The Wrong Man For Her

CHAPTER THREE

NICK STARED at the eight young faces in the room and felt a surge of adrenaline rush though him. “Hi, everybody. Thanks for getting here on time.”

Some of the kids said hello. A couple watched him with suspicious eyes. A boy in a beanbag chair, which he’d dragged to a far corner, was reading the posters Nick had tacked onto the wall. Another, in a wheelchair, doodled in a notebook on his lap. A girl, who’d taken the futon, appeared to be text messaging on her cell phone.

The door behind him opened before he could continue, and Nick sighed. It must be the new counselor. Though Maddie hadn’t mentioned a name, she’d assured him someone would be here. This morning they’d had a row about his paying for the furniture and he hadn’t seen her since. He pasted on a phony smile and glanced over his shoulder.

“Hi, sorry I’m late.”

“Hi, Madelyn.” He cocked his head. “What do you mean, you’re late?”

“I’m your second counselor.”

Like hell. On Monday, he’d wondered how this situation could get any worse. Now he knew. He’d had a bad enough time being around her for the three days he’d been back at the Center. There was no way he was going to share counseling duties with her.

She smiled at the kids. “Hello, everyone.”

Nick was about to ask to speak to her in the hall when he noticed the expression on the face of one of the girls. She’d yet to take a seat and had been wandering around the room as if she was going to bolt. When she saw Maddie, the stiffness seemed to leave her body. “Dr. Walsh, hi.”

Maddie walked over to the girl. “Hi, Kara.” She sat in a director’s chair and Kara followed suit in one close by.

Nick gave them a weak smile. “Obviously, I’m surprised we have another counselor. But glad for the help. Welcome, Madelyn.”

She nodded.

Stretching his legs, Nick addressed the group. “So, here we are.” He pointed to the food he’d set out on a low table—chips, cookies and some fruit. “Help yourself to snacks first and there’s soda in the fridge by the door. I’ll give you a few minutes to get what you want before we start.”

When the kids began to mill about, he stood and crossed the room. Kara had gone to get a soda, so he took her chair and leaned in close to Maddie. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The red tunic and pants she wore darkened the color of her eyes. “Just what I said.”

“Maddie, no. This is a bad idea.”

“It’s the only idea.” Her jaw tightened. “Do you think I’d be here if it weren’t?”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“This isn’t the time to get into that, Nick.”

When he saw the kids returning to their seats, he stood. “We’ll talk later. I want some answers.” Back in their midst, he took a sip from the bottle of water he’d put by his chair. Its cool wetness didn’t soothe the heat in his throat. With a poise he didn’t feel, he started his intro. “What I’d like to do today is get to know you better and hopefully have you get to know each other some.” Actually, he’d memorized the contents of their folders and would only have to refer to the clipboard by his side in an emergency. “Then I’d like to talk about how our group will run. You all are going to decide much of how we’ll operate here.”

A snort from the corner. He glanced at the kid’s name tag. “What, Hector?”

“Real choices, dude, or phony ones like they give us in the group home?”

Hector Santos and his twin sister Carla had been placed in a teen shelter after their father had brutally beaten and killed their mother—in front of both sixteen-year-olds. The elder Santos had been put in jail, with no bail, and the kids were going to have to testify in court about what they’d seen. Meanwhile, they were headed to foster care.

“I hope I give you real choices. But if I don’t, you got the job of telling me I’m not living up to what I said I’d do.”

The kid shrugged.

“Remember, Hector—and all of you—I’m fully aware that you’re the victims of crimes, and not the perpetrators. Nor are you at-risk juvenile delinquents. This is your group. Together, we have to find the best ways to help you deal with any issues caused by your victimization.”

Most of the kids nodded or made eye contact at his acknowledgment of their status.

“Let’s start with introductions.” He patted his chest near the square that held his name. “I’m Nick Logan. I have a bachelor’s degree in social work and a masters in psychology, but more important, I’ve worked with teenagers extensively in the past.” He held up a sheet. “On here, along with other information, are the e-mail addresses of three kids from my last job who’ve agreed to tell you what kind of guy I am.”

That brought surprise to many of their faces.

