It doesn’t look like a shrink’s office.  

It’s one of those pastel painted straight-up-in the-air wooden houses perched precariously on a hill and jammed in-between two similar buildings on Dolores Street, not too far off Market.  There’s a god-awful amount of gingerbread and the Easter Egg color hovers nauseatingly just this side of either blush or bashful~~  I’m not really up on my Southern tear-jerk movies at the moment.  It isn’t quite cheerful enough to be Pepto-Bismol, but it stands ready to take that lunge any moment.   

I feel queasy just looking at it and I am once again grateful for my darker than black shades and I slide them back up my nose as I ease the door shut on the rental and pause to read the ornately painted wooden sign dangling from the white metal post in the postage stamp sized yard.   

Unfortunately, it tells me nothing.  I haven’t got brain cells enough to decipher the curlicues and it’s just as likely to say, “Madame ButtWart, Tarot Reader” as it is, “K. Legaspi, MD”.  Great.  If I’m lucky I’ve misread the map and I’ll end up having my palm examined, instead of my head.  Won’t the Department and my Lieutenent love that being mailed back to Texas.  And doesn’t “Dolores” mean miserable in Spanish?  If I had to see a psychiatrist, couldn’t they have hooked me up with one closer to the bay, preferably next door to a bar?   

I flinch and involuntarily grab my head at a horn blast on the street behind me.  The woman being castigated for daring to cross in front of them merrily lifts a hand and waves in apology, then turns it into a one finger salute once they’ve got her in the rear view.  She’s finishing up a half pint of ice cream and pauses at the curb, digging at the bottom with the deep pink spoon and studying me under a bright gold tangle of wavy hair.   

“Lost?” she asks finally and I sigh because there is no way I am ever that lucky.  Send me out to buy two hits of speed and I’ll stumble straight into the freaking meth lab.  With my head.  Just before it explodes.   

“I’m looking for Dr. Legaspi’s office.” 

She smiles and gestures with the empty half pint at the blush and bashful monstrosity before us.   

“Ah.” I say and sigh again.  And then, “Could it be pinker?”  

She puts her head to one side gazing at it with wide blue eyes.   

“I don’t think so,” she says finally, turning back and winking at me.  Then she lifts the empty cup at me in a sort of half-salute, ambles left down the sidewalk and up a steep set of stairs identical to the ones I am parked in front of, disappearing into the shadows of a deep-set front porch.  At least she had the sense to have painted it a nice soothing shade, something between lavender and smoke.  I hear a door bang as she enters and I push myself up off the piece of shit Cavalier they gave me at the airport, mentally steeling myself for the ordeal ahead.   

Just go in, lay down some bullshit, nod when it seems appropriate, lift an eyebrow now and then to feign attention and get this shit over with.  All there is to it.  Piece of cake I could eat standing on my head.  

They’ve sent whatever files there are on me ahead; they’re in the clutches of Dr. K. Legaspi who has probably read them in a state of near orgasmic bliss and covered them with smears I’d rather not contemplate too deeply. It is my fate in life to be eternally fascinating to pudgy men with damp hands if they’ve ever even used a urinal in a mental facility.  There’s some quality of traumatic bravado about me that has made me the poster girl for resolute dysfunctional sanity.  Doctors, teachers, lovers, dealers~~  They all eat it up.  With a spoon.  It is what has made me so good at going under.  I am gifted with the innate, exhausting ability to give every single person exactly what they want; patient, student, horn-dog, crazy girl.  I should have cards printed up.   

The door in front of me is closed and it’s a regular storm door, with glass and a wooden door behind it, open.  I hesitate, with my hand fisted and glance around for a button or bell or intercom, but then decide fuck it~~  It’s a business.  I have an appointment with Dr. K. Legaspi and he can just damn well deal with me striding in.  And I am, of course, my usual half hour late.  It’s difficult to abandon old habits even when not yet on assignment and ravers and speed freaks and coke heads (oh my) are never on time to anything except a drug deal.  

It looks more like a living room or parlor than a waiting room.  There’s a sofa and two armchairs and a rocker and a wall full of shelves jammed with books and a window facing the street filled with plants.  There is not, thank god, a single sign of pink; the muted silvers, grays and plums are touched off with deep hunter green used sparingly.  Obviously, Dr. Legaspi couldn’t stomach close contact with that revolting shade either.  

There is no desk and no receptionist and I hesitate, removing my shades and clearing my throat a couple of times to announce my half-hour late presence.  There is someone coming up from a back room and I press my arm against my side so I can feel the Glock in it’s shoulder holster snug against my right rib cage beneath the black leather jacket.   

