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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497638006 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 226 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
She is the author of four young adult novels, including Skeeball and the Secret of the Universe (1987, Orchard Press), Dixie Storms (1990, HBJ), Fool’s Hill (1992, Bantam), and the mystery House Across the Cove (1995, Bantam). Her previous novels include A Better Place (1992), Close to Home (1997), and A Summons to New Orleans, all published by Simon & Schuster.
Barbara Hall lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with her daughter Faith.
Barbara Hall is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and television producer. She is the creator and producer of the Emmy-nominated television series Joan of Arcadia. Her TV writing and producing credits include Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope, and Judging Amy.
She is the author of four young adult novels, including Skeeball and the Secret of the Universe (1987, Orchard Press), Dixie Storms (1990, HBJ), Fool’s Hill (1992, Bantam), and the mystery House Across the Cove (1995, Bantam). Her previous novels include A Better Place (1992), Close to Home (1997), and A Summons yo New Orleans, all published by Simon & Schuster.
Barbara Hall lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with her daughter Faith.
Read an Excerpt
Charisma
By Barbara Hall
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2013 Barbara HallAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-3800-6
CHAPTER 1
Before Dr. David Sutton has taken a seat across from me I have a good read on him. Middle child, insecure about his height, insecure about his lack of athleticism, he overcompensated in academics. His father never considered a degree in psychiatry a real medical degree. He's not a real doctor as one of his brothers—or worse, sisters—might be. He keeps a lid on all this by being organized and controlled and he never lets loose except for a glass or two of spirits when he comes home. The alcohol is to help him deal with his loveless relationship. His girlfriend (she won't marry him or he won't ask) is in a similar profession but does a little better than he does. She buys his clothes but he won't venture outside his two or three conservative looks and he takes back the motorcycle boots and the leather jackets and this becomes one of those things they like to joke about but his lack of adventure is festering now and she is going to the gym a lot, dreaming of fake boobs and looking around. Her name is a J name. She has curly hair but she straightens it. They never have sex.
I know all this on my own, looking at his body language and expressions. Only the name and the hair come to me as a kind of vision. I don't fire up the charisms all the time. In fact, I mostly try to keep them battened down. This is what I try to explain to people. If I could get them to stop, I would. I can't get them to stop. When you say that to caring professionals, you end up where I am, in Something Or Other Rehabilitation Center in Get Lost, California. I don't mind. I'm in the trauma ward. I don't have to be around addicts. They keep us separated. I like crazy people so much better. Addicts just lie and manipulate. Crazy people have color and imagination and the thing is, some of us aren't actually crazy, we're just right.
Dr. David Sutton has thinning blond hair and nice eyes. These are his calling card. His resting face is a poker face. This is something he taught himself.
"Hello, Ms. Lange. I'm Dr. David Sutton."
"I know."
He smiles and writes.
"I know because they told me you were coming. I don't actually know everything."
He doesn't say anything. He repositions his glasses—Calvin Klein, black, rectangular, a little hipper than he is, picked out by J. He's not comfortable with them yet. He keeps his wire rims in the bedside drawer and is planning to go back to them once he's given these a reasonable test drive.
"How are you feeling today?" he asks.
"I'm fine. Do we have to do this part?"
"What part?"
"The social part."
"You don't like to be social?"
"I find it exhausting. I'm an INFJ. The Meyers-Briggs test?"
"I know. It's in your records."
"Then why are you making me do the small-talk part?"
"We can jump in if you'd like."
"Shoot."
"Do you know why you're here?"
"Yes."
He waits.
"Why are you here?"
"I volunteered to come here."
"Why?"
"I didn't feel safe at home."
"Why?"
"You know why."
"Because of the voices?"
"I didn't call them voices."
He looks at his records. "The guides. That's what you call them?"
"That's what they call themselves. And it's not because of them, exactly."
He writes. He looks up and fools with his glasses.
"What do they look like?"
"I can't see them."
"So these aren't visions."
"They're voices."
"I thought you said they weren't."
"I said I didn't call them that. On the form. So I wondered how you knew."
"I see," he says.
"I do have visions sometimes but not of the guides. And they aren't so much voices as a presence. The voices are like my own thoughts. Except they're not."
I can hear how badly I'm explaining this. But it's not as if there's some concise way to get it across. There's not a language for it.
"Do they tell you to do things?"
"Not unless I ask. Then they only make suggestions."
"Can you describe some of the suggestions?"
I sigh. It's exhausting, talking about it. Why did I think talking about it would be a relief?
"It's small stuff usually. They'll tell me what route to take when I'm driving. What to eat. Who's calling when the phone rings. If I'm going to get a package, if someone is going to visit. If I'm getting sick and why. In fact, they don't talk that often. I have to make them talk. The rest of the time, I just get these mental images. A picture in my mind will flash and I'll know what to do."
"Can you give me an example?"
"I'm seeing Indian food right now."
"Indian food?"
"Chicken Tikka Masala. I can also smell it. It's a suggestion of what I should have for lunch."
