“New York will fix that.” She handed back the phone. “Candy’s this way.”
When the doorof the candy store opened, cold air rolled out, thick and sweet as it met the humidity outside. Like the scents from Aunt Beatrice’s kitchen on a hot day, sugar caramelizing on the stove.
“This is…a lot,” I said as we walked inside.
The store was crammed floor to ceiling with every kind of candy, a library of pastilles, Pocky, gum, suckers, and chocolate bars. Two entire shelves were devoted to Korean snacks and sweets, others to Dutch and Turkish delights, to candies labeled in alphabets I didn’t recognize. A wall of jelly bean dispensers with unlikely flavors—cantaloupe, watermelon, bacon, root beer, popcorn, cheese. There were gummies shaped like tacos, like pizzas, like bugs and coins.
“Where do we start?”
“Pay close attention.” She took me to the shopping baskets, then the hard candy.
Huge boxes of it sat in the front windows. There were paper bags ready to be filled, old-fashioned scales hanging from the ceiling. Hiromi seemed to shop by color, lifting up handfuls, letting sunlight spill through the translucent drops, the crinkling cellophane wrappers.
We browsed the foreign confections, the novelty shapes, the antiquated modes of taffy, marzipan, and nougat. The staff all knew Hiromi and directed her to exciting new imports and arrivals.
As the shopping basket filled, her intensity eased a little.
“The other night,” I began, “you left so suddenly. When that man showed up.”
“He didn’t see me, did he?”
“Only a glimpse. Your friends made sure of that.”
“They dislike him.” She let out a slow sigh. “He talks to me like a shrink—which he is, but not mine. Asks what I’ve been dreaming, what’sworrying me, what I’m afraid of. Like buying my art comes with a ticket to my psyche.”
“Creepy.”
“His actual patients are weird as hell. He brought a bunch of them to my last opening, like some fucked-up therapy field trip. Five of them bought pieces!”
Were Dr. Lyon’s patients mirroring him? Or following orders? More sales would drive up the value of Hiromi’s work. Like my project for Ms. Delicato—a self-created currency, defining and controlling a group.
“Weird,” I said. “But any sale is good.”
“Not if it comes with a shrink.” She began to pick through an array of Pixy Stix, inspecting each flavor, like an archer choosing arrows. “Have you ever had one?”
“A Pixy Stix, yes. A shrink, no.”
“Because Mortons have all the answers.”
“Because we ask different questions.”
Hiromi didn’t respond, staring at the candy, going silent for the first time that afternoon. A disconnect opened between us.
I needed to give her something small and true.
“When I was seven years old, I did therapy. With invisible friends.”
Her eyes lifted to me. “Imaginary friends? Garrett said you were a child of strict logic.”
“It was all very logical. They understood my anxieties. They didn’t judge. They were available in the middle of the night.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Their lives,” I said. “Their failures. My fear of ending up like them.”
Hiromi arranged the Pixy Stix in her basket. “Your imaginary friends had backstories?”
“Tragic, early deaths. All of them.”
