Free Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts by Courtney Hamilton Page B

Dean Henderson, I just need to make a few more things.”
    That seemed to satisfy him.
    While waiting for my Velveeta cheese bread to rise, a towering six foot two Amazon-like woman with spiky magenta-red hair, closely resembling the crown of Woody Woodpecker, walked into my room from the bathroom. She had no boobs and small shoulders, but a thick waist which was balanced by size 18-plus hips and thighs. Her skin was alabaster white but her eyebrows were thick, long, and jet black. Her nose offered a landing spot for a flock of sparrows and her lips were circled with black lip-liner and painted blood-red. She looked like a cross between a middle-aged Elvis Presley with a spiky-punk hairdo and Marilyn Manson at age 48, but she appeared to have taken makeup lessons from Boy George.
    She was wearing form-hugging black stretch pants, a scratchy Shetland wool blue and green sweater, black ballet slippers, and drop gold earrings that hung to her shoulder.
    I thought that she must be the mom of my suite mate, Kimmy.
    “Oh hi,” I said. “Kimmy’s not here right now.”
    She peered at me. “Who’s Kimmy?”
    “Who are you?”
    “I’m Roberta. Are you Courtney?”
    My recent experience in the mail room had taught me not to answer that question.
    “Who wants to know?”
    “I’ll take that as a yes.”
    “What do you want?”
    “Well, to begin with, this weather is making my hands so dry that I feel my skin is going to shed. Do you have any hand cream?”
    I looked around.
    “Take this.”
    I handed her my Vaseline Intensive Care.
    “You can keep it. It creeps me out.”
    She squirted some on her hands and rubbed her hands together. I felt sick. “Hmmmm, Vaseline Intensive Care. I’ve never thought of that.” she said.
    “Well, uh Roberta, as you can see, I’m very busy right now. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t show you out.”
    “Well, Courtney, I wasn’t planning on leaving right now,” she said. “You see, the dean of the music school, and well, your roommate, are worried about you. Would you like to talk to me?”
    “Do you have any good Velveeta recipes?”
    “I’m not here to talk about that.”
    “Then I need to get back to work. I have to knead my Velveeta cheese bread.”
    “Look, Courtney, I’m from the school counseling center. I really want, no, I need, to be present with you right now,” said Roberta.
    That was the first time I had ever heard that.
    “Um Roberta, I have no idea what you just said.”
    She handed me her card.
    “Why don’t you come to the school counseling center? We might have some things to work on and we’ll… talk.”
    “I don’t think that I have anything to talk about.”
    She looked at my Velveeta creations.
    “Well,” she said, “we might. And if you come talk to me, I’ll give you my recipe for broccoli and Velveeta soup.”
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    I still haven’t gotten that recipe.
    And after fifteen years, I was getting tired of never getting any explanations of “the work” that we were allegedly doing. And I hated that fake hug thing that I had to do when I finished a session or Group.
    But the thing I hated most was holding Roberta’s hand.
    That repulsed me.
    “I know you never explain things. I know that’s not the way you work. But I’ve completely forgotten why I’m supposed to sit here and hold your hand for 45 minutes.”
    “Funny how you always forget when someone wants to show how much they appreciate you,” said Roberta, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
    “The part that doesn’t work for me is where I hand you the check for $180 at the close of our time together, twice a week,” I said.
    Make that twice a week and throw in an extra $40 for Group.
    “Why should that negate my feelings for you?” said Roberta.
    “Because I feel like I’m paying you to like me,” I said.
    “I don’t see how that makes my feelings any less real,” said Roberta without a trace of irony.
    “Isn’t that another line of