the couch

Baby Carlyle’s dirty white Havaiana flip-flops thwacked against the gleaming hardwood floors of Constance Billard on Friday afternoon. Officially, flip-flops weren’t part of the uniform at the elite all-girls school, but Baby had broken so many rules lately that she doubted anyone would care. Her flight from Spain had landed just two hours ago, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and take a long nap. But as soon as she’d landed and turned her phone on, she’d received a frantic message from her mom saying that Mrs. McLean, Constance Billard’s headmistress, wanted to see Baby immediately. Baby had known she’d have to face the headmistress eventually; after all, she’d skipped a week of school for her impromptu vacation.

Donna, the stringy-haired secretary, stuck her head out of the office as soon as Baby rounded the corner. “Mrs. McLean’s waiting for you,” she announced self-importantly.

“Thanks,” Baby mumbled, shuffling into Mrs. McLean’s inner office. It wasn’t as if she needed directions. She’d already been here four times in the past month.

“Baby!” Mrs. McLean exclaimed, poking her large, doughy face around her office door.

Baby flashed her best I’m just a dumb but endearing teenager who does impulsive things smile. It was a look she’d mastered during her short time at Constance. She just hoped it’d be enough to persuade Mrs. McLean to let her behavior slide.

Again.

Baby plopped down in the center of the royal blue velvet love seat.

“Well, welcome back. Your mother called and told me to expect you today,” Mrs. McLean began, sinking down behind her heavy oak desk. She normally favored bold-colored pantsuits from Talbots, but today, she wore a simple black jacket and skirt.

Baby nodded politely. More than anything, she wished she were back on La Rambla at an all-night café sipping a trifásico, the super-delicious alcohol-spiked coffee she’d discovered. A smile played on her lips as she remembered how one of the cute servers tried to teach her Catalan. It sounded so absurdly sexy, even if all he talked about was how much he loved his Vespa.

The whole experience had been magical. When she’d left, she was itching to just go somewhere, to get away from the status-obsessed world of the Upper East Side, where she still hadn’t quite found her place.

“Baby, I’m concerned about you.” Mrs. McLean leaned her fleshy forearms against the desk and peered at Baby thoughtfully. “Are you concerned about you?”

“I’m sorry,” Baby said contritely. “I thought I’d be able to make everything up.” She shrugged. Obviously, running off to Barcelona wasn’t the most responsible thing to do, but she knew her classmates were taken out of school for weeks at a time for Gstaad skiing vacations or African safaris with their parents. It wasn’t as if she’d missed anything important.

“It’s not your grades,” Mrs. McLean said ruefully, clearly wishing it were Baby’s grades so she could hire a tutor and be done with it. “Frankly, it’s your attitude. I’ve given you chances and we’ve tried some ways to make Constance more comfortable for you. Maybe it’s time that you do the work and really prove to me that you want—and deserve—to be part of this community. You say you do, but your behavior says otherwise.” Mrs. McLean pursed her lips together expectantly. “The only reason I’m letting you continue to stay is because of your involvement, however brief, with Rancor.” She slid a thin magazine across the desk.

Baby peered at the cover, which said FOCUS ON FASHION in bubbly, pink scripted letters. Baby grinned. She and her classmate Sydney Miller, a self-described womyn with a penchant for body piercings, had created a whole fashion spread with guys dressing in girls’ clothes, and vice versa. It was cool and daring, and Baby was sad she hadn’t been around when it came out.

“This caused quite a stir,” Mrs. McLean said with a tight smile. “While I would have liked to discuss your, ahem, artistic vision, I do appreciate how hard you and Miss Miller worked on this.”

“I can write a paper on the trip if that’d help.” She focused on the spot between Mrs. McLean’s bushy Bert and Ernie–style eyebrows. Teachers loved when kids offered to do extra work. Back in Nantucket, she’d written more than a few crappy extracurricular essays for her stoner boyfriend Tom so he wouldn’t flunk out.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Mrs. McLean replied dismissively. She began rifling through a huge Rolodex.

Baby’s eyes narrowed. What could Mrs. McLean possibly have in mind? Scrubbing the Constance trophy case? Peeling wads of sugarless gum off the bottom of the birch-wood cafeteria tables?