“What do we call you?” A skinny boy with red hair that looked like he’d chopped it himself asked the question. J. J. Camp. Before his fifteenth birthday, J. J. Camp had fallen victim to a series of tragic incidents. His parents had been killed in a car accident a year ago and he’d gone to live with his aunt in the city. As the new kid on the block, and a gawky one to boot, tough inner-city school life had been miserable for him. He’d consistently been the brunt of bullying. Two of his taunters had been suspended for a month and sent to juvenile detention because, in one of their harassment incidents, J.J.’s arm had been broken. It was still in a cast. Nick suspected the bullying hadn’t ended there. One set of bullies had just been replaced by another.

“I hope you’ll call me good things, J.J.,” Nick joked.

“I mean, Dr. Logan, Mr. Logan, Nick?”

“Either of the last two. Though I’d prefer Nick.”

“What about you?” Hector’s sister Carla asked Maddie. The twins shared the same dark curly hair and big, almost-black eyes. “When we met that day we signed up, we called you Dr. Walsh.”

“That or Madelyn’s fine, Carla.” Maddie’s smile was forced. Too bad. If she’d let Nick know she’d be joining them, he and she could have discussed how she wanted to be addressed.

“Now that that’s settled, let me tell you about the schedule.” He was giving them time to acclimate before he asked them to introduce themselves. He held up the paper again. “The schedule for the group sessions is on here; we’ll meet in this room. I’m offering them Tuesday after school, Thursday nights and Saturday mornings.”

Hector shook his head. “I gotta work on Saturday.”

His sister said, “And I got softball practice most days at three.”

“That’s why there are three sessions. I’m trying to make this easy on you. You’re welcome to come to all of them, but I do want a firm commitment from you that you’ll attend at least two. This support group isn’t meant to be a drop-in thing.” Since they’d all agreed to come—either by choice or coercion from their guardians or parents—he expected their cooperation. “For individual counseling appointments, we can meet here at the Center, at your school if we can find some place inconspicuous or even at a coffee shop. I hear the Spot is still hopping in Rockford.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Maddie shift in her seat. One of the differences in their style was his informality. She played by the rules. In the past, he’d liked to tease her out of that box.

Kara leaned over and her light brown hair obscured her face as she whispered something to Maddie, who responded to her privately, then said aloud, “I won’t be doing any individual counseling with you. But I promise to be at all these group sessions. And as Nick told you, he’s very experienced.”

Nick rose and picked up one of the brand-new notebooks. “First off, I’m suggesting we write in these at each session. If the activity doesn’t work for us, we can stop, but I’d like to try this because it has worked with kids in the past. The entry today should be one you can share with us.”

Anne Nguyen raised her hand and Nick nodded for her to ask her question. A fourteen-year-old Asian girl, she’d been traumatized by a break-in at her house. Her father had been severely injured when he’d tried to stop the intruder, who’d been caught, tried and put behind bars. “What about other entries?”

“I thought we’d have several types.” He moved to the whiteboard he’d set up. “One will be a communication between you and us.” He wrote down, types of journals, then you, Nick and Madelyn. “Or you can choose one of us to read it. The second will be for teen eyes only.”

“Sounds like a song.” From his wheelchair, Tommy Danzer looked up for the first time. His curly blond hair fell over big and distrusting blue eyes. The victim of a drive-by shooting, the boy had a spinal cord injury and would never recover. He was only fifteen years old.

“Yeah, but don’t expect me to sing. I’d only do that to punish you.” Nick smiled. “Some entries you can record and plan to share at a later date.”

Slouched in a chair far away from the group, Nato Keyes called out, “Yo, man. I don’t do writing.” The young black boy had been assaulted on the street and his assailant was awaiting arraignment. In the intake notes, Madelyn had indicated his anger seemed to be seething inside him. Nick hoped to bring it to the surface.

Nick picked up a different notebook from the stack and brought it to Nato. “I happen to have a journal without lines.” He also knew from the intake interview Nato was an artist. “You can draw or doodle entries. But you have to discuss some of them.”

“No shit?”

“Speaking of that, I’d prefer we keep the language clean in here. Even if it’s not your or my style.” He hoped including himself would ease the caveat.

“What about language in the journals?” Hector asked.

