Lori, p.10
Lori, page 10
"What did he say? About me, I mean."
"He loved you very much."
"Is that all?"
"That's a lot." Leverett met her glance. "In one way or another, most of the people I see are suffering from a lack of love, either in the past or the present. You can be grateful this doesn't appear to be your situation."
Lori broke eye contact, forcing her hands to loosen their tight grip on her purse, but she didn't lean back. "From what you've found out, just what is my hang-up? Do you think I'm mentally ill?"
It was Leverett who sat back, shaking his head. "We don't use that term anymore. Currently we refer to 'personality disorders' or 'obsessive-compulsive behavior.' "
"You're being sarcastic, I take it."
"I'm being realistic. The truth is that changing the labels may help spare one's feelings but it doesn't solve anything." He riffled through the pages of the file folder. "Your own work in philology and linguistics should tell you that."
Lori nodded. "Labels are convenient for people with a limited vocabulary. They're satisfied with current slang or the buzzwords they get from television."
"Can you blame them?!" Leverett looked up from the file pages. "English isn't all that easy to understand. What do you make of a language in which 'windbreaker' can either be a coat or someone suffering from flatulence?"
He smiled, and Lori found herself smiling too. She sat back, consciously relaxing as Leverett sobered.
"But words are more than labels. They're weapons of offense or defense, the clothing we wear to insulate our thoughts, the masks we hide behind. Trying to find their meaning is what counts." He pushed the folder aside. "Okay, so that's my problem. Now let's talk about yours. For example, those dreams Dr. Justin mentions."
Lori shook her head. "They're just nightmares. With what's been happening, plus all the sedation, it's only natural."
"Granted." Leverett spoke softly. "That explains the cause, but not the content. Why did you dream those particular dreams instead of something else?"
She stiffened. "Please. I didn't come here to have my fortune told."
"Are you sure?"
This time his smile wasn't returned. "I'm not sure about anything," Lori said. "What I need are answers, not questions."
"But you already have the answers."
"Now who's hiding behind words?"
"Neither of us, I hope. We've both agreed speech isn't always a clear method of communication. And in a way, dreams are similar to speech, though the focus is usually more on images than on word content. But the bottom line is that when you dream you're really talking to yourself. The problem is still one of understanding. Solving it has nothing to do with fortune-telling or so-called Freudian procedure-no couch, no hypnotic regression, just open discussion.
"If I come up with any ideas we'll deal with them together, but I promise not to try forcing my opinions on you. In the end it's what you tell me that counts."
He waited for her response, but none came. "Let me try to help you. That's what I'm here for. That's what you're here for too."
Lighten up, Lori. He's telling you the truth. The question is, can you? She did her best.
At first, going back to what happened at the funeral, she found it difficult to recall details. But Dr. Leverett was there for her, and his questions made sense. His answers made sense, made it easier for her to open up, and as time went on, the uptight feeling left her.
And time did go on. Somewhere midway through their meeting she noted that Leverett had switched on a lamp beside the desk; later, she recalled glancing toward the window and the rectangle of twilight beyond. It was then that she looked at her watch.
"Do you realize it's almost seven o'clock?" Lori said. "I always thought these sessions were just supposed to be for an hour."
Leverett shook his head. "You needed the time to say what you wanted to say."
"Yes, but I'm sorry-"
"Is that all? Stop and think, Lori."
She smiled. "You're right. I was just being polite. Actually, I'm glad you let me dump on you. And grateful."
"Glad is enough. It means we weren't wasting our time." He rose, closing his notepad. "Remember what I told you."
"Don't worry-I will."
And driving home, she kept her word.
FOURTEEN
Lori drove out of the parking lot at seven-thirty, way past her usual dinner hour, and she was hungry, but not for food. Right now there was another craving to satisfy: the hunger of curiosity, the appetite for details. Food for thought. Help yourself. Memory serves.
Memory came in bits and pieces; bite-sized, easier to swallow and digest. Oddly enough, there were some things she recalled which she hadn't seemed to be aware of at the time. The notepad was a good example. When did Dr. Leverett start using it?
Probably right after she began telling him about passing out at the funeral. Yes, that was when he did, and when the questions started. Questions and answers. She couldn't sort out the sequence, but it wasn't important.
Or was it? Leverett seemed to think so. She'd started out describing the dreams, but inevitably there were linkages to actual events which needed explanation. Some appeared to be obvious; when Russ rang her doorbell it had been translated into the ringing of bells at school and in the chapel. The reality of asphyxiation from the gas leak became part of the nightmare where she was suffocated by the scent of wilting flowers. And of course her dreams in the hospital transformed coils and tubes into snakes, and precautionary restraint symbolized captivity.
It was the constant fear of dying which puzzled her, but Dr. Leverett supplied a solution.
"Given the circumstances, the dreams satisfied your guilt feelings by dramatizing death as punishment," he said.
"That makes sense."
"Only in the context of what you fantasized. But the reality is you're not guilty of anything. You've committed no criminal acts, you don't fool around, you're a caring, conscientious human being."
