Only Flesh and Bones Read Online Free Page B

grimaced, displaying a fine rack of hardware.
    “And they’re still buying that after how long?”
    “Six months. No, they’re not. That’s part of why I told Daddy it’s bullshit to keep going.”
    I pursed my lips and thought. “When are you supposed to go next?”
    “Wednesday afternoon.”
    “Okay, so you stay at school. I’ll just use your next appointment,” I heroically concluded, thereby putting myself on the hook for a visit with Melanie Steen, Ph.D.

FIVE
    M ELANIE Steen kept offices near St. Luke’s Hospital, just east of downtown Denver. Even though I was not the subject of her services, I felt fully conspicuous as I slid my finger down the building directory and strode purposefully across the lobby toward the elevator, my jaw set in rebellion against the status quo opinion of people who need to see shrinks. Let me tell you, back home in Wyoming persons who ply the psychotheraputic trade are thought to be somewhere between baboons and tax collectors on the chain of evolution.
    The elevator dumped me off on the sixth floor, and I sloped down the hall to suite 63, two doors to my left. I let myself in and found myself in an unmanned waiting room. Just me, two stylish overstuffed chairs, an abstract painting, a philodendron, and a magazine rack. No buzzer to press, no sharp-nosed receptionist to get crosswise with, no nothing. I would have knocked on the inner door if I hadn’t been ten minutes early.
    Instead, I chose a chair and sat in it, and, eschewing Smithsonian and Psychology Today, took advantage of the chance to indulge in People and Us. And wondered if I was being observed from the inside office through a hidden peephole or something.
    Two minutes into my puerile perusal, the inner door swung open and a dishwater blonde hurried out, reddened eyes carefully averted. I was in the middle of trying to make eye contact to see if there was anything I could do to help the poor thing when it occurred to me that I must be trampling
every major tenet of therapist’s-office etiquette. Embarrassed, I glanced away.
    Right smack on the hour, the door opened again. This time, I was confronted by a very short woman with a ramrod-straight spine and spike heels. Her eyes were too big for her face. In fact, they would have met in the middle if her rather prominent nose hadn’t been in the way. As I was clearly not the party she expected to find warming her swanky side chair, she said in a tone that demanded a reply, “I’m Melanie Steen.”
    “Em Hansen.” I stood up and extended a hand.
    Melanie Steen reached up (which meant she was short, let me tell you, because I barely made five foot seven in the cowboy boots I was wearing) and grasped the tips of my fingers with the tips of hers, one of those “Have you washed your hands?” kind of shakes. Quickly releasing my hand, she waited for me to say something further.
    “I’m here for Cecelia,” I offered.
    She tipped her head a fraction to the left.
    “Didn’t she call you?”
    Melanie Steen’s eyebrows rose a notch. They were heavy black things that described very shallow, perfectly matching parabolas.
    I lowered my eyelashes a notch and arranged my lips in a not very pleasant smile. “I’ll take that as a no. Okay, let me start again. Melanie, I’m a friend of Cecelia Menken’s. Her father asked me to give her a hand with things, and I thought the best move would be to come talk to you first.”
    Her enormous eyes growing even larger, as if I were metamorphosing into a slightly disgusting insect as she watched, Melanie Steen said, “That’s very nice, Ms. Hansen, but you of course understand that there is a thing called ‘privileged information.’ I can tell you nothing without my client’s full permission. And as she’s a minor—”
    “You’ve already told me one thing. You’ve confirmed that she’s your client.”
    Ms. Steen’s lips tightened. “Ms. Hansen—”
    “I’m sorry. You’re right, I’ve gotten into a fencing