It’s been 3 months since I was under but the wariness, the caution and suspicion do not simply turn off once the cases are made and the busts in progress.  If anything you slip into deeper paranoia because now you know you’ve made enemies and burned bridges.  When you’re just another bored thirty something female who looks twenty something and likes to party in a major way you are not in nearly as much danger as after you reveal yourself as a narc.  That’s when the real fun begins; the hang up calls, the death threats, the “bitch” spray painted on the side of your apartment, your car keyed, some poor stray cat left mangled and gutted on the welcome mat outside your front door.  They don’t even have to write, “This could be you,” but sometimes they do anyway.    

I’m too transfixed on my own internal warning bells and trying to turn them off to realize that I’m not alone in the room any longer and when I look up I’m stunned to see the blonde ice-cream eating chickie less than two feet away from me, smiling.   

She sticks a hand out in greeting.   

“Dr. Kim Legaspi,” she says, still beaming at me and I don’t quite whack myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand, but it’s a close call.   

“Oh shit.”  I say. 

She cocks her head to one side and nods, still grinning and I finally get my hand out there and she grips it, firmly, shakes it the same, then drops it, still grinning at me.   

“Oh shit.” I say again. 

“Yeah,” she says and lifts her eyebrows and then waits, pointedly.  

“Oh,” I say, finally recognizing my cue.  “Cooper.  Cooper Finn.”  

She waves an airy hand in the direction of the armchairs and then hangs back, and I know this game.  I’m meant to choose a chair and she is going to decipher some vital element of my personality and mental health according to my choice.   I’m still flustered and embarrassed about my Pink Rant outside and I stop in mid-stride and half turn back to her.   

Her brows are lifted in mild surprise, but she waits politely. 

“Connected at the back?” I hear myself ask and am mildly annoyed with myself that I am stalling the choosing of chairs.  There is no way I can sit in either of them; they face opposite directions.  One and my back is to the door and the street outside it.  The other and my back is to the rear of the house from which I have already seen someone emerge who had just recently been on the street.  What’s a paranoid narcotics officer to do?   

Blue eyes narrow slightly and she blinks, but she makes the leap onto my train of thought gracefully.   

“Yes.  More of a covered walkway than an actual adjoining hall, but it seemed a lot easier than trekking out from one to the other several times given the rain and fog here.  I’m plenty curly headed enough already.” She smiles at the end of the statement and slides her eyes towards the chairs in a silent request for me to be seated.   

I’m wanting to ask if there is a fence between the two houses; I can’t remember it if there is but then I am not used to the way San Francisco homes are built right against one another.  The “covered walkway” couldn’t be longer than three feet from one building to the other anyway.  How freaking damp can it be out here?  I’m wanting to ask if there’s a fence because I want to know if that rear door is easily accessible from the street as well as from the other building; I’m dying to ask if she keeps the door back there locked and dead bolted after each and every entrance.  But this is entirely too much voluntary information to hand over to a head doctor.  God knows she’s got plenty to go on from that file.   

I compromise.  I take the rocker which is facing forward into the room so I can see both the front door and the hallway which is to my left once I’m seated.  It’s a bit further back from the armchairs and it’s obvious my choice has startled her; the rocker was not really part of the equation.  She recovers nicely after a blink or two, then lounges comfortably back in the chair on my left and curls a leg up beneath herself.  

“So, Ms. Cooper Finn,” she begins, “What brings you here?” 

I don’t even pause.   

“A direct order.” I reply and am rewarded with another blink before the wide mouth curls up at the corners in a wry grin. 

“Touché,” she says, then leans back and waits.  Oh God, I think.  One of those. 

“Excuse me?” It’s not until I notice she’s frowning at me slightly, and her body language has changed from relaxed to alert that I realize in horror I’ve said it out loud. 

This is not going well at all.  Why couldn’t they have just made me report to the Department's Psychological Services at the Academy instead of sending me to this calm, collected drop-dead gorgeous stranger in a city I have only been in for two days?  I’m supposed to be descending into narc mode, staying up all night, sleeping all day, sharpening my paranoia, breeding dark circles beneath my eyes while scouting out rave and party sites and perusing the I.I. files of five different SFPD officers to zero myself in on the One Most Likely to be dipping and sniffing out of the evidence locker and they’ve stuck me getting psych counseling in on top of all that.  Why?   

Because they’re thinking it’s going to take more than one time to get you all shrinky-dinked, Finn, my head supplies me with.   Fair enough. 

She’s still waiting on me, patiently, but the foot not tucked beneath her is swinging in low controlled circles now.  Dr. Kim Legaspi has a temper and I am annoying her.  I allow myself a small thrill of satisfaction; being annoying is one of my strong points.  