Lori shook her head. "I'm not conscientious. If I was, I would have seen how bad things were at home, how much they needed me, particularly these last few months. Why didn't I postpone my final semester and try working out the problems with Mom and Dad?
"All I did was think of myself. I had to finish school first, had to attend graduation ceremonies, had to hang around afterward to chat with my friends. If I'd only gotten home an hour sooner, maybe none of this would have happened."
"There's no way of knowing that, Lori. You can't blame yourself for a tragic accident-"
"But Russ isn't sure it was an accident," she told him. "And I got the impression Nadia didn't think so, either."
"Nadia?"
That's how the rest of the session began, because until then Lori hadn't mentioned her, and for good reason. It just didn't make sense. Now, talking over the events of that night, it seemed to make less sense than ever.
"But I'm telling you the truth," Lori said. "At least I think so. Unless I'm hallucinating."
"Don't tempt me." Dr. Leverett smiled. "Though I must admit it's an attractive theory." ‹
"You mean it's possible I made the whole thing up-the phone call, the meeting, going through the ruins?"
"Do you believe the possibility?"
"I don't know."
"Then let's find out." Leverett spoke slowly. "To begin with, no one else was present at the time you say the woman contacted you, and no one saw the two of you together. You could have imagined the call, used it as an excuse to go to the house and conduct a search on your own. Everything you tell me about what she supposedly did might have been done by yourself alone."
"What about finding the book?"
"If you invented Nadia's presence, you'd be capable of inventing what followed. Suppose you were the one who went back to the ruins, just as you say Nadia might have done. And that you discovered a book and brought it home?"
"That's not the way it happened. I told you I heard this noise in the hall. Otherwise I wouldn't have opened the door."
"Do you know if anyone else heard noises? Any neighbors?"
Lori's voice faltered. "I suppose I could have imagined the noise. But I did open the door, and I did find the book."
"You could have left it there when you came home."
"There's no reason-"
"Unless you were using Nadia as a scapegoat. If you could blame her for doing these things instead of yourself, you wouldn't feel any responsibility."
"But I am responsible, I told you that. If I hadn't let her go off by herself she'd still be alive."
"And you might still think you'd been hallucinating." Leverett sat back. "But the fact she died proves her actual existence. You didn't invent her name, you didn't invent her physical attributes or occupation on the basis of a news report."
"I never even heard the news," Lori said. "Russ told me.
"And you'd told Russ about Nadia the night before." He nodded. "So we know you weren't imagining all this."
Lori frowned. "It still doesn't explain her psychic abilities, how she claimed to hear the voices. Do you think she was the one who hallucinated?"
Dr. Leverett shrugged. "Let's turn things around and consider her actions the same way we did yours. She didn't invent your name, or what she knew about you. But it stands to reason the voices were hallucinatory."
"Everything they said was true."
"Everything she said was true." Leverett nodded. "Hearing voices is like having dreams-just another way of talking to yourself."
"But dream language is symbolic," Lori said. "And when Nadia dreamed about me or heard voices she got actual information. How could that be possible?"
"Cryptomnesia, perhaps."
"Another label for amnesia?"
"Another phenomenon. Amnesia involves loss of conscious memory, due to stress, physical trauma, or disease. Cryptomnesia is something else again. We don't understand the cause or pathology; all we know is the difference. A cryptomnesiac buries memories which were never perceived on the conscious level to begin with."
"Sounds pretty farfetched to me."
"Not if you stop and think. Normally most of us have experienced it in a mild form-a word, a name, a phrase seems to pop into our minds unexpectedly, something we don't remember seeing or hearing about. But in extreme cases a great deal more can surface from the unconscious, information which somehow bypassed our awareness when it was first received. It may be associated with other mechanisms we can't account for, like eidetic memory, total recall. And it just might explain what some people regard as psychic powers or ESP."
"Do you believe Nadia Hope had cryptomnesia?"
"I said 'perhaps.'" Dr. Leverett leaned forward again. "It's certainly worthwhile to see if there's some way of checking out her sources if you can, but this is something to be considered later. Right now it's the content of your own dreams that's most important."
Driving home, Lori reflected on the rest of their session, and some of what they talked about seemed obvious enough. The phallic symbolism, for example: turning coils and tubes into snakes. And "I'm not Prissy" was a denial of sexual repression.
"I don't consider myself repressed," Lori told him. "Not with Russ, anyway." But if the young man in her dream wasn't a symbol for her lover, then who could he be?
"You don't remember anyone like that in your classes?" Leverett asked.
"I don't even remember the school. It's just that it all seemed so familiar-"
"Perhaps it was. Is it possible you did know such a person, someone whose death made you feel so guilty you banished him from conscious memory?"
"We're not talking about my memory now. In the dream I was Priscilla."
Dr. Leverett frowned. "You didn't mention that."
"I thought I had."
"Then 'Prissy' was just a nickname." He nodded. "Now it's beginning to make sense. You mentioned another phrase-'Scylla and Charybdis,' from the old Greek legend-to dramatize your feeling that there was no way to turn, no choice between dangers on every hand. But couldn't 'Scylla' also be an echo of 'Priscilla'? The name itself might come from something as simple as a childhood reading of The Courtship of Miles Standish and the line about 'Speak for yourself, Priscilla.' Which is exactly what you were doing-speaking for yourself and to yourself in your dream."