Since she needed to be included, Nick looked to Maddie. She said, “Anything’s fine by me in the journal, but I’d prefer you didn’t read aloud language that might make somebody else uncomfortable.”

“Can you guys live with that?” Nick asked.

“What if we can’t?” Hector’s mutinous expression was one Nick was familiar with. When he was the boy’s age, he’d perfected it.

“Por favor, el hermano,” Carla said softly.

So Hector was here for his sister. She might be his Achilles’ heel and Nick’s entry into his life.

Hector shrugged. “Sí, bien.”

Nick made eye contact with everybody but Kara, who wouldn’t look at him. Her file stated that she’d been beaten up by some girls in the school parking lot, but Madelyn had commented in her folder that something about her story didn’t ring quite true. Counselors paid attention to gut instincts.

Maddie asked, “Kara, this okay with you?”

“I guess.”

“Shamika?” Nick addressed the one girl who hadn’t yet spoken and was still fiddling with her cell phone. Overweight, with cornrows gracing her dark head, she was quiet, reports said. Which might explain why she spent most of her time on the computer and had become the victim of an online predator. He’d ended up being a level-three sex offender and had taken her halfway across the country before he was apprehended. He was back in jail now, as Shamika was under seventeen, the legal age of consent in New York.

Her face was impassive. “Yeah, no worries.”

“First entry, then. Write down what you’d like to get out of this group. Why you’re here. Anything specific you might want to do. You can read all or parts of it today to us. Any portion can be marked private, which means neither Madelyn nor I will read it. But you’ve got to share at least one thing. Also, put in what snacks you want to have this week.” He glanced at the clock. “Ten minutes. Madelyn and I will write, too, of course. We’ll never ask you to do something we wouldn’t do.”

“That’s a switch,” J.J. said.

“Not for me. It’s the way I operate.” Nick passed around the books. “I hope you’ll come to see that.”

“What about you, Dr. Walsh?” Tommy asked. “You gonna do what you ask us to?”

“Yes. I fully agree with everything Nick has said.”

Hmm. Now that was a switch.

J.J. WROTE FURIOUSLY in his journal.

Duh!! Like hell this is gonna be our group. Adults always say crap they don’t mean, like those assholes at school. My aunt’s okay, even though she looks at me like I walked off some Martian space craft. This guy’ll probably be like the ones at school. We’ll play some freaking games for a while, then he’ll make us do whatever he wants. The chick, too. She seemed cool at the intake interview, but that didn’t mean anything.

J.J. glanced up and saw the other kids writing. He looked at the posters on the wall. They were printed from the computer. The first showed statistics on teen victimization. It read:

Teens are twice as likely as adults to become victims of crimes.

58 per thousand of 16-to 19-year-olds are victimized.

46 per thousand of 12-to 15-year-olds.

Revictimization is 80% for teens who’ve been victimized once.

Right on, man. Nobody knew the number of times he’d been stuffed into lockers. Knocked against the wall. Doused with soda or water or whatever the frigging jocks had handy. Cripes, a couple of girls had even gotten into the act. His arm hurt like hell today, though the doc said it was healing. He wished his father were still alive. He could have helped. He was such a great guy… Even his mother would have been there for him. Now they were in long, cold graves. Sometimes J.J. wished he’d been with them on that rainy night when they’d skidded into a guardrail. He’d never even had a chance to say goodbye.

When the hole inside him threatened to gobble him up, he went back to the journal.

Anyway, what do I want from this place? How about pizza and beer for snacks? How about somebody to believe me? How about other kids who don’t look at me like I’m a weirdo?

He felt his eyes well with the dreaded moisture. Damn it, why had he let his aunt convince him to come here?

Because he was afraid she’d turn on him if he didn’t. Because he couldn’t stand how much he hurt inside and couldn’t handle the anger that never seemed to go away. These people might not be able to help, but they couldn’t make his life worse.

It couldn’t get any worse.

MADELYN FINISHED her journal entry about what she wanted to happen in this group. It wasn’t much different from what Nick had proposed, though she would have preferred the kids refer to her by her formal title. And she wouldn’t have thought to meet with them at a coffee shop.

