Dolly trots over and paws at both of our legs. I laugh and sniffle as I hug her back, holding Dolly’s paw. I want her to be right, but the reality that I’m not cut out for the job is hovering over me like a black cloud. If I couldn’t help these students, why would they even keep me here?
“Thank you,” I say, sniffling again.
“Please talk to Benny. At least tell him how you feel. No man likes a girl playing with his emotions!”
“You’re right.”
“And then date him, please! The manneedsa companion.”
She releases from our hug and walks into her kitchen. I stand there, kicking at the rug tassels, giddy butterflies filling my stomach as I daydream about dating Bayani Divata.
The butterflies scurry away as reality pulls me back down to earth.
Therules.
“Ugh. I can’t date him,” I call to her in the kitchen. “I can’t tell him any of this! It’s against school board rules!”
She frowns at me from around the open refrigerator door. “Good point.”
Laying back on her pink modular sofa I frown back. “So, what’s the point?”
Walking back into the living room, eating a dairy-free ice cream bar she says, “Well, I would suggest just date until you leave at the end of the term, but I’m refusing to accept that you’re leaving. So that’s out of the question.” She wipes the corner of her mouth. “Plus, Benny couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. You’d last a day before you both got fired.”
“Like I said, there’s no point.” I throw my arms over my face and moan. “Why did I have to go and have a crush on myboss?”
“Ironic, huh?” she says, consuming morefakeice cream. “Don’t therapists have to maintain boundaries or something?”
I glare at her. “Yes.”
“Seems to me a boundary has been crossed, eh?”
“More like obliterated!”
She laughs at me as I scream into one of her giant purple throw pillows. Her living room color palette is a bag of skittles and she has no shame about it.
“I can’t believe I let this happen. I’m unbelievable,” I mumble under the pillow.
“Inconceivable!” she shouts.
“INCONCEIVABLE!” we shout in unison.
Dolly Parton howls.
Chapter seventeen
Ellie
“What’llitbe?”Samasks, smacking on his gum and clicking his pen to write down my order. Sam was a burly guy, with a less than welcoming demeanor—his bald head shining under the fluorescents of his diner.
“I’ll take the special, plain, with coffee.”
He snags the menu from my hands and saunters off. “You’re gonna have to try something other than waffles eventually!” he calls over his shoulder.
“Just keeping it consistent,” I reply.
He grumbles at me and heads to the register, mouthing my order to himself with a snarl. I giggle and look down at the table. A plexi-glass table with business cards and flyers shoved in between the layers.
Jodie’s Salon, Open Monday - Thursday
