i. Men and Sharks1
I have this birthmark on my left cheek, it’s a pale hue of red, or pink, I suppose, covering one side of my face like a five-minute-old slap. I don’t know why it’s there and I’m not funny enough to come up with interesting stories for whenever people ask. You can’t feel it on the surface and from pictures I know it used to be darker. Sometimes I have dreams about it peeling off, about waking up to it staining my pillow and finally being clean of whatever secret lies beneath my skin, open for everyone to see.2
I’ve never been a good secret keeper and I honestly can’t come up with anything about myself that no one can ever know, which doesn’t mean there aren’t quite a lot of things most people don’t know about me, because there are. If anyone were to ask, I think I would tell them.
The day I first meet Mr. K3 — that is what I called him in my mind the first couple of times he came to see me, before I accidentally called him that to his face and he hurriedly corrected me, saying Oh, please, Mac, call me Mac — I am on my period. I have always had this weird notion that men could sniff out blood like sharks, from a quarter-mile away. I don’t know if the thought scares me, just that it embarrasses me. I suppose that could qualify as an actual secret about me.
Mr. K isn’t my patient, or he wasn’t, at least. He belonged to Abby Soo, the only other reflexologist at the clinic and my work-friend. I think she is my work-friend. I don’t know if that makes us life-friends, because a lot of people consider those very different areas. I’m not sure I do. I have work and I have my apartment and I have the store and I feel the same amount of comfort wherever I go. Or discomfort. Anyway, I know quite a bit about Abby Soo — I know she blames Billy Joel for her pregnancy and she laughs whenever she makes that joke, which is a lot. I know she secretly wishes for a girl but asks God to send her a boy because it’s important to her husband she has a boy. I know she has set morals, but she sometimes forgets that she does, because it’s easier. Until about a week before Abby Soo’s pregnancy leave, I’d never even heard of Mr. K which was weird because he wasn’t old like the others, and Abby Soo usually told me about all her clients, especially the younger ones. He’s about forty, maybe older — pretty good-looking. Sad eyes.
I have never gotten the aversion many people have towards feet. I don’t mind feet and I don’t think I ever have. Not more than other body parts. I don’t like ears, I think. They freak me out. Rory4, my roommate, is someone who hates feet and finds them revolting. She makes me wash my hands the second I get home and doesn’t eat anything I have cooked, even though she doesn’t know how to herself, which is why she spends all her money on fast food and cries to me about her thinning hair.
I greet him with a small smile that I know is wooden, but I can’t help it. I don’t feel attracted to him and his posture tells me he feels ashamed of his being here, which I understand. He doesn’t look the part — most of my patients are old, like, properly old. Can’t-reach-their-own-feet-old. Classy old people, all of them white, most of them diabetic. Mr. K is white too, but he’s sort of rat-like, or maybe like one of those dogs, the ones bred for hunting and killing, but that ended up being a family’s plaything, until they finally snapped, always feeling like their wasted potential was about to burst out of them, and when it did, they bit off a child’s face or mutilated their owner’s leg. He reminds me of a viciously-natured dog that doesn’t know what its capable of, that has been sent away because its family loved it too much to euthanize it, so now it's staring at you with lonely, empty eyes, walking through life like a wild animal with zoochosis, white hairs speckled throughout his beard that he stopped shaving because it doesn’t matter anyway.5
“I’m very so sorry to inconvenience you,” is the first thing he says to me, gaze barely meeting mine. I wonder if he finds me prettier than Abby Soo. I don’t reply quickly enough, but he makes an expression like he doesn’t blame me. It’s a weird first thing to say to someone, and not following it up with anything puts me in an uncomfortable spot.
“You’re not,” is the first thing I say to him, even though he kind of is. I wonder if he smelled my blood a quarter-mile away.
Weirdly, my words are enough to make him relax a little bit. I mentally go through what I know about him: He comes in once a week on Tuesday mornings, for a thorough massage. His file says there isn’t anything actually wrong with him but he’s not my first patient with psychosomatic pain, so I’m not too worried about that. Abby Soo has added a note of more… unofficial notes on him to his file, something that made me frown but I now appreciate. She wrote: Divorced. Maybe widowed? Doesn’t talk much.
“I take it you just want the usual?” I ask, like an idiot, but he nods, moving to shrug off his jacket.
ii. first_conversation_caroline_mac6
“Can I ask you something, Caroline?”
For an instant, my hands freeze in their movement. It’s the first time he’s said my name and for a moment, I try to remember what he’s called me before, if he’s called me by anything.
I take my eyes off his feet for a moment, casting a glance upwards. He looks… surprised. Maybe by himself. Maybe it’s mere anticipation. I give him a weak smile, a nod. He doesn’t continue speaking for a while and it bothers me. I don’t remember anyone asking to ask me something ever. I find it to be quite the paradox. Asking to ask a question.
