Cherry Blossoms

First Chapter

I have eight months to live. No, there was no dramatic diagnosis of a tomato-sized tumor in my brain. There was no tragic scene in a doctor’s office, complete with a nurse placing her compassionate hand on my shoulder and telling me to “hang in there.” I do not have a terminal illness, unless you consider humanity itself a terminal illness. In any case, you shouldn’t feel sad for me. I deserve to die. You’ll see.

I didn’t know I was going to die until I went to see the curiously named Dr. Bitterman. He’s not the type of doctor you’re assuming he is. He’s a psychologist. Or psychiatrist, rather—he doesn’t just listen and nod; he can dispense drugs to take away your problems. That’s what I figured I needed. Google revealed lots of his kind near me, but I chose him based on the name. When he shook my hand, I fixated on his royal blue cuff links—who wears cuff links?—and thought about walking out. But then I saw the Stanford diploma on his wall, next to a framed picture of a happy family that appeared to be his, and figured maybe he was worth the $225 for forty-five minutes of wisdom.

Dr. Bitterman sat in an oversized chair designed for grandfathers who enjoy cigars in front of fireplaces. I sat on the couch across from him.

“I’m not here because I want to be psychoanalyzed,” I told him.

He tilted his head to the side like a curious dog in response to the rising inflection of its owner’s voice. Then he wrote something on the notepad resting on his knee, seemingly already ignoring my request.

“Then why have you come to see me?” His voice was calm, soothing, the type of voice parents use with children when they want them to behave: Now, Billy, why don’t you sit at the table like a big boy?

His blue-framed glasses sat on the very tip of his nose, ready to slip off with just the slightest sneeze. Watching them, anticipating their fall, caused me almost as much anxiety as my reason for making this appointment. I wondered if I should leave, if he’d charge me a prorated amount for the five minutes of his time. I felt like a schmuck for coming, for thinking he could help me. His wealth—visible in the wood beams of his ceiling, the Zen water feature in the corner—relied on schmucks like me. That’s what he should have called his practice: Schmucks for Bucks.

“I keep having this dream,” I said, figuring What the hell?

The damn tsunami dream. I must have had it a hundred times in the last several months. It feels so terrifying, so real, that I’ve started to adopt a lifestyle of insomnia just to avoid it. Whenever I do slip into slumber, it’s like I can feel my lungs filling with water. When I wake up, gasping for air that is in plentiful supply, I’m wet, drenched in sweat—or evidence of a parallel universe.

“What is this dream?”

I told him about it—the receding water, looking for Sara.

“Who is Sara?”

“My ex-girlfriend.”

“When did the dreams start?”

“About eight months ago.”

“When did the relationship with Sara end?”

Ten minutes in and he was already going for the easy explanation. I wanted to tell him that it’s not all that simple, but I figured he should work for his money, go down the rabbit hole of my life and try to find his way out.

“Right before Christmas.”

“So, about eight months ago?”

“Yes.”

He paused a moment to write in his notes.

“Did you break it off, or did she?”

A good question.

“She did, I guess. But it’s my fault.”

“Do you want to say more about that?”

“Nope.”

He did the dog-head-tilt again.

“Look, I’d just like to stop drowning every night,” I told him.

“Fair enough,” he said, showing me his palms, the way criminals do with cops when they don’t have any weapons. “What do you think the dream means?” He squinted his eyes, hard, when he said “means.”

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you,” I said. “Can’t you just hypnotize me out of having this dream? Or give me a pill so I can sleep dreamlessly?”

He smiled a tight-lipped grin that did not bare any teeth, a grin that said Sorry, asshole, that’s not how it works.

“I think dreams are meant to share information with us, information that we’re repressing from our consciousness for some reason.” He crossed one corduroy-pant leg over the other, slowly and deliberately. Corduroy and cuff links. Sara would find this hilarious.

“Well, if this dream is telling me that my swimming skills need work, I’m not so sure I have time to address this. I’m very busy.”

He sighed. “Jonathan, do you think you’re depressed?”

“If I say yes, will that get me a prescription for a pill to make me sleep dreamlessly?”

He rested his chin, precariously, on the top of his pen. “You are very evasive,” he said.

“Maybe, but I’m not depressed, so let’s just get that out of the way.”

“Do you get enjoyment out of the things you used to enjoy?”

I’m hard-pressed to remember the things I used to enjoy. The idea of a future with Sara was one. In its nonexistent state, it’s rather impossible to get enjoyment out of it.

“You sound like a commercial,” I said.

He ignored my quip. “How about you tell me about a typical week for you lately?” He gave his pen a shake, encouraging the ink to move down to the tip.

“I’ve been at the office quite a bit.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m in advertising. For Radley and Reiser.”

He hadn’t heard of R&R, but he knew some of their clients—Spiffy brand paper towels, Woofers dog food, and Wave, which, like Tide and Surf, seems to be named on the assumption that customers like to think of the salty ocean when they wash their clothes. Having endured my tsunami dreams, I do not understand this.

“I’m a copywriter. I come up with headlines, write radio scripts, TV spots—that kind of thing.”

“Are you happy as a copywriter?”

“Happy enough. I wanted to be a real writer, but turns out that does not pay the bills.”

“What’s a ‘real writer’?”

“Like a novelist.”

“You said you’ve been at the office quite a bit. Like, how many hours a week?”

I rolled my eyes up into my head, in search of my mental calculator. I’ve been getting to the office as early as seven, leaving as late as nine. That’s fourteen hours. I multiplied that by seven—the number of days I’ve been working per week. When the total revealed itself, even I was a little shocked.

“About a hundred. More or less.”

I watched him underline this figure in his notes. Twice, with enough force that the indents would be visible ten pages into his notepad.

“Does this seem excessive to you?”

“I suppose.”

He sighed again. “Jonathan, do you think you can keep doing this?”

I shrugged.

“How would it make you feel if I said you had to take a week off?”

In that moment, it felt like the couch was tilting, like it was a seesaw and I was going to slip right off.

“I don’t think I could do that.”

“I think you could.”

“I’m not sure my boss would agree.”

“I can write a doctor’s note,” he said, reaching for his prescription pad. “What’s your boss’s name?”

“Look, fine, let’s just start with taking tomorrow off. And this weekend.” This was Thursday when I went to see him.

“And you’ll come see me on Monday? To tell me how it goes? I bet your sleep improves.”

I nodded, but I knew I’d never see Dr. Bitterman again.

He pressed his palms into the armrests of his chair and stood. I took this to mean I’d used my forty-five minutes, blown through a couple hundred bucks faster than a drunk in Vegas. When I got up from the couch, I was light-headed and stumbled a couple steps. He put his hand on my shoulder to steady me. I said something asinine about how I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, how I could really go for a cheeseburger. I’m not sure why I wanted this Dr. Bitterman to see me as a normal guy whose greatest problem was waiting too long between meals. He shook my hand and told me he’d see me soon.

“Good luck,” he said, opening the door for me.

And the next morning, Friday morning, I went straight to work.

CHERRY BLOSSOMS. Copyright 2018 by Kimberly Hooper. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Turner Publishing.