Chapter 8

Friday, April 5

Seven recliners, but only six occupants. Sitting across from her clients, Holly scans the semicircle of chairs and bites back her disappointment over the one empty seat, the second-last from the right, where Elaine usually sits.

JJ is dressed, as always, to the nines, in a colorful spring dress, with multiple gold bracelets that jangle every time she moves her arm, her glow no doubt a result of high-end Korean skin care. Baljit looks uncharacteristically casual in jeans and sneakers, although Holly assumes the CEO is wearing designer labels. Liisa wears one of her typical neutral, shapeless maxi dresses. Reese has on her usual lawyer uniform—dark blazer and slacks—complemented by that familiar no-time-to-waste expression of hers. Salvador has paired his ubiquitous ball cap with a chunky silver chain today. And Simon wears tight white pants and a black T-shirt which strains to hold in his gut.

“Can we talk about the elephant in the room?” Reese asks, as she sits up in her chair. “Or, more specifically, the one not in the room.”

“Elephant? Elaine?” Baljit grunts. “More like an emaciated gazelle, if you ask me.”

“Elaine isn’t feeling well,” Holly says, misleading with the truth.

Liisa turns to Holly with a knowing look. “She had a serious reaction to the dual psychedelics, didn’t she?”

There it is again. But Holly takes a breath and pushes away the reflex defensiveness. She’s never certain whether she reads more skepticism into Liisa’s comments than the psychologist intends. After all, if Holly were in group therapy, she would probably also question her therapist’s approach more than anyone else in the room. Ignoring the question, Holly says, “While we are a group—”

“A tribe!” Salvador cries.

“Hey, colonizer,” Baljit says, “you sure that whole cultural appropriation thing still holds water?”

“Colonizer?” Salvador rolls his wrists over to expose his forearms. “Check your prescription, chica. No one this brown ever colonized squat! At least not on this continent.”

“Look, it’s wonderful you see each other as a community,” Holly says. “But I still have to respect your individual privacy. Elaine isn’t here today. We’ll just have to leave it at that and move on.”

“Actually, she’s more like a sight hound,” Baljit says.

“What are you talking about?” Reese asks, frowning.

“If we’re coming up with animal metaphors for Elaine, then I’m going with a whippet or a greyhound.”

“No one is doing that.” Reese’s tone signals that she has had it.

“How about we focus on each of your experiences under dual therapy instead?” Holly asks, ending the speculation. “I’ve had a chance to discuss it with you individually. But who’s willing to share their experience with the group?”

“I used to read tons of sci-fi when I was a kid,” JJ pipes up, beaming with a look of wonderment. “Books about traveling to new dimensions. That kind of stuff. And to me, that’s exactly what it felt like! A new dimension. Lights I’d never seen before with colors that made their own sounds. Both eerie and beautiful at the same time.”

Reese shakes her head. “For me, it was more like… I don’t know… the afterlife.”

JJ’s eyes go wide. “As in heaven?”

“Heaven, hell, purgatory… all at once.” Reese frowns again, as though skeptical of the words coming from her own mouth. “I was in the presence of spirits. Too many to even comprehend. As if I was with the entire human collective at once. Not so much with, but a part of. If that makes any sense?”

Holly is pleased to hear Reese volunteer such intimate details. She might be the most emotionally balanced member of the group, but when it comes to sharing feelings, Reese is the most tight-lipped, too. Aside from a passing mention of a mother with early onset dementia, Holly has not yet penetrated the web of past traumas that led Reese into addiction, but she knows better than to try to delve now in front of the others.

“I only saw one spirit,” Liisa murmurs. “My mother’s ghost.”

“When did she pass?” Holly asks.

“When I was four.”

JJ leans toward her, mouth agape. “Did you speak to her?”

Liisa nods.

“What did she say to you?” JJ’s voice squeaks with excitement.

Holly wants to tell JJ to back off, but Liisa is already answering. “She kept telling me it was OK.”

“What was?”

“My life.” Liisa’s voice thickens. “That I didn’t need to feel guilty. That I was doing as well as I could.”

“And you are, Liisa.” Holly nods encouragingly. “This is exactly the kind of response I was hoping you’d experience.”

Liisa’s face scrunches. “Hallucinations?”

“No.” Holly smiles. “Acceptance. We all live in heaven, hell, and purgatory. Often simultaneously. We’re all part of the human collective. And it’s not until we shed the shackles of our own egos that we connect to something much larger than ourselves. It’s in that place where we find unconditional love and acceptance.” More than anything, Holly wants her clients to experience the same kind of epiphany as she did on her ayahuasca retreat in Peru.

“Holy crap, Dr. D!” Simon bellows. “I lived through some serious love-ins when I first broke through in the seventies, but you make those hippie-dippies sound like a bunch of Young Republicans.”

Holly chuckles. “OK, maybe that was a tad enthusiastic? Maybe I’m projecting? As a part of my training, I’ve journeyed on psychedelics, too, and I’ve experienced the same release and feeling of connection some of you are describing. So, why don’t you tell us about your experience then, Simon?”

“I don’t know about acceptance,” he says. “But it was fucking brilliant. Magical. I danced with a sunflower and sang with crows.”

Holly nods encouragingly. “Peaceful, right?”

“Utterly.”

“Mine, too,” Salvador chimes in. “Exactly like the dreams I used to have when I was a child. All those brilliant shapes and colors.”

