Page 15 of Good Bad Girl

“I can take your coat and bag if you’d like?” Clio offers as they pass a wooden stand.

“No.” Frankie grips tighter on to her handbag, as though afraid the woman might steal it. “Thank you,” she adds, not wishing to sound rude.

They step into what looks like a rather bare and boring lounge. But that isn’t what it is. It is a room for questions that have no correct answers. The walls are all painted gray except for one, which is decorated with an expensive-looking wallpaper covered in birds. It makes Frankie want to fly away. It doesn’t look like a typical counseling office, but then Clio doesn’t look like a typical therapist. Shesits down on a plush turquoise armchair on wheels, and gestures for Frankie to sit on the canary yellow couch opposite.

Frankie perches awkwardly on the edge of her seat. There is a surprising amount of light in the dark room, a large metal clock above the fireplace—which is already busy counting down their allotted sixty minutes—and a little desk in the corner with a laptop, small vase of fresh flowers, and an old-fashioned rotary phone. Frankie can’t help staring at it all. She can’t quite believe that they are finally together in the same room. Face-to-face for the first time. She hopes that the after-hours appointment will mean they are less likely to be disturbed.

“It’s good to meet you, Frankie.”

The woman’s words already sound like lies. Hearing her say her name out loud causes something to twist inside Frankie’s chest, and she wonders whether it is possible to literally break a person’s heart. It isn’t just the woman making her feel so uncomfortable, it is the room itself. Frankie wishes she had seen it before their appointment because it isn’t how she imagined, but there were no pictures online. Everything is sonice, too nice; it is making it harder to do what she came here to do. She knows she needs to count to calm down, but it isn’t easy in an unfamiliar place.

Four walls, three windows, two chairs, one woman in the pink house.

Frankie finds it difficult to look directly at her, as though she is the sun.

She has seen therapists and counselors and psychiatrists before, a whole cast of them over the years, but none of them were like this woman. Clio’s face is almost as familiar as her own, despite the fact that they have never met. Frankie has always felt like a work in progress, but Clio looks like a woman whose life has gone according to plan. Her hair is aggressively styled into an obedient bob with a side parting, and her makeup is subtle, but expertly applied. The red dress looks more classy than flirtatious, flattering her petiteframe, and the matching red trainers make her seem fun. She looks younger than her fiftysomething years, but her face doesn’t match her youthful body. The dress and trendy trainers are an insufficient disguise. Her age is hiding in the lines around her eyes and the shadows beneath them. Frankie’s eyes widen when she sees an unexpected blemish: what looks like a tiny spot of ketchup, or blood, on the woman’s chin. Perfect people who live in perfect houses are rarely as perfect as they seem.

Frankie looks for more imperfections but finds none. She notices that the woman’s trainers look brand new, as though they have never been worn outside, and wonders if she keeps them in a box. Frankie stares down at her own shoes: one of her laces is still undone and her sensible black brogues are worn at the heel and in need of a good polish. Some Mr. Sheen would have helped. She tucks her feet as far away from herself as possible, as though ashamed of them. She had considered making more of an effort, but it all seemed so pointless. Why should she pretend to be someone or something she isn’t? But you only get one chance to make a good first or last impression. Compared to the woman in the pink house, Frankie looks like she got dressed in a charity shop in the dark.

It doesn’t matter. A bad impression is more memorable than a good one.

Frankie can feel the woman’s eyes creeping all over her. It makes her itch. She is being studied, which makes her want to run and hide.

“I want you to feel comfortable,” says Clio, causing Frankie to feel the opposite. “Counseling is nothing to be ashamed of, but I know it can be difficult, opening up to a stranger. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I promise that talking to someone about whatever is troubling you can help. I’m here to listen to whatever you want to say. Why don’t you start with what brought you here today?”

Revenge. Grief. A broken heart.

Frankie doesn’t say any of the words in her head out loud. She rarely does, even when she is alone. Her chest feels tight, as though she might have forgotten how to breathe. She stares at the woman, then down at her gloved hands and feels the pain from the paper cut on her finger. How can something so small hurt so much? There are no cuts on Clio’s hands, instead she has neat red nails to match the dress, the trainers, the lipstick.

The oversized metal clock on the wall seems to get louder, as though mocking Frankie and all the thoughts buzzing around inside her head.

Ticktock.Go home.Ticktock.Get out.Ticktock.Leave now.

“Take your time,” Clio says, as though she thinks she can read Frankie’s mind.

She can’t. She wouldn’t have invited her in if she could.

Time is something Frankie struggles to tell these days. Time can be borrowed, wasted, or stolen. Time can bend or break, it can hurt or heal. Time can rewrite history. But time is too precious to be taken.Peopleget taken from our lives and sometimes they never come back. Frankie hastaken her timefor far too long.

She stares at the clock again as it counts away the seconds and minutes too fast. She needs to count things of her own to drown it out, but there is so little to focus on in the room.

Four walls, three windows, two chairs, one woman in the pink house.

Frankie shakes her head, as though trying to dislodge some suitable words. The ones that escape surprise her.

“I’m here because of my daughter,” she manages to say.

It is the truth and a lie at the same time. Clio’s eyes stare at her with a mix of curiosity and kindness that seem genuine, willing her to continue, completely oblivious that Frankie has lost everything because of what Clio did.

“Do you want to talk about your daughter?” she asks.

No, I want to talk about the weather.

Frankie sees a flash of something in the woman’s eyes and worries that she has spoken out loud. But it is like a flickering flame and once the breeze of her words has died down, Clio resumes her penetrating stare.

Frankie can’t tell Clio that her only child ran away from home a year ago.

Frankie won’t tell her why.

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