"But there's a simpler answer," Lori said. "I think Priscilla's name came from the yearbook Nadia Hope left at my door."
"Yearbook?"
"Yes. The Bryant College yearbook for 1968."
Leverett's voice was soft. "Why didn't you tell me what it was before?"
"I must have forgotten." Forgotten on purpose, Lori told herself. But whatever the reason, she couldn't stop now. "There's a picture in it, the photo of a girl named Priscilla Fairmount. A girl who looks exactly like me."
"You're speaking of a resemblance?"
"A look-alike. And it's not my imagination, because Russ saw it too."
"And this is what upset you?"
"Wouldn't you be upset to see your own face in a book published before you were born?"
"I understand. But such coincidences aren't necessarily all that unusual. Somatic studies show there are only some thirty-odd classifiable types of physiognomy-thirty-seven, if I remember correctly. You must have run into situations where you mistook a perfect stranger for someone you know. It happens to all of us at one time or another."
"But this was really weird. The last dreams, when I was in that strange hospital-where did I get those other names and all the things I dreamed about?"
"The first step is to separate fantasy from reality." Dr. Leverett smiled. "You've never actually had a tryst with a reanimated corpse in a deserted chapel, or been kept prisoner in some mysterious hospital. Getting at the source material isn't easy, but there's no reason to think it's impossible. The explanation of why you chose those other names for your dream figures should be less difficult, if you want to pursue it."
Pursue it. Lori considered his words. Did she really want to pursue this? And if not, would it pursue her? There was only one certainty right now. In either case, Dr. Leverett would be a welcomed ally. She felt unexpectedly comfortable with him now; in the past few hours the grey stranger had become a confidant. This was his job, of course, to make her feel that way, and he certainly did it well. Yet it
didn't totally explain the depth of her conviction. The sound of his voice seemed almost like a familiar echo, soothing and reassuring. That was what she needed right now-reassurance.
Lori took a deep breath, "You're suggesting another session?"
"Advising. And I can't promise a single session will be sufficient."
Lori hesitated. "I'm not sure I'm ready for analysis."
"I'm not sure, either. But it could be a way to go if you want peace of mind." He nodded. "Why don't you think it over before you decide? You can always call for another appointment. And if you do, it might be a good idea to bring that yearbook along. There may be some other clues in it you've overlooked."
That's when Lori had glanced at her watch and saw what time it was.
She glanced at it again now, after parking the car. Past eight already-no wonder her stomach was rumbling. Time to see what she had in the fridge.
Hurrying upstairs, she unlocked the door. Heat had been trapped in the living room and she opened windows to release it. Discarding her purse, she made her way into the kitchen, switching on lights.
It was hot there, even hotter than the living room, so she opened the kitchen window to let in some air.
Opening windows. That's what therapy was all about: opening the windows of the mind, airing the problems of overheated imagination.
Lori had no idea how much Leverett charged for his services but she knew that when he sent the bill his fee would be expensive. Could she afford further sessions?
So far there was no reason to complain. He had helped to open some windows and what he'd said was worth consideration.
Turning away from the window, she glanced at the metal box resting on the kitchen table and remembered Dr. Leverett's remark about the yearbook. Perhaps he was right; finding the photograph had come as such a shock that she remembered nothing else she may have seen. For all she knew, those other names may have been staring her in the face oh the same page, names she'd filed away below conscious level until they surfaced again in dreams. As Leverett put it, there might be clues she'd overlooked.
And whether or not she decided to go into therapy with him, hunting for those clues was a job she could do on-her own. Once she got something to eat she'd sit back and go through the yearbook with a fine-tooth comb-not just the page with the picture, but all of it. Maybe she'd find an answer.
Lori lifted the lid of the metal box to pull out the book. Her hand moved forward, then halted as she stared down into emptiness.
The yearbook was gone.
FIFTEEN
Shredding the yearbook was no problem. Once the cover had been ripped off and fed through the machine it came out in bits no bigger than a staple. Then the pages went in, up to a dozen at a time, emerging as tiny fragments 1/32 by 3/8 of an inch. That was the advantage of using a crosscut instead of the straight-line models; it cost more but the results were worth the price. After all the practice, he knew enough about shredding to get a job with the CIA.
But Ben Rupert didn't want to work for the CIA, or anyone else. His working days were over, or would be as soon as he shredded the rest of the material in his files. That's what he must do now; finish the files before they finished him.
If it hadn't been for that damned yearbook he'd be home free. Why would Ed Holmes hang on to a thing like that?
Ed was a fool, of course, always had been. Making money in real estate was just a matter of luck, being in the right place at the right time as property values escalated over the boom years. But he certainly had no head for business, never learned the ins and outs of investing. Once his confidence was gained he'd been only too happy to let Ben take over investments and financial chores. After retirement it was even easier; he'd been a sitting duck, and no mistake.
