Page 18 of Under Your Spell

‘I’m so sorry,’ I huff, flopping into the spotless white silk armchair, and dropping my bag on the floor. ‘I overslept after the wake last night and I had to rush back here.’ I proceed to ramble about the traffic, about the hotel, about the fact that I spent the night with a man I had just met and how I had to extricate myself from my first one-night stand. All of this comes out in one breathless wall of speech.

Ingrid doesn’t even blink. ‘Would you like me to take your coat?’ she asks.

‘Yes, please,’ I say, standing up and unbuttoning it. I hand it to her and she calmly hangs it up on a coat stand next to her own navy Barbour jacket, before taking the seat across from me.

There is a table between us with a jug of water and two glasses on it and Ingrid pours me a glass, which I accept gratefully.

I’ve been seeing Ingrid every couple of weeks for almost two years now, and I don’t really want to focus on the fact I may not be able to afford her much longer. She’s in her late forties, with short silver-white hair and wide green eyes behind thick-framed glasses. Her sense of chilly detachment gives her incredible cool-head-girl energy. I want her to like me with a rabid passion that is presumably part of the reason I am in therapy to begin with.

She dresses like a member of the British royal family on their days off – as if she’s about to go hop on a horse at a moment’s notice, sort of vaguely tweedy, with knee-length boots and the occasional gilet. I know very little about her, except that her husband is English and she has a daughter in secondary school.

Ingrid’s accent has a Scandinavian edge, and her face is so still that I’m never sure if it’s been pumped full of Botox, or she’s simply incredibly good at her job. Possibly, it’s both.

Like Ingrid, her office radiates a sense of intense calm. There’s minimal furniture: a huge, modern-looking glass desk with a sleek computer, a notepad and a single pen all at perfect right angles; a bookcase full of alphabetized books; and the coffee table between two chairs. Everything is gleaming white, with soft grey accents, and it always smells like those candles no normal person could possibly justify spending money on.

Ingrid is, as I mentioned, unflappable, and for some reason this often makes me want to get a reaction out of her. Now, as always, she displays no signs of shock at all.

‘So,’ she says after a moment, ‘you spent the night with a man?’

‘Yes!’ my head is bouncing like a nodding-dog toy. ‘And you know, that’s so out of character for me, but it was great.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. How do you feel about it this morning?’

I frown down at my glass. I’ve been having therapy for years, and I do enjoy the chance to sift through my emotions – the way that I can speak to Ingrid without filtering things first. It’s a strange way of talking to someone, verbalizing thoughts and feelings that seem to shimmer vaguely at the edge of your mind. ‘I feel good,’ I say slowly. ‘Sort of elated. It was… nice, very, very nice, and I had to make a choice to do it, when I could have just played it safe and gone home alone, which is definitely what I would usually have done. It felt… weirdly brave?’

Ingrid nods.

‘And I thought this morning I would feel guilty or… I don’t know, a bit regretful. But I don’t, I really don’t. I’m starting to wonder if we actually did make Serena’s wish come true!’ I laugh.

Ingrid does not. ‘This would be in reference to the wiccan ritual you and your sisters performed?’

‘Ha!’ I exclaim, but Ingrid’s look is one of mild inquiry. ‘I mean… yes? I’m not sure the drunken breakup spell we cast could really be described as a wiccan ritual…’

‘But you refer to Serena’s wish for’ – Ingrid consults her notes here – ‘hot sex?’

There’s a pause. I clear my throat.

‘Right. Hot sex. Which it was. The only thing is…’ And I trail off here.

We sit in silence for a while. Ingrid wields silence like a weapon, a ninja assassin highly trained in the art of stillness. It would not surprise me if MI5 used her to break terrorists this way. I’m certain people would be falling all over themselves, giving her nuclear codes left and right while she sat quietly and sipped from a glass of water.

‘I feel a bit sad about not seeing him again.’ The realization hits me with full force even as the words are forming. ‘Even though I don’t really know him.’

We sit with that for a moment, and Ingrid writes something in her notebook.

‘When you write in your notebook, I feel like something important has happened,’ I say, happy to change the subject.

‘These are just my notes, Clemmie,’ Ingrid says neutrally.

‘I know,’ I agree, ‘but of course everyone wants to know what their therapist thinks about them, don’t they? And sometimes, when I say something and you write it in your notes, I feel like I’ve made a good point and you’re, you know, noticing that.’

‘You think my notes are me marking you?’ she asks carefully. ‘Like a teacher marks homework?’

I nod. ‘Yes, like you’re writing down when I’m doing well, being really good at therapy.’

‘Clemmie.’ If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a touch of weariness in Ingrid’s voice now. ‘We have talked about this before. You aren’t being graded. You can’t be good or bad at therapy. It’s a process.’

‘Sure, sure,’ I wave my hand, ‘but obviously some people can reach breakthroughs quicker, can be more in touch with their feelings, more honest with themselves about things. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to be the best at therapy. You’re always saying it’s good to set goals.’