Page 104 of The Deepest Lake

“No, it was Mr. Hanshew. My teacher.”

“And how did it make you feel?”

“Like I’d done something wrong.”

“So what did you do?”

“I ate more.”

“You didn’t reconsider how you were dressing?”

“I wasn’t dressing any differently than the other girls,” Scarlett says, her voice struggling to hold firm. “Just like I’m not dressing wrong today.”

Lindsay speaks up from the back. “Hear, hear. If Scarlett wore a garbage bag, she’d still look like Marilyn Monroe.”

Scarlett looks around. “It’s okay, everyone. You don’t have to defend me. We can talk about this. The fat part of my past—that matters. It’s the ‘me before’ of my bike trip, so I’m fine with it. But the rest—how I dress, whether I wear mascara—I don’t think that’s part of my story.”

“Interesting,” Eva says. She paces a few times before settling back on her stool. “Actually, we’re not going to talk about the bike trip today.”

Rose feels her brow furrowing. Not this again. Scarlett sold her bike in order to come to Lake Atitlán and learn how to write about her bike trip. How is it possible that Eva isn’t going to talk about her bike trip?

Across the room, Diane takes off her sunglasses, folds them and closes her eyes, as if preparing for something stressful. A few women mimic her—eyes closing, breaths deepening. But not everyone. In the back, someone starts to make noise, packing her bag.

“I didn’t say we were finished,” Eva says.

The shuffling stops.

“Scarlett needs some help finding her story. I think we all know what that story is.”

Another minute.

Rose reminds herself that breathing is healthy. She should do as the others are doing. Breathe. Meditate. Learn to be comfortable with silence, and with this, whatever it is. Just another version of what they’ve been through before, as long as Scarlett goes along.

Eva says, “Mr. Hanshew touched you.”

Rose expects another full minute of silence, is already beginning to count, when Scarlett speaks up.

“Yes.”

“That’s why you felt wrong. Because he talked to you about your body. He made you aware that you were developing ahead of the others. That he saw you in a different way. And he touched your body. You blame yourself for that.”

Scarlett doesn’t answer.

Rose tries to open her mind to the possibility that Scarlett does want to talk about this. And maybe all kinds of therapy work this way: resistance, challenge, negotiation.

Eva says, “A scene requires a place and a time.”

No answer.

Eva asks, “You don’t remember? Of course you do. Let me guess: a classroom.”

Silence.

“Or a car?”

Rose risks a peek over at Scarlett, who is staring at her knees.

“No,” Scarlett says, finally. “His house.”

---