Chasing Sophea: A Novel Read online

  “If this has anything do with last night, I just didn’t feel like it, okay? The world is not going to end because you didn’t get any from your wife.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, Dahl. Are you intimating that I care more about having sex with you than I do about your health? Or perhaps you think I enjoy making love to a vegetable? Woman, you must be losing your mind.”

  “Fuck you, Michael.”

  “I’d love to oblige you, baby, but unfortunately at the moment there’s no time and my desire has waned considerably. Make the appointment, Dahlia, or I’ll make it for you.” Michael turned her head to face him. “And, yes, in case you don’t understand me, I am now officially telling you what to do.”

  Dahlia stared at herself in the mirror for quite some time after she dressed. Michael’s voice seemed to be emanating from everywhere, echoing from her brain, bouncing off the hand-painted tiles in the bathroom … You think I like making love to a vegetable? … You must be losing your mind. What the hell did he know, anyway? Everything in his life had been perfect, no glitches or unexpected bumps in the road, just smooth sailing for him and his precious family. Well, no matter what Michael said. Today, she sensed, was not a good day, and she knew instinctively that once she stepped one foot out the door, it would immediately begin to rain on her head. She’d say the hell with it and stay home if Michael weren’t hovering, waiting to see if she made it to the driveway. It was only a matter of time before he began to follow her to work or slapped one of those steel contraptions around her ankle like she was some runaway convict.

  She fought her first impulse to drive through the alley, sneak back into her own house, and hide underneath the covers until the oddness passed. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on exactly. It was simply a feeling of bewilderment that she couldn’t quite shake. What was happening to her? She used to be able to move from one day to the next with some semblance of comfort. Living, breathing, and loving had never been this difficult. She had a family to take care of, classes to teach, and a business to help run. Those were her priorities, and whatever was happening to her had to take a backseat. So what if she was fatigued? She’d been fatigued all her life and had managed just fine, thank you. She didn’t need some quack to tell her to take a vacation and get more sleep. She’d always managed to expertly cover her tracks when these random spells hit and interrupted her structured life of details.

  She’d have to pull it together so Michael could relax and stop worrying so much. She needed to make him believe that everything was all right. This time she managed to convince herself that he was simply perturbed because she hadn’t returned his affections last night or the night before. Was there some law against a wife being too exhausted to make love with her husband? She assumed that after eight years of marriage, he’d understand that her lack of desire was merely temporary and had nothing whatsoever to do with him. Men were always so dramatic and impatient. They constantly believed the world revolved around them and their needs. Nevertheless, she intended to make it up to him. As soon as this latest spell passed, she planned to seduce him, intrigue him, and make him fall in love with her all over again.

  Dahlia surveyed her restless class and began collecting assignments from the previous week. Many of her colleagues were baffled about her decision to teach; they considered it a waste of time. “It’s not like you need the money,” they’d say. “You can do anything you want.”

  “Exactly,” she’d reply with a smile. She adored teaching and considered it to be something of an art form. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and even below-average students thrived under her tutelage. She had built a successful public relations firm, sold it, and discovered that she still required another venture of sorts to keep her focused, so she began teaching part-time at the city college. She felt calmer—for a while, anyway—and almost normal.

  “All right, all right. Settle down, people. I’m here. My apologies for being late again. It was unavoidable.” Dahlia didn’t much remember what she lectured on after that initial greeting or how long she stood in front of the chalkboard before the unthinkable happened.

  She convinced herself that if she just kept lecturing, no one would notice the warm fluid swirling around her leg, quickly fanning into a bright yellow puddle on the floor. She closed her eyes and willed the entire class to disappear, but when she opened them, they were still there, staring dumbfounded.

  “That’s enough for today,” she whispered in a small voice, yet no one budged.

  And in that moment, the lesson plan in her head vanished, and there was nothing left to recall, no witty anecdote to share, and no new innovative assignment to give. The class remained unmovable, almost appearing cemented to their desks, waiting for the next scene, the next act, or the inevitable conclusion to a play gone wrong. A tense moment passed, and in that space of time, she couldn’t remember why she was there. After peering into startled eyes peering back at her, she decided that there was nothing left for her to do but leave, simply disappear as quickly and unobtrusively as she had arrived. And so, she reached for her purse, grabbed her briefcase, and made damn sure that her cocoa brown suede coat never grazed the miniature pond creeping hopelessly across the floor.

  There came a time in Michael Chang’s life when he knew that he was most likely going to be alone for the long haul, recognized that there would be no wife, no heirs, and no Little League games to attend on Saturday afternoons. Reaching this crucial point was neither difficult nor painful; Michael accepted the inevitability of his aloneness like rain. He didn’t know when complete solitude was coming to settle, but he knew it would show up eventually, armed and with a purpose. He was a forty-year-old accomplished chef with a successful restaurant and a quiet desire for an unfettered life. His life was the way he chose, and he took full responsibility for his decision not to marry a woman simply to plant his seed and produce an instant family to make other people happy—well, mainly his mother. So, somewhere around thirty-five, he had begun to surround himself with the three things that brought him the most pleasure and security: money, vintage Bob Marley recordings, and Baccarat crystal filled with Cabernet Sauvignon.

