“On it,” said Ofer. “Though I think the tone change is flattering. When Jace was cast, no one had any idea what a star he would become. Except me, of course.”
I would not have called Jace a star. A glow-in-the-dark sticker, maybe.
“We just have to make sure the world of the show stays authentic,” said Jace.
I typed: authentic. It was a show about zombies. How authentic could the world be?
I could never tell if other people genuinely believed their own bullshit or not. I felt genuinely perplexed about it—especially at work lunches, but frequently in my nonlunch life too. At times like this, I longed to break the fourth wall, to whisper, Hey, just between us: Is this a performance or is it really what you believe?
I decided that Jace was objectively attractive. I didn’t necessarily want our genitals to touch, but there was a certain place in my mind, or maybe in my solar plexus, where I liked him. I felt programmed, like a drug-sniffing dog, to seek his approval.
What I wanted most was for this certified hot person to see a hotness in me, thereby verifying, once and for all, that I was hot. It wasn’t that civilians didn’t find me attractive. But for a licensed hot person to verify me? That was the real shit.
“Maybe we need to remind the network that Jace has fans elsewhere,” said Josh.
I typed: fans.
“He’s got fans at Netflix, fans at Universal,” said the other Josh. “Big fans at Universal, and on the movie side too.”
I typed: fans fans. big fans.
Jace turned to me.
“Thanks for taking notes,” he said.
He acted like I was doing this voluntarily. Still, he seemed nice. But he could afford to be nice. All of the attention was on him. If he were in my position, if he weren’t the one being feted, would he be so nice?
“No prob,” I said, looking at the word BEEF printed on the back wall over his head.
Last Crush had a farm-to-hell look that always made me think of death by hanging: wooden beams, lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling like ligatures. There were enough upcycled bulbs to illuminate a stadium. Nobody needed that much light.
“Bread?” asked Jace, extending a basket of carbs threateningly close to my head.
I imagined a pack of zombies infiltrating the restaurant, smearing blood and pus on the stone floors, the fake-rustic walls, soaking the bread. Whose brains would they eat first? Probably Jace’s because he had the most fans.
“Thank you,” I said. “But no.”
CHAPTER 10
Dr. Mahjoub wouldn’t let me break up with her by phone.
“If you’re going to terminate, it’s important that we honor the work we’ve done together with a final processing session,” she said.
I didn’t want to honor anything. But now I was seated across from her, and between us were four containers of something called Theraputticals Anti-Microbial Modeling Clay.
“Rachel, if this is going to be our last session together, I’d like us to try something a little different,” she said. “I was hoping that you might be amenable to doing a bit of art therapy work.”
I wasn’t amenable. But the clay seemed ready to go.
“Over the course of our sessions, I’ve written down some words you’ve used to describe your body,” she said, clearing her throat. “Amorphous. Out of control. Disgusting. Exploding. These kinds of words reveal to me a deep dysmorphia—”
“No,” I said. “I don’t feel like I’m exploding.”
“That was the word you used.”
“I was talking about the future. I just don’t want to get to that point. Of exploding.”
“So, it would be more accurate to say that these descriptors are what you… fear becoming.”
“That’s right.”
“But not how you see yourself now.”
“Not today.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’d still like to try this approach, if we may. I was going to ask that you use the clay to sculpt an image of yourself. I was hoping that we might identify, in a visual, tactile way, the discrepancy between how you perceive yourself and how you actually appear to others—”
“You mean, like a self-portrait?”
“Yes,” she said. “But now I’m thinking it might be more productive, and lead to greater insight, if you would be willing to sculpt for me—well, for yourself, really—a rendering of those future fears you describe. Who is that ‘out of control’ woman you are so afraid of becoming? What does she look like?”
“You want me to make a body?”
“Well, yes,” she said.
Did I look like Michelangelo? I was annoyed. But there were still 36 minutes left until termination.
I opened the container of pink Theraputticals, took out the whole blob, smushed it with my hand. I broke off a chunk and shaped a round head. Then I put the head down on Dr. Mahjoub’s glass coffee table. I took the rest of the clay and started mushing it into a torso. I began shaping an immense belly, huge tits. But there wasn’t nearly enough clay, so I opened the blue container. Then the green. I made massive thighs, weighty calves, a voluminous ass. I layered more and more clay, swirling it into an immense psychedelic woman.
I lost myself in the sculpting. I actually enjoyed the sensation: the cool of the clay, the way it warmed in my hands, the not-thinking, the feeling my way around, the enlarging of my woman. I also realized, as I sculpted, that I wasn’t so much making what I was scared of becoming, a future, but a shape I already knew very well. It was a shape that had always lived inside of me. It was destined to come out. What was even scarier was how much my hands liked this.
I used the last of the yellow clay to give her hair. Then I held the figure up to Dr. Mahjoub.
“There,” I said. “Happy?”
“Well done, Rachel. I really appreciate your willingness to try that. You seemed to rather enjoy the exercise, no?”
“It was fine,” I said.
“Good. So let me ask you. This body—this creature you’ve sculpted—this is what you mean when you say ‘amorphous, exploding, out of control’?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just made it because you told me to.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, adjusting a sensible clog. “And let me ask you, do you imagine this is what you will look like if—”
“No,” I said. “It’s just a thing.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I did feel, in some way, like the figure was part of me—that I’d made her from the inside out.
“Well, I think she’s rather lovely,” said Dr. Mahjoub. “Don’t you think she’s lovely?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
“Yes, I think she’s quite lovely. And I think she’s worthy of love—more than worthy of love, actually? Don’t you think so?”
“What?”
“Don’t you think that she’s worthy of love?”
“Yeah,” I said, my cheeks burning. “I guess so.”
I was crying. I felt angry, tricked. This was supposed to be closure, not some psychological art show.
I stormed out of the office without even paying my copay. When I got to my car, I realized I still had the stupid clay figure in my hand. I opened my trunk, then buried the thing in a trash bag of old clothes.