“One of ‘those’?”, she prods me, and the foot swings a little more ferociously. 

I sigh and push myself up out of the rocker.   

“You know, the kind of shrink that sits back and hopes the patient will get uncomfortable enough to spill their guts straight out.  The kind that answers every statement with a question.” I slide my eyes to hers and wait to see if she’ll take the bait, but she has collected herself and merely gazes back at me.  But that foot is really going now.  Oh goody.  A hard headed shrink with a temper.   

There’s a desk at the rear of the room, set into a sort of deep alcove which juts L shaped off from the main layout of the building.  The window to the left of it is large and looks out onto a square of bright green grass, a tree, some kind of bush covered at the moment with enormous purple-pink blooms and all that just past the shade of the walkway.  It’s not closed in, but then at least it as at the rear of both buildings and this is after all San Francisco and the home/office of a well-known psychiatrist who probably has some sort of sophisticated alarm system installed.  I am hoping so anyway, because I can see the back door to the right of me out the window and it looks disturbingly like just an ordinary wood and glass kitchen door.   

Ah, there it is.  A manila folder with my name on it.  Lying wide open displaying yellow copies of reports and white sheets of typed evals and speckled about with pale blue post it notes littered with black ink.  Black ink because of course the Department frowns upon ink of any other color.  Which is why I routinely turn in all my stuff in purple.  Sometimes scented purple.   

She’s stood and is walking towards the desk and me slowly.  Wide open and it is, after all, my file.  I don’t even pretend to not be reading it as I stand there, lifting the top page and feeling the heady rush of adrenaline and anger making my skin feel cold at the same time I go hot from head to toe.  Hyper-vigilant, I read.  Paranoid.  Jesus fucking Christ, they send you into situations where a single wrong word or look can get you killed even if you’re an honest to god junkie and not a cop, then they rack you for being “hyper vigilant” and “paranoid”.  

“You really shouldn’t leave your door unlocked,” I tell her, in a conversational tone as she pauses at the entrance of the little office area, and leans against the alcove’s doorway.  “Somebody could just walk in and then be waiting for you.”   

There’s an amused noise from her and I glance up at her briefly before I go back to turning pages in the file they sent.  Refuses to participate in the promotional process, I read. Displays distinct insubordination when dealing with superiors.  Rebellious.  

“I came over from the house and unlocked it,” she tells me.  “I was out back when I heard the door.  There’s an electric buzzer wired in.” 

I look out the window again and pick the file up as I move to the left of the alcove for a better view of “out back”.  It’s larger than I had first thought, probably because it is the two yards combined and I see there’s a hammock stretched out between two trees at the far right.  It’s occupied.  Someone small, with reddish hair, although most of that is covered with a straw gardening hat.  The foot edging out of the light colored pants and dangling down off the side is bare and, judging from the bone structure, belongs to a female.  I look back down at the folder.   

Volatile. Frenetic energy, misdirected at times. Disassociated. 

What the fuck is “frenetic energy”? 

“I’m going to add ‘insufferably nosy and arrogant’”, she tells me mildly, taking the folder out of my hands and laying it firmly back down on her desk, closed.  She punctuates this with a little glare and steps back gesturing me into the other room.   

I ignore the unspoken command and sit in the overstuffed chair to the left, realizing as I sit that it’s a recliner and quite comfortable, affording an excellent view of the yard.  Perfect spot to relax after a hard day shrinking heads.  I lean it into reclining and thread my fingers together and pop all ten or fifteen knuckles in one move, then fold my hands across my midsection and look up at her.  She is really, really irritated with me now.  Maybe she’ll kick me out and I can tell the Department, Oops, sorry.  It’s not like they’re going to call me back to Texas and spend more money on another flight for another narc.  The Department is all about budget.  Any Department, whether it’s in Texas or San Francisco.   

I wonder if she’ll take the lumbar-enforced stenographer’s chair in front of the desk.  This is the fun part of being hyper-vigilant, yet disassociated.  You get to decipher and evaluate everyone else’s moves while steadily noting your own from a coolly removed distance.  Sometimes I think maybe I pretend to be more fucked up than I am simply because it’s prime entertainment watching people react to it.  

Dr. Legaspi thwarts me though.  She calmly smiles at me, light colored brows shooting up into her hair line, then pushes off from the doorway and calls over her shoulder, “Do you like your lemonade sweet or tart?”.  In a moment I hear the unmistakable sound of cabinets being opened and a fridge door and when I don’t make a move to follow or answer her she yells from the other room, “You can come on in here.  I don’t have really strict doctor/patient protocol, but damn if I’m going to let you lean back in my chair and control the session.” 

