Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

swatted his hand away. She looked wildly around the room. “What’s happening?”

“You told us to write for fifteen minutes, but it’s now been more than thirty minutes,” Grace said. “I came out here to check on you, and found you dead asleep. Or passed out.”

“Ridiculous!” Paula said. She stood, fluffed her hair, and straightened her clothing, looking like Stevie Nicks after an epic bender. “I was meditating, waiting on the group to complete their visualization exercise.”

“Who are you?” she asked, looking Wyatt up and down.

“I’m Wyatt,” he said. “Judge Stackpole said I had to come see you. For divorce recovery group.”

He said the words with such distaste, that Grace almost laughed out loud.

“Didn’t the judge tell you our sessions start promptly at seven?”

“He told me,” Wyatt said. “But I had a family emergency. And the bridge was up. But I’m here. I’ve been here for…” he looked down at his watch, and then at Grace, his dark eyes pleading.

“Twenty minutes,” Grace volunteered. “We weren’t sure whether or not to wake you.”

Paula studied Grace’s face carefully. “Really?”

“It’s true,” Grace said, with a shrug. “You can ask the others. We were all waiting for you to come back and take a look at our journals, to see if we did what you asked.”

Paula waved her hand distractedly. “Never mind that. It’s late. I’ll read them next week.”

“So … we can go now?” Grace asked. “All of us?”

“Didn’t I just say that?” Paula asked.

She went into the inner office and clapped her hands for attention. “All right. That’s the session for tonight. I’ll see everybody next Wednesday, at seven o’clock. Remember to bring your journals.”

She turned and handed Wyatt a notebook. “And next week, please be on time.”

Camryn and Ashleigh stood quickly and headed for the door, while Suzanne was still jotting in her notebook. “Ladies,” Paula said, gesturing toward the newcomer. “Before you go? This is Wyatt. He’ll be a part of group for the next few weeks. I’d like you to welcome him to our little circle of healing. Wyatt, this is Ashleigh, Camryn, and Suzanne. And you already met Grace.”

Suzanne looked distressed. “Uh, Paula, no offense to him, but I thought this was just a women’s group? Nobody said anything about men being part of it.”

“We welcome anybody with an open, willing heart to group, Suzanne,” Paula said.

“Hey,” Wyatt mumbled, blushing slightly as the women carefully looked him over.

“Hmm,” Ashleigh purred.

“What’s your story?” Camryn wanted to know. “Did Stackpole sentence you, too? I thought he only hated women.”

“Never mind that,” Paula said. She grabbed her camera and snapped a picture of the startled Wyatt. When the photo had developed, she handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked, gazing down at the picture. It was not what you’d call a flattering image. The harsh overhead lights cast his face in deep shadows. He needed a shave, he noted, and there was a distinct sweat ring around the collar of his shirt. Also? There was a tell-tale white dribble on the shoulder of the shirt. Parrot poop, from Cookie, who’d insisted on riding on his shoulder the whole way to the vet’s office.

“That’s your before picture,” Paula told him. “Staple it in the book. And the journal is your homework assignment. I want you to write in it at least once a day, every day, more often if you can. Tonight’s assignment is to write about how you feel about where you are in your emotional journey.”

“Ohh-kay,” Wyatt said slowly.

“And Wyatt? As the ladies can tell you, the one thing I insist upon in group, besides punctuality, is absolute honesty. No whitewashing. No lies. Understand?”

Camryn snorted. “He’s a man. They’re genetically programmed to lie.”

“Telling a man not to lie is like asking him to pee sitting down,” Ashleigh agreed.

“Ladies?” Paula said wearily.

Wyatt had had more than enough. He could feel the hostility radiating out of every woman in this room. Man-hating ball busters, every one of them.

“Also?” Paula held out her hand. “Your counseling fees must be paid in full, in advance of each session. Did your attorney explain my fee structure? You understand I don’t accept personal checks? Credit cards, although no American Express, or a cashier’s check.”

“She told me,” Wyatt said. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a tightly rolled bundle of money. The bills were faded and creased, and as he counted off each of the six fifty-dollar bills he thought of what that money should be going to. Groceries. New tennis shoes for Bo, and, now, payment on his ever-growing vet bill.

He pressed the money into Paula’s hand.

“Cash?” She looked down at the bills as though he’d just handed her one of Cookie’s bird turds.

“Yeah,” he said. “Can I get a receipt for that? My lawyer told me to make sure and get one. To prove to the judge that I was here.”

*   *   *

When he finally got outside the therapist’s office, he took a deep breath of the hot, humid night air. May, and it was already sweltering. Well, that was Florida. Anyway, it felt good to be outside. It had been freezing in that damned office. And all those women, staring at him, like he was some kind of spawn of Satan.

Just because he was a man. Betsy had warned him it would probably be like this. “It’s a divorce recovery group, honey,” she’d said. “A bunch of sad, mad, depressed, repressed women. All of ’em blaming all their problems on some man who done them wrong. Just sit there and take it, and with any luck, six weeks from now, Judge Stackpole will sign off on your divorce and you and Bo can get back to living your lives.”

He’d parked at the far end of the parking lot, mostly because he didn’t want anybody riding by to know he was going to see a shrink. As he approached the truck now, he saw a woman standing beside it, bending down, looking in the open window.

It was that woman from group. What was her