"How do you know that's not just you wanting Indian food for lunch?"
"Because I'm not hungry and I don't really like Indian food."
"Why would they want you to have it?"
"My body needs it for some reason. There are all kinds of medicinal properties in Indian food. I've probably been exposed to a little virus."
He writes and shifts in his seat. It's not an actual squirm but it's close.
"What do you mean when you say you have to make them talk?" he asks.
"I have to be in the right kind of energetic place. I have to get rid of distractions and raise my calibrations. I usually do that through meditation but there are other ways. Sometimes if I go for a walk—if I'm in nature with not a lot of people around—the guides will just fire up. Sometimes I like it. Most of the time I like it. When they go away I miss them."
"When do they go away?"
"When I'm distracted. When my calibrations are low."
"What makes your calibrations low?"
"Distractions. Should we back up? I feel like this is not really landing."
"Well, Ms. Lange, it's a lot."
"I know. You can call me Sarah."
"I'd rather not."
"Okay, then call me Violet."
"Why?"
I shrug. "Just thrashing around for a name you might like."
He actually smiles for the first time.
"I like Sarah just fine but it works much better if we are not on a first-name basis. I'm a believer in boundaries."
"Oh, I know."
He doesn't know what to do with that. He struggles to get back on course.
While he's staring at his records I blurt out, "Jennifer."
He looks up slowly. Like he doesn't want to know. But he needs to know. That's how people mostly respond to me.
"I'm sorry. I knew it was a J name. It came to me. I'm sorry. I know it's like trespassing."
"I'm not sure what you're talking about."
"Your girlfriend's name isn't Jennifer?"
Blood leaves his face and then rushes back in. He's cute red.
"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't discuss my personal life with others."
"I'm not. I'm discussing it with you."
"Ms. Lange, do you think I believe that you somehow know my girlfriend's name?
You asked around."
"Asked who?"
"Anyone."
"I didn't ask anyone."
"She works here. It's common knowledge. You haven't dredged up some great secret."
"She works here?"
"On the addiction side. That's how you know her name."
"All right."
I don't tell him that we never socialize with the addicts. Sometimes we take walks in the same garden but we mostly don't like each other. I couldn't care less who drops by to see them.
But I blame myself. I know better than to blurt things out.
"Wait until asked," a therapist named Heather told me, back before I understood what was happening. I kept telling people things about themselves that I thought might help and it just agitated them and in most cases caused them to leave. "Wait until asked," she said, "and then you can tell them anything you want."
That was a great rule. I embraced it. Three weeks later I came into her office and said, "No one ever asks."
"Exactly." She smiled.
That philosophy actually worked for a long time. But now people are asking. Dr. David Sutton in particular.
"Can we get back to the spirit guides?" he asks.
"Yes."
"When did they start talking to you?"
"They've always tried to talk to me, I guess. I shut them down when it started to create problems for me."
"And when was that?"
"As a child. It terrified my parents, the things I knew. When I talked about what was happening to me, they threatened to take me to the doctor. I hated the doctor because he molested me and gave me shots."
"He molested you?"
"Later in life. I guess it was just the shots I hated."
"How did he molest you?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"I think it's important."
"Okay, he was just a dirty old man and he asked women to take their tops off no matter what we were there to see him about. He would give us unnecessary breast exams. It's tawdry. I hate talking about it. He did it to everyone. It took me years to figure out what to call it because when I was a young girl in the South, they didn't really have molestation. It didn't have a name. It wasn't really a crime. Rape was a bad date."
"Were you also raped?"
"Look, I was raised in a small town in the South by uneducated people. There was a lot of unsavory stuff. Creepy uncles, bad doctors, dirty cops, lecherous teachers. It's what happens in a place where no one is watching. But this is not about that."
"You're the one who brought up your childhood."
"Only in relation to the voices. I had this thing where I could kind of hear people's thoughts. I had dreams that came true. I guess I was what they call clairvoyant. I think I remember seeing dead people, too. But I talked about it and it freaked everyone out and put me at risk. So I shut it down for my own survival. I didn't understand this until recently. When I started hearing from the guides again. But I don't want to go back to primordial ooze, my bad childhood, all that crap. It's a waste of time."
"There may be a connection, Ms. Lange. Between childhood trauma and your relationship with the guides."
"Like I made them up to escape my circumstances? And I'm still doing that at thirty-eight years old?"
"I want to consider everything."
"Go ahead. Do you think we could go outside so I can smoke?"
"In a moment. I'd like to make some more progress here."
From the window in this office I can see the flowers in the courtyard. I can see some addicts sitting on a bench smoking and gesturing wildly as they talk. They are talking about their disease. They are talking about how no one understands.
"So the guides began to talk to you when you were little and then you shut them down."
"Yes. I didn't know they were guides. I didn't know what they were. Just voices. Actually, it just sounds like your own thoughts until you challenge them. Then you realize these are thoughts that are being given to you. From somewhere else."
