Page 37 of A Twist of Faith
Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby!
(Pygmalion, Act 1)
The silver Honda sat waiting in the driveway in the morning, with a note in the driver’s seat.
Try it out for the week. Thereain’tno taxis back here anyway. – Reese
Ain’t was underlined.
Dee touched the card to the corner of her grin and shook her head, a thrill pumping up from her fingertips. She really shouldn’t get this excited over a car, or a note from Mr. Cattle Farmer, but both added a pleasant spin to her typically ho-hum day.
The car fit in so well with the other nice cars in the university parking lot, shiny and stylish. Not even Dr. Russell’s email reminder about clinic numbers got her down. It was the perfect car for Charlottesville, not too stingy, not too haughty. As Goldilocks said … just right.
Even her attitude about her first attempt at therapy with children since grad school remained positive. She walked into the Speech & Hearing Clinic ready to face whatever those four kids threw at her. Armed with nervous energy and enough articulation cards to wallpaper a room, she forged ahead. Her first day of classes had gone well, why not clinic too?
The good feelings didn’t last long. Simon Reynolds defied gravity. Dee couldn’t get him to sit in a chair longer than two seconds, let alone try to produce any of the ten sounds he couldn’t say. And little Christy Painter pitched a royal tantrum so loud and high, Dee wondered if she heard dogs barking outside from the intrusion. And no matter how hard she tried to encourage Dominique to make anrsound, it ended in tears—for both of them.
The only lesson ending without drama or trauma was with Julie Blake, who didn’t speak at all. The entire forty-five-minute session.
She just sat in the kid-chair and stared as if Dee were an imminent threat.
So much for feeling like Charlottesville-quality material. She failed … again.
Who was she kidding? Motherhood? She rolled her eyes to the ceiling of her cute little car and stifled a royal tantrum herself. She needed an outlet for pent-up frustration. Rainey used running. Reese had the farm. Slicing up articulation cards with a sharp pair of scissors only ruined perfectly useful clinic tools—if emotionally therapeutic, nonetheless.
Not even her Calvin and Hobbes calendar helped. Though it did result in a laugh before her mass failure. Maybe a sombrero would have helped!
With the thought of her disaster, Reese Mitchell came to mind. She had eight weeks left.Only eight.And she hadn’t even started talking about his presentation, just his accent so far. Clopping into a room full of businessmen and sitting down like he was straddling a barstool wasn’t going to make the best first impression, even with his heart-stopping grin.
Dee took the steps down from the third-floor clinic to the parking lot, making a list of things to research on child treatment before she’d allow herself to go home for dinner. The sight of the cute Honda soothed her disappointment a little, but if she couldn’t keep her clinic numbers alive and well, she wouldn’t have a job to pay for the adorable, professor-car.
A multitude of insecurities attacked her during the ten-minute drive from the clinic to her office. She’d planned this moment for years—something her father would be proud of and something to separate her from her mother’s reputation. She’d dedicated hundreds of hours to research and high grades, forgoing simpler things like trips with friends and holidays with her brother.
And now? She couldn’t even get a child to pay attention for a thirty-minute therapy session? No one wanted a failure.
She pushed through the glass doors of her building and marched down the hall toward her office, every step more determined than the last.
“Adelina.”
She froze in her tracks as Alex Murdock met her in the hall outside her office. “Dr. Murdock?”
“Just thought I’d drop in and check on your progress. Dr. Lindsay and I came down for a meeting with Dr. Russell, so I thought I’d see how you’re settling in.
“It’s only been three weeks since your last visit, Alex. I’m still adjusting.”
Dead car, clinical failure, and a visit from the current bane of her professional existence? This was turning out to be a stellar day. Perhaps a sombrero was the only logical solution.
“Would you like to come into my office?”
He followed her inside. “You look well.”
She distanced herself with a desk between them.Her desk. “Thank you.” Looks can be deceiving. “Please sit down.”
“Your email reports all sound good, great in fact.” He sat back and laced his hands in front of him. “Did you teach your first class yesterday?”
“Yes, it went well. It’s a small number of students to start, but I’m sure with the creativity and motivation of the faculty here, those numbers will improve.” Her own statement surprised her, and she meant it.
He smiled, in an almost genuine way, his face not nearly as haughty as she remembered. Or maybe the Mitchells influenced a new view. The thought stuck uncomfortably in place.
