Page 16 of Happily Never After

Claire paused for a beat.

“Motivated to start working on the next proposal?” That probably should have been a confident reply rather than a question.

“You don’t like to be still,” the doctor observed. She looked too young to be the mother of a nearly thirty-year-old man. She swept her cornrows over one shoulder and shoved her cat-eye glasses back up the bridge of her nose.

“I like to keep busy,” Claire conceded.

“Do you ever take a moment to be still? To stay in the moment, to appreciate what’s happening around you?”

“I do yoga.” She huffed. While listening to audiobooks about business management, but Dr. Goulding didn’t need to know that.

“Mindfulness, Claire.” The doctor capped her pen. “That’s part of your homework for the coming week. You’re living too much in the future. You’re borderline obsessed with planning, with creating. All admirable skills for a business owner, and understandable considering your history. But you also need to learn to be okay when your plans don’t come to fruition. You need to learn to look around, take a deep breath, and appreciate the moment.”

“How do you want me to do that?”

“Get some drinks with your friends. Have a date night with Luke. Get in your car and drive somewhere you’ve never been. Or just do something spontaneous, something that feels very un-Claire. Wherever it is, whatever you’re doing, don’t think about the future. Don’t think about the embarrassing thing you did in the grocery store?—”

“I told you that in confidence!”

Dr. Goulding smiled. “Don’t be bound by the cloudiness of your future or the hurt in your past. Just live, Claire.”

Claire wrinkled her nose. This was the kind of advice she’d expect to get from her nude stepmother.

“And now, to completely contradict myself, we also need to talk about what’s happening tomorrow. And on Thursday.”

“Do we have to?”

“This is therapy. I wouldn’t be doing my job if we didn’t at least talk about it. You have a meeting with the bank tomorrow?”

Claire exhaled noisily. “Yes. We’re trying to get a small business loan to help out with the cost of expanding.”

“How does it make you feel to borrow that kind of money?”

She clutched a hand to her chest as her heart beat a staccato rhythm beneath her palm. “Awful. It feels reckless and irresponsible. My heart’s pounding just thinking about it. But it’s necessary. At least the analyst we hired thinks so.”

Dr. Goulding leaned forward. “And what will you accomplish with the money?”

“Expand. Try things on the West Coast.”

“And why now, after so much success in West Haven, are you interested in doing business three thousand miles away? In one of the most expensive cities in the world?”

Claire crossed her arms. “I thought you were on my side.”

The doctor smiled. “I am. I’m trying to prepare you for questions the bank may have.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I’m going to give the bank the numbers-and-projections speech. But I’m sure you’re more interested in the emotional component.”

Dr. Goulding nodded. “Go on.”

“I think…” It was weird to even say this out loud. “I think I might be spending more time on the West Coast in the future. Charlie and Brianna are both out there. And Luke spends a lot of time there too. I don’t like the idea of spending weeks and weeksaway from him while he has to be at the studio. If I’m going to be out there anyway, I might as well be working.”

The doctor smiled. “You’re factoring Luke into your future. That’s really nice to see.”

“Yeah, well. As long as he doesn’t dump me for my nemesis. Anyway, all of those emotional factors plus the potential for exposure and business growth kind of cemented the idea.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is it totally crazy?”

Dr. Goulding’s mouth twitched. “We try to avoid that adjective in the field of psychology.”

Claire grimaced. “Right. Sorry. Is it irrational, then?”

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