Page 45 of All That Remains
Los Angeles
February 2018
After fighting with John over who would pay the check for lunch, he dropped me off at my therapist and left to run errands in the meantime. I had two hours scheduled for today and knew she would grill me because I hadn’t been to see her in over a month.
Alone in the private waiting room, nothing but old magazines, daytime TV, and a coffee maker to keep me company, I checked my messages. The floors were being redone in the guestroom, and my supply shipment would be delayed another week. A few messages before that, my dad asked me how to share something to Instagram for the dozenth time. No matter how many times I showed him, he couldn’t quite grasp social media. Then my assistant had checked in and asked if tomorrow was ok to meet with Rome.
My stomach flipped. He was being persistent. I agreed to noon at a coffee joint of his choosing. Someplace remote, his side of town. It almost seemed like a drug deal. I drafted a list of things to discuss with him at length. First on the agenda,music. I wanted to know everything. Where he wrote, when he wrote, why he’d chosen the subjects he had. Instruments, melodies, producers, co-writers—everything. I wanted to know how much had been written before he left the band and what had beenwritten after. I wanted to know how much of it was aboutme. I wanted to see his studio. I wanted to see his bedroom. I wanted to see his Beverly Hills haunts and hideaways. I wanted to show him mine in the hills.
It was important I didn’t overwhelm him. He scared easily, socially speaking. One question too many and he’d be searching for a reason to excuse himself from the discussion altogether. Next to nothing could keep him engaged if he lost interest in you. My next line of questioning would veer towards family. How were they? Parents, sisters, cousins, aunts? One thing I was glad of when he left the band was that it enabled him to reconnect with his family. Their absence in the years we’d spent on the road took a bigger toll on him than any of the other boys.
Although he was an island, tending to thrive in isolation, he adored his people andneededto be around them, or else he lost touch. As for his mum, she offered solace not only in her words, but also a doting, infinite supply of home-cooked Italian cuisine. Eggplant parmigiana, bolognese, risotto, soup—you name it. And, fuck’s sake, she had a carbonara to die for.
The thought of him getting his fill in her care put me at ease in the immediate aftermath of his departure. I’d seen too many days in 2015 and 2016 where he wouldn’t eat for days at a time, making it difficult for me to eat without a sense of guilt. Sometimes I didn’t eat either. I hoped those awful habits had been reversed the moment he got home to her.
“Rafe?” my psychologist called, standing in the doorway of the private lounge. She pushed her glasses up over the short, silver hair and beamed at me. Dr. Ehrmann was a middle-aged Israeli woman with the figure of a twenty-year-old and all the sagacity of a centenarian. Long ago she’d told me to call her Naomi because we were more like acquaintances. We had bonded over my Hebrew script tattoo upon first meeting in 2016, since her family were Jewish and my dad’s side was aswell. Although at some point in college she had defected, and now leaned towards a more agnostic worldview.
“How are things?” She grinned, grey eyes alight with a maternal affinity. “Nice hat.”
“Thanks.” I removed my worn Dodgers baseball cap and fiddled with it. “Yeah, things are good. How’ve you been?”
“Wonderful. Happy to see you again.”
I approached and kissed each of her cheeks. She smelled like musky perfume and hairspray. Her short grey locks gleamed beneath the glasses at the crown of her head, lending her a gamine appeal that only intensified her allure.
“Keeping out of trouble I hope,” she didn’t have an accent because she’d been shipped here as a kid and grew up with relatives. She reminded me of Natalie Portman.
“Always,” I muttered, following her down the hall past oversized still life paintings. Soon we bent into a commodious office that was minimally furnished. Not a singlePost-itlay out of place. Her OCD was apparent, as was her love of floral prints and high-end oil diffusers.
I plopped down on a sofa covered in large blue flowers, refusing to lie on the chaise because I hated to feel like a patient. She encouraged an informal camaraderie over the doctor-patient dynamic, and it was effective. It made me unload on her like she was an old friend and not someone paid by the hour to clinically dissect my life.
Everything was cold and sterile. Particularly the outsized, steel-finished desk that looked as though it was made of lead. A glisteningNewton’s Cradlesat atop it. I usually set the balls in motion the minute I walked in, but it slipped my mind today.
“It’s warm out,” Naomi said, removing her cardigan. “Much better,” she sighed, grabbing a pad and pen from the desk and joining me on the sofa. She liked to close the distance, and sometimes she liked to touch. It helped me to feel looked after.
“Coffee?”
“M’good, thanks. Had too much before I got here. Can I get you any?”
“I’m over-caffeinated too.”
“How’s Jamie?”
I spotted his pictures along the wall adjacent to the desk. He was her only child and an American prodigy. A senior in high school and a state-qualified wrestler—in the top 3 or top 5 contenders; I couldn’t remember which. But she loved to talk about him as much as I loved to talk about music, and sometimes before our sessions we exchanged anecdotes.
“Oh, you know, still trying to decide where he wants to go in the Fall. He swears it’ll alter the course of his life if he chooses wrong, so he keeps vacillating. Worrying himself sick. I told him if he doesn’t make up his mind, he won’t be able to go anywhere. Admission deadlines are nonnegotiable.”
“What’s he torn between?”
“We've narrowed it down to two lanes of thought, per se. Either wrestling or academics. In which case he leans toward Ohio State for wrestling, and Stanford for the rest.”
“Tell him to choose Stanford. I’ve never heard of the other one.” We laughed.
“Any news today?”
“Not really,” I played it coy, picking at my thumbnail.
“Rafe?” She smiled. “I know that look. What’s up, bub?”
