Page 4 of Smoke N' Stroke

One might ask how I could hate someone who seemed so loving at least when it came to his siblings. Well for one, he was a sex therapist. Ofallthe specialties to take on, he chose the one with mostly vulnerable women. I rolled my eyes every time I thought about it. And don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t implying he was a creep, not by any means. I didn’t sense that, and that would have been unfair to place on him because he was a man. It’s just that a man like him seemed to like women and the presence of them. Being around women was his occupation.

Don’t you want him to like women, Nala? Don’t you want him to like… you?

When I whispered into the deep crevices of myself, I admitted I did want him to like me but not everyone else. Was it too much to ask for a man who was into me and only me?

I’d spoken to my therapist about him recently because let’s face it, therapists need therapists and I had issues to work through myself. Mostly issues surrounding trust because of so many liars and cheats I’d given my heart to. Seeing my therapist helped me to unload so I didn’t take my cynicism into my sessions with patients. My shit was my shit. Theirs was theirs.

She assessed that my issue with Zaire was one I needed to resolve internally. That it had little to do with him and more to do with issues surrounding trust. She sounded like me with my patients and I told her so.

“My job isn’t to create some new wheel, Nala,” Dr. Daniels said around her gentle smile.

“I’m telling you what you know and need to be reminded of. You know as well as I do that if you can’t learn to release control of the outcomes of human interaction, you’ll never completely trust,and from that, you can never have completely healthy experiences.”

Being read like that, when it was my job to do the reading, shut me up but this was what I paid her for. Hearing the truth got a nod out of me before she gave me some homework.

“I want you to try to talk to yourcoworkerwithout expectation. See what he says. It might surprise you to learn something about him that you don’t know… because everything you’ve shared in here about him sounds superficial. It is hearsay. Maybe none of that is him. Just like all of you can’t be seen by looking at you. This is a basic fundamental one-on-one approach, I know, but sometimes, being able to read people and assess them with ease gives us all a God complex as if we know it all and that is impossible. We know what they share. We know patterns. And from that, we use our training to assess because they allow us to. On the surface, we can assume we know what we see, and sometimes that turns out to be right, but it isn’t law. I’m sure you have patients who left parts of the story out only for you to discover in couple’s therapy or some other way. We don’t know them. We discover them.”

She was right, and I wanted to do what shesuggested and allow Zaire to teach me something about him that I didn’t know but when I saw him walking his patient out, something about him looking delicious while standing there in dark brown slacks, a cream button up top and modern tweed blazer, made me want to punch him. I didn’t want to know a damn thing.

3

NALA

“If you see Terry, can you please tell him I’ve been trying to reach him, Ms. Donovan?”

“Yes, Dr. Jackson. I wish I knew where he was because I’d make sure he spoke with you. Something ain’t right and I don’t know what it is. He’s running from something.”

I nodded into the receiver as if my patient’s elderly mother could see me. The worry in her voice was palpable. A mother knew when something was wrong with their child.

“I hope I can speak with him to see how I can help.”

“Me too.”

We hung up with each other and I spent a little time considering how much time I spent trackingdown patients who fell off my radar. That was part of the job that left the biggest hole. I suspected Terry needed something more than what I could help him with and I said as much in a previous session. His eyes turned cold immediately raising the hairs on my arms.

“You just don’t want to see me anymore, doc.” His voice was brittle and for the first time, I felt unnerved— not safe. But just as quickly he shrugged it off.

“I’ll see what you’re talking about when I see you again, doc.”

He never came back. At this point, I needed to make peace with his disappearance so that I could redistribute the rest of my caseload.

The buzzer sounded on my iPhone alerting me that it was time for the meeting Dr. Patton had scheduled for every Thursday afternoon after our sessions were completed. I looked forward to these group meetings because hearing my colleagues discuss some of their challenging situations gave me perspective and sometimes allowed me to dislodge whatever was preventing me from making a breakthrough with one of my patients. It wouldn’t always need to be much. Maybe it was just a realization, like the one Tricia Donovan, one of the family therapists,made about her patient suffering from what had been previously diagnosed as attention deficit symptoms. Tricia wasn’t so certain after listening to the symptoms and how it was impacting her connection to home life and her husband and two children. Once the patient went to see her internist, got blood work drawn, and discovered her severe case of iron deficiency could be the cause of her inability to focus, she sought treatment through infusions and diet changes. Now her patient is better able to focus on things that are fulfilling to her and connect with her family more.

That gave me perspective on a patient I had with a similar issue, but she was dealing with anxiety and depression that was further confounded by her perimenopausal symptoms. After hearing Tricia’s discovery, I encouraged my patient to have a panel run on her, and we found her thyroid hormones were all off due to a nodule on the gland. Removal of the nodule improved her life and now I only see her once every few months. It was little things like that that made the team meetings worth it despite me having to seehim.

I found him seated in the corner wearing his wire-framed reading glasses, scribbling down into a notebook that I knew was like a bible to him. Hecreated a specialized notebook he namedDeep Notes: A Conversation Between Clinician and Patient. The wire-bound leather book was broken down into different sections for treatment, observations, recommendations, and updates. It had become so popular that nearly everyone treating patients began using it and Dr. Patton encouraged him to get it patented so that the option to use it in other facilities was available. I looked around the room and saw at least six of my coworkers, including my girl Tricia who was my lunch buddy, with theirDeep Notesnotebooks in hands and on laps. I fought to roll my eyes. My non-descript session notebook was just fine for me. Even though his book seemed to allow space for all the things I needed to use additional sheets for, I was determined not to cave in and get with Dr. Booker’s program, however. He had enough fans.

Dr. Patton’s serene voice brought my attention to the middle of the circle where she sat surrounded by the brown nosers.

“Good afternoon. I pray you’ve had an insightful week with your clients. I only have a few announcements to make before hearing from you all. We’ll move quickly today which will allow us to get out ofhere early for the holiday weekend which I’m sure you’re all looking forward to.”

Her smile was kind as she looked at her team of clinicians from all different clinical focuses. There were times like now that I appreciated the opportunity to work here. It may not have paid a ton of money but when you looked around the room and saw most of the team looked like you and we were treating people that looked like us, it felt good. Purpose filled. And Dr. Patton was to thank for that. She used to be in private practice until receiving a donation to start her clinic. She always said the donation was anonymous, but whispers said that it was one of her patients whom she used to treat. This was all before my time, so I couldn’t truly say, but she did have a client who only came early morning before the clinic opened. I caught a glimpse of the tall woman with short hair once. She was badass, that’s the only way to put it. And she appeared to have either a bodyguard waiting for her or maybe a boyfriend who looked tough and very angry. Either way, it wasn’t my place to question Dr. Patton’s clients, so I didn’t.

Not everyone celebrated Easter or Ramadan but most of the staff celebrated one or the other. So allowing us to either have tomorrow off to observeGood Friday or to have an early weekend, didn’t matter. We all needed the day. So nods went around the room.

“So with that said, let’s start with Dr. Booker. Any remarkable highlights for this week?”

The brown nosers may have sat beside her but it was clear who was Dr. Patton’s favorite because she went through great lengths to locate him behind the circle. He looked up with a dazzling smile that nearly made my cat purr and as if he sensed it, he looked my way for the first time since I’d arrived. He stared at me long enough for me to feel the heat simmering there in his eyes before he pulled away and acted like he had done nothing to make my nipples harden.

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