Two distinct words in that immediately piss me off and put me on my feet.  “Doctor/patient” and “session”.   

“I like my lemonade when it’s beer,” I tell her and I don’t exactly stomp into the small kitchen area at the rear, down the hallway, but it’s close. I stop just inside the door and lean up against the wall there, frowning and just to make sure she gets the total picture of how against this I am, I fold my arms across my chest.  Shrinks are real big on body language.  Almost as much as narcs.   

“Look,” I tell her when she pauses and glances up at me from the other side of the butcher block in the center of the kitchen where she’s pouring two glasses of lemonade out of a spotless glass pitcher.  “I don’t want to be here.  I was told to come do this and have you sign off on me so I can get started on my job here.  I’m fine when I’m under.  It’s the bullshit the rest of the time that makes me tired.”  

“Well, then, maybe that bullshit is what we ought to talk about.” 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I practically wail and am tricked into dropping my defensive stance when she holds the glass of lemonade out to me.  “I’m not here for you to treat me or fix me, Dr. Legaspi!  The Department isn’t interested in my mental health.  They just want you to sign off on some papers saying I can handle this job.  They don’t give a rip if I can handle anything other than that.  Just sign the freaking papers and let me get back to my motel room and get to work.” 

She’s walked straight past me back into the front room and over to the little alcove leaving me to trail along behind her, spluttering and flustered.  And she goes straight to the recliner, kicks her shoes off and leans back, eyeing me where I have followed in her wake.  This time I’m the one caught off guard and standing while she sits collected and speculative sipping lemonade.  Jesus!  Beautiful, hard-headed, hot tempered and clever.  This is not good.   

I put my glass down on the desk and slide the folder off and begin flipping through it, searching for the form she needs to sign and fax off to clear me on this job~~  It’ll be a PE something because it’s from Personnel,  I think.  Or, maybe it’ll be an HR for Human Resources.  Or maybe the Department has decided once again just for the hell of it to change all the names and codes of the various forms just to keep everyone on their toes and see who’s reading the directives and updates.  

 I ease myself into the stenographer chair and listen behind me for the sound of the foot rest on the recliner crashing down as Dr. Kim Legaspi leaps up to snatch me bald-headed, but there’s silence.  I find this rather ominous.  And where the fuck is the Release for Duty  Form?   

“It’s over in my residence, along with the rest of your file.” I hear from behind me and for a moment I freeze, petrified.   An undercover narcotics agent who cannot discern when he or she is speaking out loud is a dead cop.   

You’re tired,  my mind supplies while I sit at her desk staring straight ahead at the neat orderly rows of cd’s and cassettes and  video tapes lining the varnished wooden shelves above the desk.  You’re not under yet, you’re in that shitty nowhere limbo lala land just before it.  It’ll click in as soon as you return the files on those five SFPD to their precinct Captains and get your ass out of the fucking Marriott and into whatever dump they’ve rented for you this time.  No way it cannot click in once you’re killing cock roaches up on your kitchen table.  If they even see to it you have a kitchen table this time.   

There’s movement to my left and I fight the urge to draw down, keeping my Glock safely in it’s holster while beating back the waves of panic and adrenaline.  My hands feel like I’ve been recently electrocuted in the armpit though, great surges of energy.   

It’s the hammock woman, I see.  She’s walking with a peculiar lurching gait down the walkway to the right, going towards the residence.  The straw hat is clutched in one hand and then I see the small metal crutch gripped in the other and decipher the reason for her odd movement.  She pauses somewhere near the far end of the window and looks in, seeing Dr. Legaspi seated in the recliner and her face lights up to something radiant.  I spin just far enough around and catch Dr. Legaspi turning a becoming shade of pink and wiggling her fingers in a wave.  I turn back towards the window with much less finesse, and wonder if my face is as surprised as I feel.  God.  I am in deep shit if I don’t start picking up on things better than this!   

The red-head outside is staring at me now, with much less tenderness than Dr. Legaspi had received.  It feels like being x-rayed and slammed back against a wall; the look is that intense.  Shit.  Ex-military I think.  Maybe law enforcement.  Could be FBI, maybe CIA even.  No way anyone with that much sheer presence is just a San Francisco housewife. Even an interesting Lesbian one with a strong-willed feisty knock out of a girlfriend.   

She finally peels that gaze off me and I resist the urge to salute the back of her head, then spin around to face the wall again.  And that’s when I see it.   

It’s a cassette tape.  Audio then.  The date on it is less than a week old and the name printed out on the sticker label in precise blue ink? 

Jinny Exstead. 

 END OF ONE

{~> Crossroads  Next Story, Please <~}