Chapter 11

Sunday, April 7

What a dump! Simon thinks as Salvador’s knee digs into his thigh. They sit together with Reese, all three of them squeezed onto a lumpy fabric sofa in front of a cheap wooden coffee table. The rest of the chairs don’t even match, and the walls are lined with framed posters. Simon only recognizes a few of the faces captured on the wall, including those of Sinéad O’Connor and Patti Smith. To his eye, the place has all the sophistication and charm of a college dorm room.

Clearly social activism doesn’t pay top dollar.

Simon can’t remember a time when he had to worry about money. He was twenty-two when his debut album rocketed to the top of the Billboard charts and stayed there for twelve weeks, going double platinum. It earned him two Grammys and, as it turned out, a lifelong celebrity status with all its trappings. No one ever warned him about the downsides of fame and recognizability—the excesses, the enablers, the sycophants, the parasites, and that sense of living your life in a glass box—but even if they had, he still wouldn’t have walked away from it then. Or now.

Simon repositions his leg to free it from Salvador’s. The other man is sitting way too close, and besides, Simon’s hip aches from having to wedge himself onto the sofa. As annoying as Salvador can be, Simon has a soft spot for the insecure designer. He reminds Simon of many of his artistic friends who live with the same endless quest for validation, which they can never find within themselves. Behind his pudgy, androgynous features, and despite his artistic pretentiousness, Salvador gives off the vibe of someone who was deeply wounded as a child. In that way, he reminds Simon of himself.

Elaine sits motionless on a plastic chair in the corner with a water glass in hand, which JJ had insisted on getting her. She has hardly said two words since the rest of the group ambushed her at her door. She looks particularly gaunt today, as if she could just recede into her chair. Simon has never gone for that heroin-chic look, which in Elaine’s case might actually be authentic.

“We know you’ve been through hell, Elaine,” says Baljit, who assumed control of this intervention from the outset. “But we’re also certain that Dr. Danvers would never do anything to harm you.”

“It’s true,” Salvador says. “She’s been our guardian angel.”

“You don’t know what I went through,” Elaine murmurs, pulling her knees to her chest and folding her thin arms around them.

“It’s disgusting what your uncle did,” JJ says, leaning in.

Elaine’s gaze drops to her lap. “I meant with Dr. Danvers.”

“I was convinced I saw my dead relatives,” Reese says, without specifying which ones. “They were so real to me that I didn’t think it could possibly be a hallucination. In some ways, I still believe I did see them.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Elaine says in a small voice.

Baljit’s face creases with frustration. “We were under such heavy medication. We all saw things that appeared totally real to us.”

Elaine shakes her head. “It was afterwards. When I woke up. She was swallowing me in her arms. Her hot breath on my cheek. It felt exactly like being back on my uncle’s boat.”

Simon suppresses a sigh, recognizing the futility of this exercise. Elaine’s expression is resolute, verging on zealous. He saw a similar look in the eyes of his nineteen-year-old accuser and, even more so, her trashy mother, as he sat across the table from them in the deposition. He knew immediately that their silence was going to cost him millions, just as he can tell now that they’re not going to be able to persuade Elaine to stand down.

But it doesn’t stop Reese from trying. “Think about it, Elaine. Even if Dr. Danvers had the most twisted designs on you, why would she take advantage of you in the middle of group therapy? With a half dozen witnesses present?”

Simon enjoys watching Reese soft-pedal her cross-examination, like lawyers do with unhinged but sympathetic complainants.

“Maybe she gets off on that?” Elaine says.

“Gets off on what?”

“The risk? The exposure? The danger? Who knows?”

“Oh, come on!” Baljit snaps. “You can’t actually believe that! That she would risk her entire career to what? Cop a quick feel?”

Elaine’s cheeks flush. “Says the woman who keeps risking her family’s financial future at the craps table.”

“My odds are still a hell of a lot better than molesting someone in the middle of group therapy and expecting no one to notice. Besides, you get off on being a fucking victim, don’t you?” Baljit glares at her. “Oh, great. Cue the white woman waterworks.”

Elaine’s enormous eyes have filled with tears, but she doesn’t respond.

“It does seem like a helluva stretch,” Simon says, growing weary of all the bickering. “And I’ve spent most of my life flirting with risk and impulsivity.”

“Elaine, you’ve got it all wrong,” Salvador cries. “I saw the whole thing. I’d already come to from the ketamine. Right after I pulled my mask off, I saw her holding you. She was comforting you. There was nothing sexual in the hug. You’ve got to believe me.”

Simon flashes him a questioning glance. No one contradicts Salvador, but if he actually witnessed the embrace, then why hadn’t he spoken up before? Salvador seems unable to maintain eye contact.

“We want to support you, Elaine,” JJ says, pressing her hand to her heart. “We really, really do.”

Reese turns to Elaine. “Isn’t it possible you relived your past trauma so intensely—in such a real way to you—that under influence of multiple drugs, you projected that unforgivable abuse into the present. And onto Dr. Danvers?”

“No,” Elaine mutters without making eye contact with her.

Reese catches Simon’s eye, and he can tell that she’s longing to treat Elaine like a hostile witness. He watches Liisa, expecting the psychologist to weigh in with some kind of wisdom, but she remains as silent and impassive as she has been for the rest of the intervention.

“What if you’re wrong, Elaine?” Baljit demands.

JJ nods solemnly. “When this comes to light, our group won’t survive. It just won’t.”

“And it might set all of us back,” Reese adds. “Back to that dark place where our addictions controlled us. You’re an advocate, right? You care about the sobriety of addicts?”

Elaine won’t even look at Reese anymore.

Simon’s hip aches and his stomach turns. “I’m too old for this shit,” he mumbles to himself. Louder, he says, “Don’t be so fucking selfish, Elaine.”

She looks around the room at each of them, her gaze unwavering, and then she rises to her feet. “Thank you all for coming. But there’s no point in discussing it anymore.”