Critique the Critiquer

Just to be fair, we figured we'd give you a chance to slash us, er, I mean help us improve our work. This chapter is Gina's. It's excerpted from a novel rejected across the board by CBA publishers and is now shelved. It was her second manuscript. She's currently at work on number five.

What stands out to you which could be improved? We'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions. Don't worry, Gina's skin is even thicker than her skull.

A Demon, a Diva and a Dog Named Dirk

The psychiatrist scribbled something in the notebook resting on his crossed knee. “What made you finally call me?”

Valencia Shannon lay on her back, trying to ignore the lumps of couch cushion jutting into her spine. She gazed at the particles of dust frolicking in a stream of sunlight filtering in through the A-framed ceiling’s wood beams. “Before she died, my Mom told me if the voice ever came back, she’d take me to see you. That any other doctor would label me schizophrenic and wrap me in a straight-jacket.”

She propped herself onto her elbow and faced him. “Well, it’s back.” As she waited for him to say something insightful, she eyed a painting of a man riding a winged horse into the blazing sun … upside down. She turned to look at another painting, this one of a mother cradling an infant, also facing south. Craning her neck, she scanned the room. A half-dozen oil paintings, all expensive looking, all framed in gilded gold … all hanging upside down.

The doctor cleared his throat in an exaggerated manner, then tossed his notebook across the cocktail table, knocking over a small potted ivy. Dirt flecked with white spilled over a yellowed National Geographic. “You’re insane.”

The heat of anger mixed with embarrassment set a fire under her and she bolted upright, planting her feet on the thread-worn rug. “Excuse me?”

The psychiatrist peered over his finger-smudged bifocals at her, looking as bored as a human could stand. “That wasn’t one of your auditory hallucinations, Ms. Shannon, I said you’re nuttier than a Snickers bar.”

She wrinkled her face in horrified disbelief. It had taken all the courage she had to admit she heard things no one else did. Terrible, frightening, things. After twenty-two years of denial, she finally mustered the courage to tell someone, other than her late-mother, that she was different than other girls. His reaction was the one she feared most.

I shouldn’t have come.

Tears threatened to strangle her words. “That’s not what you told my mother.”

The over-sized plaid chair he sat in made him seem even scrawnier than his one hundred fifty pound frame. He un-crossed his polyester covered legs and didn’t bother to cover his yawn. This rude twerp was the man her mother shared her secrets with?

He stared at her with eyes a little too close set, magnified to twice their actual size by thick lenses. Maybe she was missing something. If Mom felt comfortable with him, then he had to be all right, didn’t he? Yet her instincts screamed that this was all wrong. He was all wrong.

“If your mother heard voices, then she was loony too.”

“What do you mean if?”

She threw a glance at the desk littered with stacks of ancient, leather-bound books and re-read his brass nameplate just to be sure—Dr. Bartholomew Stein. Maybe there was more than one psychiatrist in Arlington by that name? “You don’t remember my mother, Kelly Shannon?”

He sucked in his lips then blew them back out, making an unexpected display of raspberries. She thrust back to avoid being soaked by his flying spittle. He jerked his head back and forth on his narrow shoulders like a human pendulum. “Kelly … jelly … welly … Kelly.” Without warning, he jumped up, threw his arms out airplane-style, and began ‘flying’ around the room.

All hope of his assistance dissolved. She grabbed her coat and bag and headed for the door. “If I’m a Snickers, you’re a Payday.”

As she reached for the knob, the door swung open and a white-haired man dressed in a thick cardigan and fat, brown tie stared back at her. “Sorry I’m late, Valencia.” His gaze darted from her, to the askew paintings, finally resting on the human 747. His tone took on a crisp edge. “Marvin, what have we talked about?”

The plane landed. “I’m just filling in. Marvin likes to help. Marvin likes to pretend.”