Holly recalls him telling her in a private session how he would sometimes escape the bullying he experienced as a teenager for being different—too eccentric, too effeminate—into a world of his own imagination. “Excellent, Salvador. Peace and acceptance, they go hand in hand. Now, what I’d love to hear—if any of you are willing to share—is how the experience affected your cravings.” She resists the urge to turn to Liisa, whose sobriety is most on her mind.

Baljit holds out her palm. “I haven’t even thought about going to a casino since I came to. Probably the longest stretch I can remember without feeling that itch.”

Reese nods vehemently. “Exactly! I haven’t felt tempted by the bottle in days, and I’ve been in mergers and acquisitions hell all week.”

“Me neither!” JJ says, beaming at Reese. Lately, the two of them have begun to arrive at the office together, and Holly assumes that their friendship has blossomed outside of therapy, though what a lawyer and an heiress have in common is anyone’s guess.

The others speak up almost at once, each eager to confirm that they, too, haven’t felt any urges to indulge their specific addictions since they underwent dual psychedelic therapy. Even Liisa nods enthusiastically, but Holly can’t tell if she’s only doing it for the sake of appearances.

Holly feels deeply satisfied as the clients file out of the room after the session. It’s as if they have collectively knocked down another wall in their path to sobriety.

Except Elaine.

Elaine hadn’t even called to say she wasn’t coming today. Usually, she was the first one there. She often showed up early to try to squeeze in any extra minutes for counseling, but of course Holly’s assistant and gatekeeper, Tanya, wouldn’t allow it. Tanya protects her time and schedule like a hawk.

As Holly carefully documents her detailed notes on their group session, quoting her clients as accurately as she can remember, she can’t shake the thought that Aaron is right. She does have to be proactive. Holly clicks open Elaine’s record, finds her mobile number, and dials, but it rings directly to voicemail.

Over the next hour, Holly tries the line two more times, without getting an answer. Finally, with the worry gnawing at her, and in spite of her better instincts, Holly copies Elaine’s address into her phone’s navigation app and heads down to her car.

Outside, it’s a mild and sunny spring day that could’ve fallen in almost any month of the relatively seasonless weather pattern of coastal Southern California. The short drive takes Holly from her office in the center of the business district, along the highway, and then up to a modest neighborhood on Ocean Vista Drive in the hills above the heart of Laguna Beach.

Holly’s heart is already pounding as she pulls into the driveway of the nondescript, three-story condo building and parks in the one available guest spot. Two spaces over, she recognizes Elaine’s car, a light-blue compact Nissan. Glancing through the back window, Holly spots posters rolled up on the back seat along with a few placards, facedown, in the gap between the seats.

Holly walks up to Elaine’s ground-floor unit and raps on the door. Just as she is about to knock again, the door opens a crack. Elaine stares at Holly through the gap without opening the door much wider. “What are you doing here?” she demands.

“Sorry to just drop in on you, Elaine. But after you didn’t show for the group session, I was… concerned.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Can we talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Can I come in?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

Holly’s not ready to give up. “Can you come out, then, Elaine? Please. I won’t bother you again.”

After a moment of hesitation, Elaine opens the door just wide enough to slip out through the space. Standing a few steps back from Holly, she folds her arms across her chest. Her long-sleeved shirt and loose sweats hang off her gaunt frame. Her face looks older than a thirty-year-old’s should. “I’m not coming back to the group,” she says. “Or to you.”

“All right.” Holly studies her eyes, searching for the telltale signs of opioid toxicity, such as the pinpoint pupils or the vacant gaze.

“I’m not high, in case you’re wondering.”

“I’m happy to hear that.”

“I’m done using. Guess I have to credit the ketamine for that much, at least.” Elaine huffs. “Not that it was worth the hell you put me through.”

Holly takes a small step forward, and Elaine immediately backs away. “I feel terrible about that last session. It was my fault. You weren’t ready.”

Elaine’s eyes blaze. “I’ll never be ready for that.”

“No, no.” Holly feels her face flushing. “I meant not ready for using dual psychedelics. I should’ve gone slower. Used smaller doses.”

Elaine stares at her feet. “You shouldn’t have touched me.”

“I didn’t touch you,” Holly says. “I mean I did, but only after you threw your arms around me. You begged me to hold you. You were terrified. Obviously, knowing what I know, I shouldn’t have let that happen. But your memories—at least about my intentions—are faulty. They’ve been affected by that medication, midazolam, that I had to give you.”

Elaine shakes her head slightly. “I’m done with all that,” she says barely above a whisper.

“With what?”

Elaine’s eyes bore into Holly’s. “My whole life I knew my uncle had done something terrible to me. But I suppressed those memories. Instead, I blamed myself. Hated myself. Numbed myself. No more. I’m not going to victim-shame myself any longer. I know what you did.”

“What your uncle did to you was beyond traumatic. Evil. And I can’t imagine how triggering it would be to wake up from the midazolam and find yourself in my arms. But nothing happened.” Holly tries to control her voice as she feels herself growing more frantic. “I swear to you.”

“I’ve been a fraud.” Elaine sounds as if she’s talking to herself now. “Selling myself as some champion for the victims of the opioid crisis when all along I was still secretly using myself.”

“What does that have to do with—”

Elaine’s chin snaps up, and her blazing eyes cut Holly off in mid-question. “I’m done being a hypocrite! I’ve dedicated my life to speaking up for victims. To being their voice. I can’t stay silent now. Not after how you took advantage of me when I was most vulnerable! I know what you did. Soon everyone else will, too.”