"If jumping to conclusions was an Olympic event, you’d take the gold.”
"Seriously?"
"Shut up!" an exasperated Maeve shot back. "Don't mock me. I'm not good at this."
Kerri glared at her soon-to-be, in-a-long-line of ex-girlfriends, girlfriend, reading CHEATER! she'd carved with candy apple red lipstick onto Maeve's forehead. Forcefully dotting the exclamation mark was what intentionally woke Maeve.
“I would never, ever...” Maeve continued, “Trust is a two-way street. But you, you only travel one way, your way. You see what you want to see. Hear what you want to hear. I love you but I just can't.”
Before Maeve slammed the door behind her, she for the last time looked into Kerri's unrepentant eyes. “It’s not me, baby, It's you. It’s always been you. I hope someday you realize that.”
The force from the closure knocked the adjacent hung picture from its balance point. It slid along its support wire all the way to the left, almost falling onto the floor. Kerri stared at the now crooked and rocking picture. It felt like a break up scene right out of Hollywood.
Instead of crying, Kerri decided that this time she’d drown her sorrow in whiskey. Irish whiskey. Jameson style. In honour of her dearly departed river dancing lass from the Emerald Isle. Kerri commenced lashing out at all things she deemed dubiously Irish.
“Fuck you and your red hair and your smiling Irish green eyes and your sexy accent and your great tits,” Kerri sarcastically toasted as she spun off the whiskey cap and chugged straight from the bottle. “You, all of your little annoying leprechaun friends, and the Lord of the Dance himself can kiss my big, fat ass!”
After a couple of more swigs, a spiteful bowl of their post-coitus snack, Lucky Charms, and a few more salty rants, Kerri decided a cleansing on the town was in order. She knew of just the place.
“Time to kiss my Blarney, get some baptism, and exorcise the demons,” Kerri raged as she, the bottle, and her impaired judgement staggered out.
“I’m the pot of gold,” a drunken Kerri mumbled as she climbed into the backlit mermaid fountain in front of City Hall. “You just don’t understand. That’s on you. I’m the best you’ll ever have!”
As the spirits took hold, Kerri swayed and sang along with the empowering song in her head. A small but curiously supportive crowd took notice and gathered. They wondered how far the drunken lady show would go before security arrived. As hopefully anticipated, the mood struck hard, and Kerri belted out her best Helen Reddy.
“I am woman, hear me roar!” Kerri sang, then adlibbed, “I’ve got a hell of a set too!”
After Kerri finished what liquid confidence remained, she began her second number. She peeled off the cling that was her wet T-shirt, swung it around a few times, and flung it to her adoring fans. To raucous cheers, she then did the same with her bra. Kerri then emphatically began, “Stop. Boobie time!”
Kerri assumed the squat position, placed her hands on her knees, and quickly shuffled side-to-side like MC Hammer. Kerri's breasts mesmerically swayed to the beat, like a pendulum between truth and imagined reality. While keeping in step with the earworm song, Kerri abruptly stopped, stood up, and clutched her chest.
“Can’t touch these.”
Kerri was either indifferent to all cheers or too drunk to care. But those that frowned upon public nudity, bad nineties karaoke, and disorderly conduct did. When she removed her lower half and began scaling her Blarney mermaid, an arrest was imminent. An imminent condition of her plea bargain - mandatory counselling.
Kerri's lawyer convinced her that this was the only way to avoid time. At counsel's urging, the judge took pity on Kerri's heartbreak and drunken delusion. Refusing the plea, however, would ensure that Kerri experienced community service in prisoner orange. She chose wisely. Drunken nudity on display was one thing. Threatening to pee on the arresting officers was another.
As she stood waiting, Kerri scanned Dr Janney's office, judging in return everything that judged her first. Plants. Books. Art. That proverbial leather couch. Everything existed with a purpose, Kerri thought, all meticulously chosen to intimidate. All choreographed to demonstrate the conniving intellect of a manipulative psycho-babble mindfuck.
A hanging black and white Rorschach then grabbed Kerri's attention. Inkblots? Really? How cliché. How bloody pretentious, Kerry thought. See the wrong thing and be diagnosed with anxiety or depression. See the right thing, and it's some psychosis, or worse, Schizophrenia. What a bunch of voodoo hocus pocus crap. What a scam.
A smiling Dr Janney then entered and greeted a standing Kerri before walking over to the Rorschach. She cautiously turned the frame ninety degrees. Apparently, the Ansel Adams-inspired reflection photograph was art, not a Rorschach. It was serendipitous and beautiful. Somehow, it had lost its balance. It was off-kilter. Kerri felt her stomach knot.
After Dr Janney realigned the frame, she noticed Kerri glaring at the image.
“Do you not like it?” Dr Janney asked. “I know I’m not much of a photographer. But it caught my eye. I like to think the reflection means something.” Dr Janney then chuckled. “Maybe it means that I should learn how to properly hang a darn picture.”
Reality hit Kerri hard. How wrong she was. This could not have been planned, could it? No way. Too random. Too coincidental. Dr Janney wasn’t conniving or pretentious. She was just a regular gal with a picture-hanging disorder. It was just a damn photograph.
“So, Kerri,” Dr Janney began as she motioned for Kerri to take a seat. “What do you think brings you to us today, you know, besides that silly court order?”
Kerri suddenly realized that she had earned another gold medal, and Maeve's pain-filled words had placed the medal around Kerri's neck. It was albatross heavy, heavier than expected. Under its weight, Carol slumped into the couch and muttered, “Son of a bitch. It is me.”
