I saw and heard of her everywhere. I saw her at the post office, the grocery store, the gas station. Sometimes she was with a burly man with dark hair and a beard and mustache carefully shaved into a pattern. Each time, she gave me a friendly but impersonal nod, so I could acknowledge or ignore her as I chose.
As Jack and I drove to Little Rock the next week, after my second therapy session, I tried to describe her character and found I had no handle on it at all. Usually, I know right away if I like someone or not, but with Tamsin I just couldn't tell. Maybe it didn't make any difference, if the person was supposed to be helping you get your head straight. Maybe I had no business liking her or hating her.
"She's smart," I said. "She always gets us to talking about different sides to our experience."
"Is she likable?" Jack smoothed his hair back with one hand while gripping the steering wheel with the other. His wiry black hair was escaping from its band this morning, a sure sign he'd been thinking of something else while he got dressed. I wondered if my job performance was the issue on his mind.
"Not really," I said. "She's got a strong character. I just don't know what it's made up of."
"You usually make up your mind about someone faster than that."
"She puzzles me. Maybe it's a part of being a counselor, but she doesn't seem to want to focus right now on how we feel about the attacker, just about the problems we have adjusting to being attacked."
"Maybe she's assuming you all hate men?"
"Could be. Or maybe she's just waiting for us to say it. I guess none of us are in the 'Men Are Wonderful' club, and I think one or two in the group really hate all men, to some extent."
Jack looked uncomfortable. I wasn't sure how much he wanted to hear about this new experience of mine, and I wasn't sure how much I was willing to share.
"You sure you're okay at this new job?" he asked, for maybe the hundredth time.
"Jack," I said warningly.
"I know, I know, I just... feel responsible."
"You are responsible. But I'm fine, and I'm even enjoying myself some." Jack had this idea that I should be a private detective, like him. To achieve this, I had to work with an experienced investigator for two years. This job was my first step, and the experienced investigator was Jack.
We pulled up in the parking lot of a strip mall in the western part of Little Rock. This was the second Marvel Gym to open in the city, and it had taken over about three store widths in the strip mall. Mel Brentwood was risking a chunk of investment money in opening a second gym, especially since Marvel was no back-to-basics weightlifting place. Marvel was a deluxe gym, with different classes all day, a special room for aerobic equipment (treadmills and stair climbers), a sauna and tanning beds, a whirlpool, and lots of free weights for people who actually came to the gym to pump some iron.
I went in the women's changing room, which also contained the women's bathroom, and peeled off my shirt and shorts, folding them to stack in my tiny locker. Underneath, I wore what I considered a costume, since I wouldn't ever wear it otherwise: a Spandex unitard patterned in a leopard print. It came to mid-thigh and was sleeveless. Across the chest, MARVEL was printed in puffy letters, with the word "gym" centered underneath in smaller type. Though this so-called garment was brief and showed every ounce I had on me, it covered the scars left from the knifing I'd taken. I wore heavy black socks and black Nikes to look a little more utilitarian. After a moment's thought, I left my purse out when I pushed my locker shut, then went out to the main floor to punch in my time clock. My job, the lowest paid as the newest employee, was to check "guests" in, that being the gym's euphemism for people who'd paid for a year's membership. The rest of my job consisted of showing new guests how to use the equipment, spotting for someone who'd come without a buddy, pushing the drinks and clothes the gym sold, and answering the phone. There were always two people on duty, always a man and a woman. If the man who shared my shift wanted to