He settled for untangling his long limbs from the chaise lounge log and loping up the sand to meet him.
It was only early March, but Dr. Kaye looked tanned. He always looked tanned. Probably the contrast of naturally olive skin with snowy white hair, which had been that color twenty-five years ago.
When Sully reached him, Ethan’s round face smiled into creases Sully didn’t remember, but the eyes were the same. Dark, direct, insightful as X-rays.
“Don’t they feed you in Colorado?” Ethan said.
Sully grasped Ethan’s solid hand. “You still look good, old man.”
“And you’re still the worst liar I ever met.”
Sully squeezed his arm, clapped his shoulder, nodded repeatedly. What else did you do when you were looking at your mentor for the first time in five years, and seeing that he’d aged ten?
“How’s Joan?” Sully said. “I forgot to ask you on the phone.”
“Still an angel,” Ethan said. “She’s on a two-month European tour with her quilting club.”
Sully grinned. “You didn’t want to get in on that action?”
“I’d take up knitting if I thought it would help my situation any.”
Sully tried not to visualize the venerable Ethan Kaye clacking needles.
“But I can’t even get to Seattle, much less leave the country right now,” Ethan said. “Kevin St. Clair would be behind my desk before I had my seat belt buckled.”
The creases deepened. Watching Ethan’s face had always been like reading a map of his soul. His was a transparency Sully could only aspire to.
“How’s that going for you?” Sully said.
“The same. St. Clair already has three people—all of them men— lined up to interview for Dr. Costanas’s position.”
“What about the other professor—what was his name?”
“Archer. We can’t officially replace him until we get his resignation.”
“Hard to do when you can’t find him.”
Ethan scowled. “Oh, St. Clair will find him. He’s already reported him as a missing person to the police, not that they weren’t already looking for him when his boat burned up. They’ve been all over the campus.”
Ethan shook his head. The wind set a shock of hair up at the crown. Though rooster-like, it didn’t disturb his dignity.
“I have no doubt Archer just took off,” Ethan said. “Left that poor woman to deal with this by herself.”
Sully peered at him. “So you see her as a victim.”
“I know it takes two.” Ethan shifted his gaze uncomfortably, and Sully smothered a grin.
Ethan had always been the soul of propriety. He still referred to women’s forays to the restroom as “going to powder their noses.”
“So why is she ‘that poor woman’?”
“Because I guarantee you she wouldn’t have gone where she did without a lot of persuasion. And she’s paying for it.” Ethan moved his eyes from a passing tanker back to Sully. “I told you she needs help. And you admitted on the phone you were getting restless.”
Sully took off the ball cap, shook it, put it on backwards. “I meant I wanted to get started on my next book, revamp the talk show, open up a clinic in Nashville—not take on a client.”
“I’m not trying to push you—”
“Sure you are.”
“I thought while you were up here regrouping—”
“I’m regrouped.” Sully rattled the stones in his pockets.
“I can see that,” Ethan said dryly. He pressed his lips together, eyes searching Sully’s face. “All right, this was a bad idea. You have enough to deal with.”
“Holy crow—I supposedly still have four more weeks to ‘deal,’ and I’m dealt out.”
Ethan’s eyes didn’t move. “You were in a pretty serious situation.”
“Well, yeah—I mean, this is the first patient we’ve ever had commit suicide in the ten years the clinics have been open, but still, we have to look at it from the point of view that ultimately, it was his decision to take his own life. My people did everything they could.”
“As I understand it, you were right in there with them.”
“I took it all on at first, but at the end of the day, we have to let it go. Give it to God.”
“So you’re basically over it.”
“If a patient gave me a ‘yes’ to that question, I’d say, ‘Thanks for playing, but that is incorrect.’” Sully buzzed from the back of his throat.
Ethan gave a half laugh. “You still using that game show shtick on your clients?”
“If something works for me, I stick with it.”
“I think it’s job security,” Ethan said. “If they aren’t crazy when they come in, they are before you’re finished with them.”
“You done?”
“No. You haven’t answered my question. You’re over your patient shooting himself in his car outside one of your clinics?”
Sully squinted at the tanker, now a misty sliver. He admired Ethan Kaye’s probity. He just didn’t always like it.
“Like I said, I’m giving it a few more weeks. Making sure I don’t show any symptoms of post traumatic stress. Meanwhile, I’m finding things to do. Speaking of which—you hungry?”
Ethan frowned. “Not if you’re cooking.”
“Ouch. Come on, I’ve got geoduck marinating.”
“I hope you cook it better than you pronounce it. It’s gooey duck, not gee-oh duck.” Ethan’s smile spread, crinkling his eyes. “Let me take you to supper. I don’t need your miracle cure for appetite.”
“That hurts, sir,” Sully said. “That really hurts.”
There were not one, not even two, but four vintage automobiles parked in front of the fish house Ethan pulled up to. Sully let out a long, slow whistle.