  He was never a man to have a bevy of women or even a steady girlfriend. He was an only child and quite accustomed to entertaining himself, and much to the dismay of his mother, he considered being alone to be a blessing. It’s not that he didn’t like women—he did. He appreciated the many delicate gifts they offered the world. He was attracted to all that they were and often delighted in spending time in their company. But he had never found “the one” until Dahlia Culpepper crossed his path in a pair of tight black leather pants some eight years ago. She was beautiful and mysterious, and made him laugh. She teased him that night, took him home, and wore him out for hours—something that she now denied. She was a dichotomy, a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, but he fell for her anyway. She captivated him, and he couldn’t explain his growing fascination. For the life of him, he didn’t understand how a woman could be so aggressive one day and completely modest and shy the next. It unnerved him in the beginning and yet turned him on at the same time. And now, much to his chagrin, he could barely remember his previous existence before he took her into his arms, his heart, and his life.

  She had been gone a mere five minutes before he began rummaging through her belongings, like a thief without enough time to steal. There had to be some tangible explanation for her behavior. He prayed that she didn’t have some degenerative disease or a neurological disorder. Christ, what if it’s a brain tumor or early-onset Alzheimer’s? Or dementia. Maybe it was dementia? Maybe she simply needed some Prozac and a trip to a day spa. Or a Xanax. He’d heard that Xanax could be quite effective in situations like these. After riffling through countless desk drawers and a multitude of shoe boxes in the closet, he found nothing to substantiate his mounting suspicions. One minute his wife was the woman he married, sensual and spontaneous; the next she was diffident and aloof.

  He knew he’d
been questioning her incessantly, but he needed some answers. He had always taken her word for everything, since there had never been a reason to doubt her before. But their lives had changed, and he found himself frequently questioning her whereabouts, their marriage, and most often his sanity. He sat down on the edge of the bed, perplexed and frustrated. Maybe she was having an affair. Maybe she was a closeted lesbian and was leaving him for another woman named Mike. Maybe he should have followed her to work like before. Maybe he should consider hiring a private investigator. Maybe he should retain an attorney. Or maybe, just maybe, he was the one losing his fucking mind after all. Only time would tell, and either way, something had to give. She’d see a doctor and they would both finally have answers, understand precisely what they were dealing with, and then their lives could feasibly return to normal.

  Michael retreated to the kitchen and listed in his head all the things he would do for her before she came home. Peel about eight cloves of garlic for one. Dahlia adored garlic. Draw her a hot bath and fill it with that lavender aromatherapy oil she was so fond of. Pick some pearl onions from the back garden and take frozen chicken stock out of the freezer to thaw. Stop by Pier 1 on Lake Avenue to get more candles. Make sure he had enough dry red wine for the sauce and buy more cognac—lots of it. Call work and tell them he wasn’t coming in today. Tell Lydia to cancel the rest of his appointments. Stop by Bristol Farms and get fresh chicken breast, and let’s see, … he was out of flat-leaf parsley and whole black peppercorns. And most important, love her—love her with everything he had until whatever this was left them the hell alone.

  The house breathed, and that’s all she remembered. It seemed alive, and sometimes when she paused for too long, she could feel it in her chest pulsating—that thumpity thump thump, rhythmic and intrusive. As a child, she wanted to walk around screaming “What is wrong with you people! Can’t you hear it? Can’t anyone hear it?” The house, with all its hidden rooms and never-ending secrets, was a living, breathing entity that crawled inside your brain and took root there like some renegade cell. Slowly, methodically, it confiscated your sanity and doled it back to you piece by piece.

  For years after she left home, Dahlia would tell herself that her memories were preposterous fabrications of a bizarre childhood, but pockets of truth always surfaced and battered her around a bit until she released the façade. Her life was her life, her family was hers and hers alone, and all the therapy in the world couldn’t change who she was, or what happened or didn’t happen in that house.

  She reclined and inhaled deeply. All this nonsense about getting in touch with your inner child was overrated anyway. Her father always told her that she didn’t suffer fools easily, so why was she sitting here across from some pinch-faced stranger in a pea green office attempting to regurgitate her life? She couldn’t get over the fact that she was paying someone to tell her what to do when her husband could order her around for free. That alone should be enough to declare her insane. Most likely this man believed her to be demented, perhaps suffering from some sort of paranoid delusion? Admittedly, she was strange, but so what? She’d accepted that fact at least a couple of decades ago, which was why she kept her strangeness to herself.

  Lately, though, strangeness had begun to escape her grasp in small increments, dripping from her fingertips and affecting the way other people perceived her. Attention was not something she craved on any level or felt she never had enough of. She was a background girl, always had been. She wasn’t visiting a shrink because of her peculiar dreams, the reoccurring ones where she called out the names of people she didn’t quite remember. Nor was she here to discuss her weird obsession with purchasing way more lavender panties than she would ever need. And she certainly wasn’t here because her husband ordered her to come like some crusty three-year-old who couldn’t follow directions. She wasn’t even here because she sensed that she was one step closer to becoming hysterical twenty-four hours a day. Fear compelled her kicking and screaming in search of an elusive truth—fear of the one thing that taunted her when she inhaled too deeply and caused her to wonder just how much longer before it was her turn. Bottom line, she needed this therapist—who insisted on asking her twenty million questions—to clearly understand that she was finally here because, just a few hours ago, she damn near had to water-ski out of her own classroom.

