Anna closed her laptop and folded her arms on top of it, pillowing her head there. She’d expected something like this; Elaine and Chief Sundstrom had been next to her in the observation room when Victoria froze up, and they’d bent their heads together, whispering with hushed, concerned tones. She didn’t know what they’d said but she was fairly certain it did not bode well for Victoria.
Obviously, she was going to accept the invitation and attend the meeting tomorrow, but she needed a moment to gather herself. “Ugh,” she said aloud, sitting up and burying her face in her hands.
Her reconnaissance into Victoria’s work history had borne the unexpected fruit of Hilary Jensen’s name, but the way Victoria had reacted to that name yesterday was even more unexpected. Though, Anna supposed, it shouldn’t have been. Victoria had been a powder keg waiting to explode for quite some time, and Hilary was clearly some kind of trigger point, given that she’d unconsciously brought the name up herself in their last appointment.
Still, the strength of the reaction… Anna rubbed her temples. Not good. Not good at all.
And worse was the way her first instinct was to run after Victoria to grab her up into a hug. She’d actually taken a few steps! “What is wrong with me?” she asked the thin air of her office. “Why am I like this?”
Thin air had no answers, of course, but perhaps a friend would. Her last appointment of the day had canceled, so Anna decided to indulge in an increasingly rare treat and go out for dinner at the Indigo Lounge downtown. Opening her laptop back up, she tidied away a few loose ends—including accepting the meeting invitation—and sent some emails before shutting her whole operation down and heading out.
Anna was an Alaska girl, born in a small town outside of Anchorage to a high school history teacher mother and a construction worker father. She was proud of her humble, semi-rural roots. Alaskans were tough people, folks who had to cope with long, dark winters and rugged landscapes. Growing up there made her strong, she felt.
But it was also a complicated place to be growing up and realizing you were a lesbian.
There hadn’t been any kind of queer scene in her little bend in the road town, and if she went into Anchorage to see what was happening there, she risked being spotted by fellow classmateswho’d carry the news back to her conservative parents… a drawback of your mother also being your teacher.
So Anna had kept herself quiet, put her head down and worked until she could get herself off to college in Madison, Wisconsin. Which in itself had been gratifyingly eye-opening, but it wasn’t until she arrived in LA for her PhD work that she really felt like she belonged somewhere, and it was all thanks to the Indigo Lounge.
Lounge owner Esme Bloom—now Esme Hartley-Bloom, since she’d married a hotshot corporate realtor named Nora—had taken Anna under her wing as soon as she arrived in LA a dozen years ago. Anna was nearer to the age of Esme’s daughter Holly, but it was Esme’s slightly crunchy-granola, beatific Earth Mother vibes that had drawn Anna in. She was a little floaty, kind of a hippie, yet she had the tough heart and soul of an Alaskan. What Anna’s mother could have been if she’d been a little less red-state hidebound.
It was her counsel Anna sought now, as she slid into a booth at the Lounge and waved to Esme behind the colorfully tiled central bar. Under her signature scarf-wrapped pile of silver-shot chestnut curls, Esme’s sweet face lit up with a smile, and she gestured to indicate she’d be a couple of minutes. Anna nodded and opened up her menu, even though she knew she was here for a yummy pile of Heapin’ Helpin’ black bean nachos. She wanted to see what Chef Sasha had come up with lately; her seasonal dishes were always so creative.
Anna was deep into imagining the pleasant warmth of the new butternut squash and habanero soup when Esme slid in across from her. “If you’re looking to break your nacho habit,” she said, tapping the menu with one glittery purple fingernail, “that’s an amazing way to do it. Sasha serves them with these incredible wraps she makes from black lentils… I don’t know how she does it. That mind of hers.”
The soup was tempting, but Anna really wanted the comforting familiarity of the nachos. “I’ll come back soon to try that,” she promised, closing the menu. “It sounds great.”
“I’ll send you home with a cup. I already put in your nacho order, it’ll be right out.” Esme grinned and plucked the menu out of Anna’s hands. “I figured you were going to stick to your usual. You have that look in your eyes.”
Anna chuckled and dropped her head, shaking it. “You see too much.”
“My darling, your face is an open book.” She took Anna’s hands in hers. “What’s going on?”
Biting her lip, Anna thought about how much she could tell Esme. “I have a difficult patient.”
“You can’t tell me much about that, I know.” Esme cocked her head, curiosity in her big brown eyes.
“Not about her medically, no.” Anna reached underneath the table to pinch a fold of her boldly floral silk skirt between her fingers and rub at it. “I mean, she is difficult medically, and I can’t tell you about that, but… she’s… oh…”
Esme reached to tip Anna’s chin up with gentle fingers, peering searchingly into her eyes. “Oh, babydoll. Do we have an ethics issue on our hands?”
Anna winced. “Damn it. That obvious?”
“Only because I know you.” Esme fell silent as a Lounge waitress delivered Anna’s nachos to the table, along with two plates and a pair of Sasha’s special Kahlua mocha milkshakes. Once they were alone again, she served each of them a healthy pile of nachos and shoved a plate over to Anna. “Eat up. You can eat and talk at the same time, you know I’m never judging you for talking with your mouth full.”
Not that Anna could ever bring herself to violate her mother’s dinner-table dictums. She popped a fully loaded tortilla chip into her mouth and chewed, thinking as the flavors of jalapeño,tomato, and cumin exploded over her tongue. Once she’d swallowed her bite down, she felt able to start. “She’s tough. Gorgeous. Ice-cold. And so broken, Esme. Broken inside, but her outer walls are ten feet thick, I swear. And,” she smiled as she thought of the way Victoria twitted her fashion choices, “she’s kind of an uptight mean girl.”
“Oh, that is your absolute catnip,” Esme sighed. “Honey, we havegotto talk about your kinks someday. Not that I blame you for falling for a mean girl.” She looked down at her wedding band fondly. “I know something about that.”
“I kind of figured, maybe…” Anna had only met Nora Hartley-Bloom on a handful of occasions, but now that she thought about it, cool, tall blonde Nora reminded her of Victoria, minus the posh-sounding accent and plus about five hundred percent more stable mental health. “I don’t mind the mean stuff. I don’t feel like she’sreallybeing mean. Even if I do dress like a schoolteacher.”
They both looked down at her outfit, the skirt adorned with big red poppies, the soft red cardigan with its shiny black buttons. “Nn…nnnnnooooo, of course you don’t dress like a schoolteacher,” Esme warbled unconvincingly.
“I know who I am, E.” Anna laughed and shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, I don’t think she’s actually mean. Just… it’s part of her being broken.”
“And you want to fix her.” Esme leaned back in her seat. “Okay.”
“Technically, Ihaveto fix her,” Anna pointed out, shoving another bite of nacho into her mouth. Again, she chewed and swallowed before going on, her good table etiquette buying her more thinking time. “But yes. I want to, as well. Because she needs help.”
