“¿Quiere algo más, Señora?” said a singsong voice.
Betsy beckoned Daisy to step into the office, closing the door quietly behind her. The cheerful Mexican voices were shut out, the resulting silence ominous.
“Well? What do you think, Daisy? How have I failed?” Betsy asked.
Daisy shook her dark hair, obscuring her eyes.
The psychologist turned. “Jane?
Jane began picking at her manicured nails. Betsy caught a whiff of expensive perfume.
“I don’t know why she won’t tell you,” she said. “It happened again, damn it!”
“What happened?”
Jane looked at the door, as if contemplating a quick exit. Then she set her lips firmly deciding to answer.
“She almost choked to death over the weekend. She was strangling on her own spit—”
“That’s NOT what the doctor said!” interrupted Daisy. “You always get everything so freaking wrong!”
Betsy kept her expression neutral. Something had finally provoked her patient to speak with true emotion. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Jane looked at Betsy, exasperated, but with a flash of terror in her eyes. The psychologist interpreted it as real fear, not an affectation.
“I had to take her to the emergency room. They gave her a muscle relaxant so she would stop choking. She couldn’t breathe!”
“What was the drug?”
“I don’t remember. I can find out.”
Betsy turned to Daisy.
“Did it work?”
The girl snorted in derision.
“And they found no obstruction in your throat?” Betsy wanted to provoke an answer. Anything. “Any irritant? Hot peppers or vinegar? Any cleaning fluids? Ammonia?”
Daisy just stared, playing ferociously with the charm bracelet on her wrist.
“Daisy—don’t be rude. Answer her! There was nothing,” said Jane. “You know that. That’s what this is all about.”
“So what did they decide was the cause?” Betsy asked.
Jane looked down at her nails again. This time she managed to chip off a fleck of the polish.
“Nerves, they said. A psychological problem. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Oh, bullshit Mother!” shouted Daisy, stomping her heavy boot on the wood floor. “The only reason we’re here is because you think I’m weird. You hate me and you hate the Goth world.”
This girl could talk, thought Betsy. And what a mouth.
Jane sucked in a breath and expelled it, her finely chiseled nostrils flaring. She glared at Daisy and turned to Betsy.
“Before we moved to Aspen, she was a perfectly normal child. She was an accomplished equestrian, red-cheeked and healthy. Absolutely normal. And lots of friends. Of her same…social class.”
Betsy looked back at Daisy’s mother. “Jane, what do you define as normal?”
“Not—not this! Look at her! The black lipstick, the shredded dress, the white makeup as if she’s a corpse. She should have color from hiking in the mountains, be out with friends—normal friends.”
“Mother!”
“She shouldn’t look like a freaking vampire! There, I’ve said it!”
“I am NOT a freaking vampire. I’m Goth!”
“Whatever. Vampire, Goth…in Aspen, of all places. It’s weird. And so—so outré!”
Daisy’s eyes burned. Betsy heard the slight tinkle of the silver bracelet as the charms trembled on her wrist.
“Damn it, I should be able to take her out to lunch without cringing!”
“All right,” Betsy took over. “We have established that Jane thinks you have a problem. And what about you, Daisy? This therapy is about you, no one else. What do you want to accomplish here?”
Daisy looked at her mother and then again at her analyst. She pushed her hair behind her ears.
Betsy was ready for Daisy to tell her that this was all a waste of time, that she didn’t want to accomplish anything, that there was nothing to “accomplish,” that she was happy the way she was, maybe tell her to go to hell. And after that, Betsy expected the girl never to utter another syllable in her presence.
But she was wrong.
Daisy’s gaze settled on her analyst. The doctor and patient looked each other in the shifting, golden light of the low autumnal sun.
Then the girl closed her eyes tight and swallowed.
“The choking freaked me out.”
The psychologist saw the one misaligned canine tooth glint and disappear as she spoke. The girl opened her eyes and looked down at her pale hands. When she raised her gaze again, there were long black smudges under her eyes. Betsy had to strain to hear what Daisy said next.
“I don’t want to die,” Daisy whispered. “Help me.”