“Time’s up.” Nick’s voice was clear and strong and confident. It even made her feel safe, and she knew better than to buy into his coaxing ways. “Let’s share some of our thoughts. Anybody want to start?”

No takers.

Madelyn jumped in. “I will.” She read from her first page. “I’d like to decorate the journal covers next time with something that reflects our personalities. Who we are. And I think we should do some ice-breakers then, too, to get us warmed up to talking about our feelings. I hope everybody will participate because that’s the only way to help each other. However, my vote is for a pass system, where we don’t have to share if we don’t want to.”

“That’s chunk,” Nato said. Madelyn had recently learned that chunk indicated approval.

Hector added, “Sí, Señora.”

Madelyn smiled at them. “But, guys, I don’t think we should be able to pass all the time.”

“I agree with that.” She looked over to see Nick had gone to the whiteboard again and had written down what she’d suggested.

Madelyn held up her journal. “The rest is for my eyes only.” She’d written about how difficult it was to be here with Nick.

“Did you do that?” Kara asked. “Write private stuff?”

“Yes.” She angled her head at the girl. “Kara, you know, adults don’t have it all together. We have issues.”

Nick stared at Madelyn. “We mess things up. We make bad decisions.”

“I guess I know that,” Kara said.

“Let’s go on.” Nick scanned the kids. “One of you want to start?”

Again, Anne Nguyen raised her hand.

“You can just speak out, Anne,” Nick told her.

“I want this all to be private from our parents.”

Nick wrote privacy on the board, then set down the marker. Sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he leaned back on his heels. “I think your request is a key here. But I have to tell you some parameters. You can share feelings that you don’t want your parents to know about. But if either Madelyn or I sense you’re going to harm yourself or someone else, we can’t and won’t keep that private.”

“Will you tell Dr. Walsh what we talk about in private sessions?” Tommy asked.

“I’m going to ask for your permission for that,” Madelyn answered before Nick could. “I can help you better in these group sessions if I know what you and Nick talked about.”

Tommy’s expression was challenging. “You promise it won’t go further?”

“I do.” She looked at Nick.

He said, “You have my word.”

Madelyn struggled with that….

Maddie, please, I need to touch you, hold you. You have my word, I won’t hurt you, emotionally or physically….

“Madelyn, Carla asked you a question.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re head of this place?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Can you keep that promise?”

“I haven’t broken one yet.” She shot a pointed look at Nick.

He cleared his throat. “It’s settled then, if no one else has an opinion on the privacy.”

Most of them nodded.

“Nato? You go next.”

The boy shrugged as if he didn’t care about any of this. “I want pretzels and Dr Pepper.”

The corners of Nick’s mouth turned up. “I’ll go grocery shopping. What else?”

The kid held his gaze unflinchingly. “I pass.”

“Hector?” Nick asked.

“Burritos and fried rice.”

“That might have to wait until a dinner gathering.”

As Maddie listened to everybody else, she wondered how Nick was going to go about reaching the boys who were showing signs of resistance. He was a skilled counselor, but some kids did fall through the cracks.

Like he had. When she began to think about his difficult adolescence, she stopped short. Damn it, she wasn’t going to feel sorry for him.

KARA GLANCED around the room. After they’d introduced themselves, Nick had given them one last assignment. Write about how they were feeling at the end of the session.

On the wall was a poster of common reactions to victimization. He said they could write those feelings down if they applied and go from there.

So she wrote, “Isolated, helpless, powerless.” She bit her lip. “Shy. Don’t like the boys in the group. Glad Dr. Walsh is here. Wonder if I’m ever going to get better.”

Someone touched her arm. “Kara, are you all right?”

She looked up at Dr. Walsh. “Huh?”

“You’re crying.”

Her hands went to her face. “Oh, God.”

Dr. Walsh stood. “Come on, let’s go outside for a minute.”

She couldn’t get her breath.

“It’s okay, Kara. It’s okay.”

She managed to stand. Nick nodded to Dr. Walsh, who led her out and down to the ladies’ room. Inside, she wet some paper towels and gave them to Kara. When Kara just held on to them, Dr. Walsh took them back and pressed them to Kara’s face, which felt like it was burning up. “Better?”

“Uh-huh. I’m sorry. I hate being such a tweaker.”