Jeffery Deaver

Speaking In Tongues

Copyright © 1995

I. THE WHISPERING BEARS

1

Crazy Megan parks the car.

Doesn’t want to do this. No way.

Doesn’t get out, listens to the rain.

The engine ticked to silence as she looked down at her clothes. It was her usual outfit: JNCO jeans. A sleeveless white tee under a dark denim work shirt. Combat boots. Wore this all the time. But she felt uneasy today. Embarrassed. Wished she’d worn a skirt at least. The pants were too baggy. The sleeves dangled to the tips of her black-polished fingernails and her socks were orange as tomato soup. Well, what did it matter? The hour’d be over soon.

Maybe the man would concentrate on her good qualities-her wailing blue eyes and blond hair. Oh, and her body too. He was a man.

Anyway, the clothes covered up the extra seven… well, all right, ten pounds that she carried on her tall frame.

Stalling. Crazy Megan doesn’t want to be here one bit.

Rubbing her hand over her upper lip, she looked out the rain spattered window at the lush trees and bushes of suburbia. This April in northern Virginia had been hot as July and ghosts of mist rose from the asphalt. Nobody on the sidewalks-it was deserted here. She’d never noticed how empty this neighborhood was.

Crazy Megan whispers, Just. Say. No. And leave.

But she couldn’t do that. Mega-hassle.

She took off the wooden peace symbol dangling from her neck and flung it into the backseat. Megan brushed her blond hair with her fingers, pulled it away from her face. Her ruddy knuckles seemed big as golf halls. A glance at her face in the rearview mirror. She wiped off the black lipstick, pulled the blond strands into a ponytail, secured the hair with a green rubber band.

Okay, let's do it. Get it over with.

A jog through the rain, She hit the intercom and a moment later the door latch buzzed.

Megan McCall walked into the waiting room where she’d spent every Saturday morning for the past seven weeks. Ever since the Incident, She kept waiting for the place to become familiar. It never did.

She hated this. The sessions were bad enough but the waiting really killed her. Dr. Hanson always kept her waiting. Even if she was on time, even if there were no other patients ahead of her, he always started the session five minutes or so late. It pissed her off but she never said anything about it.

Today, though, she found the new doctor standing in the doorway, smiling at her, lifting an eyebrow in greeting. Right on time.

“You’re Megan?” the man said, offering an easy smile. “I’m Bill Peters.” He was about her father’s age, handsome. Full head of hair. Hanson was bald and looked like a shrink. This guy… Maybe a little George Cooney, Crazy Megan decides. Her wariness fades slightly.

And he doesn’t call himself “Doctor.” Interesting.

“Hi.”

“Come on in.” He gestured. She stepped into the office.

‘How’s Dr. Hanson?” she asked, sitting in the chair across from his desk. “Somebody in his family’s sick?”

His mother. An accident. I hear she’ll be all right. But he had to go to Leesburg for the week.”

“So you re like a substitute teacher?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

"I didn't know shr-therapists took over other patients.”

“Some don’t.”

Dr. Peters-Bill Peters-had called yesterday after school to tell her that Hanson had arranged for him to take over his appointments and, if she wanted, she could make her regular session after all. No way, Crazy Megan had whispered at first. But after Megan had talked with Peters for a while she decided she’d give it a try. There was something comforting about his voice. Besides, baldy Hanson wasn't doing diddly for her. The sessions amounted to her lame bitching about school and about being lonely and about Amy and Josh and Brittany, and Hanson nodding and saying she had to be friends with herself. Whatever the hell that meant.

“This’ll he repeating some things,” Peters now said, “but if you don’t mind, could we go over some of the basics?”

“I guess.”

He asked, “It’s Megan Collier?”

“No, Collier’s my father’s name. I use my mother’s. McCall.” She rocked in the stiff-backed chair, crossing her legs. Her tomato socks showed. She uncrossed her legs and planted her feet squarely on the floor,

“You don’t like therapy do you?” he asked suddenly

This was interesting too. Hanson had never asked that. Wouldn’t ask anything so blunt. And unlike this guy, Hanson didn’t look into her eyes when he spoke. Staring right back, she said, “No, I don’t.”

He seemed amused. “You know why you’re here?”

Silent as always, Crazy Megan answers first. Because I’m fucked up. I’m dysfunctional. I'm a nutcase. I’m psycho. I’m loony. And half the school knows and do you hare a fucking clue how hard it is to walk through those halls with everyone looking at you and thinking. Shrink bait. shrink bait? Crazy Megan also mentions what just plain Megan would never in a million years tell him-about the fake computerized picture of Megan in a straitjacket that made the rounds of Jefferson High two weeks ago.

But now Megan merely recited, “‘Cause if I didn’t come to see a therapist they’d send me to Juvenile Detention.”

When she’d been found, drunk, strolling along the catwalk of the municipal water tower two months ago she’d been committing a crime.

The county police got involved and she maybe pushed, maybe slugged a cop. But finally everybody agreed that if she saw a counselor the commonwealths attorney wouldn’t press charges.

“That’s true. But it’s not the answer.” She lifted an eyebrow

“The answer is that you’re here so that you can feel better.”

Oh, please, Crazy Megan begins, rolling her crazy eyes. And, okay it was totally stupid, his words themselves. But.

but,.. there was something about the way Dr. Peters said them that, just for a second, less than a second, Megan believed that he really meant them. This guy’s in a different universe from Dr. Loser Elbow Patch Hanson.

He opened his briefcase and took out a yellow pad. A brochure fell out onto the desk. She glanced at it. A picture of San Francisco was on the cover.

“Oh, you’re going there?” she asked.

“A conference,” he said, flipping through the brochure. He handed it to her.

“Awesome.”

“I love the city.” he continued. “I’m a former hippie. Tie-dyed-in-the-wool Deadhead and Jefferson Airplane fan… Whole nine yards. Course. that was before your time.”

“No way. I'm totally into Janis Joplin and Hendrix,”

“Yeah? You ever been to the Bay Area?”

“Not yet. But I’m going someday. My mother doesn’t know it. But I am.”

He squinted. “Hey, you know, there is a resemblance-von and Joplin. If you didn’t have your hair up it’d he the same as hers.”

Megan now wished she hadn’t done the pert ‘n’ perky ponytail.

The doctor added, “You’re prettier, of course. And thinner. Can you belt out the blues?”

“Like, I wish…"

“But you don’t remember hippies.” He chuckled.

“Time out!” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve seen Woodstock , like, eight times.”

She also wished she’d kept the peace symbol.

“So tell me, did you really try to kill yourself? Cross your heart.”

“And hope to die?” she joked.

He smiled.

She said, “No.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, I was just drinking a little Southern Comfort. All right, maybe more than a little.”

“ Joplin ’s drink,” he said. “Too fucking sweet for me.”