  Dr. Trevor Kelly was irritated at having to stay late. He didn’t normally alter his plans to accommodate last-minute appointments. He lived a scheduled life, and unwanted interruptions soured his mood and affected his peaking libido. He was odd that way. He was supposed to be having dinner with his thirty-six-year-old wife, Cassandra. He was quite pleased with himself indeed. At sixty-one, he could still turn a few heads. He’d have been long gone by now, but he’d received an urgent call from a colleague to see a new patient as a favor, at four thirty in the afternoon, no less. His lovely wife had made reservations at the Parkway Grill for five fifteen. She knew that was his favorite restaurant in Pasadena. She was well versed in what pleased him, and he adored that about her. She was a wildcat, that one—spontaneous and sexually liberated. He eyed his watch. Shit, he was never going to make it.

  Since he’d be forced to miss cocktails, he hoped that this was someone with a genuine problem. Lately he’d been ministering to people with the usual mundane textbook dilemmas. He treated patients who were navigating difficult divorces, pseudomasculine men who were too petrified to come out of the closet, and of course, he dabbled in routine sexual abuse cases—if such a thing could ever be deemed routine. He’d been practicing for more than twenty-five years, and he had yet to run across anyone who bloody warranted a footnote in the American Journal of Psychiatry—which was smashing for society, of course, but crap for his career. Like any good health practitioner, he longed to make a difference, make a valuable contribution to his field, but more important, he longed for a byline. He heard faint knocking at the outer door and reluctantly prepared for another typical session. She was finally here. He checked the time.

  “Dr. Kelly, I presume?”

  “Yes. Dahlia, right? Dahlia Chang?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please have a seat.” Dr. Kelly observed her closely. He noticed right away that it was a challenge for her to maintain eye contact. He also suspected from her demeanor that she wasn’t accustomed to sharing more than she needed to, and she definitely didn’t want to be in his office. Right now, he didn’t either. There, they already had something in common. His mind had since wandered to a chilled cosmopolitan and a coco crêpe. He quickly refocused on the woman fidgeting in front of him. “Dahlia, what seems to be the problem?” He waited. Note: The patient repeatedly avoids eye contact and has difficulty answering direct questions.

  “I’m tired,” she stated, and stared out the window.

  “Please go on.” Dr. Kelly settled into his chair. These initial sessions, he knew from previous experience, would be like watching paint dry. The patient wasn’t prepared to communicate, and he wasn’t about to force the issue. He closed his eyes and imagined Cassandra in a French maid’s uniform. He decided right then that he would give Dahlia forty-five minutes and not a blasted second more. Time was money, and at the rate she was going, he’d be driving down Arroyo Parkway in no time.

  “Dr. Kelly.”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to go home. I need to sleep.”

  “All right, then. Shall we schedule another appointment?”

  Sadly, “Yes.” Dr. Kelly glanced at his appointment book, relieved that she had elected to end so quickly.

  “How about next Thursday at three o’clock?”

  “Fine.”

  And then she was gone. Dr. Kelly glanced at the gold clock mounted on the wall next to his beloved picture of Margaret Thatcher and reached for his tape recorder. Patient was noncommunicative. Patient was extremely attractive and very well dressed. Patient refused eye contact. Patient seemed distracted and decidedly uncomfortable. Patient was borderline hostile.
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  Although Dr. Kelly was pleased that he would be able to join his wife, something in Dahlia’s manner troubled him. He sighed and reached for his jacket. Deep down in his gut, he sensed that Dahlia Chang was going to be one tough nut to crack.

  Later on that night, Dahlia woke up again, screaming names that she couldn’t remember. From a corner long forgotten in her mind, she could hear Milky calling for her and she was torn. There were mangled voices in her dreams, and then there was the voice that would lead her home like now, like always. She concentrated on his voice and struggled to escape the tornado in her brain that was wreaking havoc on her very person. Still, the same old hauntings gripped her insides, squeezed, and threw her around like a rag doll. When she finally awoke, it was as if she had never slept at all.

  “Honey, talk to me. Can you remember anything this time?” Milky prodded, caressing the side of her face.

  The feelings of terror that she experienced in her sleep were so real, so visceral that they forced her into the unknown, a place that she didn’t recall but that felt familiar, and a place that reminded her of home. And anything that reminded her of the funeral parlor sent her into an emotional tailspin. She was a little girl in the dream wearing a blue dress with red stripes. Her hair was in two ponytails pinned on top of her head like Aunt Baby’s, and she was pointing at something. Any other time when she was lucid, she couldn’t remember what she looked like as a child at all and barely had any recollection of the place she used to call home. But in her nightmares, the figure pointing was unmistakable, that much was apparent. This time, though, she heard multiple voices and screams that pierced right through her. She could never call to mind exactly what she was dreaming about, and perhaps that was for the best.