"When you say shut them down ... how did you do that?"
"I don't know how to explain it. I just stopped listening. I stopped looking. And I figured out some techniques. I figured out how to leave my body."
"How?"
"Distractions."
"What kind?"
"Any kind. When I was young I would sing a song in my head and I would focus on the song and then nothing that was happening around me was happening. Later I would recite things. A sentence. A word. It's just a trick but it always worked. Then I lost control of it."
"What part?"
"The dissociation part."
"You would leave your body without meaning to?"
"Bingo."
"Are you in your body now?"
I stare at him as if he's the one who belongs in my seat. "Of course."
Be patient, the guides say. He's not like you.
I don't give him any sign that I'm hearing something. I know how to do that.
"Why do you say of course?" he asks.
"I'm sorry. I always think people know my interior mind."
He stares intently. "Because you know theirs."
I smile. "Occupational hazard."
He doesn't smile back.
He says, "Do you leave your body often now?"
"No. I got in trouble for it as a kid. When people see you staring at the wall like you're in a trance, or when you start sleepwalking in a chronic way, back to the doctor. So there goes that. Eventually, I got interested in boys and school and somehow that made all the mystical stuff go away. I became rooted in reality. I was just like the rest of you folks and that's where I stayed until recently."
"How recently?"
"Two years ago. I had an accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"Bad."
He waits.
"It's in my file somewhere," I say.
He writes.
"Are you afraid of the voices?" he asks.
"No. I love them."
"If they asked you to do something bad ...?"
"They wouldn't."
"But if they did."
"Then I would know it was not them. And I would shut that down."
"Who would it be if it weren't them?"
"It doesn't matter. Just not them. I would ignore any negative force, anything that didn't make me feel good. It's about feeling, Dr. Sutton. An energetic experience. If something feels neutral or better, I go with it. Anything below that, I ignore."
He's writing very quickly now. I have a million things to say to him. It all wants to come tumbling out.
He's not ready.
I really want a cigarette.
Then go have a cigarette.
He won't let me.
Ask him again.
"Dr. Sutton, I'd really like to have that cigarette now."
"All right. I'm almost finished here. One more question and we'll be done for today."
"Shoot."
"If the voices don't scare you and don't ask you to do anything bad, why don't you feel safe?"
It's a good question.
"It's complicated."
"Did you think you were going to harm yourself?"
"It crossed my mind."
"Why?"
"I'm homesick."
He doesn't ask for where. He is catching on.
CHAPTER 2David lets himself into his small house in Venice and calls out, "Jen?" There's no answer and he's relieved. Lately, he has not wanted to see Jen for a good thirty minutes after he comes home from work. He needs to decompress. Lately, in fact, he can go longer and longer without seeing her. They don't spend every night together. She goes to her condo in Malibu for long periods of time. They don't talk about the fact that they are doing this.
He pours a scotch neat and sits on his couch and flips through his mail. Then he walks upstairs to his roof deck and stares at the wind-tossed ocean. It's gray and there are surfers in it, though they aren't catching any waves, just thrashing around. It's cold. The choppy waves look as if little bombs are going off in the water. The surfers are laughing, he imagines, at their hapless efforts.
He would like to try surfing. He pretends that he's too busy but he's really afraid of the elements and sea creatures. He's afraid of getting hurt. He's afraid. He's not sure why he insists on projecting his fears onto things when he knows that being afraid is just a state of mind and the targets are moving.
It would be more productive to admit that he is overly fearful and try to address that so he can live a bigger life. In fact, he decides he's going to do that. He's conquered fears before. He was afraid to choose psychiatry when he was in medical school. He was afraid to ask Jen out when he first met her. There was a time when he had an embarrassing fear of bees. He cured himself with aversion therapy, working in a bee farm, letting them crawl all over his face and arms. He was covered head to toe but it was still terrifying and the fear somehow invigorated him. How hard could surfing be?
Below him, Jen is walking toward the house, her arms full of things. Books and papers and envelopes and files. He doesn't understand why she has so much paper. He confronts her about this sometimes.
"I'm old school," she says proudly.
"You're too young to be old school," he tells her. They are both forty.
"I'm not talking about years, David. I'm talking about being a tactile person. I'm old school that way. The computer is alienating. I feel like it's shouting at me."
And then he usually drops the discussion.
He lives on a walk street right off the Venice boardwalk where there are little houses, most of them built in the thirties. His is Craftsman style. He added the roof deck himself though it was difficult getting the permit. These three little walk streets are really all that are left of the era when Venice Beach had houses and quaint neighborhoods. Other than the canals, the waterfront is nothing but apartment buildings and businesses.
His neighborhood is old school.
"Davey, I'm here," Jen calls from downstairs.
"Yes, I saw you."
"Is it nice up there? It's a little windy."
"I'll come down."
Jen has dropped her books on the kitchen table and now she is pouring a glass of wine. "I have to work tonight," she says.
"All right."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Charisma by Barbara Hall. Copyright © 2013 Barbara Hall. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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