A 1967 silver Corvette Stingray. A cherry red ’57 Ford Fairlane. A Camaro Supersport, 1966, blue. And a gold 1966 Pontiac GTO. Black vinyl top.
“I knew you’d like this place,” Ethan said. “They all come here.”
“They” were hard to pick out once Sully followed Ethan inside. The restaurant was dimly lit except for the candles in glass buoys, encased in fishnet, that reflected off the vinyl tablecloths. As far as Sully could tell, there was one of every kind of person drinking from plastic tumblers and licking their fingers as they ate fried onion rings, shiny with grease.
When they’d slid into a booth and Ethan had ordered a platter of what he referred to ruefully as “cholesterol on the half shell,” Sully peered out the window at the Oldsmobile.
“Somebody’s done a nice job with that,” he said. “What do you want to bet it has the original tuck-and-roll upholstery?”
“Is that good?” Ethan said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You should know. You used to spend hours on your cars.”
Sully nodded at the waitress, who set two mugs and a pot of coffee on their table.
“We’re taking a trip down memory lane.”
“Have fun with that,” she said. She winked at Ethan.
When she left, Sully nudged Ethan’s hand. “I see the women still flirt with you shamelessly.”
“She knows who’s leaving the tip. You work on cars anymore?”
Sully shook his head and poured the coffee. “No time. You take two sugars, right?”
“Black these days. Too bad.”
“What is?” Sully said.
“I know of a ’64 Chevy Impala going up for auction this next week. Estate sale. It would give you something to do while you’re monitoring yourself for whatever—”
“PTSD.” Sully sipped at the coffee and surveyed Ethan through the steam. Kaye’s look was pointed.
“Anything to entice me into staying here so I can see this woman,” Sully said. “Right?”
“All right, I admit it. From what I hear—and what I know of you personally—I really believe you could help her, Sully.”
“You know this is ironic, don’t you?”
“How?”
“You’re the one who tried to talk me out of going into psychology. And ‘talk’ might be too mild a word.”
Ethan cupped his hands around his mug, and Sully mentally kicked himself. Over the years he’d become proficient at steering Ethan away from this topic, and now he’d practically driven him there himself.
“I thought it was too soon after Lynn,” Ethan said.
“Now that I’m over,” Sully said.
“I want to believe that. Then you tell me you nearly had a breakdown because you lost a patient, and I have to wonder.”
Sully set his mug firmly on the table. “I was already under a lot of pressure when that went down. I’d taken on too much, hadn’t had a vacation in—well, ever. It was the proverbial last straw, and I had to delegate and get away.”
Ethan took a drag from his coffee.
“This has nothing to do with anything except what it is,” Sully said.
“You’re the psychologist. You didn’t get where you are without knowing your own mind. Which is why—”
“You want me to see your professor friend.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s haunting me. I had to let her resign—I told you.”
“Right.”
“And she has to take the consequences for her actions. I see that.” The line between his eyebrows deepened. “But I feel responsible.”
Sully twitched his lips. “Maybe you’re the one who needs therapy.”
“I might before all this is done.” Ethan glanced across the room. “Let me just say this, and then I’ll leave it alone.”
Sully doubted that, but he nodded.
“This woman is a gifted teacher, and in my view she’s only beginning to get into the depths of her spiritual journey. I’ve seen it over and over—the minute a person starts to get it, genuinely get it, something puts her to the test.”
“So, what if she just didn’t pass?”
“Then she needs another chance.” Ethan looked startled at the vehemence in his own voice and cleared his throat. “I can’t give it to her,” he said. “But you of all people can. And not only because you’re the best in your field. But also because you’ve been where she is.”
Sully frowned into his coffee cup.
“She thinks she is the complete cause of the mess she’s in,” Ethan said. “She’s taking total responsibility, even for the pieces that aren’t her fault. I’m afraid of what that’s going to do to her.”
He put his hand up to stop the waitress, tray teetering, a few feet away. “I was afraid of that for you,” he almost whispered. “You say you’ve gotten past it, and I trust that. Which is why there’s nobody better than you to give this lady another chance at her life.”
Ethan leaned back and gave the waitress a wan smile.
“Looks like that trip down memory lane got a little heavy,” she said.
Sully looked at the heaped-high plates she slid onto the table. “Can you bring us a bucket to wring that shrimp out into?” he said.
“I can tell you’re from the South,” she said, making a less-than-successful attempt at an Alabama accent. “So don’t be telling me you can’t handle a little grease.” She winked at him this time. “I’ll get you some extra napkins.”
Sully examined a tangled pile of fried-ness. “Is this calamari?”
Ethan didn’t answer. Sully looked up.
“She has a thirteen-year-old daughter,” Ethan said.
“Who, the waitress?”
“Dr. Costanas. For what it’s worth.”
Sully stabbed his fork into a gleaming breaded shrimp. “I’ll think about it, all right?”
“That’s all I wanted to hear.”