He clears his throat, eyes glued to the ceiling. I can tell he is in pain and it makes me want to make it better. Not just that. I want to make it okay.
“Do you think there is a way to truly heal?”
I don’t appreciate vague questions, I want to tell him that. Instead, I stay silent. Any other patient would just answer their questions themselves, and I would fade into the background like a bartender or a cab driver. Any other patient wouldn’t finally twist their head downwards for the first time today, staring at me expectantly.
I feel my lips part. I hesitate. I’m not scared of speaking, it’s not that. But maybe I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing. In general, but also now. To him. To Mac. Something about him feels… profound? As if his importance made this conversation — made me — matter by extension.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that.” I sound and feel ashamed. I avert my eyes from his and move on to his ankle, ignoring his soft hiss as I slowly twist his foot in an effort to loosen his perfectly working joints.
Again, he takes a moment to gather his words, which I’m grateful for this time. I don’t want to be asked questions, not by him, not by anyone. Questions create uncertainties and no amount of answers in the world can change that. Why would he ask me? Why would he ask me? Is there no one else he could talk to, someone he knows better, someone that knows him better? Someone that knows what he wants to hear? Someone he knows will say what he wants to say? My frustration makes the room feel small.
“Like, therapy,” he shrugs. “D’you think it works? That you can – you can just work out your problems, flatten your creases, forgive and forget? Or… not forget, per se, but I mean, move on? Do you believe that is possible?”
I cannot help but to stop moving, earning another hiss from him, this time a relieved one. For a beat, I hate him. I hate his dead dog eyes, carving their way into my innards with just a simple look. Hate his voice, that he’s kept hidden from me, only to slap me across the face with it. What have I done? Be a woman? Be pretty, look easy to talk to? Does it seem like, just because I fondle old people’s feet for a living, I care for random, senseless conversations? Does he think I don’t care either way, that talking comes easy to me, that it doesn’t send me into a fit of anxiety? For a beat, I am furious. I want to storm out, to push him. Yell. I can’t remember a time I have wanted to yell.
“It’s a silly question, I’m sorry.”
Just like that, I’m kneeling on the ground again, worthless, empty, quiet. I smile. He gives me a wistful grin.
“I don’t know,” I say, catching myself off-guard. He nods, slowly, and I reach for his ankle again, thumbs moving along the side of his bone, prodding at knots that aren’t there. “I think —” I stop myself because I don’t even know what I think. Or maybe I do, but I’m twenty-five. I doubt he actually wants to hear what I have to say.
“Tell me.” He looks like he is trying to be reassuring, in turn making me more insecure. My eyes fleet over his face, trying to understand, attempting to read.
I let go of his foot again, once and for all. We’re almost at the end of the session, so I sit back on the heels of my feet, hands in my lap. His eyes follow my movement, before snapping back up into my face. It’s like — it’s like there is a sudden fire in them, and it makes me realize something new about Mac, something I didn’t realize was there and something I’m not sure I like knowing about him.
He enjoys conversations just as much as regular people. I think I wanted him to be quiet, like me. I think I wanted to feel closer to him by pretending we were alike when we really aren’t. I don’t know if it makes me despise him or envy him.
“I think you just answered your own question,” I continue hesitantly, “if you feel like you need to ask someone else’s opinion, doesn’t that tell you enough?” I shrug and his eyes flit to my shoulders, for barely a millisecond. “If you… will it work if you don’t believe in it? If you’re unsure? I mean, you won’t be altering your brain chemistry or — or changing your past, but if you believe you can move on and — and be or feel better, isn’t that what decides if you can heal? Aren’t you?”
I feel almost breathless and I avoid his look that I know is still on me. “Now, you asked me what I think, or, you know, believe. I don’t think my opinion is of much worth to you, and I’m not sure what you want to hear, but personally, I think it’s all bullshit. I don’t think you can move on and heal and be okay again. I don’t believe healing is a thing, not inwardly.”
Mac now openly scrutinizes me. He doesn’t look satisfied but I don’t care. I feel drained. I get up and walk over to the sink to wash my hands. I hear him shuffle behind me, letting out a repressed groan as he puts weight on his feet. When I turn, he is tying up his shoes, knees bending inwards, but he’s standing. I know it’s an accomplishment for him, but I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it. I just want him to leave.
alterted version of meeting mr. k
is this a good opening paragraph? i thought about starting with something more ‘shocking’, the thing about periods or the line with feet but maybe it paints the character as more… daring than she is? i’m not sure
mr. kirschner, i like the idea of last names being shortened
rory’s character should be way more fleshed out and she is in my mind but if i turn this into a short story like im planning to do, she will fade into the background entirely — can i live with that?
absolutely hate this part lol
this is literally what my google doc is called. i hate the name mac kind of but i’m obsessed with giving my male characters fem names. mr. k’s name is called mackenzie which is too similar to a name from another story so that needs to change but im absolutely shit at finding names i like