“I’d like you to turn your taste for discovery inward,” Mrs. McLean intoned. She yanked a card from the pile and slid it and a piece of paper across the desk. “I’ve already spoken with your mother about this. You are to complete twenty hours of therapy and have a therapist sign this form when your treatment is finished. I took the liberty of setting up your first appointment for this afternoon at four. That’s in fifteen minutes,” Mrs. McLean added in a warning tone.

“Thanks,” Baby mumbled as she examined the thick ivory card suspiciously. DR. REBEKAH JANUS, PSYCHOTHERAPIST, was all it said, along with an address on Fifth Avenue. In a school surrounded by narcissistic, overdramatic, shopaholic girls, she was the one who needed therapy?

Mrs. McLean leaned forward on her elbows. “Dr. Janus is a therapist I recommend to many students, but if you have your own practitioner you’d rather use, that’s fine. However, if you don’t fulfill your twenty-hour therapy requirement by the end of the month, then you’ll simply have to find a school that’s a better fit.”

Baby nodded. “I think you’ll enjoy a journey of the mind.” Mrs. McLean smiled as she walked Baby to the door.

“I guess,” Baby agreed weakly. It wasn’t like she had a choice.

Baby found her way to a brownstone on East Eightieth Street and walked into what seemed like a waiting room, decorated with tacky Van Gogh prints on the wall. Piles of back issues of The New Yorker and The Economist sat on an antique oak coffee table. Immediately, a door flung open.

“You’re late,” an immaculately dressed tall blond woman said smoothly.

“Sorry.” Baby shrugged and shifted from one dirty flip-flopped foot to the other.

“Oftentimes a patient’s punctuality says something about their feelings toward the process,” the woman noted, as if she’d read Baby’s mind. “I’m Dr. Janus.” She stuck out her hand and Baby took it cautiously.

“Follow me,” Dr. Janus said as she ushered Baby into her office. The walls and ceiling were bare and white, but the huge bay windows facing west lent a cheery glow to the otherwise stark room. “Now, lie down,” Dr. Janus commanded, pointing at the low-slung leather couch in the center of the room. She sounded like she was trying to teach a dog a new trick.

Stay, Baby. Stay!

“I’ll just sit.” Baby spread the fabric of the gauzy maroon dress she’d bought from a street cart in Barcelona over her jeans.

“Lie down,” Dr. Janus urged. “It’s better that way.”

Not wanting to seem rude, Baby flipped over on the couch and lay on her back, pulling up her knees. A collection of carved-wood elephant sculptures were clustered on a shelf, next to row after row of books by and about Freud. She wondered what the elephants were supposed to make her think of.

“Now, tell me about yourself,” Dr. Janus said, her voice dropping an octave.

Baby stared up at the ceiling. “I’m Baby Carlyle. I’m sixteen and a triplet. I have a brother, Owen, and a sister, Avery, and we used to live in Nantucket. We moved to New York a month ago. And I just got in three hours ago from a trip to Barcelona and I am very tired,” Baby added. Maybe Dr. Janus would take pity on her, fill out her form, and let her go home and take a nap.

“And?” Dr. Janus prompted from her desk. Baby turned and propped her head on her hand. What else was there? Baby turned back to Dr. Janus, hoping she’d ask another, less difficult question, sort of like how in French class Madame Rogers always switched to English as soon as she realized no one had any idea what the fuck she’d said.

“Don’t look at me,” Dr. Janus warned.

Baby sighed and flopped back on the couch. There was an ugly tan watermark staining the all-white ceiling. Was it some type of Rorschach test?

“What about your parents? Mom? Dad?” Dr. Janus prompted.

“I live with my mom. She’s great. We don’t know our dad. We were a surprise, probably courtesy of Burning Man.” Before they were born Edie was a groupie who traveled around the country in the back of band buses. Avery was mortified by that part of their history, but Baby thought it was kind of cool.

“And?” Dr. Janus pressed.

“That’s it,” Baby said firmly. She didn’t want to be one of those people who bitched about their parents ruining their lives. Sure, their mom was nutty, but she was also pretty fun.