The white-haired man, Valencia now presumed to be the real Dr. Stein, shot her an apologetic glance, then headed toward the painting ahead of him and turned it upright. “I know Marvin likes to help, but I’ve asked Marvin,” he hung his head for the briefest moment, then turned around, “—you—I’ve asked you twice before not to enter my office. You’re job is to simply ask patients to sign the book and have a seat.”

Marvin jutted an accusatory finger in her direction. “She’s crazy. She hears voices.”

The doctor pushed Marvin’s finger down. “Not everyone who hears voices is crazy, Marvin.”

“Marvin hears voices.”

Dr. Stein gently lifted the glasses off him. “Though some are.”

“Marvin feels sad.”

The doctor drew a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed the lenses clean. “That’s called remorse. It’s normal and shows me you’re sorry.”

Marvin looked up with wide, adoring eyes. “I’m normal?”

Dr. Stein slid his bifocals on and blinked at Marvin an uncomfortably long time. “It’s normal to be sorry for something you’ve done wrong. And this was wrong, Marvin. One more time and I’m going to have to let you go.”

“I’m not fired then?”

“The next time you impersonate me, you will be.”

Marvin’s grin threatened to split his face. He gave one more celebratory flight around the room, zig-zagging between the couch, chairs and finally circling Valencia as she clenched her arms to her side to avoid being hit. Dr. Stein held the door open and Marvin tilted his wings, then made a bizarre exit.

Dr. Stein locked the door behind him and turned to Valencia, his brow creased with concern. “I should know better than to leave my door unlocked. Did he do much damage?”

“He told me I was nuttier than a Snickers.”

Shaking his head, his expression hinted of mirth. “If you’re a Snickers, he’s a Payday.”

She set her purse back down. “That’s exactly what I said!”

A dimple on his left cheek sank into white stubble. “Great minds think alike.” He paused and gave her an odd, scrutinizing look. “You bear an uncanny resemblance to your mother … I miss her.”

Her stomach tightened. “So do I.”

He held out his arm toward the tattered, burgundy sofa, sending a hint of Old Spice her way. “Please have a seat.”

Following his direction, she made her way back to the couch.

He sat in the chair Marvin occupied earlier, though it didn’t swallow him as it did the smaller man. His mouth twisted into a cross between grin and grimace. “So, you’re ready to admit you have the gift?”

Valencia licked her lips, tasting the strawberry of her gloss. “Gift?”

He chuckled, shaking his head as though remembering bygone times. “That’s what your father called it anyway.”

“What did my mother call it?”

His smile died. “A curse.”

She took in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the freshest air she’d had in a very long time. Mom may have tolerated her calling, but she hadn’t embraced it either. The thought gave Valencia surprising comfort. Memories played in her mind like an old movie-reel. The countless times she had to make excuses to friends who saw her “talking to herself”. The guidance counselor she had to convince that she’d only been joking when she told her friend that she heard voices. No, not voices, just one. “I’m ready to admit the voice I hear may be real.”

“That’s a start.” He looked down, his chin nearly touching his sternum, a wisp of white hair flopping forward from his head.

The tick of the cuckoo clock hanging above his chair measured the passing time. When seconds turned into minutes, her impatience ebbed. “What are you doing?”

He peered up with glistening eyes. “I’m praying for you, Ms. Shannon. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

She wrung her hands together and studied him, hoping to gauge his meaning without having to ask.

Suddenly he stood and tugged on the hem of his cardigan to pull it back over his rounded belly. “Our time’s up.”

Warmth flooded over her. “But I have an hour appointment.”

“Sorry, but Marvin needs me.” As soon as the words left his mouth, a dramatic sob bounded from the other side of the closed door.

“How did you—”

He unbuttoned his sweater, removed it, and slid it over the shoulders of his desk chair. “I’m not psychic, Valencia, I’ve treated Marvin long enough to know the sequence of his episodes. We’ll talk again. Please make an appointment with my secretary on your way out.”

She squinted at him. “But, isn’t that Marvin?”