“Fine.” Dr. Janus sounded disappointed. “Tell me about Barcelona,” she finally said.

“Barcelona was good,” Baby replied, remembering. It had been good, but it had also felt like something was missing. She absentmindedly pulled her hair toward her mouth, chewing the ends. She used to do it just to gross Avery out when they were younger, but it was comforting and had become a habit.

“I just thought that getting out of New York would be good for me. You know, to get away from my family, away from school uniforms. Maybe I should become a nudist or something,” Baby said randomly. She glanced up to see if Dr. Janus would crack a smile, but she just nodded blankly, as if Baby was actually intending to strip down. Baby self-consciously pulled her Nantucket High sweatshirt closer across her body. “Just kidding,” she added lamely. What did Dr. Janus want from her anyway?

Besides $250 an hour?

“What were you looking for?” Dr. Janus prompted thoughtfully. A white noise machine in the background reminded Baby of the sound before a summer storm.

Baby crossed, then uncrossed her arms. This was all so contrived and designed to be relaxing that it had the opposite effect.

“Well, I was looking for Mateo. He was just this friend I met here in the city,” she began. He’d told her that he’d come to New York on a dare with his best friend. It had seemed so unique and spontaneous that Baby had wanted to do the same sort of thing.

She knit her fingers together and held her hands above her head in a stretch. Maybe if she could just explain the situation rationally, Dr. Janus would understand how normal she was and that she didn’t need twenty hours of mandatory therapy. “I thought he and I would just have fun. But then I couldn’t find him, but I had a good time on my own. I mean, really, I just wanted to explore a new place—”

“Right, but what were you looking for?” Dr. Janus asked again, as if she were stuck on an endless repeat loop.

“Maybe an adventure, I guess. I mean, I just thought it’d be fun.” Baby frowned. That sounded kind of lame. “I mean, I thought it’d be a good way to find myself.” There. That sounded more therapy-appropriate.

“I have a different theory,” Dr. Janus said, her voice rising an octave in excitement. “What if I told you that you were looking for your father?”

Baby blinked. Excuse me? Sometimes Baby flipped through Edie’s old bootleg tapes, trying to figure out if any songs were about her mother, in case her dad was some super-famous hippie rocker. But other than that, she rarely thought about it.

“No. I was looking for Mateo,” Baby said firmly. She sat up, swinging her legs down off the couch. Weren’t therapists supposed to let you come up with your own answers?

Dr. Janus sighed heavily. As if on cue, the white noise machine changed from the ocean sound track to a rainstorm one. A clap of fake thunder sounded. “It seems like you’re spending more time hunting down boys than you are trying to discover yourself. What would you say to that?” Dr. Janus had her pen poised as though she were a court reporter.

Baby sighed in frustration.

“You’re resistant,” Dr. Janus said smoothly. “That’s okay. This is a safe space. You don’t have to talk. You can lie there until the hour is up,” she offered, examining her nude-polished finger-nails.

“Isn’t that kind of pointless?” Baby asked rudely. If she was just going to lie around, she’d much rather do it in her own bed, thank you very much.

“It’s not pointless at all.” Dr. Janus opened her eyes even wider, and Baby realized she was a little cross-eyed. One blue eye remained fixed on Baby while the other one looked down at her paper. It was extremely disconcerting. “What you need is to learn your inner motivations. And it’s going to take a while,” she explained matter-of-factly. “You’ll probably want to come in every day,” she concluded as she closed her small leather-bound notebook.

“What?” Baby flung up suspiciously. What could she possibly talk about every day?

“We’re going to go on a journey into your psyche together.” Dr. Janus clapped her hands together in rapture, as if she couldn’t wait. “Who knows? One of my patients has been with me for the past twenty years. You wouldn’t believe the work we’ve done together.” She nodded importantly.

“Can I think about this and call you?” Baby asked. Not waiting for an answer, she stood up, then bolted toward the door and slammed it shut.

“You didn’t really close the door to personal enlightenment, you know,” Dr. Janus yelled from the other side. Baby hurriedly opened the door to the hallway, ignoring the doorman as she burst outside.

Freedom!